Former UK MI5 officer turned whistleblower David Shayler emerges at the Peace and Liberty demonstration in London on Saturday September 24 to question 9/11 and 7/7 evidence.
As up to 100,000 protestors marched through central London – Metropolitan Police figures estimated 10,000 – ex-MI5 officer David Shayler arrived at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park to talk about unanswered questions on 9/11, the London July 7 bombings and an alleged attempt on his life in 2002.
“I bought a second-hand car, checked the tyres and about two months later somebody pointed out the tyre was worn down in a single place, about the size of a coin,” said Shayler.
“It looked like somebody had hacked through to the actual fibres of the tyre. We had those tyres changed. About a week later I was driving along the M25, I was in the car by myself. A white unmarked van came up by the side of me and started travelling at the same speed. There was then an explosion and I went off the road.
“You can say that was a coincidence, you could say it was a warning, you could say it’s an attempt on my life, I don’t know. But I am inclined to think there are suspicious circumstances around that and the effect, of course, was to make me scared for a year to 18 months. I’m now over that.”
David Shayler, 39, erupted controversially into the public eye in August 1997, writing articles for the Daily Mail. He exposed mismanagement and ill practices in MI5 and MI6, the two main branches of the UK secret service.
Since then he has been constantly battling the British government. In 2002 he was sentenced to six months in prison for breaking the Official Secrets Act, but only served seven weeks, was released and electronically tagged.
At the Peace and liberty demonstration he signed copies of a new book, “Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers” written by his partner Annie Machon, also an ex-MI5 officer, which was released in May 2005.
Around him congregated large contingents of political pressure groups 911review.com, who are calling for the reopening of the 9/11 investigation, and julyseventh.co.uk, who want an investigation into the 7/7 bombings after Prime Minister Tony Blair refused an inquiry.
Two large black and white banners were displayed. One said, “9/11 Inside Job Frame Up”. The other read, “Who Really Bombed London?”
Protestors wore T-shirts saying “9/11 is a lie” with “Don’t Shoot Me” printed on the back, in reference to the UK shoot-to-kill policy that has already left one man dead, Brazilian-born Jean-Paul de Menezes, after police mistook him for a suicide bomber.
One protester with an Osama Bin Laden mask handed out copies of the controversial DVD Confronting the Evidence, which highlights questions still unanswered about the 9/11 attacks.
When asked if he believed there was a cover-up going on and whether he had any theories, Shayler said: “I don’t have to put forward a theory. It is up to them to convince us that this is what happened.
“I am asking intelligent questions, which is what we should all be doing in a democracy.
“In 9/11 there are many questions… where is the plane outside the Pentagon? How was the Pentagon, the most defended building in the world, hit by a civilian airliner when it should have been shot down automatically?
“Why wasn’t National Defence scrambled in the US… how did the steel melt in the north and south towers when airline fuel burns at 1700 degrees Fahrenheit and steel melts at 2700 degrees Fahrenheit? That can’t have happened.”
Although there was not as many as 9/11, Shayler believed questions needed to be raised about 7/7.
He referred to the evidence on Visor, a crisis management consultancy, that was involved in a mock terror attack exercise on the Underground system that very morning.
This was admitted on BBC Radio Five Live by Peter Power, the managing director of Visor, hours after the attacks.
“There was an exercise going on in 9/11,” said Shayler, “there was also an also an exercise going on in 7/7. On one occasion that might be a coincidence, but when it happens twice we’ve got to be suspicious.
“I’m not saying that provides any necessary direct evidence, but we have got to be suspicious about the fact that the exercise they were planning was very similar to the attacks that took place, the number of people involved, the timings to the actual attacks.”
Shayler added the widely reported information, originally exposed on Fox News, that suspected mastermind of the 7/7 bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, was an MI6 informant.
Several years earlier Aswat was detained by the FBI under suspicion of terrorism, but was released after MI6 said he was working for them.
He is currently detained in the UK, solely for extradition to the US, not for questioning on the 7/7 bombings.
“This raises a question of course that MI6 was somehow involved in 7/7,” said Shayler, “I’m not saying that’s the case… but again somebody in parliament must ask those questions of the intelligence services and get honest answers.”
He went on to state through his own experience in MI5 western intelligence services do indeed carry out terrorist attacks.
“I know that is the case,” he said, “because I was briefed on MI6 operations to fund Al Qaeda in 1996 to assassinate [Colonel] Gaddafi.
“Similarly I read documents in MI5 about how the Israelis had bombed their own embassy in London and then subsequently fitted-up two Palestinians for that attack.”
Further evidence, he said, of such activities included the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, where an “FBI agent or asset” appeared to have supplied the explosives for the bombing.
Shayler also quoted the 1962 Northwoods Project, seven months before the Bag of Pigs incident, where US Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up plans to blow up a phantom airliner over Cuba in order to get US public backing for an invasion of Cuba. President Kennedy refused to instigate the plans.
In order to confront these and other issues threatening western democracy from the inside, Shayler said organizations involved in protest have to unite.
“We have to realize we have a lot more in common than we disagree about, because otherwise we are always going to be ruled by this elite, this kind of shadow government. And that is wrong in a democracy.
“We are at the crux of this in Britain, because we are utterly dominated by our ties with America, and yet the mentality of the people of Britain is much closer to Europe. There is an ideological battle going on here.
“This is why we have to be part of things like Stop The War movement, to make sure the British people are on side with decency and democracy, and not on the side of dictatorship and tyranny.”
An editted video of the interview is available at: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/09/324478.html
