Blair rules out independent 7/7 inquiry

LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected calls today for an independent inquiry into the 2005 London suicide bombings saying it would divert resources from the fight against terrorism.

Evidence emerged this week that MI5 had been tracking two of the 7/7 bombers before they murdered 52 people on the London transport system and that they were far from the unknown ''clean skins'' the security services claimed they had been.

Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer had however been judged of less importance than other suspected plotters being monitored by MI5 and had dropped out of sight.

Calls for an independent inquiry have been further fuelled by a BBC report this week that MI5 may have misled a committee of MPs who investigated the 7/7 bombings.

Blair has already asked the MPs of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to re-examine their report, which exonerated the MI5's handling of the investigation.

But pressed by Conservative Party leader David Cameron in parliament today, Blair said a separate inquiry ''will simply cause great anxiety and difficulty in the (security) service''.

''We won't get any more truth because the truth is there in the ISC. But what we will do is undermine support for our security services, and I am simply not prepared to do it.'' He added that people wanted another inquiry because they want to reach a different conclusion.

''That is understandable,'' he said, ''but I do not think it would be responsible for us ... to have a full independent further inquiry which will simply have the security service and police and others diverted from the task of fighting terrorism.'' The evidence that Khan and Tanweer had been on MI5's radar was able to be made public after five other British men were found guilty at the Old Bailey on Monday of conspiring to cause explosions with bombs made of fertiliser.

Then today, the BBC said MI5 had only shown the ISC a single picture of Khan whereas in fact six surveillance photos of the bombers existed.

MI5 apparently did not pass on the other five because they were taken by police officers, a security source told the BBC.

MI5 Director-General Jonathan Evans said this week the agency has ''never been complacent''.

Referring to 7/7, he said on the MI5 Web site: ''The sense of disappointment felt across the service at not being able to prevent the attack (despite our efforts to prevent all such atrocities) will always be with us.'' REUTERS RS RAI2110