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| The Guardian view on fighting terror: maintain trust | The Guardian view on fighting terror: maintain trust |
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| The security agencies have marked their own homework in their investigations into failings behind the London and Manchester attacks. They may have got it right – but we can only take their word for it | |
| Wed 6 Dec 2017 18.49 GMT | |
| Last modified on Wed 6 Dec 2017 22.59 GMT | |
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| Good intelligence depends on making connections. So it is worth considering the developments that coincided with and overshadowed Tuesday’s admission, in the report from David Anderson QC into the Manchester and London terror attacks, that the intelligence agencies made mistakes, and might have been able to prevent the Manchester bomb. First came news that the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, had told cabinet that while four attacks had got through, nine more had been foiled since March; then later it emerged in a supposedly confidential briefing note from the Crown Prosecution Service that a man was due in court on charges relating to an assassination attempt on the prime minister. | Good intelligence depends on making connections. So it is worth considering the developments that coincided with and overshadowed Tuesday’s admission, in the report from David Anderson QC into the Manchester and London terror attacks, that the intelligence agencies made mistakes, and might have been able to prevent the Manchester bomb. First came news that the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, had told cabinet that while four attacks had got through, nine more had been foiled since March; then later it emerged in a supposedly confidential briefing note from the Crown Prosecution Service that a man was due in court on charges relating to an assassination attempt on the prime minister. |
| Meanwhile, parliament’s intelligence and security committee, which conducted its own thorough investigation into the terror attack when Private Lee Rigby was murdered, has only just been reconvened, nearly six months after the election. The committee chair, Dominic Grieve, said there was no point in going over the same territory as the internal investigation and instead his committee would concentrate on monitoring the progress of implementation of its 126 recommendations for operational improvement. | Meanwhile, parliament’s intelligence and security committee, which conducted its own thorough investigation into the terror attack when Private Lee Rigby was murdered, has only just been reconvened, nearly six months after the election. The committee chair, Dominic Grieve, said there was no point in going over the same territory as the internal investigation and instead his committee would concentrate on monitoring the progress of implementation of its 126 recommendations for operational improvement. |
| MI5 would deny any suggestion of choreography; yet it is unquestionably convenient that the itemising of failings that might have prevented the Manchester attack was dwarfed by the news that a detailed plan to murder Theresa May had been intercepted. And while Mr Anderson was closely involved in the intelligence services’ review of what went wrong, he was nonetheless marking the agencies’ homework rather than initiating his own inquiry. The upshot is that the security services will, to all intents and purposes, be the only judges of their failure to prevent the attacks in which 35 people died. | MI5 would deny any suggestion of choreography; yet it is unquestionably convenient that the itemising of failings that might have prevented the Manchester attack was dwarfed by the news that a detailed plan to murder Theresa May had been intercepted. And while Mr Anderson was closely involved in the intelligence services’ review of what went wrong, he was nonetheless marking the agencies’ homework rather than initiating his own inquiry. The upshot is that the security services will, to all intents and purposes, be the only judges of their failure to prevent the attacks in which 35 people died. |
| These are unprecedented times. The security threat – from extreme rightwing terrorists as well as jihadists – has risen sharply: there were more plots in the first half of 2017 than in all of 2016. The manner of radicalisation and recruitment can happen at a speed that makes it extremely hard to detect, and the weapons involved – vans, cars, household knives – are easily acquired. It is no comfort to those who lost loved ones in the attacks, but to die in such circumstances remains highly unlikely. The MI5 chief has some defence. | These are unprecedented times. The security threat – from extreme rightwing terrorists as well as jihadists – has risen sharply: there were more plots in the first half of 2017 than in all of 2016. The manner of radicalisation and recruitment can happen at a speed that makes it extremely hard to detect, and the weapons involved – vans, cars, household knives – are easily acquired. It is no comfort to those who lost loved ones in the attacks, but to die in such circumstances remains highly unlikely. The MI5 chief has some defence. |
| But two things emerge. Once again, it is clear that for all the extensive new powers that the security services have acquired, when the “pause points” – the moments when a different decision might have meant a different outcome – are examined, the failure is human. In an echo of the killing of Lee Rigby, when a decision to increase surveillance was delayed, it emerges that the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, might also have been subject to greater surveillance, but the meeting to decide was scheduled for the week after he exploded his bomb. Secondly, while there are pledges of greater efficiency and better data-sharing beyond security agencies, there is also talk of a “greater role” for MI5 in combatting “domestic extremism” beyond Islamist terrorism. After the extent of unlicensed snooping exposed in the Snowden files, a new era of openness was promised. The handling of Tuesday’s reports risks undermining rather than strengthening confidence that the promise will be kept. | But two things emerge. Once again, it is clear that for all the extensive new powers that the security services have acquired, when the “pause points” – the moments when a different decision might have meant a different outcome – are examined, the failure is human. In an echo of the killing of Lee Rigby, when a decision to increase surveillance was delayed, it emerges that the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, might also have been subject to greater surveillance, but the meeting to decide was scheduled for the week after he exploded his bomb. Secondly, while there are pledges of greater efficiency and better data-sharing beyond security agencies, there is also talk of a “greater role” for MI5 in combatting “domestic extremism” beyond Islamist terrorism. After the extent of unlicensed snooping exposed in the Snowden files, a new era of openness was promised. The handling of Tuesday’s reports risks undermining rather than strengthening confidence that the promise will be kept. |
| Manchester Arena attack | |
| Opinion | |
| Manchester | |
| London Bridge attack | |
| Westminster attack | |
| Theresa May | |
| MI5 | |
| editorials | |
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