By Rosetta Donnelly
A REPORT published yesterday claiming that British intelligence services could not have stopped the Real IRA attack on Omagh has been rejected by the families of the victims.
Sir Peter Gibson, Intelligence Services Commissioner, had been asked to investigate whether the vital intelligence was deliberately held back and he announced in his report that information on the bombers was shared with police, but could not have stopped the 1998 attack. But in typical government-investigating-government style he found nothing amiss. The commissioner said details from telephone intercepts were passed on 'promptly and fully' and in accordance with proper procedures.
A BBC Panorama programme had claimed that intelligence officers based at GCHQ had monitored the bombers' phone calls, but had failed or refused to pass information to the RUC.
Following the programme last September, Gordon Brown asked Mr Gibson to conduct a review of all intelligence material stemming from the bombing. Gibson dismissed the programme's claims that intelligence officers had tracked the movements of the bombers' car, saying technology was not advanced enough in 1998 to do that.
He said, "The portrayal in the Panorama programme of the tracking on a screen of the movement of two cars, a scout car, and a car carrying a bomb, by reference to two 'blobs' moving on a road map has no correspondence whatever with what intercepting agencies were able to do or did on 15 August 1998."
He added, "On the basis of evidence from an independent expert witness from a mobile communications service provider, I am satisfied that in 1998, it was neither possible to track mobile phones in real time nor to visualise the location and movement of mobile phones in the way that was shown in the Panorama programme", said the commissioner.
Michael Gallagher, Chairman Omagh Support and Self Help Group said he always felt a report should never be carried out by Mr Gibson as he was too close to government. He said he made contact with Mr Gibson as soon as the report was initiated asking him for his terms of reference and to meet with the families. "But we never got so much as an acknowledgement much less a meeting."
Mr Gallagher said it enraged him that the report questioned the credibility of the Panorama programme. "I have worked with John Ware (the journalist) for 10 years and I have found him be always accurate and methodical. He has uncovered more things about the bomb than the police ever did."
Mr Gallagher said he will be raising the matter with the Prime Minister, when the families meet him at Downing Street on February 11.
