Terror simulation at same time as real terror acts (1)
By 12 July, no major media reported the interview below except Al-Jazeera under the label "conspiracy theory". Neither BBC5, nor ITN or Visor Consultants, denied that the interview had taken place or provided any explanation for this bizarre "coincidence".
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/conspiracy_theory/fullstory.asp?id=247
[document amended July 12, 2001, 22:10 GMT]
This is an extraordinary story which has not so far made an appearance in the print media as can be determined.
London Underground Bombing ‘Exercises’ Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack
A consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise for an unnamed company that revolved around the London Underground being bombed at the exact same times and locations as happened in real life on the morning of July 7th.
On a BBC Radio 5 interview that aired on the evening of the 7th, the host interviewed Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants (web: www.visorconsultants.com) , which bills itself as a ‘crisis management’ advice company.
Peter Power was a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch.
The transcript from BBC5 is as follows.
POWER: At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for 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 up right now.
HOST: 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 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 that 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.
Here is an audio clip from BBC5 where the comments can be heard in their full context:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/audio/090705exercise_clip.mp3
Here is the video clip from ITN containing a similar report by Peter Power: http://www.terrorize.dk/misc/london/resources.php#terror.games
The above coincidence is beyond plausible probability. It strongly suggests that the perpetrators knew of the planned exercises and scheduled the crime to fit exactly to the timing and locations of the exercises.
Statement by Peter Power of 12 July 2001:
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 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
Visor Consultants Limited
Comments by Webmaster to Peter Power’s statement:
In his circular letter (statement), Peter Power did not elaborate what he meant by "so we went through the correct drills…to jump from slow time to quick time thinking and so on." He did not say what company he was working for, nor what confidential "project" he was involved in. He did not reveal where the drills were executed. He did not explain what particular interest that company had to drill events taking place in underground train stations rather than, say, within the company’s own premises. All what he did was to designate the incredible "coincidence" of time and location between the simulated exercises and the actual bombings as "a little disconcerting". This is hardly what one would expect as a reaction to such an overwhelming coincidence.
From the answer, it appears that the exercises were conducted in a office in the presence of a few "players" around a table (or computers). Who were they? If they used computers, did they actually interact with live actors? Did they participate in the evacuation and other measures by the police and security services? And how could these people, who according to him had met the first time, be able to conclude "within minutes" that it was a "real" terror operation? All these questions remain ununaswered. Mass media and Peter Power owe the public a fuller explanation, particularly the identity of the comparny which commissioned the drills.