Posted on 08/01/2005 2:11:53 PM PDT by Lacey
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The FBI says a report about a possible terrorist threat at Tinker Air Force Base at Midwest City was not credible, but the agency isn't saying why.
A July 13th report said three people who appeared to be Middle Eastern were seen near Tinker looking through binoculars, taking photos and pointing what appeared to be a rocket launcher at an airplane flying over the base.
An early description of the incident wound up circulating among Air Force personnel and on the Internet.
FBI spokesman Gary Johnson says police were notified, but after a thorough investigation no credible threat was found. He says he can't disclose why the report was determined not credible.
Source: Associated Press
They probably read the FR evaluation which poked holes in the story. All you had to do was either be familiar with the area or be able to read a map to determine that whoever wrote the memo was clueless.
Isn't it funny? It took a couple Freepers about 5 minutes to discredit this bogus story. It takes the rest of the world a little longer to catch up.
Michelle Malkin completely discredited herself in her shrill hyberbole laden screed on this "threat". It was already widely discredited, and she published one of the most vile pieces of excrement I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
Douglas Hagmann disagrees at : Northeast Intelligence Network. What's up with all this apparent CYA and coverups in OKC?
They were probably locals watching the planes take off...lots of Mexican farm workers and Indians look "middle Eastern" from a distance...
However, about 2 years ago there were several reports of planes going into Tulsa or OKC either having to make a detour or something because of a threat...can't remember the details...anyone remember that?
It would be better if such a statement came from HQ - otherwise, it may indeed be CYA.
Read a thread or two concerning this and it wasn't convincingly disproved.
Get a map. Find Tinker. Find I-15. See if you think that the base is going to be attacked from there. The bozo who wrote the memo apparently thought that Oklahoma and Utah were the same place. (They both start with vowels and are both 'out west'). Probably written by someone who's never been west of the Hudson River.
This is the story that had Michelle Malkin are cranked up. I like her and usually agree with her, but like Ann Coulter, when she's wrong she does it in a spectacular way.
I haven't followed this closely. What are the reasons that people doubt this? Michelle wouldn't comment unless she had good sources. The NIN sounds believable to me.
KTOK Radio-Oklahoma City:
Air Force Took Seriously Man's Missile Claim
Monday, August 1, 2005 at 2:27pm
Documents show Tinker Air Force base security personnel thought a man's story of seeing three Middle Eastern looking men aiming a shoulder fired missile at a plane was credible, but an FBI spokesman says today that's no longer the case.
By Jerry Bohnen
When Doug Clayton Yeaman went to Tinker Air Force base officials last month with a story of seeing three Middle Eastern looking men aiming a shoulder fired rocket at an approaching military airplane, they took him seriously. The FBI said today, however, that they unable to give credibility to the report.
Military documents obtained by KTOK News reveal Air Force investigators thought his story was 'credible' the day it was filed. Yeaman went to them the morning of July 13th. A so-called TALON report identified the location as 13003 SE 119th street and the Air Base Detachment 114 did the investigation. The documents revealed a day after the incident, the Air Force considered the matter to be 'Open/Unresolved'.
Item eleven of the report described Yeaman as a 'one time source. It read: "Credibility: Source is deemed credible however he has provided no information in the past."
The TALON report went on to describe in detail how Yeaman claimed to have seen the three men while he was visiting a storage shed where he keeps his business equipment. It was a few minutes before 10am on the 13th.
Initially Yeaman went to Oklahoma City police and as reported last week by KTOK News, the police report indicated he saw only two men. But the Air Force documents reveal he clarified things when he was interviewed by the FBI and AFOSI or Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
During the subsequent interviews, Yeaman said he saw three men. One was near the driver's side of the car and was using binoculars to observe the man. A second man was at the passenger's side of the car and was using a camera to take pictures. The third man was holding the weapon at chest level.
The report read: "YEAMAN described the weapon as a military green, tubular object, longer than a shotgun, two trigger grips on the front and rear and a diameter larger than YEAMAN's arm." When the men saw him, they fled in an older model four door GM Model car, a Buick or Oldsmobile.
The documents reveal the Air Force at that point took several actions, among them 'Coordinate with all base commanders, especially those in charge of flying wings.'
Another of the actions of the Tinker personnel was to notify the Air Force Office of Special Investigations Field Investigative Region 1 at Wright Patterson Air Force base in Ohio.
The national advisory was reportedly issued by U-S Army Major Mike Jackson of the
USNORTHCOM J34 Operations, AntiTerrorism/Force Protection.
When contacted today and told he was talking to a reporter, he hesitated and said the reporter should be talking to Public Affairs.
"That's about all I'm going to give you. You can talk to them," he added. While he looked up the Public Affairs telephone number, Major Jackson declined to give the geographic location of the phone number. "Thank you, have a nice day," he said shortly after providing the phone number.
Northeast Intelligence Network interviewed the man and posted this yesterday.
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/default.asp
What's your problem with Michelle? I like her.
Thank you so much for the link nancie... It also sounds scarily familiar to the TWA 800 witnesses who were "interviewed" by the FBI into not believing they saw a missile strike the plane.
I don't really know what the story is yet, but it happened on 7/13 and was reported by NEIN several days later. I also heard a radio report that it was confirmed a few days after that. I wish I knew the source, but I didn't think much about it other than I was glad it was confirmed. To my surprise the FBI denied it. Oklahoma City has had known middle eastern conections for years. What's going on? Are the American people being strung along again because of political nonsense? Isn't that the primary identified reason for 9/11?
The posts earlier seem pretty sure that it was not credible. But, I tend to trust Michelle.
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