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07/07/15: Tenth anniversary of 7/7: 7/7 Ten Years On - An indictment of the State and the state of investigative journalism

03/10/11: New 7/7 Video released by Tom Secker: 7/7: Crime and Prejudice

03/06/11: J7 announce the launch of the Official blog of the Free Mohammed Campaign.

21/03/11: J7 publish our Submission to the Inquests regarding resumption of the inquests into the four.

29/10/10: J7 publish 7/7 Inquests transcripts as searchable, print-friendly PDFs.

16/10/10: J7 launch the dedicated new J7: 7/7 Inquests Blog for latest Inquests news and analysis.

07/10/10: J7 publish our Submissions to the 7 July Inquests, a series of documents compiled following Lady Justice Hallett's decision to accept submissions suggesting questions and lines of inquiry for the Inquests.

10/08/10: A new film 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction has been released that places 7/7 in its wider historical and political context, and examines some of the many unanswered questions that still surround 7 July 2005.

01/08/10: J7 publish a review of another 7/7 related book, Out of the Tunnel, by Rachel 'North'.

07/07/10: J7 publish a detailed analysis of the number 30 bus explosion in Tavistock Square.

01/11/09: J7 respond to two 7/7 articles published in Notes from the Borderland issues 7 and 8. Read our response here.

01/11/09: Debunking 7/7 Debunking: An article in two parts that debunks some of the disingenuous attacks against those not convinced by the official story of 7/7. Read Part 1 here and read Part 2 here. October 2010 update: Debunking 7/7 Debunking Part 3.

04/07/09: J7 publish a revised, updated and expanded list of nine possible Alternative Hypotheses.

03/03/09: J7 publish an exclusive interview with political prisoner Hussain al-Samamra, a Palestinian who sought political asylum in the UK, only to be imprisoned for two years without charge by the British State.

13/01/09: J7 challenge assertions made by Paul Stott in his paper and presentation to the Anarchist Studies Network conference at Loughborough University

14/04/08: Latest J7 article in the Capitalising on Terror series published: Human Rights Abuses & The Demonisation of 'The Enemy' in Secret Britain

07/03/08: J7 publish two new articles summarising the results of the 7/7 investigation, "Three years of investigation, 7 arrests, 3 charges" - Part 1 and Part 2. See also the latest update.

07/02/08: J7 Exclusive Report: Peter Power's CV Fakery - 7/7 terror rehearsal man and regular BBC 'terror' consultant was suspended from Dorset Police pending an internal inquiry that resulted in a file being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Full story here.

04/01/08: In July 2007 the BBC approached J7 asking for participants in a 'documentary' about 7/7. Six months after initial contact, the BBC revealed the 'documentary' was part of BBC2's risible Conspiracy Files series. On learning this, J7 declined to participate. Find out why in the full J7 response to the BBC.

03/12/07: 7/7 Ripple Effect - J7 issue a rebuttal and rejection of the film and its unsubstantiated speculation.

05/11/07: Latest J7 Flyer published. View here, download PDF here and here

11/09/07: J7 book review - J7 reviews The 4th Bomb, a book by Daniel Obachike.

11/09/07: J7 reconstruct and republish the 7-7 discussion from the forum of cult writer/director Alex Cox.

24/08/07: Over a year since Dr John Reid acknowledged a fundamental error in the official Home Office 7/7 narrative, J7 receive a response to a series of Freedom of Information requests which includes an amendment to the repeatedly discredited narrative. Read the story and the revised section of the Home Office narrative on the J7 blog.

16/08/07: Channel 4 News' Darshna Soni blogs about the need for a 7/7 public inquiry and asks how independent or public such an inquiry would be under the Inquiries Act 2005, a piece of legislation that puts the government in control of 'independent' inquiries - 7/7 and the public inquiry dilemma, formerly titled, "Why it's time for a public inquiry into 7/7"

13/08/07: "Anyone who thinks the [Home Office] report is a full account is not being serious or realistic." On the launch of his new film The Homefront, the Cousin of 7/7 victim Anthony Fatayi Williams, filmmaker Thomas Ikimi, tells J7 about his film and the experiences of his family at the hands of the government since 7/7.

30/06/07: Major new content added - J7 Analysis of King's Cross / Russell Square incidents

04/06/07: July 7th Truth Campaign interviewed on Channel 4 News as a new survey shows 59% of Muslims don't believe the government has told the whole truth about 7/7. Watch Darshna Soni's original report, Survey: 'government hasn't told truth about 7/7', read viewer comments on the piece that show it's not just Muslims who don't believe we have been told the truth. See also Darshna Soni's follow-up blog and 7/7 The Conspiracy Theories which explains some of the many errors and anomalies in the official story.

03/06/07: Major new content added - J7 Analysis of Edgware Road / Paddington incidents

28/05/07: Major new content added - J7 Analysis of Liverpool Street / Aldgate / Aldgate East incidents

02/05/07: Full transcript and video of Tayab Ali's post-crevice statement on behalf of Salahuddin Amin

01/05/07: Video, audio and full transcript of Imran Khan's statement on behalf of Nabeel Hussain, who was acquitted of all charges in the Crevice trial

01/05/07: Transcript of Imran Khan's statement on behalf of the 5 men convicted in the Operation Crevice trial, given at the end of the trial on 30/04/07, which includes a statement by J7 on the renewed calls for a public inquiry into the events of 7/7

07/03/07: J7 publish a new article by Professor David MacGregor, 'July 7th as Machiavellian State Terror?' an article in which the events of 7/7 are given historical context and examined as potential acts of, 'Machiavellian state terror, spectacular violence perpetrated against the state by elements of the state itself'.

26/02/07: J7 is pleased and honoured to announce the publication of "The economics of 7/7 and other mysteries of capitalism explained", an article written for the July 7th Truth Campaign by writer and journalist William Bowles.

24/02/07: Brand new J7 article Capitalising on Terror - Who is really destroying our freedoms? - A look at how 7/7 has been used as the justification for the imposition of Draconian laws that criminalise everyone.

06/02/07: J7 publishes the London Bombings Dossier - an extensive portfolio of research by David Minahan, former National President of the MSF (Amicus) Union.

11/01/07: Above Top Secret publish an interview with J7 Truth Campaign team.

Full J7 news archive

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The 7/7 Terror Rehearsal

 

Visor Consultants' 'simultaneous bombs' rehearsal on 7 July 2005

Update 07/02/08: J7 Exclusive Report: Peter Power's CV Fakery - 7/7 terror rehearsal man and regular BBC 'terror' consultant was suspended from Dorset Police pending an internal inquiry that resulted in a file being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Full story here.


On the afternoon and evening of 7th July 2005, information came to light about a private company running a terror rehearsal operation in London at the time that real explosions were reported to have occurred on the transport network. These revelations came not from an anonymous source but instead from the Managing Director of the private firm running the terror rehearsal operation. The private firm is Visor Consultants and the Managing Director in question is Peter Power. For over three years, the client for whom the terror rehearsal was being organised was not known. Until, that is, 30 September 2008, and more completely on 3 October 2008 (see the comment this J7 blog post), when Peter Power opted to make this information available to the general public. [Please see the section of this document entitled How much more do we know now? for further detail.]

wanted for questioning

 

Index of sections

Peter Power's 7/7 Terror Interviews

On and after 7/7, Peter Power gave a number of interviews in which he referred to the terror exercise he was running on the morning of 7th July. Power has since regularly appeared on TV and radio interviews as an independent security expert with no special connection to the events of 7 July 2005, even a year later when called on to discuss the incidents that occurred.

J7 is reproducing these interviews here so you can judge for yourself quite what should be made of such a bizarre and unlikely coincidence of events.

Peter Power on Radio 5 Live's Drivetime

The first of Mr Power's interviews was given on the afternoon of 7th July 2005, presumably after Mr Power had finished orchestrating his private terror rehearsal, when he appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live's Drivetime programme. Below is a transcript from the Radio 5 Live programme, complete with a link to a recording of the interview:

POWER: ...at half-past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for, er, over, a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing upright!

PETER ALLEN: To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while you were running the exercise?

POWER: Precisely, and it was, er, about half-past nine this morning, we planned this for a company and for obvious reasons I don't want to reveal their name but they're listening and they'll know it. And we had a room full of crisis managers for the first time they'd met and so within five minutes we made a pretty rapid decision, 'this is the real one' and so we went through the correct drills of activating crisis management procedures to jump from 'slow time' to 'quick time' thinking and so on.

Listen to Peter Power's Radio 5 Live Drivetime Interview

Note how Power refers to 'simultaneous bombs going off'. Note also that it wasn't until 9th July 2005, two days after the incidents, that it was revealed the explosions on the underground were 'almost simultaneous'. Power's fictional scenario, as explained by the man himself on the day, bears a closer resemblance to the eventual story of 7/7 than it does to the actual story that had been presented to the public by the police and authorities at the time of his interview.

Only ex-Mossad Chief, Efraim Halevi who wrote in the Jerusalem Post on 7th July 2005 of "the multiple, simultaneous explosions that took place today on the London transportation system" with "near pefect execution" was able to demonstrate the same level of 'insight' as Mr Power. Note: The original article is no longer available on the Jerusalem Post web site although copies can be found on the web.

Peter Power on ITV News: 7/7 Vision at 20:20

A short while after his appearance on BBC Radio, at 20:20 on 7/7, Peter Power gave a television interview to ITV news which revealed a little more about the nature of the operation as well as hinting at the sort of organisations for whom the operation might have been organised:

POWER: Today we were running an exercise for a company - bearing in mind I'm now in the private sector - and we sat everybody down, in the city - 1,000 people involved in the whole organisation - but the crisis team. And the most peculiar thing was, we based our scenario on the simultaneous attacks on an underground and mainline station. So we had to suddenly switch an exercise from 'fictional' to 'real'. And one of the first things is, get that bureau number, when you have a list of people missing, tell them. And it took a long time -

INTERVIEWER: Just to get this right, you were actually working today on an exercise that envisioned virtually this scenario?

POWER: Er, almost precisely. I was up to 2 oclock this morning, because it's our job, my own company. Visor Consultants, we specialise in helping people to get their crisis management response. How do you jump from 'slow time' thinking to 'quick time' doing? And we chose a scenario - with their assistance - which is based on a terrorist attack because they're very close to, er, a property occupied by Jewish businessmen, they're in the city, and there are more American banks in the city than there are in the whole of New York - a logical thing to do. And it, I've still got the hair....

Click PLAY to watch Peter Power's ITV interview.

 

Peter Power on the Canadian Broadcasting Service

In the days after 7th July, rather than face questioning about his role, in conjunction with a 'company of over a thousand people' on the day that 56 were killed on London transport, Power flew to Toronto for the 15th World Conference on Disaster Management.

Power appeared on a discussion panel for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news discussion programme CBC News: Sunday, in which the host remarked upon the 'extraordinary' coincidence of Power's rehearsal scenario:

Evan Solomon: We've heard something quite extraordinary - could be a coincidence or not - that your firm, on the very day that the bombs went off in London, were running an exercise simulating three bombs going off, in the very same tube stations that they went off. How did this happen? Coincidence, or were you acting on information that you knew?

Peter Power: I don't think you could say that we had some special insight into the terrorist network, otherwise I would be under arrest myself. The truth of it is -

Solomon: But it is a coincidence.

Power: It's a coincidence, and it's a spooky coincidence. Our scenario was very similar - it wasn't totally identical, but it was based on bombs going off, to the time, the locations, all this sort of stuff. But it wasn't an accident, in the sense that London has a history of bombs, and the reason why our emergency services did so well, and prepared probably better than any other city in the world, sadly they have to be. So it wasn't exactly rocket science or totally out of the pale to come up with that scenario unusual though it be to stop the exercise and go into real time, and it worked very well, although there was a few seconds when the audience didn't realise whether it was real or not.

Power went on to tell delegates at the disaster management conference that Canadians needed to open their eyes, advising:

"You can't just lay back and say, 'Well it's cozy, we've been lucky. We're just nice guys. It won't happen to us. Sorry. The alarm bell is ringing now. When it happens, you don't want to say, 'well that was a wake-up call'.n

'Mock Broadcasts' and the 7/7 terror rehearsal

On 8th July 2005, the day after the death and destruction in London, an interview with Peter Power appeared on page 5 of the Manchester Evening News in which Mr Power revealed that, not only had he coincidentally been running a terror rehearsal 'based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened' on 7th July, he had also organised a series of 'mock broadcasts' for the rehearsal operation that were apparently so realistic those participating in the exercise became confused about what was real and what was not:

Mr Power said: "I was an inspector at the time of the King's Cross fire and was involved in co-ordinating the operation.

"After leaving the Met, I set up my own crisis managment consultancy.  Yesterday we were actually in the City working on an exercise involving mock broadcasts when it happened for real.

" When news bulletins started coming on, people began to say how realistic our exercise was - not realising there was an attack. 

We then became involved in a real crisis which we had to manage for the company."

Mr Power added: "During the exercise we were working on yesterday, we were looking at a situation where there had been bombs at key London transport locations - although we weren't specifically looking at a scenario where there had been a bomb on a bus.

"It's a standard exercise and briefing that we carry out."

Source: Manchester Evening News, Page 5 - 8th July 2005

Indeed, rehearsing attacks on public transport networks -- now seemingly known by their Americanised name of 'transit systems' -- are fairly commonplace in the world of State and Corporate terror exercises. On 8th January 2006, the government of Singapore conducted their own "standard exercise and briefing" called Operation Northstar V, a multi-agency civil emergency exercise:

Exercise Northstar V is the largest scale exercise we have conducted so far. We simulated a scenario with multiple bomb explosions and a chemical agent release in 4 MRT stations and 1 bus interchange, to stretch ourselves and test our capabilities.

The focus of the exercise today (8 Jan 2006) is to test our men in uniform and 20 other agencies. We will learn from this exercise, and refine our plans and operations.

....

Singaporeans should think about what to do to protect themselves and their families. Taking ownership to learn the drills, and knowing what to do in an emergency is one of the best forms of protection.

For example, they can take part in exercises such as the Emergency Preparedness Days organized by the constituencies. The residents of Pasir Ris, for instance, have exercised the scenario of a bomb incident and chemical attack in a shopping mall in Pasir Ris last year.

Source: Singapore Logon

A list of answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Operation Northstar V was produced from which the following quotes are taken, all of which have direct parallels with the events of 7/7:

FAQ to Exercise NorthStar V

....

Q3. What is the exercise scenario?

A: The scenario for the exercise is similar to that of the London Bombings on 7 July 05 that is near-simultaneous bomb blasts in the trains at the station platform and in the trains traveling into the tunnel. In addition, a new scenario has been introduced that is the release of chemical agents at the platform at one of the stations.

....

Q5. Will bus and train services be disrupted during the exercise and what is the duration of such disruption?

A: While the exercise is confined to only 4 train stations operated by both SBS Transit and SMRT Corporation however due to the interconnected nature of the train network, temporarily disruption of train services will affect a total of 13 train stations. The 13 stations will be closed throughout the duration of the exercise that is from 6.25am to 9.30am.

Q6. Why is there a need to disrupt train services during the exercise?

A: Simulations in the form of thunderflashes, smoke and fire simulators will be used to create simultaneous bomb attacks by terrorists so as to inject a realistic exercise scenario. Apart from dummy mannequins, ‘live’ casualties will also be deployed at stations’ platform and in the trains to portray injured commuters and fatalities. Trains will also be stalled within the tunnel and commuters will be evacuated through the tunnel to the nearest train station. To facilitate such elaborate scenario and the conduct of the large-scale exercise, there is a need to temporarily disrupt train services and close 13 train stations.

Q7. Will commuters who are caught in the exercise be trapped for a long period of time in the stalled train or in the train tunnel?

A: Upon the commencement of the exercise, no commuters will be trapped in the stations, trains or tunnels. All commuters who are in the ‘exercised’ trains and at the stations’ platform will immediately be guided and evacuated out of the stations. For commuters who are in the ‘exercised’ train/s that are stalled in the tunnel, they will also be immediately guided to evacuate from the tunnel to the nearest train station.

As the safety of the commuters is critical to the conduct of the exercise, personnel from the SCDF and staff from SBS Transit and SMRT Corporation will be at hand to guide the commuters in the evacuation process and direct them to the alternative mode of transportation i.e the shuttle bus services. Special attention will also be given to pregnant ladies, the elderly, young children and those who are in need of assistance during the evacuation process.

Q8. Are the exercise sites accessible to members of the public?

A: While the commuters in transit are participating in the exercise as evacuees, the Police will be exercising strict cordon enforcement at the 4 x train stations/exercise sites (Dhobby Ghaut, Toa Payoh, Raffles Place and Marina Bay stations). Hence, members of the public who are outside these exercised train stations will not be allowed access into the stations.

Source: Singapore Logon

Taking another look at Peter Power's original Radio 5 Live announcement on 7/7:

POWER: ...at half-past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for, er, over, a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing upright!

Operation Northstar V was twice the size of Peter Power's London efforts on 7/7. Note the lengths gone to ensure that the exercise is as realistic as possible for its unwitting participants:

3. During the exercise which involved over 2,000 personnel; thunderflashes, smoke and fire simulators were used. About 500 simulated casualties with injuries were also deployed to test emergency rescuers at the scene. To further invoke a sense of realism, the date, time and exact details of the exercise were not released until 15 minutes before the exercise, after which announcements on the exercise were carried by local broadcast media. This was a deliberate move to better gauge and test the exercise participants, including the train commuters who were either in the trains or MRT stations when the exercise started.

Source: Singapore Web

Advice on conducting 'live' exercises in the UK suggests the inclusion of walking wounded and casualties to 'add to the realism', and is recommended to companies testing their emergency plans by the London Resilience website:

Live exercises. Live exercises range from a small scale test of one component of the response, like evacuation, through to a full scale test of the whole organisation to an incident. Live exercises provide the best means of confirming the satisfactory operation of emergency communications, and the use of 'casualties' can add to the realism. Live exercises provide the only means for fully testing the crucial arrangements for handling the media

The BBC web site even quotes Roland Murphy of London Underground claiming of a similar rehearsal exercise at Bank station, "All participants are unaware of the 'disaster' until the exercise starts, so they treat it as real as possible."

Emergency exercise on Underground
Last Updated: Sunday, 12 June, 2005, 11:31 GMT 12:31 UK

London's emergency services are being called into action for a training exercise on the underground.

The live emergency exercise will take place at Tower Hill Tube station on the District Line on Sunday.

The station is already closed due to major track replacement work between Whitechapel and Earl's Court.

Roland Murphy, from London Underground, said good safety procedures are in place "but we can always build and improve upon them."

He added: "All participants are unaware of the 'disaster' until the exercise starts, so they treat it as real as possible."

London Underground is legally required to hold an emergency exercise on the network every year.

A police cordon will be erected around the station and Trinity Square, Savage Gardens, Wakefield Gardens and Coopers Row will be closed for most of the day

Source: BBC News

In a BBC News report following the Bank station exercise Linda Smith of the Fire Brigades Union told BBC London of the controlled conditions under which the exercise was carried out:

"The cadets used as victims had been fully briefed and of course ordinary members of the public wouldn't have known what was going on, " she said.

"It was done on a Sunday, the area was cordoned off, there were no members of the public allowed even on the footpaths around the area.

Source: BBC News

It is possible that Visor's consultants took the experiences and 'lessons learned' from 7/7 to assist in the live rehearsals in Singapore, involving bombs on trains and a bus, according to Visor Consultants' own web site:

In addition to the directors, we have specialist consultants who are regularly engaged on projects, ranging from running workshops in Singapore to helping an energy supplier in the UK to run a successful crisis management test. Seven of our key consultants are Chris Needham-Bennett, Dr. Anne Eyre, Ian Ross, Tom Pine, Kathryn Holloway, Brian Hiscutt and David Tredrea.

Source: Visor Consultants

Peter Power's Response to Initial Inquiries

Perhaps unsurprisingly, news of a terror rehearsal based on simultaneous bombs going off at precisely the stations they did caused more than a little consternation among those members of the public and alternative media who knew of its existence. So great was the deluge of queries and questions about the nature of the exercise that Peter Power issued the following, single, generic response:

Thank you for your message. Given the volume of emails about events on 7 July and a commonly expressed misguided belief that our exercise revealed prescient behaviour, or was somehow a conspiracy (noting that several websites interpreted our work that day in an inaccurate / naive / ignorant / hostile manner) it has been decided to issue a single email response as follows:

It is confirmed that a short number of 'walk through' scenarios planed [sic] well in advance had commenced that morning for a private company in London (as part of a wider project that remains confidential) and that two scenarios related directly to terrorist bombs at the same time as the ones that actually detonated with such tragic results. One scenario in particular, was very similar to real time events.

However, anyone with knowledge about such ongoing threats to our capital city will be aware that (a) the emergency services have already practiced several of their own exercises based on bombs in the underground system (also reported by the main news channels) and (b) a few months ago the BBC broadcast a similar documentary on the same theme, although with much worse consequences. It is hardly surprising therefore, that we chose a feasible scenario - but the timing and script was nonetheless, a little disconcerting.

In short, our exercise (which involved just a few people as crisis managers actually responding to a simulated series of activities involving, on paper, 1000 staff) quickly became the real thing and the players that morning responded very well indeed to the sudden reality of events.

Beyond this no further comment will be made and based on the extraordinary number of messages from ill informed people, no replies will henceforth be given to anyone unable to demonstrate a bona fide reason for asking (e.g. accredited journalist / academic).

Peter Power

Despite running a terror rehearsal on 7th July 2005, Peter Power has repeatedly been used as an independent expert on terrorism, sitting in judgement on such things as the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station as well the official reports which have been released about the events of 7th July 2005. In each instance, Power is presented as a someone who has no special connection with the events of 7/7, nor has he been questioned further about the exact nature and scope of the rehearsal operation he was running, not even about the "One scenario in particular" which "was very similar to real time events."

Can it possibly be that no accredited journalist or academic has dared approach Peter Power about his operation that day, or the 'wider project' of which it was a part? If the complete lack of information about the nature of the exercise is anything to go by, it would appear not, save for one timid article on the Channel 4 News web site which attempted to distract from the potential significance of the coincidence.

Peter Power Terror Rehearsal 'de-bunked' by Channel 4 News

While the curious coincidence the Visor Consultant's terror drill on the day of 7th July 2005 received very little in the way of follow-up media coverage, aside from the occasional passing mention in the days that followed, Channel 4 News published an article on 17th July 2005 in which, rather than set about finding out more about the nature of the operation in which Power was involved, journalist JJ King went to great lengths to explain how, some time after the event, presumably after the hairs on the back of Mr Power's neck were no longer standing upright, Power changed his line of, "running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people" that had so alarmed everyone to, "involving, on paper, 1000 staff".

According to the article's author, JJ King, this minor revision by Power of his original statement is sufficient reason to ignore Power's original statement. King further contends that because such rehearsal operations are common-place, there is nothing unusual about such a rehearsal running at the same time as a real attack. In instances where the rehearsal and real-time events didn't match so closely, this might be true. Significantly, perhaps, one other notable occasion where coordinated attack rehearsals were running at the same time as a real attack happens to be the day of 11th September 2001 when a number of wargame exercises involving simulated attacks on the World Trade Center featured.

Interestingly, King also notes the observations of the one of the CBC show's associate producers:

Colman Jones, an Associate Producer on CBC: Sunday, claimed in his blog that, while escorting participants from the building, he enquired of Power 'why there had not been more media coverage of this.' 'They were trying to keep it quiet,' Power purportedly responded, with what Jones called 'a knowing smile.'

JJ King concludes his article with:

'When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras,' goes the often-quoted popularisation of Occam's Razor.

In the absence of journalistic nous, bloggers would do well to stick by it.

In the face of investigative journalists that have repeatedly failed to report, or even investigate, the huge number of errors and inconsistencies in the official Home Office report, and the many stories willfully spun by the media about the events of July 7th, J7 contends that bloggers and the general public would do well to stick by something other than the 'journalistic nous' which has consistently and repeatedly failed them to date.

Peter Power's mainstream media terror operations

16th May, 2004: Panorama London Under Attack

"The Home Secretary has said the attacks bear the hallmark of Al-Qaeda..."

Source: Panorama, London Under Attack

7th July, 2005: Real world

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the coordinated blasts in trains and a bus bore "the hallmarks of an al Qaeda-related attack"

Source: Reuters

peter power on panoramaPeter Power claimed of his 7th July terror rehearsal, in the Manchester Evening News, "It's a standard exercise and briefing that we carry out." Indeed, In fact, Peter Power had previous experience of rehearsing bombs on the Underground for he was one of a small but select panel of advisors that helped create the BBC's Panorama programme London Under Attack in May 2004, over a year before the events of July 2005. A partial copy of the Panorama London Under Attack programme can be downloaded here.

The panel also included the former British Army and British Intelligence operative, Crispin Black, one of the first people to publish a book about the London bombings, in which he wrote:

We need an official inquiry - now. Not a whitewash inquiry like Lord Hutton's. Or a punch-pulling inquiry like Lord Butler's. But an inquiry run by plain Mr or Mrs somebody."

Crispin Black's statement - in part - provided some of the impetus behind the growing group of plain Mr or Mrs Somebodies that have worked together to establish the July 7th Truth Campaign, the J7 web site, the J7 People's Independent Inquiry Forum and the J7 Petition calling on the government to RELEASE THE EVIDENCE that conclusively proves or disproves the conspiracy theory outlined in the official Home Office narrative.

The May 2004 edition of Panorama focused on London falling victim to a terrorist attack and, coincidentally, featured three explosions on underground trains and one explosion on a land-based transportation device, a rehearsal scenario not entirely dissimilar to Mr Power's rehearsal operation on 7th July 2005 and the apparent reality of events that day.

The BBC described Panorama's London Under Attack on their web site:

This film is a mock exercise of what might happen in London if there was a terror attack now.

In a unique fusion of drama, detailed research and expert discussion Panorama puts Britain's emergency plans to the test.

Set in the future - but only just - the city of London is thrown into chaos by a series of terrorist attacks.

The fictional day of terror unfolds through the immediacy of rolling news bringing the catastrophic attack into our living rooms.

For those that missed the documentary, the BBC has kindly provided a copy of "'How the fictional attack unfolded", a page dedicated to revealing how news of the fictional attack was presented to the world via a series of 'mock broadcasts'. The key events unfolded like this:

explosion map8.20am Tuesday 25 May: We're receiving news of an explosion in the London underground near Hyde Park. This has not yet been confirmed by the police

8.27am: There has been a 2nd explosion on the underground, this time close to Oxford Circus. Both explosions appear to have occurred on the trains as they were moving.

8.40am: Reports are coming in that a third explosion has now occurred on an underground train approaching Vauxhall station.

9am: News 24 headlines: In the past hour there have been three major explosions on the London Underground. The first at 8.10am on the Piccadilly Line between Knightsbridge and Hyde Park Corner. The second at 8.16 on the Central Line between Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Circus and the third at 8.27 as a train was arriving at Vauxhall station in Stockwell on the Victoria line. Emergency services have been called to all three scenes. There are no reports on number of casualties and the police say its too early to identify a possible cause. London underground is now closed and police are now urging people not to travel.

london under attack10.10: We're just getting reports that there has been a further explosion in central London in the region around Liverpool street station, we will of course bring you more news on that as soon as we can. Meanwhile traffic problems continue in central London as the full effects of the emergency police cordons are being felt.

10.41: We can now confirm that a tankercarrying chlorine has exploded at the junction of Shoreditch high Street and commercial street. Chlorine is extremely toxic in this form and police are issuing express warnings for people to stay indoors, close windows and remain there until the all clear is given.

10.44: Police are still urging people to stay indoors until the extent of the chlorine release is known. They are repeating again, chlorine is extremely toxic.

Peter Power and Panorama's 'mock broadcasts' detailed the unfolding of the fictional terror attack, along with graphics showing the fictional blast locations and simulating how news of the attack might be presented, had such an attack actually occurred.

The unfolding of the Panorama sequence of events bears an uncanny resemblance to how the initial stories of 7 July 2005 were rolled out; three explosions underground, with timings staggered over the space of half an hour, before a fourth explosion occurred some time later on an above ground transportation device. For Panorama, the land-based transportation device was a chlorine tanker. On 7 July 2005, it was a number 30 bus.

A copy of the Panorama programme does not appear to be available from the BBC web site, however you can read a transcript of BBC Panorama's London Under Attack programme here . A mirror copy of the transcript can be found here, and a partial but eminently watchable version of the actual London Under Attack programme can be downloaded here.

What is important to note are the findings of the Panorama documentary of May 2004, as summarised below:

The programme reveals that police, ambulance and fire services communications systems are incompatible with each other in London and across the UK and that in the deep underground, Metropolitan Police radios do not work.

Radios incompatible

The communications system used by Civil Contingency Reaction Force (CCRF) - a specialist groups of reservists whose role is to help out in the event of disaster scenarios - is also incompatible with any of the emergency services.

This means that in the event of a disaster - none of the emergency services would be able to talk to each other on their own radios

These findings were passed to the Home Office by Panorama. At the time of the programme, the Home Office had refused to cooperate with the exercise, branding it as 'alarmist and irresponsible'. However, the findings should have come as no surprise to anyone given that the inquiry into the King's Cross fire of 18th November 1987 -- another event with which Peter Power was involved -- came to the exactly the same conclusions about communications as Panorama did over a decade later. These happen to be the same findings that the Greater London Authority's 7 July Review Committee arrived at 18 years after the King's Cross Fire - a point which the 7 July Review Committee deemed worthy of note in its own final report, along with the unacceptability that these communication problems still had not been resolved:

2.24 The official inquiry into the King’s Cross fire, published in 1988, included a chapter on communications. The report highlighted the lack of communications between the station surface and underground, and the inability of officers from the British Transport Police and London Fire Brigade to communicate underground unless they were within line of sight of each other. The report made recommendations aimed at putting in place effective communications within and between the emergency services underground. These were categorised by Desmond Fennell OBE QC, who conducted the inquiry, as among the most important recommendations made in the report.

....

11.5 It is unacceptable that the emergency services, with the exception of the British Transport Police, are still not able to communicate by radio when they are underground, 18 years after the official inquiry into the King’s Cross fire recommended action to address this problem. The Committee has been told that this problem will be resolved by the end of 2007.

Source: GLA Report of the 7 July Review Committee

In fact, Peter Power had something to say about the 7 July Review Committee reports released two years after his involvement in Panorama's London Under Attack, and a year after his terror rehearsal operation on 7th July 2005. During an interview with BBC News Mr Power, aside from plugging his Survive organisation, revealed that he was also running a 'command centre' for another organisation on 7th July 2005 and, yet again, referred to the importance of getting a casualty bureau number out when a real disaster occurs, something that did not happen on 7th July 2005 for over six hours after the first incidents were reported.

Note: Throughout the news and media coverage of the day, no casualty bureau number was ever announced to the public until 3:24pm, by DAC Brian Paddick during a Metropolitan Police Press Conference. This is over six hours after the first incident of the day was reported and several hours after various authorities and emergency services had declared major incidents at multiple locations. Why was a casualty bureau number not set-up and broadcast immediately the first major incident was declared?

Panorama's fake terror, 7/7, Peter Power & Kirsty Lang

In yet another bizarre 'coincidence' of events, the newsreader pictured in the Panorama transcript above, reading news of the fake attack played out in the BBC's London Under Attack programme, is one Kirsty Lang, also pictured left. Kirsty is the presenter of The World, an international current affairs programme broadcast globally on BBC World and on BBC4 in the UK. Kirsty is a regular presenter on Front Row, the Radio 4 arts magazine programme. She is also a former presenter of Channel 4 News and a 'relief presenter' for BBC World. The TV Room fills in a little more background detail:

kirst lang promo shotKirsty started at the BBC as a graduate news trainee in 1985 after completing a degree in international relations at the London School of Economics and a postgrad MA in journalism from City University, London.

She then became a general news reporter in radio. In 1989, she took up a post in Budapest as stringer for the BBC World Service. In late-1991, she became a correspondent in the BBC Paris office.

C. 1994, Kirsty returned to London to take up a post as a reporter for 'Newsnight'. In summer 1995 she moved out of television to join the Sunday Times as their Paris correspondent. She remained there until 1998 when she returned to TV as Europe correspondent and presenter for 'Channel 4 News'.

In 2002, Kirsty moved to the BBC where she presented the news on BBC World and fronted the BBC Four news programme.

As part of Lang's stint in Eastern Europe as Central European reporter for the BBC World Service based in Budapest, she covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Balkans conflict, before then going on to be BBC World Service Paris correspondent at the time Diana and Dodi Fayed were killed. In early 2002 she moved from her post as Channel 4 News reader to join BBC Four News as chief correspondent. Her husband is a writer and broadcaster on Eastern Europe, especially Yugoslavia, and his father was in British Army intelligence in West Berlin, and a lecturer in Russian studies.

More recently, Lang chaired a Morgan Stanley sponsored meeting of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, cunningly known by the simple three-letter acronym, RSA, which ignores entirely the 'Manufactures and Commerce' aspects of the society, on the subject of Britishness. Lang was also on the Advisory Board of Editorial Intelligence, Editorial Intelligence is Julia Hobsbawm’s “information and networking club”, whose list of clients include the Cabinet Office and the Metropolitan Police, and which has caused a bit of a stir among journalists with its strapline, "Where PR meets journalism". Hobsbawm is also a close associate and friend of Gordon and Sarah Brown, having once run a company, Hobsbawm Macaulay, with Sarah Brown, the wife of British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

The Press Gazette reports that Lang has since resigned from the Editorial Intelligence board, sometime between late March and early April 2006 but, according to the Sunday Times, this was only as a result of the BBC forcing journalists in their employ (Lang, as well as Barney Jones, editor of Radio 4's Sunday AM) to resign from the Editorial Intelligence board after learning that EI were buying off journalists with £1,000 a year to sit on the board and £200 a time to attend seminars.

As mentioned, one of Lang's roles is that of 'relief presenter' with BBC World, making her one of at least 25 regular and relief presenters for the channel. She was also hired to present the 'mock broadcasts' used to create a sense of realism in Panorama's London Under Attack alongside Peter Power and, in another amazing coincidence, Lang was selected from the range of BBC World presenters to replace regular newscasters on the biggest UK news day of 2005, namely the day of 7th July 2005. Lang can be seen in the screen captures below, both taken from BBC World coverage broadcast on 7/7.

kirst lang bbc world kirsty lang bbc world 77
Kirsty Lang presenting BBC World News on 7/7

Quite aside from the amazing coincidence of Peter Power's terror rehearsal on 7/7, which closely mirrored the reported events of that day, the odds are stacked against the coincidence of Kirsty Lang happening to be hired by the BBC to present fake news reports in the 2004 Panorama programme -- featuring, as per the original story that unfolded on the day of 7th July 2005, three staggered explosions on the London underground, including one at Liverpool Street (shown below), followed later by an explosion above ground on a land-based transportation device -- before then overcoming a one in twenty-five chance of being the BBC World 'relief presenter' selected to present the news on the day of 7th July 2005.

kirst lang - bbc panorama - london under attack

Kirsty Lang in Panorama's London Under Attack, as broadcast on 16th May 2004

 

Peter Power on Peter Power

From the Visor Consultants web site (picture added by J7):

city of londonWho is Peter Power


Peter Power, BA FIRM FCMI FEPS FBCI
Managing Director, Visor Consultants

Peter is the author of the present UK Govt. (DTI) advice booklet ‘Preventing Chaos in a Crisis' and the British Bankers Association/KPMG guide on Crisis Management. Peter is the Founding Chairman of the Survive Crisis Management Special Interest Group, and is also engaged as a Special Advisor to a number of key organisations including the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Management Forum (UK) and the Business Continuity (BC) Institute London Forum. He is in addition, a Special Advisor to the editorial board of Continuity Professional Magazine in the USA and is listed in the UK Register of Expert Witnesses.

Peter is also a Fellow of the Emergency Planning Society, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute, Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management and a member of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London.

He is the Founding Chairman of the Survive Crisis Mgt. Special Interest Group, and is also engaged as a Special Advisor to a number of key organisations including the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Management Forum (UK) and the Business Continuity (BC) Institute London Forum.

Peter has a senior Scotland Yard background which includes setting up the multi agency operational management structure at the Kings Cross fire, secondment to the Anti Terrorist Branch, deputy forward control coordinator at the Libyan People Bureau siege and leading the team behind the existing police street philosophy for dealing with terrorist bombs. He is also the primary author / promulgator of the present UK Police command methodology Gold, Silver & Bronze and a founder member of the UK judging panel for BC Awards.

Peter's recent appearances on TV and Radio include interviews on numerous live News broadcasts as well as documentaries, and taking part in the recent BBC TV Panorama current affairs programme examining the impact of terrorism on London. He is specifically quoted on the BBC web site in relation to his role at the scene of several previous major incidents in the UK.

An excerpt from the web site of Survive, Power's own Crisis Management Special Interest Group and apparently, "the world's leading forum for expertise and information exchange among Business Continuity (BC) management practitioners", lists a few more of Mr Power's accolades:

Peter Power is Managing Director of Visor Consultants Limited based in Mayfair, London. He is well known as an authoritative and entertaining presenter and writer with considerable front line crisis experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management, Fellow of the Emergency Planning Society, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute, and a member of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London. He is the author of the present HM Government (DTI) booklet ‘Preventing Chaos in a Crisis’ and the new British Bankers Association guide on Crisis Management. He is the Founding Chairman of the Survive Crisis Management Special Interest Group and is also engaged as a Special Advisor to the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Management Forum (UK) and the BCI London Forum. He is also a founder member of the UK judging panel for the Business Continuity Awards.

Source: Survive | Cached

The survive.com web site has been offline for some time now, although some archived copies of pages can be found at archive.org.

An objective look at Peter Power's career

Aside from his connection to 7/7, Peter Power has a long and interesting history of involvement with terrorist incidents in London and with disasters on the underground. His distinguished career includes being deputy forward controller at the scene of the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, an incident that occurred during the Libyan People's Bureau siege, as well taking a senior role in the Oxford Circus underground fire and the King's Cross station fire operations.

The Murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher

7/7 placard, peter power libyan embassy siege, murder of yvonne fletcherWoman Police Constable (WPC) Yvonne Fletcher (1959–17 April 1984) was a British policewoman who was shot and killed in London's St James's Square during a protest outside the Libyan embassy. The shooting resulted in a siege at the embassy which lasted for eleven days, as well as the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya. She was the first policewoman to be murdered while on duty in Britain.

Eleven anti-Gadafy demonstrators were injured in the volley of gun fire. WPC Yvonne Fletcher was also shot and, although rushed to Westminster Hospital, died soon after arrival.

Peter Power was the deputy forward controller at the Libyan People's Bureau siege at which WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot. Fletcher's murder would later become a major factor in the then prime minister Thatcher's decision to allow U.S. President Ronald Reagan to launch the USAF bombing raid on Libya in 1986 from American bases in Britain.

In April 1996, 12 years after the killing, Britain’s Channel Four flagship documentary programme Dispatches - in a massively researched broadcast, Murder at St James's, that cited credible and experienced sources - revealed that Fletcher had been murdered by elements of British and American intelligence. Disgracefully, these astonishing revelations went unreported by the media in much the same way as many crucial revelations about the events of 7th July 2005, such as Peter Power's simultaneous terror operation and the many factual inaccuracies, inconsistencies and curious anomalies in the official story of July 7th have also gone virtually, if not totally, unreported and unchallenged.

Issues raised by the Dispatches programme about the killing of WPC Fletcher were later raised in Parliament by Tam Dalyell on 8 May 1996. Mr Dalyell qualified before Parliament that the programme had been exceptionally well researched and that it had featured the statements from people whose calibre and relevant experience was beyond question or compare. Contributors to Dispatches included a senior ballistics officer of the British Army, Lieutenant Colonel George Styles, and Dr Bernard Knight, a senior and distinguished Home Office pathologist.

MP Tam Dalyell raised a total of eight separate issues in relation to the murder of WPC Fletcher, including that Yvonne Fletcher appeared to have have been shot from a different direction than that alleged; that huge discrepancies existed between the reports of pathologist Dr Ian West whose post mortem report differed significantly from his analysis presented at the inquest; and that WPC Fletcher's injuries could not have been caused by the alleged combination of gun and firing position.

When the makers of 'Murder at St James's', Fulcrum Productions, attempted to interview the pathologist, Dr Ian West, about the inconsistencies in his reports, he cancelled two appointments and then refused completely to meet.

In response to Mr Dalyell's inquiries in Parliament, the Minister of State for the Home Office, David Maclean, dismissed the Dispatches programme simply as "preposterous trash".

The ongoing controversy surrounding Fletcher's death resulted in the current prime minister, Tony Blair, being questioned by former MP Tam Dalyell in parliament on 24 June 1997. Mr Dalyell received a similarly unenthusiastic response from the State as he had on previous occasions. In 1998, 14 years after the killing, the murder of WPC Fletcher was still being cited as the sole reason for maintaining trade sanctions against Libya by Jack Straw on behalf of the Labour government.

Following the shooting of WPC Fletcher, the then Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, immediately ordered an investigation. The results of that investigation have never been divulged to the British public and have remained one of many State secrets kept from the public.

Perhaps the deputy forward controller at the Libyan People's Bureau siege, Peter Power, might able to shed some light on exactly what happened in the case of the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, as well as during his terror rehearsal operation in London on 7th July 2005.

The Oxford Circus Underground Fire

During the Oxford Circus fire incident of 1984, a crisis situation that earnt Mr Power the title of 'Pied Piper of the Underground', Power commandeered an underground train on which he happened to be travelling, lied to passengers over the train's tannoy system about the severity of the situation that faced them before giving the train's driver "a certain bit of advice to his face" after which the driver, "was knocked out". See the BBC On This Day reports "1984: Oxford Circus fire traps hundreds" and, "1984: 'Pied Piper' of the Underground" for more information on these incidents.

The King's Cross Station Fire

On 18 November 1987, a flash fire engulfed an old wooden escalator at the King's Cross underground station. Thirty one people perished in the disaster including a firefighter - Colin Townsley, station officer from the Soho Fire Station in central London. Two other firefighters were trapped on the station platform but survived.

You can see a short ITN News at Ten report of the King's Cross fire here.

From the BBC 'On this day' report:

Inspector Peter Power was sent to the scene of the King's Cross fire to co-ordinate the efforts of the emergency services.

He ran the Metropolitan Police's forward command post for much of the evening and most of the night on 18 November 1987.

Three years earlier he himself had been trapped underground in a serious fire at Oxford Circus Tube station in London.

We recommend reading the full BBC account of Peter Power's activities at the Metropolitan Police's forward command post which includes the strange tale of drunken police officers attending the scene who later "would be taken home by chauffeur-driven car after they had worked out their war stories and had a few drinks", and this interesting snippet about Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner since February 2005:

The present deputy-commissioner of the Met Police, Ian Blair, was already on scene as a detective inspector.

We knew each other very well and he turned to me and said, "Peter, I think we've had a bomb explosion here."

I asked him why and he said, "At least one of the casualties has metal deep inside him... but we're not going to go public on it."

The MI6 Builiding Rocket Attack

mi6 buildingAt around 9:45pm on 20th September 2000, an explosion was reported in central London at the headquarters of Britain's secret service, MI6. Initially it was unknown whether the explosion had occurred inside or outside the building and firefighters say they were called to attend the scene at Vauxhall Cross at 9.52pm.

A rocket launcher was later found and no group ever claimed responsibility, although suspicions pointed the finger at the Real IRA. After the MI6 rocket attack, Mr Power was again quoted by the BBC. 

He described the MI6 building as one of the most high profile in central London in a statement that seemed to positively encourage such activities. Power told the BBC:

“If you wanted to make a name for yourself, get yourself back onto the front pages, why not go for something that’s high profile and minimal risk.”

To date, despite the device used to launch the attack being found in Spring Gardens, nobody has ever been charged for this attack, although it was intimated at the time that Irish Republican organisations might be responsible. This begs many questions about who might be be capable of perpetrating a rocket attack on a building as high-profile as the MI6 building and be allowed to get away with it.

Visor Consultants mentioned in Parliament

Security Exercises (London Underground)

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what security exercises were undertaken by Visor consultants in or around London Underground stations in the week preceding 7 July. [16048]

Ms Buck: None.

Short and sweet if nothing else. Never since mentioned in Parliament.

Peter Power's international connections

Peter Power also has connections to former New York Mayor, Rudi Giuliani; he served on the Advisory Board to the Canadian Centre for Emergency preparedness (CCEP), alongside the senior Vice President of Giuliani and Partners, Richard Sheirer, who was also Director of the New York Mayor’s office of Emergency Management, overseeing the rescue and recovery operations following the September 11th attacks. Giuliani and Partners is itself both a security consultancy and Investment Bank and Mr. Giuliani himself, by another strange coincidence, also happened to be in London for a conference and just yards away from Liverpool Street station when the blast occurred there on the morning of July 7th.

Mr Giuliani was mayor of New York at the time of the 9/11 and his emergency bunker was destroyed at 5:30pm that day when World Trade Centre building 7 mysteriously collapsed, despite not having been hit by a plane.

How much more do we know now?

In short, very little was known for over three years. Neither Peter Power, nor any other representative of Visor Consultants, had been publicly quizzed about the exact nature and extent of their operation that morning, despite the extremely bizarre coincidence of them running a rehearsal "based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened." Three years, however, appears to have been the watershed.

Up until October 2008 there were only two instances of additional information appearing in the public domain via comments left by Peter Power. The first was left on the Newsnight Editors' blog in September 2006, and was only the second written statement attributed to Power since the events of 7 July 2005, the first being a generic statement issued to all interested parties who contacted him after he announced his terror rehearsal operation that he was running while London was actually bombed. We reproduce Peter Power's comment from the Newsnight blog below:

202. At 09.25 AM
on 17 Sep 2006, Peter Power wrote:

My name repeatedly comes up whenever armchair / conspiratorial thinkers consider the terrorist exercise my company ran in London at exactly the same time as 7/7. This is only the second time I have formally reacted to these numerous statements. I’ve also appeared many times on BBC News / Newsnight to explain post 9/11 & 7/7 concepts such as ‘new normal’ etc. I think anyone familiar with likely terrorist targets will release [sic] our exercise scenario was coincidence rather than conspiracy, but it does start to raise some interesting points on a wider scale.

Several features now exist to create a much more generic and all-hazards approach to numerous risks and threats that are uniquely starting to appear on the global / corporate radar screen irrespective of country, culture, geography or sector. Some of these are already occurring such as a new form of terrorism that has no ‘political’ objective, the effect of high volume and unrestricted information on the internet, spread of disease / mass travel (230m people passed through UK airports last year / all major air hubs are less than 72 hours apart), ineffective world leaders & UN, the consequences of accelerating global warming, the positioning of key essential / physiological supplies (Critical National Infrastructure – CNI - UK) in the private sector (e.g. electricity, water etc.) and an associated failure to understand how vital the private sector is not only in terms of employment, economy and wealth generation, but to maintain almost the entire CNI in most if it not all countries.

In several cases these threats and risks combine to create a series of problems that we are presently unable to deal with as a result of silo based attitudes, incompetence, proprietorial behaviour or just complacency.

There is I suggest, a need to start building a new approach based on conceptualising and hopefully influencing others since we are presently lacking a truly forward thinking and pan global collective body of influential advisors, practitioners and academics that transcends the otherwise valuable but discrete institutions in many countries and their individual agendas. It might just inform many others as to what terrorism is all about and get them to think twice before alleging my own company was some how implicated in 7/7. My aim is to help stimulate, collaborate and disseminate effective and non partisan advice without the handicap of parochial restrictions, silo constraints or inhibited vision.

The second comment was left on this page of the July 7th Truth Campaign web site on 15th December 2007 after the release of this YouTube video by a group called 'We Are Change UK'. For some unknown reason Peter Power has chosen to leave his comment about the We Are Change video here, rather than contact We Are Change directly. J7 have verified Peter Power as the source of this comment before publication and you can read his comment here, or immediately below:

I rarely respond to allegations that there was a direct connection between an exercise my company was running on 7 July 2005 and the real events that happened that day, but having just seen on You Tube a highly misleading video following a childish stunt against me on 12/12/07 I feel I have little choice but to make three important points:

First, I chose to meet 2 people that day who requested an interview with me while I was attending a conference in a London hotel. Having shaken their hands and asked where they were from I noticed I was being covertly filmed by one of them who denied it, although it was obvious. As it is not possible to have a civilised conversation when deceit from one side was apparent from the outset, I apologised that I could not help in such circumstances and suggested another time perhaps? I then walked back to the conference – suddenly pursued by 2 or 3 shouting people trying to make it appear I was fleeing?

Second, it’s worth reminding some people that the London underground system has so far been the subject of terrorist bombings on 21 occasions, going back to 1885. Also, on the same day as our exercise, a major law firm in the City of London was running an exercise that involved bombs on the underground. A few days before so did a major German bank in London and even the Metropolitan Police. We were not alone.

Third, our table top exercise was to involve a very small group of crisis managers under test, from a company employing c1000 people. No one was on the streets at all. Just one part of the scenario was similar to IRA incendiary bombs planted on the underground in 1992 to start fires on three underground trains, albeit the locations were by sheer coincidence, more 2005 that 1992. That’s not so surprising when we had a limited number of underground lines to choose from, given the location of our client in the centre of London.

There will be no convincing some very odd people who think actors were on the bus that was actually bombed and the UK Government staged the whole thing on 7/7, the World Trade Centre was pre-wired with explosives on 9/11 and even that tragedy was a US Government setup.

At a time when this country is under a sustained terrorist threat it makes sense to base any exercise scenario on realism and historical events and in so doing hopefully increase our overall resilience to this threat. Had the odd people I met on 12.12.07 bothered to have a proper conversation with me I would have explained all this to them but fantasists will, no matter what I say, always prefer sensationalism to sense and conspiracy to coincidence.

Peter Power. Visor Consultants Limited. 15 December 2007

Another ten months were to pass before any further comment was made by Peter Power, prompted by his involvement with a particularly pathetic and insulting episode of the BBC's Conspiracy Files on the subject of 7/7. It is worth noting that J7 categorically refused to have anything to do with the production of the Conspiracy Files and a copy of our missive to the BBC explaining why can be found here. The BBC had originally planned to broadcast its Conspiracy Files 7/7 episode in June 2008, however these plans were scuppered somewhat by the CPS bringing a prosecution against three acquaintances of the four men accused of perpetating the attacks of 7 July 2005, thereby rendering the matter sub judice. Despite much anticipation and fervour about the expected fait accompli outcome of the trial, the jury failed to reach a verdict, even though the judge had lowered the bar and offered to accept a majority verdict of 10 to 2.

A retrial was scheduled, further postponing the broadcast date of the Conspiracy Files about 7/7. The second trial resulted in the accused being found not guilty of assisting the 7 July accused, and in the midst of all this, Peter Power decided to leave the following comment in which he finally reveals the client for whom his terror rehearsal operation was being run:

There has been much nonsense written about why my company ran an exercise on 7 July 2005 that had very close parallels to the real thing that day. Since then I have made several attempts to add my own comments to numerous sites that seem to get increasingly excited about their own conspiracy theories and in the process exclude any rational debate. It seems those who occupy the world of finding conspiracy theories to replace just about any coincidence, do not want to have any dialogue with those offering a different view, but I have not yet given up hope. I am therefore hoping, perhaps naively, that someone might like to read an honest and factual account about a particular exercise my company ran in London three years ago.

Unfortunately, the BBC have just postponed a programme in their ‘conspiracy files’ series that would have done this. Our client three years ago agreed to be named in the BBC programme since the attitude of the producer and his team was very balanced (several conspiracy theorists were also invited to take part). We even allowed our complete exercise material to be made available to the BBC. Regrettably broadcasting it now might jeopardise an ongoing court case, so they had little choice about postponing it to next year.

Early in 2005 Reed Elsevier, an organisation specialising in information and publishing that employs 1,000 people in and around London, asked us to help them prepare an effective crisis management plan and rehearse it before sign-off. Several draft scenarios were drawn up and the crisis team themselves set the exercise date and time: 9.00am on 7 July.

The test was planned as a table-top walk through for about six people (the CM team) in a lecture room with all injects simulated. Everything was on MS PowerPoint. The location of their Central London office near to Chancery Lane was chosen as one test site. With many staff travelling to work via the London underground system, the chosen exercise simulated incendiary devices on three trains, very similar to a real IRA attack in 1992, as well as other events.

As there had been eighteen terrorist bomb attacks on tube trains prior to 2005, choosing the London Underground was logical rather than just prescient. With this in mind it was hardly surprising that Deutsche Bank had run a similar exercise a few days before and, prior to that, a multi-agency (and much publicised) exercise code-named Osiris II had simulated a terrorist attack at Bank tube station. Moreover, I had also taken part in a BBC Panorama programme in 2004 as a panellist alongside Michael Portillo MP et al, in an unscripted debate (we had no idea at all what the scenario was to be?) on how London might once again, deal with terrorist attacks, only this time it was fictional (created entirely by the BBC).

In short, some of the research for our exercise had already been done. The scenario developed for our client even started by using fictitious news items from the Panorama programme then, as with any walk through exercise, events unfolded solely on a screen as dictated by the facilitator without any external injects or actions beyond the exercise room. Also factored into the scenario was to be an above ground fictitious bomb exploding not far from the head office of the protected Jewish Chronicle magazine where for exercise purposes, our imagined terrorists would have been aware that commuters would now be walking to work (past a building already considered a target) as some tube stations would have been closed.

Of just eight nearby tube stations that fell within possible exercise's scope, three were chosen that, by coincidence, were involved in the awful drama that actually took place on 7 July 2005. A level of scenario validation that on this occasion, we could have done without.

An exercise that turns into the real thing is not that unusual. For example, in January 2003, thirty people were injured when a tube train derailed and hit a wall at speed. At the same time, the City of London Police were running an exercise for their central casualty bureau where the team quickly abandoned their plans and swung into action to cope with the real thing.

For a surprising number of people such coincidents cannot be accepted as such. There just has to be a conspiracy behind them, despite the obvious point that painstaking research will always identify probable above possible scenarios. By the way, the only reason I was asked to speak on TV news that day, when there was still much confusion about the real tragedies, was to encourage more organisations to thoroughly plan their own exercises knowing the threat of terrorism is and remains, very real. One tragic consequence being Islam, a great Abrahamic, monotheistic faith (along with Judaism and Christianity), has undeservedly become vilified by some people.

Peter Power
Visor Consultants
Friday, October 03, 2008 1:29:00 PM

Of course, as Mr Power also says:

"Terror doesn't rely on the bang,
it relies on the fear of the bang.
"

If you have any additional information about any aspects of the anti-terror rehearsal operation run by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on the morning of July 7th, please get in touch.


Update 07/02/08: J7 Exclusive Report: Peter Power's CV Fakery - 7/7 terror rehearsal man and regular BBC 'terror' consultant was suspended from Dorset Police pending an internal inquiry that resulted in a file being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Full story here.

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