August 1, 2006 Britain Begins Publicizing Terror Threat Level By ALAN COWELL http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/world/europe/01cnd-britain.html?_r=1&oref= slogin&pagewanted=print
LONDON, Aug. 1 British security services today publicized their assessment of the probability of a terror attack for the first time, telling Britons they faced a ³severe² threat, meaning that an attack was ³highly likely.² Under a new system introduced as part of an effort to make the intelligence services seem more open, the threat level appeared on several official Web sites, including http://www.intelligence.gov.uk, which is run by the British espionage and counterterrorism establishment, and http://www.mi5.gov.uk, the domestic security service Web site. The level of peril facing Britons has been contentious since last year, when the security services lowered the threat level assessment two months before the July 7 bombings in which four bombers killed 52 passengers on the London transport system. ³Threat levels are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack,² the intelligence.gov.uk website said in a posting. ³They are based on the assessment of a range of factors including current intelligence, recent events and what is known about terrorist intentions and capabilities. This information may well be incomplete and decisions about the appropriate security response are made with this in mind.² Unlike the previous secret grading system offering seven levels of threat, the new system has been simplified to five, starting with ³low,² meaning an attack is unlikely, to ³critical,² meaning an attack is expected imminently. Unlike American threat assessments, the British system is not color-coded. ³Severe² is the second-highest threat level, but the Web site did not say what kind of attack was likely. The assessment is roughly the same as it has been for a year. Britain¹s apparent vulnerability relates to assumptions among intelligence experts that its military presence in Iraq as America¹s most resolute ally has helped make it a target. ³In recent years, Iraq has become a dominant issue for a range of extremist groups and individuals in the UK and Europe,² The MI5 Web site said today. Assessing the threat from Al Qaeda, the Web site said: ³British and foreign nationals linked to or sympathetic with Al Qaeda are known to be present within the U.K.² It added: ³Some British residents have traveled to Iraq to join the insurgency against the country¹s government and multinational coalition forces. In the longer term, it is possible that they may later return to the U.K. and consider mounting attacks here.² The relative openness follows other measures by the intelligence elite to swap its traditional cloak and dagger for a web-and-wired modernity: last October, MI6, the secret intelligence service that once denied its own existence, launched its own Web site to advertise for recruits. But that has not satisfied legislators, at least those pre-occupied with human rights. A cross-party parliamentary panel known as the Joint Committee on Human Rights took umbrage when Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, refused to be questioned about recent anti-terror legislation. Her reticence seemed to revive legislators¹ concerns about the quality of British espionage after intelligence reports used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003 proved wrong. Today, the committee published a report calling for greater oversight of both intelligence-gathering and the uses to which intelligence is put. ³There is an increasingly urgent need to devise new mechanisms of independent accountability and oversight of both the security and intelligence agencies and the government¹s claims based on intelligence information,² the report said. _______________________________________________ Infowarrior mailing list [email protected] https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior
