Reports Fault Intelligence for London Blasts - New York Times

Reports Fault Intelligence for London Blasts - New York Times:

Crucially, one of the reports said Britain's MI5 domestic security service had 'come across' two of the bombers — Mohamed Siddique Khan and Shazad Tanweer — 'on the peripheries of other investigations' before the attacks but there was 'no appreciation of their subsequent significance.'

But, despite those leads, domestic security personnel were diverted to ''other more pressing priorities at the time.' The two bombers were also said to have visited Pakistan where 'it is assessed as likely that they had some contact with Al Qaeda figures.' But the report discounted earlier reports that a 'mastermind' had left Britain days before the attacks.

So, like the FBI and CIA here, British intelligence had some clues about the attacks before they happened but couldn't connect the dots. Isn't that always the way of it? The dot-connectors don't get the information because they're the ones being kept out of the loop by the nearsighted bureaucrats who only think of their own asses and how to cover them.