Was it "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale"?

Or was it political cynicism on a scale we really shouldn't have to try to imagine?  "It" being the Big Heathrow Terror Plot.  You know, the one we first heard about a week ago about this time?  The one where Britain arrested a bunch of Muslims but still apparently not one of them has been charged yet with an actual crime?  (The quote in the title is from Scotland Yard's announcement of the alleged plot.) 

Some people are beginning to wonder.  No, that's not like "some say" they way Bush and FOX News always use to introduce points that probably no one but them is actually saying.  James Galbraith for one in Groundhog Day Nation Online 08/16/06:

From all official statements so far, we are led to believe that August 10 was a highly developed, far-advanced conspiracy, under surveillance for some time, which could have been put into action within just a few days.  And perhaps 8/10 really was the biggest thing since 9/11.  But then again, perhaps it wasn't.  We don't know yet.  And it's not too early to ask the questions on which final judgment must depend.

Well, then. Here is a checklist of some things we should shortly be hearing about. Bombs. Chemicals. Detonators. Labs. A testing ground. Airline tickets. Passports. Witnesses. Suspicious neighbors. Suspicious parents. Suspicious friends. Threats. Confessions. Let me spell this out: By definition, you cannot bomb an aircraft unless you have a bomb. In this case, we are told that there were no bombs; rather, the conspirators planned to bring on board the makings of a bomb: chemicals and a detonator. These would be mixed on board.

Exactly what the chemicals were remains unclear. Nitroglycerin has been suggested, but it's too likely to go off on the way to the airport. TATP, made of acetone and peroxide, has been suggested, but there are two problems. One is that the peroxide required is highly concentrated--it's not the 3 percent solution from the drugstore. The other is that acetone is highly volatile. As anyone who flies knows, you can't open a bottle of nail polish remover on an airplane without everyone within twenty feet knowing at once. It's possible to imagine one truly dedicated and competent bomber pulling this off. But it is impossible to imagine twenty-four untrained people between the ages of 17 and 35 all getting away with the same trick at once.

Lack of terrorist professionalism doesn't mean that they weren't serious.  Mohammad Atta and the 9/11 hijackers - none of whom were Iraqi or Iranian, I just wanted to mention - were super-spies themselves.  They did some things that the CIA black-ops types would not consider good "trade craft", like being seen in public together soon before the deadline for the attack.

As Galbraith patiently spells out, there was a lot that seems to have been missing in this alleged plot to commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale".   Like airline tickets for the perpetrators-to-be.  Or passports, which are required to board those overseas flights that were supposedly targeted.

He's being cautious.  But he's also right to be alert.  Even suspicious.  Remember those WMDs we went to war to get rid of in Iraq?  He concludes:

In short: Could this case blow up? Could it turn out to have been an overreaction, a mistake--or even a hoax? Yes, it could, and it wouldn't be the first one, either. I'm not saying it will, necessarily. I'm not accusing the British authorities of bad faith. I'm not suggesting the plot was faked - at least, not by them. But dodgy informants and jumpy politicians are an explosive mixture, easily detonated under pressure. Everyone knows that.