Doubts surface on North Korea’s role in ship sinking

 

The way U.S. officials see it, there’s little mystery behind the most notorious shipwreck in recent Korean history.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calls the evidence “overwhelming” that the Cheonan, a South Korean warship that sank in March, was hit by a North Korean torpedo. Vice President Joe Biden has cited the South Korean-led panel investigating the sinking as a model of transparency.

But challenges to the official version of events are coming from an unlikely place: within South Korea.

Armed with dossiers of their own scientific studies and bolstered by conspiracy theories, critics dispute the findings announced May 20 by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, which pointed a finger at Pyongyang.

They also question why Lee made the announcement nearly two months after the ship’s sinking, on the very day campaigning opened for fiercely contested local elections. Many accuse the conservative leader of using the deaths of 46 sailors to stir up anti-communist sentiment and sway the vote.

The critics, mostly but not all from the opposition, say it is unlikely that the impoverished North Korean regime could have pulled off a perfectly executed hit against a superior military power, sneaking a submarine into the area and slipping away without detection. They also wonder whether the evidence of a torpedo attack was misinterpreted, or even fabricated.

“I couldn’t find the slightest sign of an explosion,” said Shin Sang-chul, a former shipbuilding executive-turned-investigative journalist. “The sailors drowned to death. Their bodies were clean. We didn’t even find dead fish in the sea.”

Shin, who was appointed to the joint investigative panel by the opposition Democratic Party, inspected the damaged ship with other experts April 30. He was removed from the panel shortly afterward, he says, because he had voiced a contrary opinion: that the Cheonan hit ground in the shallow water off the Korean peninsula and then damaged its hull trying to get off a reef.

“It was the equivalent of a simple traffic accident at sea,” Shin said.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Shin was removed because of “limited expertise, a lack of objectivity and scientific logic,” and that he was “intentionally creating public mistrust” in the investigation.

The doubts about the Cheonan have embarrassed the United States, which will s begin joint military exercises Sunday in a show of unity against North Korean aggression. On Friday, an angry North Korea warned that “there will be a physical response” to the maneuvers.

Two South Korean-born U.S. academics have joined the chorus of skepticism, holding a news conference this month in Tokyo to voice their suspicions about the “smoking gun:” a piece of torpedo propeller with a handwritten mark in blue ink reading “No. 1″ in Korean.

“You could put that mark on an iPhone and claim it was manufactured in North Korea,” scoffed one of the academics, Seunghun Lee, a professor of physics at the University of Virginia.

Lee called the discovery of the propeller fragment five days before the government’s news conference suspicious. The salvaged part had more corrosion than would have been expected after just 50 days in the water, yet the blue writing was surprisingly clear, he said.

“The government is lying when they said this was found underwater. I think this is something that was pulled out of a warehouse of old materials to show to the press,” Lee said.

South Korean politicians say they’ve been left in the dark about the investigation.

“We asked for very basic information: interviews with surviving sailors, communication records, the reason the ship was out there,” said Choi Moon-soon, an assemblyman with the Democratic Party.

The legislature also has not been allowed to see the full report by the investigative committee, only a five-page synopsis.

“I don’t know why they haven’t released the report. They are trying to cover up small inconsistencies, and that has cost them credibility,” said Kim Chul-woo, a former Defense Ministry official who is now an analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a government think tank.

A military oversight body, the Board of Inspection and Audit, has accused senior naval officers of lying and concealing information.

“Military officers deliberately left out or distorted key information in their report to senior officials and the public because they wanted to avoid being held to account for being unprepared,” an official of the inspection board was quoted as telling the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The Cheonan, a 1,200-ton corvette, sank the night of March 26 about 12 miles off North Korea. The first report issued by Yonhap, the official South Korean news agency, said the ship had been struck by a torpedo, but soon afterward the story changed to say the ship sank after being grounded on a reef.

The military repeated that version for days. The audit board found that sailors on a nearby vessel, the Sokcho, who fired off 35 shots with a 76-millimeter cannon around the time of the sinking, were instructed to say they’d been shooting at a flock of birds, even though at first they had said they’d seen a suspected submarine on radar.

On April 2, as Defense Minister Kim Tae-young was testifying before the National Assembly, a cameraman shooting over his right shoulder managed to capture an image of a handwritten note from the president’s office instructing him not to talk about North Korean submarines.

Such inconsistencies and reversals have fueled the suspicions of government critics. U.S. officials, however, say the panel’s conclusion is irrefutable.

Rear Adm. Thomas J. Eccles, the senior U.S. representative on the panel, said investigators considered all possibilities: a grounding, an internal explosion, a collision with a mine. But they quickly concluded that the boat was sunk by a bubble-jet torpedo, which exploded underneath the vessel and didn’t leave the usual signs of an explosion, he said.

“The pattern of damage was exactly aligned with that kind of weapon,” Eccles said in a telephone interview. “Torpedoes these days are designed to drive underneath the target and explode. They use the energy of their explosion to make a bubble that expands and contracts. It is designed to break the back of the ship.”

Pyongyang, meanwhile, denies involvement in the sinking and calls the accusation against it a fabrication.

South Koreans themselves appear to be confused: Polls show that more than 20% of the public doesn’t believe North Korea sank the Cheonan.

Wi Sung-lac, South Korea’s top envoy for North Korean affairs, says the criticism from within has made it difficult to get China and Russia on board to punish Pyongyang for the attack.

“They say, ‘But even in your own country, many people don’t believe the result,’ ” Wi said.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

john.glionna@latimes.com

Ju-min Park of The Times’ Seoul Bureau and David S. Cloud of the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-korea-torpedo-20100724,0,4196801,full.story

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Doubts surface on North Korea’s role in ship sinking

Some in South Korea dispute the official version of events: that a North Korean torpedo ripped apart the Cheonan.

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The New Gulf of Tonkin: South Korean Torpedo Sunk ROK Warship

(NOW PUBLIC)   On March 26th 2010, The ROKS Cheonan, a Pohang-class corvette of the Republic of Korea Navy was sunk. This class of ship was designed for coastal defense and anti-submarine warfare(ASW), and Republic of Korea(south) officials have announced that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean submarine. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(north) denies any involvement.

Reuters and a South Korean news agency Yonhap News, have reported that ROK officials said, “The metallic debris and chemical residue appear to be consistent with a type of torpedo made in Germany, indicating the North may have been trying to disguise its involvement by avoiding arms made by allies China and Russia.”. They identified the torpedo as German made. Further comparrison of this torpedo on display and German DM2 series torpedoes, show that the torpedo supposedly fired by the North may very well be a DM2A3 or DM2A4 heavyweight torpedo. The DM2 series is made in Germany for export to countries including, Norway, Israel, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and South Korea.

The Republic of Korea Navy operates Type 214 submarines, also built and exported from Germany.This class of submarine uses these 533mm DM2A3 and DM2A4 torpedoes.

North Korea’s Korean People’s Navy operates a submarine fleet of ex-Soviet and Chinese Romeo-class and Whiskey-class submarines. All of these subs were built in the 1950′s and Early 1960′s, use Soviet and Chinese designed torpedoes and do not use German made weaponry.

So, if it is admitted that a German torpedo like those used in South Korea’s navy was used to sink Cheonan, Then who is implicated? The North does not possess these weapons or the technology to use them, but the South does have them and does use them.

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident started a war that cost 58,000 American and over 2 million Vietnamese civilian lives. It was later admitted by the National Security Agency and former Secretary of Defense Robert Macnamara that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident didn’t really happen.

This current situation between South and North Korea, echoes the situation created by the Gulf of Tonkin Incident between the United States and North Vietnam. This has the potential to be exploited into war between the two Koreas. US forces in Japan and Okinawa can expect to stay longer as a result as well.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/new-gulf-tonkin-south-korean-torpedo-sunk-rok-warship

New York Car Bomb Incident: Another False Flag?

(TPV)   New York Times writers Al Baker and William Rashbaum headlined, “Police Find Car Bomb in Times Square,” saying:

“A crude car bomb of propane, gasoline and fireworks was discovered in a ‘smoking’ Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square on Saturday evening, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers on a warm and busy night.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed “We were very lucky. We avoided what could have been a very deadly event.”

For much of the evening, Midtown New York, from 43rd – 48th streets, was closed, heightening fear reported for hours on cable news shows, including statements by Bloomberg, Governor David Paterson, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, saying the bomb “appeared (to be) in the process of detonating, but it malfunctioned.”

Good luck or something else? We’ve seen this too often not to be suspicious. This one, like others, has all the earmarks of a false flag, more likely given its coverage and location in Times Square on Saturday night, followed by a May 2 video saying the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.

Who could imagine they had a branch office in New York, and no one even noticed. At least that’s the impression from media disinformation, hyped to spread fear and prepare the public for what’s to come, perhaps something much worse.

In addition, like previous times, a suspect is already in custody, a Muslim, of course, as part of the anti-Islamic post-9/11 rage, and given how abusively he may be treated (including frightening threats of life in prison or the death penalty), perhaps will confess to anything or make it appear that he did so headlines can blare it.

According to Reuters, a statement on an Islamic web site (http://www.muslm.net/vb/showthread.php?t=387309) said:

“The Pakistani Taliban announces its responsibility for the New York attack in revenge for the two leaders al-Baghdadi and al-Muhajir and Muslim martyrs.”

Videos are easy to fake, including strategically timed bin Laden ones, exposed by digital experts as fakes, aside from convincing evidence he died in 2001.

See David Ray Griffin’s important book titled, “Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?” In his latest April 30 article, “Did Osama Bin Laden Confess to the 9/11 Attacks, and Did He Die in 2001,” Griffin notes his book’s convincing evidence of his death, that if so, proves all subsequent video and audio tapes attributed to him are fakes.

According to Hactor Factor’s Neal Krawetz, bogus ones are characterized by low quality visual and audio splices and more. His analysis of a September 2007 video showed bin Laden’s beard black when in earlier images it’s gray. It also had him dressed in a white hat, shirt and yellow sweater, precisely the same attire as in October 2004. In addition, the background, lighting, desk and camera angle were the same.

Most obvious were the edits, showing obvious splices, at least six video ones and even more for audio that appeared to be words and phrases spliced together.

Videos like these are easy to make as are special effects clever enough to make anyone look like bin Laden, convincingly enough to fool the public, especially when media reports hype them.

Post-9/11, it’s vital to remind the public by strategically timed “Enemy Number One” bin Laden incidents and the “security threat” he represents. If he didn’t exist, he’d have to be invented so why not perpetuate the myth, omitting that he was a CIA asset and likely remained one until his death.

Noteworthy is that CBS News anchor Dan Rather reported that he was admitted to a Rawalpindi, Pakistan hospital on September 10, 2001, and France’s Le Figaro said:

“Dubai….was the backdrop of a secret meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA agent in July (2001). A partner of the administration of the American Hospital….claims that (bin Laden) stayed (there) between the 4th and 14th of July (and) received visits from many members of his family as well as prominent Saudis and Emiratis. (During the same period), the local CIA agent, known to many in Dubai, was seen taking (the hospital’s) main elevator (to) bin Laden’s room.” Why not if he was a valued asset.

On May 2, the Israeli news website Debka.com featured an “Exclusive Report” saying:

“On April 30, twenty-four hours before a smoking SUV Nissan containing an improvised bomb was defused (in) Times Square….the Pakistani Taliban’s top bomb-maker, Qari Hussain Mehsud, took ‘full responsibility for the recent attack in the USA’ in an audiotape with images on a You Tube website.”

Saying no proof of overseas involvement was forensically found, “DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources” noted similarities between the New York bomb and earlier 2005 and 2007 ones in London and Glasgow, Scotland respectively. In each case, they used propane and failed to detonate – the Glasgow one, in fact, causing the car used to burn but not cause a major catastrophe.

DEBKA also quoted Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud saying on an April 4 nine minute tape that “The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in the major cities.” Earlier, Qari Hussein Mehsud “warned NATO governments to denounce the US and apologize for the ‘massacres in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistani tribal areas – otherwise be prepared for the worst destruction and devastation in their own countries.’ ”

A mid-April Debka report had Iran threatening to retaliate against US cities with nuclear weapons if they’re used against Iranian cities or sites.

“For the first time, DEBKAfile’s military sources (IDF and/or Mossad ones stoking fear) report, Tehran indicated the possibility of passing nuclear devices to terrorists capable of striking inside the United States….Although Iran has yet to attain operational nuclear arms, our military sources believe it does possess the makings of primitive nuclear devices or ‘dirty bombs.’ ”

With no supportive evidence, these type reports hype fear to prepare the public for what’s to come, so if a planned major terrorist event in a Western city, there’s a ready suspect to blame and popular approval to act.

Noted Previous False Flags

The historic record is full of false flags, some especially noteworthy. Below are a few examples:

– in 1898, America falsely accused Spain of blowing up the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba harbor. The Spanish-American war followed;

– in 1933 Germany, a week before general elections, the strategically timed Reichstag fire (home of the German parliament) was blamed on communists. It got President Paul von Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree. Civil liberties were suspended. Weimar Republic democracy ended, and Hitler assumed fascist powers after enough Nazis were elected to assure it;

– on August 31, 1939, Nazis impersonating Polish terrorists attacked the Gleiwitz radio station on the border between the two countries, starting WW II;

– on December 7, 1941, the Roosevelt administration succeeded in manipulating Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, giving FDR the war he wanted from the early 1930s, but had to convince a pacifist public of the threat; the fleet was also tracked across the Pacific, but Admiral HE Kimmel wasn’t warned or given known intelligence to assure enough mass casualties for congressional and public support;

– in 1962, a US Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed false flag attack never happened because President Jack Kennedy rejected it; called Operation Northwoods (a part of Operation Mongoose), the scheme included sinking US ships, shooting down US commercial airliners, blowing up buildings in US cities, attacking America’s Guantanamo base, other incidents, and blaming it on Cuba as a reason for war;

– the fake August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident initiating full-scale retaliation against North Vietnam after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing war without declaring it; and the seminal event of our time -

– September 11, 2001, clear evidence showing it was a false flag, the Afghan and Iraq wars made possible by fear-mongering blame on the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

On February 16, 2010, a Washington’s blog web site (georgewashington2.blogspot.com) article titled, “Governments ADMIT That They Carry Out False Flag Terror” listed some examples, including:

– the CIA admitting its 1950s role in toppling Iran’s democratically government in 1953;

– Israel admitting a 1954 attack in Egypt, including planting bombs in US diplomatic facilities, leaving “evidence” of Arab involvement;

– Indonesia’s former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, saying the nation’s police or military most likely were involved in the 2002 Bali bombing, killing over 200 people;

– a former Italian prime minister, judge, and military counterintelligence head, General Gianadelio Maletti, saying America’s CIA instigated and abetted right wing terrorist groups in the 1970s and earlier, including bombing a Milan bank in 1969, to rally popular anti-communist support in Italy and other European countries; and

– many others, including former Carter administration National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, telling a Senate committee that a false flag terror attack on US soil might occur to blame Iran and justify war.

In his 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives,” he said:

“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat,” the kind 9/11 created – predicted, planned, orchestrated, and carried out to further new world order dominance globally.

Other False Flag Examples

(1) The March 2004 Madrid train bombings occurred three days before Spain’s general elections. With no supportive evidence, they were blamed on Al Qaeda, yet they stoked public fear and were used to warn that other Western cities were threatened, including in America.

Nearly always, Muslims are blamed and arrested, the DEBKAfile citing advance bin Laden tapes threatening to punish Spain for supporting the Bush administration. This time, Basque separatists were also named, again without evidence, and the bin Laden tapes were fakes.

(2) The July 7, 2005 London underground bombings (called 7/7) were a series of attacks on the city’s public transport system during the morning rush hour for maximum disruption and casualties. At precisely the same time, an anti-terror drill occurred, simulating real attacks. It was no coincidence this time or ever, others in America and Britain coming on the same day as a real event, other notable ones covered below.

AP reported that the London Israeli embassy warned Scotland Yard about the 7/7 one in advance, and Israeli Army Radio reported that “Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred,” but didn’t act or issue warnings. In addition, Israel’s finance minister at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, was told not to attend an economic conference in the city where he was scheduled to deliver an address.

Other dignitaries were also warned, but not the public. Even without smoking gun proof, the 7/7 attack was a false flag operation to heighten fear and keep Britain and the West embroiled in war.

(3) On the morning of the 9/11 attack, the CIA ran a “pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building.” Held at the Agency’s Chantilly, Virginia Reconnaissance Office, AP reported (on August 22, 2002) that it simulated “a small corporate jet (hitting) one of the four towers….after experiencing a mechanical failure.”

Unmentioned at the time was a later revealed (but unreported) Homeland Security conference announcement a year later to commemorate the 9/11 event. Held under the auspices of the National Law Enforcement and Security Institute, one of its speakers was John Fulton, CIA Chief of the Strategic War Gaming Division of the National Reconnaissance office in charge of the operation. Another coincidence, or was something more sinister afoot?

The previous year in October, the Pentagon simulated a commercial plane striking the Pentagon, coordinated by its Command Emergency Response Team and the Defense Protective Services Police. This and the 9/11 exercises are more than coincidental, given what’s now known and the fallout.

(4) On June 30, 2007, a Jeep Cherokee with propane canisters crashed into Glasgow International Airport’s glass doors, the BBC reporting that it “was in the middle of the doorway burning….The car didn’t actually explode. There were a few pops and bangs which presumably was the petrol.”

The usual suspects were blamed, Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists, Prime Minister Gordon Brown saying:

“We are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with Al Qaeda,” followed by his initiating draconian security measures, hyped by the UK Telegraph saying:

An “unknown Al Qaeda terrorist cell (was) thought to be preparing to launch a series of Baghdad-style car bombings.” Another Telegraph article mentioned Washington’s involvement with UK authorities in hyping the threat, and an ABC News report suggested foreknowledge of the incident based on advance warnings (by unnamed intelligence officials) of Al Qaeda “target(ing) nightclubs and other soft targets….All of this comes just three weeks after what was described as an Al Qaeda graduation ceremony for suicide bombers at a training camp in Pakistan.”

Fear mongering and false flags? Draw your own conclusions, understanding the need to stoke fear to keep public support for the “war on terror,” the loss of civil liberties for “security,” the Afghan and Iraq wars, and whatever else may be planned.

(5) the Christmas 2009 airliner incident involving Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian citizen on an Amsterdam – Detroit bound flight. US officials claimed he was trained in Yemen by Al Qaeda, obtained explosive chemicals (PETN), and tried to detonate them on board.

In a December 29 Russia Today interview, Webster Tarpley called him a “protected (CIA) patsy (for a) provocation designed to facilitate US meddling in (Yemen’s) civil war (pitting) the Saudi-backed central government against the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels,” being bombed by US and Saudi air strikes.

Abdulmutallab was denied a UK entrance visa, wasn’t on a No Fly List, paid cash for a one-way ticket to Detroit, checked no luggage, had a US visa but no passport, and was helped on board by a “well-dressed Indian” to facilitate the likely false flag plot using him as a convenient dupe.

The Wayne Madsen Report called the incident a false flag operation “carried out by (the) intelligence tripartite grouping of CIA, Mossad, and India’s Research Analysis Wing (RAW).” Earlier they conspired with “former Afghan KHAD intelligence agents to assassinate former Pakistani Prime Minister Benezir Bhutto….to destabilize Pakistan” for planned balkanization, the same scheme planned for Afghanistan and already implemented in Iraq.

Madsen explained that Abdulmutallab’s PETN was “weak, technically deficient,” failed to go off properly, and if so would have had the impact of an exploding fire cracker.

Madsen also reported that the same tripartite CIA, Mossad, and RAW alliance was behind the November 2008 Mumbai, India attacks, killing nearly 200 and wounding hundreds more. Webster Tarpley said almost for certain Pakistan’s ISI radical wing was involved, and that Indian and Mossad operatives conduct regular cross-border missions into Pakistan from India and Afghanistan.

(6) Make of it what you will, but in Miami on January 11, 2010 (one day before Haiti’s earthquake), the Pentagon’s US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) simulated a hurricane striking Haiti in preparation for subsequent measures to be implemented, that, in fact, would be a carefully planned military operation for occupation, control, and planned plunder.

Also, Deputy SOUTHCOM head, General PK Keen, was in Haiti when the quake struck, ready to assume command when it did and use a communication tool called the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project (TISC), linking other nations and NGOs with the Pentagon and US government to facilitate measures to be implemented, none to help Haitians.

Final Comments

As long as imperial ambitions and rogue agencies like CIA and their foreign counterparts exist, false flag operations will be commonplace, the May 1 New York one the latest example, and maybe a forerunner of what’s to come – another 9/11 some believe, far worse than the first one, perhaps involving a nuclear incident in a US city. Then using it as a pretext for more war and to divert attention from America’s deepening economic crisis, likely to erupt in protests because of Washington’s indifference to millions affected.

Whether or not the direst predictions occur will only be known in the fullness of time. In the meantime, stay tuned for more updates as events unfold, and be prepared for the worst.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/05/05/new-york-car-bomb-incident-another-false

CNN compares Times Square Bomb to Underwear Bomber…Both are False Flag Events

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7/7 court told MI5 deceived MPs

(THE INDEPENDENT)   MI5 deceived MPs by claiming the July 7 bombers had not been identified before carrying out their deadly attacks, a court heard today.

In May 2006 the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said security agencies came across two of the men in 2004 during other investigations but did not identify them.

But a second ISC report, published in May 2009, revealed that the police and MI5 in fact held a series of records relating to Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the 2005 London bombings.

A hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London to decide the format of the inquests for those killed in the attacks was told that MI5 misled the British public.

Patrick O’Connor QC, counsel for four of the bereaved families and 15 survivors, said: “This is a serious allegation to make.

“The last time MI5 was accused of deception… the ceiling seemed to fall in, as if MI5 is incapable of deception. They aren’t, and they deceived the ISC.”

He went on: “MI5 left the ISC under this misunderstanding – and therefore the British public – for three years, thinking they had not identified Mohammad Sidique Khan before the 7/7 bombings.”

He said the ISC’s findings would be “deeply undermined” if MI5 had deliberately misled the committee.

Mr O’Connor strongly criticised MI5′s involvement in the July 7 case, saying the agency demonstrated flaws in its assessment policy, record-keeping and co-operation with other agencies.

He said of the second ISC report: “We submit that by contrast with its simple conclusion exonerating MI5, the material detailed in it exposes a profound criticism of MI5 and raises many more questions than answers…

“Those criticisms may well arguably become very considerably more powerful upon a proper analysis of the primary material.”

Khan and three other suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 innocent people when they detonated their devices on three Tube trains and one bus on July 7 2005.

The coroner, Lady Justice Hallett, is holding a three-day legal hearing to decide what form the inquests – expected to start in October – should take.

Lawyers for the families of those who died argue that they should include a broad-ranging investigation of whether the authorities could have prevented the attacks.

Neil Garnham QC, counsel for the Home Secretary and MI5, urged the coroner not to examine how the security service dealt with the limited information it had about the bombers before the attacks.

He argued that the ISC report was an “effective investigation” into MI5′s involvement.

He said: “The public interest would, we submit, not be served – in fact would be positively damaged – by attempts in these inquests to reinvestigate the matters that were before the ISC.”

Mr Garnham also suggested that national security could be damaged if the inquests attempted to delve deeper into MI5′s activities.

He said: “Nothing more of the information revealed to the ISC by the security service can safely be put into the public domain or disclosed to the interested parties than is revealed by that ISC report.”

The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/77-court-told-mi5-deceived-mps-1955727.html

Subpoenas Issued for Fort Hood Records

(NEWSMAX)   A Senate committee on Monday subpoenaed the Obama administration for secret documents and access to witnesses in last year’s mass shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas.

The subpoena is a rare public dispute between a Democratic-led Congress, which has been largely supportive of President Barack Obama’s policies, and the new administration, which prides itself on increased government transparency.

Lawmakers have alleged that the administration is covering up critical details on the case, including whether the government had access to information that could have prevented the shooting.

“Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to avoid reaching the conclusion that the departments simply do not want to cooperate with our investigation,” wrote Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins in a letter accompanying the subpoena.

Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; Collins, a moderate, is the panel’s top Republican.

The Defense and Justice departments say that release of the disputed data would compromise the prosecution of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the disgruntled Army doctor charged with killing 13 people.

“We’ll obviously be reviewing it and determining the department’s next steps,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said of the subpoena.

Some of the dispute boils down to technicalities. For example, the Defense Department has already given temporary access of some personnel files to another congressional committee.

The case of Hasan has been of particular interest to lawmakers because of his suspected ties to foreign terrorists and his promotion through the military’s ranks despite repeated concerns over his performance and behavior.

An internal Defense Department review concluded that several unidentified medical officers failed to use “appropriate judgment and standards of officership” when reviewing Hasan’s performance as a student, internist and psychiatric resident.

Last week, Gates said the Pentagon would provide Congress with any information it could so long as the information wouldn’t hurt the prosecution’s case.

“We have no interest in hiding anything, but what’s most important is that prosecution,” he said.

Gates also has issued new regulations, including restrictions on how privately owned guns can be carried or stored at military installations. Hasan had little or no access to military firearms in his job as a psychologist, but was able to buy two handguns and bring them onto the base.

http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/US-Fort-Hood-Shooting/2010/04/19/id/356194

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