UK Liquid Bomb Plot - Where're The Bombs?

I've little doubt there was a plot, but I'm having serious doubts about conveniently-timed hype describing it as "the most serious" since 9/11...or worse, since WW2.

I'm not the only one.

From the London Times:

The police have found “items of interest”; The Times has reported that one discovery was a “martyrdom video” made by someone apparently preparing to be a suicide bomber.

Scotland Yard has refused to say if searches, which are taking place at 29 business and residential addresses, have uncovered components of potential explosive devices or evidence of the preparation of bombs.

Sources said, however, that there was not likely to be a repeat of scenes in Leeds last summer when streets were evacuated after the discovery of a bomb factory and a bathroom containing unstable homemade explosives. [Emphasis Mine - C]

In other words, they don't expect to find bombs, explosives or the recursor chemicals for them. Indeed, I've only been able, after hard searching, to find one story that says any explosive materials have been found. Eleven days ago during a prior "sneak and peak" raid...the authority for that information seems to be the usual "anonymous officials" and the headline and text seem to contradict each other on exactly which nationality those officials are. The CBS headline says British but the context of the report says American and not a single other media outlet has repeated the claim.

The Times has a list of outstanding questions:

The security alert
Why has the security alert been raised to the highest level ever seen in Britain if the main plotters have all been caught as the police and ministers claim?

The al-Qaeda link
Security experts have suggested a link to al-Qaeda and its confederates, but is there any evidence connecting the alleged British networks with Afghanistan?

The recruiters and the mastermind
How were the gang brought together? Who designed the plan? Is there a leader in Britain or Pakistan?

The plotters
How many were involved in the planned attacks? The police arrested 24 suspects but US sources have spoken of a network of up to 50.

The attack masterplan
How many attacks were being planned? Was the plot aimed at blowing up aircraft simultaneously or in waves? How would the bombers have co-ordinated such an ambitious strategy?

The devices
If suicide bombers were close to going on board aircraft, where are the explosive devices? So far the police have only said that interesting material has been found.

Counter-terrorist operations
Should we believe the claims from Scotland Yard and ministers after the Forest Gate operation last month, the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the collapse of the ricin trial? This week Britain’s most senior Asian officer revealed that between September 2001 and the end of 2004, 701 people were arrested and only 17 were convicted. Just three cases referred to Islamic extremism. [Again, emphasis is mine - C]

I've two other questions I would like to add.

The Bush Adninistration's leaks
All of the highly speculative and most scarey information about the plot is coming from leaks by U.S. official sources, many anonymous. I'm not kidding here, go read a half dozen reports and see for yourselves. Are the Bushites too loose-lipped to wage a war on terror competently? Or are they just making sh*t up to inflate the plot's fear-factor as a political manouver? A mixture of both? I guess we will find out when the trials start when we compare how much of the evidence agrees with those leaks.

The Blair Factor
If, as Defence Secretary John Reid said on Wednesday, "we are probably in the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of World War Two"...WTF is Prime Minister Tony Blair doing still on holiday in the Caribbean as the guest of a has-been Brit-pop singer who claims to be the world's oldest virgin?

I'm not the only one wondering about that last one. UK newspapers from the Left to the Right are asking the same thing. That Tony is still sunning himself abroad looks like being the end of the very last shred of his credibility.

Update 13th August Here's a version from a Brit newspaper that says UK security services had seen evidence of bomb-making weeks ago:

MI5 agents secretly infiltrated a bomb factory and found liquid explosives and detonators weeks before they foiled the plot to blow up America-bound passenger jets flying from British airports.

The covert raids on homes of key terror suspects were also used to plant bugs and gather hours of crucial evidence against them.

The carefully planned 'sneak and peek' operation involved members of the SAS and other surveillance specialists. It allowed the Security Service to eavesdrop on the suspected terrorists in the weeks before they were arrested.

The article is worded to appear as though the same UK source who said there were "a dozen terror plots being investigated by M15" is the source for this information, but it could be read as being ambiguous on that point.

It would be helpful if the British authorities would make a definitive statement that explosives had been found. That wouldn't prejudice any particular criminal case but would end speculation that this plot was more like Miami than 9/11. Let's see them say so if they have the evidence that would have gone boom.