The Middle Eastern (Iraq) Connection to Oklahoma City (1995 Official Congressional Prior Warning)

Ever since the country was savagely attacked on Sept. 11, the FBI has relentlessly investigated flight schools, airports, universities, mosques, Middle Eastern charities and Muslim communities, looking for connections to al-Qaida or other jihadist groups.

The only stone, it seems, the bureau hasn't been willing to turn over is its own investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing. Presumably, that's because the 1995 terrorist attack was the exclusive work of homegrown extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Or was it?

Even though McVeigh went to his death denying any larger plot, serious questions remain unanswered. Did John Doe No. 2 ever exist? If so, who is he? If not, why did a second suspect initially emerge? What material or witnesses did the bureau use to create its three sketches of this alleged co-conspirator?

And then there's that troublesome FBI-authorized all-points bulletin issued just minutes after the truck bomb exploded. The alert sent members of Oklahoma City law enforcement searching for two Middle Eastern-looking men seen speeding away from the blast area in a brown Chevy pickup with tinted windows and a bug shield. The APB was abruptly cancelled several hours later without explanation.

The evidence that the Oklahoma City bombing involved a larger conspiracy, one with Middle Eastern connections, is compelling. And the trail begins with that mysterious pickup.

The week after the bombing, Jayna Davis, a veteran Oklahoma City reporter at KFOR-TV, got a tip, which began her investigation of a local property management company. Dr. Samir Khalil owns Samara Properties, and several former employees told Davis they had seen a pickup, matching the APB's description, at the office.

Davis discovered that Khalil, a Palestinian expatriate, had pled guilty in 1991 to several counts of insurance fraud and served eight months in a federal prison. Khalil's court papers indicated that the FBI investigated him for alleged connections to the Palestine Liberation Organization. But Khalil vehemently denied any PLO links. And he's never responded to my calls for comment.

Former Samara employees also told Davis that six months before the bombing, Khalil hired a group of Iraqi refugees to do painting and construction work. This group had allegedly fled Iraq to escape Saddam Hussein's regime. But a Samara employee told Davis he saw them cheering the terror attack and vowing to die in Saddam's service.

Davis then used surveillance camera to take pictures of these Iraqis. Eventually, she focused on one man, Hussain Alhussaini (also known as Al-Hussaini Hussain), who seemed to match the last FBI profile sketch and description of John Doe No. 2.

Over the next several months, she interviewed witnesses who said they saw McVeigh in the company of a Middle Eastern-looking man in the days and hours before the bombing. Using KFOR's photo line-up, they identified that individual as Alhussaini.

Perhaps the most intriguing statements she collected came from a host of staff members at a motel near downtown Oklahoma City. They reported seeing McVeigh with a number of Middle Eastern men at the site in the months preceding the bombing. Using KFOR's photos, those men were identified as Samara employees. Alhussaini was included in that group.

The motel witnesses also said they saw several of the Iraqis moving large barrels around in the back of an old white truck. The barrels, they alleged, emanated a strong smell of diesel fuel, one of the key ingredients used in the Oklahoma City bomb.

Davis also discovered that the mysterious brown Chevy pickup was impounded by the FBI on April 27, 1995. The pickup had been abandoned in an apartment building lot. According to the police report, the truck had been stripped of its license plate, inspection tag and all its vehicle identification numbers. It also was spray-painted yellow, but the original color was listed as brown. One resident at the complex told the FBI the driver was "clean-shaven, with an olive complexion, dark, wavy hair and broad shoulders," in his late 20s or early 30s and of Middle Eastern descent.

Davis also used a hidden camera to interview Lana Padilla, Terry Nichols' ex-wife, about Nichols' repeated trips to the Philippines, a hotbed for terrorist activity. "Tim bought Terry the first ticket for the Philippines," Padilla said. That trip occurred in 1989. His last visit came in November 1994.

Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi convicted for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to blow up U.S. airliners, operated out of Mindanao and Manila in the Philippines. Yousef received funding from Osama bin Laden. According to a motion filed by the McVeigh defense team, an American fitting Nichols' description met with Yousef in the Philippines in 1992 or 1993.

Davis eventually aired a number of pieces, taking care to disguise the Iraqi's identity. However, Alhussaini voluntarily stepped forward on June 15, 1995, to publicly claim that KFOR and Davis had labeled him as John Doe No. 2.

Alhussaini told Channel 9 in Oklahoma City he was living in fear. He claimed to be working at one of Khalil's properties when the bombing occurred. And he produced a handwritten time sheet as proof. The former Iraqi soldier also denied knowing McVeigh, and demanded a public apology from KFOR.

KFOR and Davis stood by their reports and countered with witnesses who contradicted Alhussaini's assertions, including the time sheet, which was labeled a fabrication. Alhussaini responded by filing a state civil libel suit. However, he withdrew the suit the day before a judge was scheduled to rule on KFOR's motion for summary judgment.

Meanwhile, Alhussaini's suit froze KFOR's coverage of the story. And Davis eventually quit after The New York Times bought the station and the investigation was stopped. The former reporter, who had collected 22 signed affidavits from the witnesses she interviewed, was called to testify before a state grand jury that examined the bombing in 1997. With the witnesses' permission, she gave the grand jury the affidavits.

Alhussaini then refiled his libel suit in federal court. Once again attorneys for KFOR and Davis filed for a dismissal. On Nov. 17, 1999, U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard granted their motion. In his ruling, Leonard stated that all the facts in Davis' report were either true or statements of opinion, and did not libel the plaintiff. Alhussaini then appealed the ruling. A hearing was held on Sept. 10; a decision is pending.

Alhussaini moved from Oklahoma City and was reportedly living in the Boston area. His lawyer declined to give me a phone number for his client.

According to 1997 medical records produced during his federal suit, Alhussaini said he had worked for a while at Boston's Logan Airport (where two of the planes were hijacked on Sept. 11). Quoting from those records, Alhussaini first told his psychiatrist that he had quit his airport job because, "If anything happens there, I will be a suspect." However, he later told his doctor that he "wanted to look for another job because he feels unsafe in the environment he works in, the airport, given the recent events involving his being previously suspected of involvement in the Oklahoma bombing."

Alhussaini's specific job at the airport was never identified. I contacted the Massachusetts Port Authority, which oversees Logan, to obtain dates of employment. A spokesperson said the agency would not release any information.

During the course of her investigation, Davis made contact with Yossef Bodansky, executive director of the 13-year-old Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Bodansky told Davis the task force had warned of an impending Islamic-sponsored terrorist attack in America's heartland back in 1995.

On Feb. 27, 1995, the task force had issued its first confidential warning to federal agencies that Islamic terrorists "may soon strike Washington D.C., specifically the Capitol and the White House." This confidential alert, which he said was quietly distributed to federal intelligence agencies and law enforcement, claimed the attacks were to begin after March 21, 1995.

"Striking inside the U.S. is presently a high priority for Iran," stated the warning. The alert also stated that upcoming terrorist strikes might be directed against "airports, airlines and telephone systems." In light of Sept. 11, it was a telling note.

On March 3, 1995, the task force issued an update. This "super-sensitive" alert stated there was a "greater likelihood the terrorists would strike at the heart of the U.S." Bodansky also told Davis that after the truck bombing, he reviewed intelligence data that confirmed, "Oklahoma City was on the list of potential targets."

Bodansky gave Davis copies of the task force's original alert and some of his confidential notes detailing the update and Oklahoma City's target status. His material notes an independent warning from Israeli intelligence a month before the bombing. The warning indicated a terrorist attack was impending and that "lilly whites" would be activated. Lilly whites, Bodansky writes, were people without any background or police records who would not be suspected members of a terrorist group.

Now President Bush has labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil." And hyperbole aside, details of Iran's alleged involvement in terrorism were included in last summer's U.S. Department of Justice indictment issued in connection with the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Bodansky told me that Iran and Iraq agreed to cooperate in terrorist operations against the West.

Over the past seven months, I reviewed all of Davis' documents, including the material she got from Bodansky. I also conducted my own follow-up interviews and found no holes in her investigation. As for Davis, she's tried twice to give her material to the FBI.

According to her attorney Tim McCoy, Department of Justice attorneys prosecuting Nichols rejected Davis' documents in 1997 because they didn't want more material to turn over to the defense. McCoy testified to this at a recent hearing in Nichols' state murder case.

In 1999, former FBI agent Dan Vogel accepted the material, but he said that higher-ups later rejected it because the agency questioned Davis' ownership rights.

I called the bureau but it declined to explain this strange turn of events. Perhaps if Vogel had been allowed to testify at a recent hearing in Nichols' Oklahoma murder trial, details would have been forthcoming. But the Justice Department refused to let him take the stand.

Is this a case of FBI incompetence, political interference or the Justice Department's desire not to complicate a seemingly open-and-shut case against McVeigh and Nichols? I don't know.

I do know that too many questions remain unanswered. And I wonder: If the FBI had followed through on these leads, might agents have turned up links to sleeper cells or the network that planned the Sept. 11 massacre?

In the FWIW dept., I just received this from reporter Patterson:

----- Original Message -----

From: <James.Patterson@indystar.com>

Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 4:23 PM

Subject: Re: OKCbombing

Dear Mr. XXX,

Here's the latest on the Oklahoma bombing. this article appeared in the
Indianapolis Star on Suday, Feb. 17:

   The Middle Eastern connection to Oklahoma City
   Ever since the country was savagely attacked on Sept. 11, the FBI has
relentlessly investigated flight schools, airports, universities, mosques,
Middle Eastern charities and Muslim communities, looking for connections to
al-Qaida or other jihadist groups.
   The only stone, it seems, the bureau hasn't been willing to turn over is
its own investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing. Presumably, that's
because the 1995 terrorist attack was the exclusive work of homegrown
extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Or was it?
   Even though McVeigh went to his death denying any larger plot, serious
questions remain unanswered. Did John Doe No. 2 ever exist? If so, who is
he? If not, why did a second suspect initially emerge? What material or
witnesses did the bureau use to create its three sketches of this alleged
co-conspirator?
   And then there's that troublesome FBI-authorized all-points bulletin
issued just minutes after the truck bomb exploded. The alert sent members
of Oklahoma City law enforcement searching for two Middle Eastern-looking
men seen speeding away from the blast area in a brown Chevy pickup with
tinted windows and a bug shield. The APB was abruptly cancelled several
hours later without explanation.
   The evidence that the Oklahoma City bombing involved a larger
conspiracy, one with Middle Eastern connections, is compelling. And the
trail begins with that mysterious pickup.
   The week after the bombing, Jayna Davis, a veteran Oklahoma City
reporter at KFOR-TV, got a tip, which began her investigation of a local
property management company. Dr. Samir Khalil owns Samara Properties, and
several former employees told Davis they had seen a pickup, matching the
APB's description, at the office.
   Davis discovered that Khalil, a Palestinian expatriate, had pled guilty
in 1991 to several counts of insurance fraud and served eight months in a
federal prison. Khalil's court papers indicated that the FBI investigated
him for alleged connections to the Palestine Liberation Organization. But
Khalil vehemently denied any PLO links. And he's never responded to my
calls for comment.
   Former Samara employees also told Davis that six months before the
bombing, Khalil hired a group of Iraqi refugees to do painting and
construction work. This group had allegedly fled Iraq to escape Saddam
Hussein's regime. But a Samara employee told Davis he saw them cheering the
terror attack and vowing to die in Saddam's service.
   Davis then used hidden cameras to take pictures of these Iraqis.
Eventually, she focused on one man, Hussain Alhussaini (also known as
Al-Hussaini Hussain), who seemed to match the last FBI profile sketch and
description of John Doe No. 2.
   Over the next several months, she interviewed witnesses who said they
saw McVeigh in the company of a Middle Eastern-looking man in the days and
hours before the bombing. Using KFOR's photo line-up, they identified that
individual as Alhussaini.
   Perhaps the most intriguing statements she collected came from a host of
staff members at a motel near downtown Oklahoma City. They reported seeing
McVeigh with a number of Middle Eastern men at the site in the months
preceding the bombing. Using KFOR's photos, those men were identified as
Samara employees. Alhussaini was included in that group.
   The motel witnesses also said they saw several of the Iraqis moving
large barrels around in the back of an old white truck. The barrels, they
alleged, emanated a strong smell of diesel fuel, one of the key ingredients
used in the Oklahoma City bomb.
   Davis also discovered that the mysterious brown Chevy pickup was
impounded by the FBI on April 27, 1995. The pickup had been abandoned in an
apartment building lot. According to the police report, the truck had been
stripped of its license plate, inspection tag and all its vehicle
identification numbers. It also was spray-painted yellow, but the original
color was listed as brown. One resident at the complex told the FBI the
driver was "clean-shaven, with an olive complexion, dark, wavy hair and
broad shoulders," in his late 20s or early 30s and of Middle Eastern
descent.
   Davis also used a hidden camera to interview Lana Padilla, Terry
Nichols' ex-wife, about Nichols' repeated trips to the Philippines, a
hotbed for terrorist activity. "Tim bought Terry the first ticket for the
Philippines," Padilla saidcheck attribution. That trip occurred in 1989.
Nichols, who eventually married a woman from Cebu City, repeatedly traveled
back and to the Philippines, a hotbed for terrorism activity. His last
visit came in November 1994.
   Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi convicted for masterminding the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing and a plot to blow up U.S. airliners, operated out of
Mindanao and Manila in the Philippines.check Yousef received funding from
Osama bin Laden. According to a motion filed by the McVeigh defense team,
an American fitting Nichols' description met with Yousef in the Philippines
in 1992 or 1993.
   Davis eventually aired a number of pieces, taking care to disguise the
Iraqi's identity. However, Alhussaini voluntarily stepped forward on June
15, 1995, to publicly claim that KFOR and Davis had fingered him as John
Doe No. 2.
   Alhussaini told Channel 9 in Oklahoma City he was living in fear. He
claimed to be working at one of Khalil's properties when the bombing
occurred. And he produced a handwritten time sheet as proof. The former
Iraqi soldier also denied knowing McVeigh, and demanded a public apology
from KFOR.
   KFOR and Davis stood by their reports and countered with witnesses who
contradicted Alhussaini's assertions, including the time sheet, which was
labeled a fabrication. Alhussaini responded by filing a state civil libel
suit. However, he withdrew the suit the day before a judge was scheduled to
rule on KFOR's motion for summary judgment.
   Meanwhile, Alhussaini's suit froze KFOR's coverage of the story. And
Davis eventually quit after The New York Times bought the station and the
investigation was stopped. The former reporter, who had collected 22 signed
affidavits from the witnesses she interviewed, was called to testify before
a state grand jury that examined the bombing in 1997. but returned no
indictments.---What grand jury???--- With the witnesses' permission, she
gave the grand jury the affidavits.
   Alhussaini then refiled his libel suit in federal court. Once again
attorneys for KFOR and Davis filed for a dismissal. On Nov. 17, 1999, U.S.
District Judge Tim Leonard granted their motion. In his ruling, Leonard
stated that all the facts in Davis' report were either true or statements
of opinion, and did not libel the plaintiff. Alhussaini then appealed the
ruling. A hearing was held on Sept. 10; a decision is pending.
   Alhussaini moved from Oklahoma Cityapproximate date and was reportedly
living in the Boston area. His lawyer declined to give me a phone number
for his client.
    According to 1997 medical records produced during his federal suit,
Alhussaini said he had worked for a while at Boston's Logan Airport (where
two of the planes were hijacked on Sept. 11). Quoting from those records,
Alhussaini first told his psychiatrist that he had quit his airport job
because, "If anything happens there, I will be a suspect." However, he
later told his doctor that he "wanted to look for another job because he
feels unsafe in the environment he works in, the airport, given the recent
events involving his being previously suspected of involvement in the
Oklahoma bombing."
   No explanation was ever given for his airport-related anxiety. But
Alhussaini's 1997 medical interviews came during the same time frame in
which the FBI says the planning for the Sept. 11 attacks was probably
underway.
   Alhussaini's specific job at the airport was never identified. I
contacted the Massachusetts Port Authority, which oversees Logan, to obtain
dates of employment. A spokesperson said the agency would not release any
information.
   During the course of her investigation, Davis made contact with Yossef
Bodansky, executive director of the 13-year-old Congressional Task Force on
Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Bodansky told Davis the task force
had warned of an impending Islamic-sponsored terrorist attack in America's
heartland back in 1995.
   On Feb. 27, 1995, the task force had issued its first confidential
warning to federal agencies that Islamic terrorists "may soon strike
Washington D.C., specifically the Capitol and the White House." This
confidential alert, which he said was quietly distributed to federal
intelligence agencies and law enforcement, claimed the attacks were to
begin after March 21, 1995.
    "Striking inside the U.S. is presently a high priority for Iran,"
stated the warning. The alert also stated that upcoming terrorist strikes
might be directed against "airports, airlines and telephone systems." In
light of Sept. 11, it was a telling note.
   On March 3, 1995, the task force issued an update. This
"super-sensitive" alert stated there was a "greater likelihood the
terrorists would strike at the heart of the U.S." Bodansky also told Davis
that after the truck bombing, he reviewed intelligence data that confirmed,
"Oklahoma City was on the list of potential targets."
   Bodansky gave Davis copies of the task force's original alert and some
of his confidential notes detailing the update and Oklahoma City's target
status. His material notes an independent warning from Israeli intelligence
a month before the bombing. The warning indicated a terrorist attack was
impending and that "lilly whites" would be activated. Lilly whites,
Bodansky writes, were people without any background or police records who
would not be suspected members of a terrorist group.
   Now President Bush has labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of
evil." And hyperbole aside, details of Iran's alleged involvement in
terrorism were included in last summer's U.S. Department of Justice
indictment issued in connection with the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi
Arabia. Moreover, Bodansky told me that Iran and Iraq agreed to cooperate
in terrorist operations against the West.
   Over the past seven months, I reviewed all of Davis' documents,
including the material she got from Bodansky. I also conducted my own
follow-up interviews and found no holes in her investigation. As for Davis,
she's tried twice to give her material to the FBI.
   According to her attorney Tim McCoy, Department of Justice attorneys
prosecuting Nichols rejected Davis' documents in 1997 because they didn't
want more material to turn over to the defense. McCoy testified to this at
a recent hearing in Nichols' state murder case.
   In 1999, former FBI agent Dan Vogel accepted the material, but he said
that higher-ups later rejected it because the agency questioned Davis'
ownership rights.
    Vogel declined to tell me whether he thought that decision was right. I
called the bureau but it declined to explain this strange turn of events.
Perhaps if Vogel had been allowed to testify at a recent hearing in
Nichols' Oklahoma murder trial, details would have been forthcoming. But
the Justice Department refused to let him take the stand.
   Is this a case of FBI incompetence, political interference or the
Justice Department's desire not to complicate a seemingly open-and-shut
case against McVeigh and Nichols? I don't know.
   I do know that too many questions remain unanswered. And I wonder: If
the FBI had followed through on these leads, might agents have turned up
links to sleeper cells or the network that planned the Sept. 11 massacre?
Crogan is a free-lance writer and investigative reporter based in Los
Angeles. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Time, the Los Angeles Times and
other publications. His e-mail address is jc1invrep@worldnet.att.net

> on 12/01/2001 07:15:26 PM

To:   <james.patterson@indystar.com>
cc:

Subject: OKCbombing

"According to some reliable witneses, Mcveigh was to have been on April 18, 1995 at the Grand Continental motel (now torn down) on I-35 a few miles south of downtown OKC. Witnesses also report seeing the Ryder truck and the Brown Chevy truck at the Plaza Inn motel the night before just down the street from the Continental and the morning of the bombing. The FBI showed up and confiscated the motels' records by 10 am on April 19, 1995 just an hour after the bombing!.

Alleged BATF and FBI informant Gary Hunt who was also an associate of McVeigh, was identified by witnesses at the Grand Continental (James Culwell) as having stayed at the Continental before and after the OKC bombing.

The owner of the Continental was an Iranian who had ties to ME terror groups in OKC (Hamas and the employer of the Iraqi AlHussaini) including Iranian men who worked down the street at Lucy's restarant at I-35 and SE 44th St."
40 posted on 2/17/02 2:20 PM Pacific by OKCSubmariner

Was FBI early arrival in Oklahoma City?

Oklahoma City blast linked to bin Laden - FBI refused to accept evidence of foreign terror connection

FBI refused 22 eyewitness testimonies - Evidence implicating Mideast connection created 'discovery problem'

FBI Suppresses Information About Middle Eastern Suspects In OKC Bombing Case

Officials had prior knowledge of bombing - McVeigh's contacts, activities known to ATF year in advance

Plans to raid conspirators dropped: ATF, FBI both had informants inside white-supremacist compound

'We knew this was going to happen' - 2 reserve deputies testify about Oklahoma City bombing

OKC Bombing Archive

The FBI? The CIA? The State Department? Hehehehe.

The FBI:

SENSITIVITY TRAINING

Before the questioning began in New Jersey, the FBI invited Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer active in the Muslim community, to conduct what he says was “a sensitivity training session” for federal agents and local police. “It was standing room only,” he recalls.

For example, agents learned to offer to remove their shoes when entering a Muslim home, something Erikenoglu bitterly recalls they refused to do in September. In the Detroit area, which has the country’s largest concentration of Arab-Americans, local federal prosecutor Jeffrey Collins “reached out to us and made all of this tolerable,” says Imad Hamad of the Midwest chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Collins decided that his office would send letters to the 640 names on the list in his jurisdiction and invite them to arrange the sessions at the FBI office or some neutral site of their choosing. Agents would make home visits only if people did not respond to the letters. His approach worked: of the letters that had the right addresses, Collins’s office received calls from “the vast majority, maybe even 90 percent,” says a lawyer familiar with the results. All but a handful agreed to be interviewed. “We told people they did not have to cooperate, but they pretty much all wanted to,” says Michael Steinberg of the American Civil Liberties Union in Detroit. “So we helped them.”

According to lawyers who sat in on 220 interviews across the country and nine people who were interviewed without lawyers, the sessions were polite, even solicitous. Gone were the grillings about prayer habits or votes cast. The agents asked the young immigrants 21 relatively benign questions from a script. Among the questions: Do you know anybody who might know anything about the terrorist attacks? Who acted strangely after the attacks? Who might advocate violence against the United States? Who might know how to make anthrax?
Source

The FBI and the Mad Bombers

The CIA:

While terrorists plotted, CIA officers were making "diversity quilts"
"From today's Wash Times editorial questioning the fitness of CIA chief George Tenet, this dismaying report on PC run riot in the agency that failed to protect us from the WTC atrocity:

"J. Michael Waller reports in this week's Insight Magazine that, 'A current CIA manager [says] that intelligence professionals are forced to attend sensitivity-training classes and do role-playing skits to conform to politically correct social themes.' Another CIAofficial complains of spending 'countless thousands of hours' making 'politically correct diversity quilts.' "

The Failure of U.S. Intelligence

The U.S. State Department:

Colin's Compassionate Condoms

THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

U.S. Encourages Immigration From Terror-Sponsor States

Human Events
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
The Week of October 1, 2001

The U.S. State Department runs a quota system designed to encourage immigration from all seven countries on the department’s own terrorist watch list.

The "Diversity Immigrant Visa Program" has the goal of issuing highly prized permanent residence visas to 50,000 foreign nationals from countries that send relatively few immigrants to the United States. These visas are specifically designed to increase the diversity of the U.S. immigrant pool and are in addition to the employment- and family-based permanent visas that are granted each year.

All seven of the nations listed by the State Department as "state sponsors of international terrorism"—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan—are included in the program. "This was a program created by Congress," said a State Department official, and "1995 was the first year we had it."

Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which requires the State Department to run the program, was sponsored by Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.) in 1990 and signed into law by President George Bush.

Countries that have sent 50,000 or more immigrants to the United States in the last five years, such as Britain, Canada, mainland China, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Pakistan, and the Philippines, are excluded from the program.

Applicants to the diversity program "still have to meet the same requirements as other applicants for permanent residence visas," a State Department official said. "Those requirements include copies of police records, interviews."

The application requirements, the official said, enable State to screen out dangerous people such as terrorists. "No one country may have more than 7% of the visas, but there is no minimum," she said. "No country is guaranteed to be able to have applicants approved under this program." Applicants enter a lottery each year, she said. Requirements include a high school diploma or a history of skilled work experience.

Thirteen million people filed applications for the 50,000 slots available next year. Of these, three million applications were ruled invalid. Of the ten million remaining, 1,703 people from Iran were awarded visas, 117 from Iraq, 67 from Syria, 26 from Libya, 757 from Cuba, none from North Korea, and 1,820 from Sudan.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R.-Colo.), chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, had already introduced legislation to abolish the program before the September 11 attacks. Now he says he will include its abolition in the immigration reform package he plans to introduce after the House has passed the President’s anti-terrorism package. He said he expects that it will be difficult to get this reform package to the House floor.

Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said he doubts that terrorists use the diversity immigrant visa program because obtaining permanent residence visas is such a long process that includes a more thorough background check than that involved in getting a temporary visa (for business, tourism, or study).

7,000 Men Recently Entered from Al Qaeda 'Watch' Countries - Between late October and December 1, the State Department granted nonimmigrant U.S. visas to at least 7,000 men from countries in which al Qaeda is active.

Let's repeat that. "After" the World Trade Center attack. "Between late October and December 1, the State Department granted nonimmigrant U.S. visas to at least 7,000 men from countries in which al Qaeda is active."

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) says it has no plans to round up the 250,000 to 300,000 illegal aliens that it admits are still in the country even though they have already been ordered deported by federal judges - October 22, 2001

Preparing for The Next Pearl Harbor Attack (re: Homeland Security)

POLICE STATE

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