Former Head of MI5: 7/7, Putin, and Al-Qaeda (Eliza Manningham-Buller)

0:03Gordon:For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremphaya, proper training is required.

0:43Gordon:Tremphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimphiaradio.com.

1:21Gordon:This episode is brought to you by Tradecraft Travel, a travel agency building custom espionage history tours led by retired senior CIA officers, including past guest of the show, friend of the pod, Sean Seifer, who we have with us today. Thanks, David. I'm thrilled to return to the historic sites and hidden backstreets of four great spy cities, Berlin, Leipzig, Prague, and Vienna. We're going to explore how intelligence helped shape the modern world. And along the way, we'll uncover the stories of spies who didn't simply passed through these cities, but built lives and raised families there. And some of those spies even betrayed their countries there.

2:01Gordon:Well, if you want something a little closer to home, join the London-based War Rooms and Walk-Ins Tour in September of 2027, or reach out and they will build something specified to your interests. In partnership with Kensington Tours, for more information, go to tradecrafttravel.com slash classified. Hey parents, how do you make smarter choices for your kids' college today? That's where Sally can help. With Sally, you can find scholarships, funding options, tools, and guidance all in one place. And if you need a loan, Sally has options for different families and different situations. College is only worth it if you do it right.

2:43So don't just help your kid go. Help them go smarter. sally.com slash go parents.

2:58Gordon:Hello, listeners. We've got something very exciting for you today that we are absolutely thrilled about. What you're about to hear is an extract from this week's bonus episode, which is an interview that we conducted with Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5, in which, among many other fascinating topics, she discusses her face-to-face meeting with none other than Vladimir Putin in the immediate aftermath of the 7-7 bombings and the outrageous way that he behaved in some of the meetings afterward. Now, every week, our members get exclusive access to bonus episodes just like this. So far, we've had interviews with someone on the team who hunted bin Laden when Iran-Israel was all over the news.

3:37Gordon:We spoke to a former CIA officer who worked basically just on the Iran target. We've done episodes where we answer your questions, done film reviews, including on Zero Dark Thirty, done a live stream. And coming up, we've got interviews with two former, two former directors of the CIA. Members also get access to discounted book lists, special prize draws, early access to episodes, ad-free listening, and a whole lot more. So here's our interview with Eliza. If you want to hear the full episode, just sign up at therestisclassified.com. One of the things mentioned before we start recording is that you actually met Vladimir Putin around this time, because he'd been in Scotland, hadn't he, for the G8 summit with the Prime Minister at Glen Eagles, which this attack might have been timed for that summit.

4:19It's one of the possibilities, isn't it? But then you met him shortly afterwards, is that right? Yes. He was still in London and he came to Cobra. And the senior person in the Met who was dealing with this and I gave him a briefing on the state of the investigation, which was at that stage pretty preliminary. And he was clearly hostile to me and said something like, it's the duty of people like you to stand between the terrorist and their victim and you failed. So it wasn't a very successful meeting. What did you say back? I suppose it's hard to argue back. I was being very polite. Is that the only time you met him?

4:58Yes. What was your impression of him? Rather sinister looking eyes. Yeah. And I guess it wasn't that long after that, that he killed Alexander Litvinenko. It was within a year. And I can't remember which year it was. He said that the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union, which is sort of breathtaking common when you think about it. Yeah. But it's amazing, isn't it? A year after basically coming down, talking to the prime minister, meeting you in a Cobra, he's ordering polonium attack on the streets of London or involved in it. So I always assume, I have no evidence of this, that it was such a risky thing to do in some respects, but I think they must have done it somewhere else and it not been noticed so that they could say, it's safe to do this in London, we've done it somewhere else.

5:43I don't know that, but I've often wondered that because otherwise it's quite a dangerous thing to do. There have been rumours that other people in Europe or even in Russia died with symptoms similar to Litvinenko. So the assumption is that they thought they could do it without it being traced. I think so.

5:59Gordon:We also spent some time on the pod talking about 21-7, the couple of weeks after 7-7, this other attempt using very similar explosive devices. We talked about it this way as maybe inside MI5 potentially being more of a shock in some ways, maybe a sense of, well, we didn't have the intelligence to prevent 7-7, but maybe we should have been able to prevent 21-7. I'm curious for your thoughts on how it felt and whether it was maybe worse in some ways. Well, first of all, you always know you'll never prevent everything. I think the number that are prevented where it's been made public vastly outweighs those which are not.

6:39My recollection of 21-7 was a feeling of gloom. Nobody died. There was none of the tragedy of 7-7. But I do recall feeling that if this happened every two weeks, we would be really stretched to deal with it. Of course, all the perpetrators were eventually arrested and went to prison. So to that extent, it was a successful operation. Even from the terrorist point of view, the fact that the detonators didn't work was fortunate. But it must have been a thought inside MI5, what if this is going to happen every two weeks? And we were quite relieved when two weeks later in August, the date passed without anything happening.

7:27Eventually, it does look like there is a link back to Pakistan and to Al-Qaeda in both of those plots, but that took some time to become clear. I think that was after I retired that came. Al-Qaeda is an inspiration. It doesn't have to direct things. I mean, the fact that Mohammed Sadiq Khan went back to Afghanistan, clearly there was some connection there. But we had plenty of plots which were inspired by the narrative which Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were promoting. And if they can self-start, they didn't need to be directed. And I think you've spoken previously that you think the Iraq war did contribute to that radicalization and that you'd said that before the war as well, I think, at MI5.

8:07I think that before the war, the JRC had warned the government, the Joint Intelligence Committee, that there'd be a likely increase in terrorism. It doesn't follow that because there might be an increase in terrorism, it's necessarily wrong to do what you're planning to do. But we know that it was a contributor because of the video wills we recovered, including the following year of the airline's plot, Operation Avert, where people particularly instanced this. And yes, it was a contributor. Yeah. Because it was politically difficult at the time, I think, for government to acknowledge that. Except that I would point out that in 2006, I made a speech where I said this with the approval of the government.

8:51Because as you know, public servants don't make public speeches without the approval of the government. It would be chaotic. Was that that one in London at Queen Mary's? Yes. Yes. I remember being there for that one a long time ago. So, I mean, as we kind of, I guess, come to the end of this section on 2005, how much do you think it changed MI5? I mean, what was the legacy of the attacks for it as an organisation? I'm not sure legacy is the right word because throughout its history, any organization is affected by what it has to deal with. And when I joined the organization, height of the Cold War, the main preoccupation was what the KGB and the Warsaw Pact allies were doing.

9:31And then preoccupation became terrorism and it moves on. We were, as I mentioned, already in the middle of a big expansion as a result of 9-11. And I believe the organization is self-critical and constantly trying to get better at what it does. And so I think one of the implications and results of 7-7 is this, how can we get better? How can we give government greater confidence of covering more of the problem? How can we maximize the chances of preventing this happening again? How can we gear up? But anybody who's involved in intelligence knows that there's no such thing as 100 % security. And it's deeply disappointing when this sort of thing happens, more than disappointing, it's appalling.

10:23But you know that there could be another attack next week, which has not been seen, has not been anticipated. And so the imperative to continue to try and improve, to adapt to the threat, to adapt to new technology, to widespread encryption, all these things are challenges.

10:44Gordon:Thanks for listening. To hear the full episode, just sign up at therestisclassified.com.