Fucksake, mate. Let me quote it for you. Again.
"In the frenzy of linking, cross linking and careless speculation, however, it appears
most self-publishers - and Al Jazeera - failed to contact Visor to corroborate their claims. In fact, the 'exercises' he spoke of on Five Live were carried out purely 'on paper', or at least PowerPoint, by a small group of seven or eight executives (Power remains tight-lipped about the client) seeking to examine the impact on corporate decision-making of a potential crisis situation. As Fintan Dunne, editor of
BreakForNews.com points out, 'these types of private-sector "risk management" drills never use field staff.
Neither do [such] low-level corporate drills have active involvement of police or other security forces.' The exercise, therefore, was 'in no way comparable to U.S. drills and wargames on 9/11 - which were being run by active-duty security forces in the U.S. military, federal agencies, the FAA and various emergency services.'
As Power explained, the London bombing scenario was in fact one of three explored: another looked at the disruption that might be caused by unruly anti-globalisation demonstrators. In no case was there any real mobilisation of physical or human resources, which makes the case for 'planned' intelligence alibi look awfully flimsy, if not downright silly.
In the light of a brief interview with Power, the 'unbelievable' coincidence of events suddenly seems entirely comprehensible: the train stations targeted, after all, were all in central London -- any planner would pick these amongst a list of possible targets.
Indeed, in developing the London bombing scenario used in this exercise, Power's consultancy drew on the sort of scenario already explored in
Osiris 2, a much-publicised major exercise initiated in the City of London to simulate a poison gas attack on the underground. Power further utilised his experience of taking part in Panorama's programme
'London Under Attack', another timely simulation.
And the date? That is indeed coincidence -- but an unbelievable one?
'Every week across the UK there are probably about hundred exercises, tests and simulations going on to get crisis teams familiar with their roles,' Power insists. 'We certainly do this regularly for many clients, the vast majority of them paper-based.'
Given this, the likelihood that one such simulation should fall on the day of an actual disaster is relatively high."