BRITAIN was yesterday reeling
from two humiliating failures in its war on terror with a bungled disaster
response exercise and the discovery of a top secret counter-terrorism
dossier lying on a public road.
Scotland Yard has ordered an
inquiry into how its confidential blueprint on protecting London's
Heathrow airport from a terrorist attack was found abandoned beside a
service station near one of the airport's terminals.
The plans, found by an astonished motorist, would have given would-be
terrorists a step-by-step guide to mounting an attack on the world's
busiest airport.
They reveal confidential information about police measures including
patrol timetables, deployment of rooftop snipers and the use of dog units.
The dossier, completed on June 26, details security chiefs' fears about
a terrorist attack on Heathrow.
It names 62 sites from which hand-held surface-to-air missiles could be
launched against passenger jets landing and taking off and potential
escape routes for the attackers.
The businessman who found the report while filling up at Esso said: "I
saw the pages flapping at the roadside. They are so detailed they are
potential dynamite to a terrorist.
"I just could not believe what I was reading. This is the sort of
information terrorists dream about."
Scotland Yard said it would launch a full and thorough inquiry into the
blunder.
Emergency service units also were left red-faced after Britain's
biggest rescue operation for a mock chemical attack saw some "victims"
waiting more than four hours for treatment.
IN NEW YORK, America's chief spy yesterday said Iran was not complicit
in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks despite up to 10 of the 19
hijackers gaining safe passage on their way to the United States.
Acting CIA director John McLaughlin said he was not surprised by the
latest revelation that the hijackers entered Iran from Afghanistan
training camps then went to the US to carry out attacks.
"We've known that for some time," he said.
"Iran has been on the list of state sponsors for terrorism for many
years and we have ample evidence of people being able to move back and
forth across that terrain.
"We have no evidence that there is some sort of official sanction
between Iran and 9/11."
In a report due out on Thursday, the Independent Commission into
September 11 finds Tehran ordered its border guards not to stamp the
passports of known Saudi Arabian members of al-Qaida crossing its border.
The presence of Iranian stamps would have alerted US
Customs.
hpn