Los Angeles Times 08/24/93 -- The United States has begun resettling in this country up to 4,000 Iraqi soldiers who surrendered during the Persian Gulf War, an effort that has drawn criticism from a coalition of congressmen who believe the prisoners are receiving special treatment never awarded returning American soldiers. The U.S. government is paying between $4,000 and $7,000 to relocate each of the enemy prisoners -- and in some cases their family members. They have been classified as refugees who would be harmed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if returned home.
Washington Post 08/25/93 -- Nearly 1,000 Iraqi soldiers captured by U.S. forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War have been resettled at public expense in cities across the United States. They are among nearly 3,000 Iraqi refugees -- the majority of them civilians -- who have been resettled in the United States from internment camps in Saudi Arabia...You may also remember that a disproportionate number of these Iraqis and their families were planted in Oklahoma and Florida.
...More than 80 members of Congress have asked President Clinton to end what they called the "potentially dangerous and unfair policy" of resettling captured Iraqi soldiers in the United States along with deserving civilian Iraqi refugees.
..."When we dropped those leaflets on the [Iraqi] Republican Guard, we did not include a plane ticket to Middle America and welfare entitlement benefits. When those guys realized the war was lost, they changed into civilian clothes and surrendered, and now we're rolling out the red carpet," Stearns (Rep, R-Fla.) added in a telephone interview from Ocala, Fla.
"Why did FBI agents, who were actually serving their country, arrest five members of the Iraqi Republican Guard involved in the Oklahoma City bombing only for their release to be ordered by Bill Clinton? Why were these Iraqis, who were initially trained in the US in the eighties, brought back in by George Bush senior in the early nineties?In more recent news:
Why did the FBI declare national security to prevent the release of the surveillance tapes that showed Iraqis crawling all over the OKC bomb scene?"
"Most Iraqi immigrants are believed to be opposed to Saddam Hussein, but security chiefs are worried about those who cannot be traced, The Washington Post reported on Monday. (January 27, 2003)"So as we attempt to go around this circle of history yet another time, let us remember how we got to where we are in the first place: On March 21, 2003, US House voted 392-11-22 that Iraq war is because of 9-11.
What triggered (Jayna) Davis's investigation was a report immediately after the Oklahoma explosion of Middle-Eastern looking men fleeing in a brown Chevrolet truck only minutes earlier. The FBI launched an international hunt for the men but later cancelled the search.
Within days McVeigh and Nichols were arrested, and the case seemed to be one of home-grown terrorists, motivated by a hatred for authority. But the case has always had loose ends. In particular, several witnesses in Oklahoma City that April morning saw a third conspirator with McVeigh. The elusive dark-haired suspect became known as "John Doe 2".
Early on, she (Davis) found that a brown Chevrolet truck almost identical to that once hunted by the FBI had been seen parked outside the offices of a local property management company several days before the bombing.
The owner was a Palestinian with a criminal record and suspected ties to the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Later she found that the man had hired a number of former Iraqi soldiers.
He had recruited them to carry out maintenance on his rental properties, but several were later discovered to be missing from work on the day of the bombing. Eyewitnesses have told Davis that they saw several of them celebrating later that day.
But what increasingly drew her attention was another Iraqi living in Oklahoma City, a restaurant worker called Hussain Hashem Al Hussaini, whose photograph was almost a perfect match to the official sketch of "John Doe 2".
Al Hussaini has a tattoo on his upper left arm, indicating he was once a member of Saddam's elite Republican Guard.
Since then, Davis has gathered hundreds of court records and the sworn testimony of two dozen witnesses. Several claimed to have seen a man fitting Al Hussaini's description drinking with McVeigh in a motel bar four days before the bombing.
Others positively identified former Iraqi soldiers in the company of McVeigh and Nichols. Two swore that they had seen Al Hussaini only a block from the Murrah building in the hours before the bombing.
Davis thinks he may have done so out of loyalty to his family, not wishing to go down in history as a traitor to his country.
But she has evidence that up to 12,000 Iraqis were allowed into America after the Gulf war. Some of these, she suspects, are using their status as refugees for cover. "They are here," she said. "And they are highly trained and motivated."
The renewed interest in Washington is clearly linked to America's case against Saddam as broker of world terror.
And there is more. Al Hussaini, who entered the US from a Saudi refugee camp, worked after the Oklahoma bomb as a cook at Boston's Logan Airport - from where the two hijacked aircraft that hit the World Trade Center took off.
There is another confirmed incident that suggests something more sinister. Two of the 11 September conspirators held a crucial meeting at a motel in Oklahoma City in August 2001. The motel's owner has since identified them as ringleader Mohammed Atta and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, who has known links with shoebomber Richard Reid.
The motel is unremarkable - except for one thing. It is where a number of Davis's witnesses are sure they saw McVeigh drinking and perhaps plotting with his Iraqi friends.
AND, get this, John Doe #2 was working at Logan International Airport on 9/11 - as a food handler which is how authorities think some box knives were smuggled aboard the planes.
AND, he told four psychiatrists that if anything happened at that airport, he'd be blamed.
I have my doubts that Berg was linked up to all this. However, as I read your old WP article, I seem to recall that the OKC bombing had a Philadelphia connection. Something about the son of a fireman, maybe the fire chief. A youg business major? Does anyone else remember him?
Great post! As a matter of fact that motel operator has come forward and I believe he is a witness now for the Nichols trial. I do not believe in coincidences especially when I found out that the FBI was looking for the computer of Moussouai in MN that Berg gave him along with setting up an email account.