[Infowarrior] - Britain Begins Publicizing Terror Threat Level

[Richard Forno]

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.