[JNV] 7/7 Narrative Published - First JNV Comment

[JNV]

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Dear friends


Here is the first JNV comment on the press reporting around this important development. We hope you find it useful in combatting official and media distortion.


Best wishes


Milan Rai
JNV


***


11 May 2006 - NARRATIVE DAY

The Government Publishes The Official Story Of 7/7

First report 10am - Contents

The Propaganda Barrage Re-opens / The Narrative Is Leaked / The Narrative Is Censored / The Reaction Is Muted / A Quick Note On Press Coverage / ACTION: Letter-writing

 

THE PROPAGANDA BARRAGE RE-OPENS

 

Today the British Government publishes two documents about the 7 July bombings in London last year. One is the official Home Office 'narrative' of the 7/7 attacks; the other is a 'parliamentary' inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). 

 

(Actually the ISC is a creature of Downing Street: the MPs on it are selected by the Prime Minister, they report to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister edits their work before he presents it to Parliament - see http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/intelligence/.)

 

The reports are expected to conform to the Government's agenda for discussing the July atrocities: blame 'preachers of hatred' and 'extremism' and 'a lack of integration' within the British Muslim communities; avoid connecting the attacks with any aspect of British foreign policy.

 

At the time of writing (9am, Thursday 11 May), the documents themselves are not available to the public. All we have is the press treatment of them. This is probably because they cannot be published before they are presented to Parliament - they may become available later today. So at this moment we can only discuss what has appeared in the press so far. This is interesting in itself, however, and primes us for a response to the documents themselves.

 

 

THE NARRATIVE IS LEAKED

 

The most obvious question about the narrative is whether it has been edited by the Government for political effect since it was first drafted by a senior Home Office official. We are in a position to ask this question because the draft narrative was leaked to the Observer on 2 April.

 

The headline of that front-page story was: 'Official: Iraq war led to July bombings' http://tinyurl.com/o2dkv. Mark Townsend, Crime Correspondent for the Observer, quoted from the draft narrative:

 

'Initial drafts of the government's account into the bombings, which have been revealed to The Observer, state that Iraq was a key 'contributory factor'. The references to Britain's involvement in Iraq are contained in a section examining what inspired the "radicalisation" of the four British suicide bombers, Sidique Khan, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay.'

 

Townsend continued: 'The findings will prove highly embarrassing to Tony Blair, who has maintained that the decision to go to war against Iraq would make Britain safer.'

 

There's more to say about this Observer story and hopefully we'll get back to it later today.

 

 

THE NARRATIVE IS CENSORED

 

In the papers this week, no such finding is reported. The Times today (page 2 http://tinyurl.com/ota9z) goes so far as to say: 

 

'In its narrative, the Home Office does not support the theory of a fifth bomber... Nor does it blame the attacks on the Iraq war, despite the taped video by Khan which specifically referred to Britain’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq as the prime motivation for the July 7 plot.'

 

(Incidentally, Khan's video statement did not specifically refer to Iraq as the prime motivation for the attacks. The BBC translation of the shortened version of Khan's video is here http://tinyurl.com/e4emd.)

 

So, predictably, the finding that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a key 'contributory factor' has been censored by Number 10 before the publication of the narrative - according to The Times. 

 

 

THE REACTION IS MUTED

 

This ought to be a huge story. Everyone knows about the draft narrative - it was a front page Observer story. It ought to be a front-page story, and Parliament ought to be demanding an explanation for the reversal of opinion between the (reported) professional Home Office assessment and the Downing-Street-edited final version of the document (assuming The Times is correct in its report).

 

Prediction 1: Neither of these things are going to happen. (They ought to have happened already, as the press has had the documents for several days now.)

 

Prediction 2: Everyone in the mainstream media and political system is going to forget about the draft narrative as if it was never leaked. 

 

Prediction 3: It will be up to grassroots pressure to force some journalists and some MPs to raise these questions, and to get this fundamental information about the reports across to the public.

 

 

A QUICK NOTE ON PRESS COVERAGE

 

There's a lot more one could say, particularly in relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee report, and we'll try and post about this later.

 

For now, we'll just note that only the Guardian http://tinyurl.com/eedop and the Times http://tinyurl.com/ota9z make this their leading front-page story. The Telegraph http://tinyurl.com/kg3f4 put it below the fold on page 4; the FT http://tinyurl.com/jy7o7 focused on what executives will be most interested in (the recommendation to have a clearer system of terrorist alerts) and put it on page 2. The Independent had a double-page spread yesterday so there's nothing today. One article http://tinyurl.com/fk5zw was about the Big Questions about 7/7 - British foreign policy was not mentioned. The other one (not available free online) was similarly unthreatening to the Government.

 

 

ACTION: LETTER-WRITING

 

It's easy enough to ask the papers why they haven't mentioned the foreign policy conclusions of the draft narrative.

 

The FT slyly includes a possible hook in the penultimate sentence of today's article: 'Although the intelligence budget has grown by more than 35 per cent since 2001, security officials report they are still finding it difficult to keep pace with the threat, _which is assessed to have grown since the war in Iraq_.' 

 

When writing to the newspapers, don't forget to include your address and daytime phone number.

 

The relevant email addresses are:

 

Financial Times: letters.editor@ft.com

Guardian: letters@guardian.co.uk

Independent: letters@independent.co.uk

Telegraph: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

Times: letters@thetimes.co.uk