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16 July 2005

Peter Power responds, so does The Antagonist

Update: For detailed and in depth analysis of the events that occurred in London on 7th July 2005, please see the web site of J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign. Please also sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition which calls on the British government to release the evidence that will conclusively prove or disprove, beyond reasonable doubt, the official story of what happened on 7/7.

For a full analysis of the simultaneous anti-terror rehearsal drill referred to in this post, the drill that was being conducted by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on 7/7 please see here.
"there could have been had [sic] a power surge which could have had quite catastrophic casualty levels.
We have always been aware of that on the Underground."


Source
: Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone
March 1st 2006 [PDF source]




Peter Power of Visor Consultants has responded to a large number of emails asking questions that have arisen as a result of his announcement that he was conducting an anti-terror exercise of over 1,000 people in Central London at the time of the Underground disaster.

All text quoted below is taken, verbatim and in published order, from Peter Power's response to enquiries about the events of that day. Analysis is that of The Antagonist:
"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:"

The Antagonist has no idea if any of those comments regarding analysis of strange coincidences on July 7 relates to The Antagonist's own humble musings on the subject but, either way, rather than naive / ignorant / hostile, The Antagonist counters with curious / questioning / seeking some semblance of explanation for the bizarre turn of events that day, which included a diverted bus that happened to go bang outside the offices of the organisation who allegedly organised the covert training scenario with Peter Power. [Note the use of the word, 'allegedly'. Never let it be said that The Antagonist carelessly bandies about unsubstantiated accusations like the rest of the world's media.]

The Antagonist doesn't believe this curiosity is entirely unreasonable in light of all the events that occurred on that day.

Furthermore, The Antagonist is not of the belief that Peter Power, or his organisation, were somehow involved in a conspiracy, or that any degree of prescience was revealed by his announcement of the exercise. Quite the contrary in fact.

The Antagonist is of the opinion that Peter Power's exercise only became intertwined in the story of the Underground disaster after Underground staff and management had the opportunity to witness first-hand the carnage caused by the power surge which MetroNet reported to passengers as causing the tube delays of that morning.
"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."

This raises more questions than it answers.

That phrase, 'at the same time'. Like it's being hammered home. 'Precisely' [Radio 5 interview], 'at the same time'. What are we to learn from this?

What were the 'walk through' scenarios' and how do they relate to what actually happened on the day?

Did the walkthroughs happen to include a demonstration of a bus exploding in front of the offices of Fortress GB, the people who allegedly (that word again) organised the training exercise with Visor Consultants?

This mention of the word 'confidentiality' has to be a nonsense given the events of the day and that those events are now the subject of a rather serious anti-terrorist enquiry that is now international in nature. Information can be revealed about what occurred without necessarily breaching the confidentiality of any parties involved. The latter in no way precludes the former.

The Antagonist also doesn't quite see how anything about what occurred on that day could be considered to be confidential, especially if it somehow involved 'over a 1,000 people' [original interview quote], and 'walkthroughs... 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."

Perhaps a 'hijacked' or otherwise 'diverted' bus demonstration where the bus explodes in front of the offices of the company that allegedly hired Visor Consultants to organise the exercise, and which, in keeping with the nature of a training exercise, left a large number of people standing on the top deck, looking otherwise unharmed by the effects of a traditional bomb?
"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 response:

(a) Everyone knows these rehearsals occur. As Power states they are even reported with some regularity. This tells us nothing new. Why bother mentioning it?

(b) Disconcerting, definitely. For one and all. Hence all the questions, Mr Power. See?
"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.

OK, so now the numbers have changed from the rather boastful 'over 1,000' to 'just a few managers'. This bears something of an equivalence to MetroNet's story change from a power surge to 'Osama and his boys did it!"

'Players' is an interesting term, in context.
"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"

No matter, perhaps The Times will continue with their rather brilliant line of 'Ten questions that need answering' about the day where The Antagonist has it on good authority that they cleverly included a few very pertinent questions inside a list of ten. Namely:

1. Why did MetroNet claim a power surge and then change their story so drastically?

2.Why did the timings on the day change so dramatically?

There are plenty of others. Feel free to add your own.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

good to see Mr Powers has been made to explain himself - even if it didn't really answer much ...

As far as question 1 (the story change about the power surge) - did a quick search on bbc (for, er, power surge) and it turned up:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4674469.stm> and:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4557129.stm>

so it *seems* that the first assumption of a power surge is pretty reasonable - they'd had one only 2 months ago with similar initial effects, so why not another? if something goes wrong it's normal to look for the obvious reason ...or failing that, "Islamic extremists"...

Anonymous said...

My TV remote control has gone missing. Only hours before it went missing I read your post. Immediately after reading your post I discovered that the dog was taking a second look at its dinner on the kitchen floor, a dinner which, mysteriously, it had eaten earlier in the evening.

Can it be mere co-incidence that these seemingly unrelated events occur after reading your post?

I think not. Dark forces are at work and make no mistake.

The Antagonist said...

Jon, thanks for the links to the stories on the BBC web site, especially the one reporting power surges in May that managed to close down ten stations. These two stories in conjunction with a few other facts are most telling indeed.

To assume that a power surge occurred on the Underground seems perfectly reasonable to me, if for no other reason than this is precisely what MetroNet told everyone had happened at the time. Further, the only assumption being made on this blog is that MetroNet were telling the truth when they issued the power surge statement, which isn't quite as far fetched as the media reports of what might have happened.

That a diverted Number 30 bus exploded in Tavistock Square an hour after the Underground incidents is an entirely separate issue.

As such, why the Number 30 was diverted from its usual course into Tavistock Square -- which coincidentally happens to be the home of Fortress GB, not terribly far from the headquarters of the British Transport Police -- where it exploded on the same day as Peter Power's long-planned 1,000 man security operation in which one of the events was very similar to real-time events, should be investigated entirely separately from what happened on the trains.

The second link is interesting for the way in which the BBC attempts to turn the original power surge/corporate manslaughter story into one of a terrorist attack.

From the 0850 entry of the BBC Tube Log:

"0850: First indications received by London Underground's Network Control Centre (NCC) of a problem on the network suggested a power supply problem affecting a large area as stations were reporting that some escalators had stopped and other station equipment was no longer working.

[Note: These symptoms of the power surge are exactly the same as those reported for the non-fatal power surge that occurred in May. The BBC's tube log continues:]

"The NCC immediately treated this as a power supply issue and took actions to resolve the issue. At this stage NCC believed that the problem could be resolved and power would be restored by 09:15.

What we now know is that the power surge occurred as a direct result of explosions knocking the power supply out at the three incident sites."


So, the original power surge story hasn't gone anywhere.

Instead, the power surge story is being attributed to explosions, rather than the other way around. The job now is to establish which came first, the power surge, or the explosions.

The only way to establish the order of events, without requiring the resources of the government and its security agencies, is to work with what little evidence is publicly available, so let's do just that and use the highly public account of a 7/7 survivor, that of Justin over at pfff.co.uk whose account supports the MetroNet power surge story:

"The train left the tracks... A series of explosions followed as if tube electric motor after motor was exploding. When the train came to a standstill.... the carriage was rapidly filling with smoke and the smell of burning motors."

Justin's survivor account suggests that the train was in a great deal of trouble significantly before any explosions occurred and after it had already been derailed.

Where does that leave the official story of events?

Stef said...

@bagged bear

How about answering some of the questions raised on this page...

julyseventh.co.uk/july-7-mind-the-gaps-part-1.html

rather than babbling on about dog's dinners and RC units?