The 4th Bomb
The Book That Shook MI5
MI5 Chief Cuts And Runs
Head of MI5, Elizabeth Manningham-Buller hurriedly announced her resignation yesterday, Friday 15th December 2006. It came in the same week that 7/7 bus passenger, bomb survivor and eye witness Daniel Obachike’s website the4thbomb.com saw an amazing 2000% leap in global traffic 2 weeks after its launch. According to The Daily Mail she jumped before MI5′s failings surrounding the events of 7:7 are made public in the new year.
What is so “hurried” about Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller’s annoucement of her retirement next April ?
She will then have held the office of Director General of the Security Service MI5 for just over four and a half years. The average period in office of her 12 previous post-World War 2 predecessors is five years, so how is this unusual ?
All the media reports claim that she had set her resignation date back in 2005, before the July attacks.
There is no question that the timing of the announcement, which was entirely within the control of the Government’s spin doctors, is suspicious, given the other “bad news” stories which have been spun this week.
What makes you think that the full story about any failings in MI5 etc. investigations and tracking of terrorist suspects, before the July 2005 attacks, is really due to be revealed next year ?
If the Sunday Times is to be believed, the front runner to replace Dame Eliza is Jonathan Evans, who is the deputy Director General specifically tasked with tracking Al Quaeda.
If there were mistakes and failings, he must surely share the blame, and could even be directly responsible for them.
If you’re trying to suggest Ms Manningham-Buller had no knowledge of the London attacks, that alone would make it a failure of the highest order requiring her immediate dismissal (but we all know what really happened.
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Even though she emptied her desk two weeks after The 4th Bomb launched in December, filling such a senior post takes time, hence the March/April departure, around the same time the government’s cabinet has a ‘reshuffle’ of persons not up to the job.
Good Riddance Elizabeth Manningham-Buller!