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Posted on 08/05/2002 9:15:28 PM PDT by PA Engineer
oklahoma city bombing: startling evidence proves government cover-up
by Doug Cirignano (Cirignano@aol.com) - July 26, 2002
Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation Committee Claims Startling Evidence Proves Government Cover-Up
Sam Cohen is an explosives expert, who is retired after a 40 year career in nuclear weaponry. During World War II Cohen was assigned to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. In 1958, he was one of the principal designers of the neutron bomb. Cohen is one of the many people who have criticized the federal government's contention that Timothy McVeigh's 4,800 pound ammonium-nitrate (fertilizer-fuel oil) truck bomb was the sole cause of the destruction of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Cohen has said: "I believe that demolition charges were placed in the building at certain key concrete columns and this did the primary damage to the Murrah Federal Building. It would have been absolutely impossible and against the laws of nature for a truck full of fertilizer and fuel oil---no matter how much was used---to bring the building down."
Before the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon buildings, the Oklahoma City bombing was the worse act of domestic terrorism in the history of the United States.
On 11 June 2001, Timothy McVeigh was executed for the crime. To some, that brought closure to this horrific chapter of American history.
To others, it did not. Some of the family members of those who were killed in Oklahoma City have stated that they believe that one man couldn't have done the bombing, and that there is too much evidence that McVeigh had accomplices. These bereaved families feel the whole story behind the bombing hasn't been revealed, and they want anybody else who may have been behind the murders of their loved ones brought to justice. Federal Judge Richard Matsch, who presided over McVeigh's trial, has said, "There are many unanswered questions. It would be very disappointing to me if the law enforcement agencies of the United States government have quit looking for answers in this Oklahoma bombing tragedy."
For the most part, the media has accepted and promoted the government's version of the bombing: that McVeigh--with minor assistance from Terry Nichols--acted alone. The one-man, one-bomb scenario.
Some writers, though, have questioned these conclusions. Reporter James Ridgeway, writing in The Village Voice about a week before McVeigh was scheduled to be executed, brought up many unanswered questions. These included: Who was the dark-skinned John Doe #1 who people testified seeing McVeigh with on the morning of the bombing? How could McVeigh and Nichols have built a 4,800 pound ANFO bomb on the evening before the bombing--as the government claims--if bomb experts claim that much more time would have been needed to do that? Could the anti-government terrorist groups that McVeigh had connections to have collaborated in the atrocity? Gore Vidal's article in Vanity Fair (September 2001) was entitled The McVeigh Conspiracy. In the article, Vidal is extremely critical of the FBI, who, he shows, failed to investigate many promising leads that could have lead to the identity of McVeigh accomplices. The famous journalist-novelist feels that the McVeigh-Nichols scenario is unlikely and makes no sense. Vidal suggests and shows evidence that McVeigh could have been working with Arab terrorists, or anti-government terrorists, or even ("who knows?") government agents. He suggests that even the "grandest conspiracy theory of all" is a possibility--that McVeigh neither built nor detonated a bomb, and is a patsy. Vidal had been exchanging letters with McVeigh, and was one of the few people that McVeigh invited to witness his execution. Vidal is convinced that McVeigh confessed to something he didn't do alone--or didn't do at all--because McVeigh felt that his lawyer had "blown" the case, and he wanted to be executed as a martyr, a protester of government abuse, rather than face the prospect of living in a prison cell for fifty years with the threat of rape an everyday fear.
Charles Key was a Oklahoma state representative from 1986-1998, during which time he served on the Banking and Finance, Criminal Justice, and other committees. Mr. Key served as Republican Whip during part of his tenure. Soon after the Oklahoma City bombing, survivors and relatives of the victims of the bombing began contacting Key to complain about the manner in which the Federal Government was conducting the investigation. Within hours and days of the bombing, many suspicious facts were coming to light. So many broken-hearted families affected directly by the bombing had unanswered questions and implored Key, in his capacity as an elected official, to pursue further investigation into the case. This resulted in the formation of the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee (OBIC). The OBIC--which consists of Key and three other prominent Oklahoma citizens--was established in April 1997 to investigate matters that government agencies had refused to consider, and to submit information to the Oklahoma County Grand Jury which was impaneled in June 1997.
In the winter of 2001 the OBIC released its Final Report On The Bombing Of The Alfred P. Murrah Building April 19, 1995 . The report is extremely critical of the government and FBI. Citing government documents and the findings of their own investigators, the OBIC claims the government has engaged in a massive cover-up.
Some of the most intriguing information in the Final Report --and one of the main reasons that Key founded the OBIC--is that within a few weeks of the bombing, the most preeminent experts on explosives--Sam Cohen and others--were saying that the destruction of the Murrah Building could not possibly have come from an ANFO truck bomb, and that the bomb--or bombs--had to be inside the building. As one of these experts, Brigadier General (USAF, ret.) Benton Partin said, "It's an entirely different story if you had a bunch of demolition charges in the building in contradistinction to an ammonium-nitrate truck placed out in front of the building . . . It probably would have taken several people to do this. And it would have taken people with access. You have to remember that these federal buildings have guards on the gate and they have magnetometers and everything else. So it's not only how many people, but who had access . . . You just don't walk in off the street through security with explosives like this."
Somewhere between ten and fifteen explosives experts and professional engineers have written strongly worded opinions that the Murrah building had to have been destroyed by interior bombs and that the ANFO truck could not have done the damage. These experts included a NASA scientist and demolition experts who have worked in the field for thirty years. What is most eye-opening is that even a government report concluded that the ANFO truck bomb couldn't have possibly destroyed the Murrah building. In early 1997, Wright Laboratory at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida constructed a concrete, steel-reinforced structure that was similar to the Murrah Building, and then did a series of explosions to test bomb effects. The Air Force structure was not nearly as structurally as sound as the Murrah Building, and the bombs used against it were more powerful than a 4,800 pound ANFO bomb. Minimal damage was done to the structure. Afterwards, the Air Force released a 56-page report that was entitled Case Study Relating Blast Effects to the Events of April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma . The report, which included an extensive technical analysis that the Air Force commissioned from construction and demolition expert John Culberston, concluded that ". . . it is impossible to ascribe the damage that occurred on April 19, 1995 to a single truck bomb containing 4,800 lbs. of ANFO . . . It must be concluded that the damage at the Murrah Building is not the result of the truck bomb itself, but rather due to other factors such as locally placed charges within the building itself . . . The procedures used to cause the damage to the Murrah Building are therefore more involved and complex than simply parking a truck and leaving . . ." Six explosives experts strongly agreed with the report's findings.
Apparently, Elgin Air Force Base isn't the only government group that came to these conclusions. In his Vanity Fair article, Gore Vidal pointed out that Strategic Investment newsletter (20 March 1996) wrote: "A classified report prepared by two independent Pentagon experts has concluded that the destruction of the Federal building in Oklahoma City last April was caused by five separate bombs . . . Sources close to the study say Timothy McVeigh did play a role in the bombing but 'peripherally,' as a 'useful idiot.'"
Brigadier General (ret.) Partin has been the most vocal of the critics of the government's one-bomb, one-man scenario. During his thirty-one year Air Force career, General Partin's expertise was explosives. During that time, he designed warheads, "had a lot of experience in combat damage evaluation", was trained in all the pertinent military laboratories, and was one of the government's foremost--if not the foremost--experts on explosives. "When I first looked at the reports coming out of Oklahoma I knew that the truth was not coming out. The media was pretty much confused, or passing out disinformation, and I think some of the officials down there were passing out disinformation, and what was going on down there was totally at odds with what I had twenty-five years experience of knowing," General Partin has said. To Partin, the contention that the ANFO truck bomb did the damage to the Murrah Building is "absurd". Within a month of April 19, 1995, the General had prepared a technical analysis of the bombing. In the report, Partin made it clear that by the time the blast wave from the ANFO truck bomb had hit the building it would not have had anywhere near enough psi (pounds of pressure per square inch) to collapse the steel-reinforced concrete columns. (By the time the ANFO blast wave hit the columns it would have been yielding 25-375 psi; the yield strength of concrete is 3,500-5,000 psi.) The report also made it clear that larger, thicker columns further away from the truck bomb came down, while smaller columns much closer to the truck were undamaged. "You don't have to go any further than that to know that you had demolition charges on those larger columns. There's no other explanation for it . . . Unless you believe in magic," Partin said. General Partin examined hundreds of photos of the destroyed building, and his in depth report listed the many other reasons why he can see ?clearly, clearly?with a very high probability . . . with a high level of confidence" exactly where interior bombs were placed. Partin eventually delivered his analysis to all 535 senators and congressmen. In his cover letter to the politicians, he pleaded that the "Congress take steps to assure that evidence in Oklahoma City be evaluated by a collection of demolition experts from the private sector before the building is demolished." If experts had been able to examine the building closely, they could have reported definitively how the building was bombed. On 23 May 1995, though, just 34 days after the bombing, the Murrah Building was destroyed, and the rubble was buried in a landfill that is surrounded by a chain link fence and guarded by security personnel. "This is a classic cover-up of immense proportions," the General said.
Five professional engineers and demolition experts firmly concurred with Partin's analysis. The testimony of these explosives experts is one of the main reasons that the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee feels that the Congress should impanel a committee to reinvestigate the bombing. (Currently, Congressman Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, is strongly considering reinvestigating the bombing.) It is by no means, however, the only reason. The OBIC's Final Report is five hundred and fifty meticulously documented pages.
Disinformation: Why was the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee formed?
Charles Key : We formed the committee to look into the inconsistencies and problems with the federal government's investigation into the Oklahoma City Bombing that were observed beginning with the date of the bombing.
Disinformation: How many hours of work went into investigating the bombing before you published your final report?
Charles Key: The only way I can try to answer that is in terms of years. From 1995 through 2001. A good six years.
Disinformation: You've said that you have sufficient proof that the Federal Government did have prior knowledge the bombing of the Murrah building could very well take place. What's the strongest evidence that indicates prior knowledge?
Charles Key : Well, I don't know if I would pick one, because there's a number of them--facts that indicate prior knowledge. There's several. And it includes the informant Carol Howe, and the work she did for the ATF. ATF field reports that show the information that she gathered and imparted to her handlers, ATF agents. She told them anti-government terrorist groups were planning to bomb a federal building. Also, the information that Cary Gagan, another informant, gave to the Justice Department office in Denver about 5 or 6 months before the Oklahoma City Bombing. Gagan said he was approached by Arab-looking individuals who offered him money to help in a bombing plot. In March 1995 Gagan had a meeting with these people where they examined drawings of the Murrah Building. Three times Gagan was sent by the group to Oklahoma City to case the building. He said he reported this to Justice Department officials in Denver.
Disinformation: This informant Carol Howe, who had infiltrated the anti-government groups, she specified the Murrah Building, too, right?
Charles Key: Yes, that they had actually cased it out, and gone to Oklahoma City and cased that specific building out.
Disinformation: The fact that people saw bomb squads at the Murrah Building a few hours before the bombing would seem to indicate that somebody knew something was going on.
Charles Key : Yes, that's another good proof. Then you have, I mean there is this long list. The Oklahoma City Fire Department was alerted by the FBI ahead of time to be in a special state of alert. Harvey Weathers, the assistant chief, told that to USA Today on the day of the bombing. You also have this judge, federal judge Wayne Alley, who still sits here in Oklahoma City, who gave an interview to his hometown newspaper, The Portland Oregonian.
Disinformation: In that interview Judge Alley said, "I was warned (of the bombing) by people who ought to know."
Charles Key : Yes. And there's other reasons to believe the FBI and other government officials had prior knowledge. Some of this information, Stephen Jones, McVeigh's lawyer, tried to get introduced into the trial, and he couldn't. Judge Matsch wouldn't allow it, like he disallowed so much important information . . . But, you know, after the bombing the ATF Director admitted that the ATF was "very concerned and tried to be more observant" about the specific date of April 19. If the anti-government groups were going to do something, it was feared they would do it on April 19 because that was the anniversary of Waco. And the ATF agents weren't in the building when it was bombed. We have people who told us that ATF agents said they were told the morning of the bombing to not go in that day. Now if someone told the ATF to stay out that day because--as it might seem--they feared something would happen, then why weren't the rest of the people in the building told to stay away?
Disinformation: Many survivors of the bombing stated that they felt the building shaking--for a good long time--before another explosion ripped out the front windows. That would certainly support the theory that more than one bomb caused the destruction.
Charles Key : Yes, many people feel that's very important information. All of the reports of people that were survivors of the bombing--people who were in the building--they talked about having enough time to discuss the shaking and the trembling of the building. Then having enough time to get under their desks. A lot of the survivors feel if they hadn't gotten under their desks then they would have been killed. Then once they were under their desks another explosion ripped out the windows, ripped out the front of the building. So these people are convinced that one bomb caused the building to start shaking, and then another bomb ripped off the front of the building. At least two bombs.
Disinformation: Seismographic equipment in two locations in and near Oklahoma City recorded the explosions. Dr. Raymon Brown, a highly respected geo-physicist from the Oklahoma Geophysical Society has stated that the most logical explanation of this seismographic information is that there was more than one bomb. Other experts have agreed with him.
Charles Key : Yes. Absolutely. We include all that information in our report. The seismographic graphs indicated at least two events, two explosions.
Disinformation: After the bombing, while the rescue attempts were going on, the Oklahoma TV News stations were reporting that the police and ATF officials were saying that there were more undetonated bombs found in the building. The TV newsmen kept reporting this for hours. Police logs confirmed undetonated bombs were found, and so did FEMA reports. Even Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, on the morning of the bombing, said, "The reports I have is that one device was deactivated, and apparently, there's another device." But since then the government has claimed that all these reports and sightings of other bombs were wrong. That there was only the one McVeigh truck bomb. Does that make sense? Do you believe that?
Charles Key : Yes, the information is just very strong, and to me it's too strong to be able to try to discount it. We have affidavits in our report from paramedics and other rescuers at the scene who say they heard law enforcement people stating there were other bombs found in the building. And then you had bomb experts who had time to drive to a TV station, and sit there, and talk about the un-detonated bombs they had, bombs that were found in the building. You know, it's just too much competent information that can't be reasoned away as mistakes.
Disinformation: In that same TV interview, Governor Keating, who is an ex-FBI agent, said, ". . . obviously, whatever did the damage to the Murrah Building was a tremendous, very sophisticated explosive device." But explosives experts have made it clear that an ANFO bomb is an extremely rudimentary bomb. If someone blew up the building by placing charges on different columns inside the buildings, then that would take a sophisticated knowledge of explosives, right?
Charles Key: Yes. Authorities have said that an ANFO bomb is a very simple, crude bomb.
Disinformation: What might be the most intriguing information you put out in your Final Report is that the most preeminent experts on explosives--people like Sam Cohen and General Partin--have said an ANFO truck bomb could not have possibly done the damage to the Murrah Building. You've said that the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee tried very hard to find an expert or authority who would say that an ANFO bomb could have done the damage, but you weren't able to, right?
Charles Key : That's true. Yes. We couldn't find anybody who would put their name, put their opinion in writing, that an ANFO truck bomb could have done this. If somebody wants to claim that it could have been done, then they need to put in writing, show how it could work, and give examples of that. And nobody I know of has been able to do that. Not even the witnesses the government used in the trial could do it. They didn't do it.
Disinformation: These experts have even entertained the notion that a larger bomb could have been in the truck, but they discount that. General Partin said, "I don't care what kind of bomb, or what size bomb you had in the truck. You wouldn't have gotten the type of damage you had there."
Charles Key: Yes.
Disinformation: Another thing explosives experts say is that if a truck bomb did this vast damage to the Murrah Building then a gigantic, enormous crater would have been left where the truck was parked. But there was no enormous crater left there.
Charles Key : Right. As a matter of fact the FBI--this is a real important point--the FBI intentionally inflated the size of the crater to about twice the size of what it actually was.
Disinformation: The government kept changing its story regarding the dimensions of the crater?
Charles Key : Yes. They started off saying it was 32 feet and then about a month later when FEMA put together this crew, American Society of Civil Engineers--they brought this crew to Oklahoma City, but the FBI wouldn't let them come to the site. They came to do this official report for FEMA and they wouldn't let them come too near the site, wouldn't let them look at the crater, or measure it. And then the FBI fed them the information, and the information they fed them at that time was--they said the crater was between 28 and 32 feet. Those were the figures they used at that time. And the real size of it was between 16 and 18 feet, maxium, depending at what angle you?re measuring it from.
Disinformation: Weren't photographs taken the morning of the bombing and the photos showed that there wasn't a large crater in front of the building?
Charles Key : Yes. We really researched that for a long time. We've looked at this very extensively and there was a crater, but it just was not anywhere near the size that the FBI claimed it was. And the pictures prove that beyond any doubt.
Disinformation: If it's so obvious that the truck bomb couldn't have done the damage in Oklahoma City, then why didn't Timothy McVeigh's lawyer bring this up? Or did he?
Charles Key : Well, that's a good question. You know, there's been a lot of speculation about that. Stephen Jones has done so much to try to bring out the truth about this case, so I think it's real hard for anybody to say that he had complicity in some way in trying to cover it up . . . One of the reasons might be that--simply--that they just missed this one. The lawyers just blew it.
Disinformation: It seems that if they brought in General Partin--he makes you see that there's no way the truck bomb could have done it--if McVeigh's lawyer had brought Partin in to testify, then it seems he could have gotten his client off.
Charles Key : They actually had him on the witness list. Why they didn't bring him in to actually use him is the question. But they actually had him on the witness list.
Disinformation: How could the lawyers have missed that? Some people have claimed that Stephen Jones has connections to some of the government agencies and officials who seem intent on a cover-up. The most preeminent experts have said that an ANFO truck bomb couldn't have done this. It's very strange that Jones didn't use that in the defense.
Charles Key : It is. It's . . . I don't know. I have some speculation about that, but if I talked about it, it would have to be off the record.
Disinformation: What do you make of Timothy McVeigh's confession? He supposedly said he bombed the building and he acted alone.
Charles Key : You're talking about that book that came out right before McVeigh was executed, written by those two reporters from New York . . . Well, first of all it's questionable what he really did say in those alleged interviews. One of those writers called General Partin and told him that he didn't participate in the interviews. Publicly, they've said that they both did the interviews?We can know some facts about the case, many facts about the case, without what McVeigh had to say. We know some things that he allegedly said in that book are not true. For instance, he said he was alone on the morning of the bombing, but we know that's false, because many people have testified to seeing McVeigh with a John Doe on the morning of the bombing. And there are other things there that we absolutely know are not true. So therefore that would bring in some other questions about the other things he said. The supposed confession, and everything else.
Disinformation: Do you think McVeigh was maybe taking blame for something he didn't do, or didn't do alone? Or maybe he never really confessed? Or maybe it was coerced, or something?
Charles Key : Yea, that's kind of where I would go. Maybe he was protecting some of the other participants, or maybe family members. Maybe he felt if he told who the other bombing participants were then he knew his family would be at threat from those other perpetrators.
Disinformation: You feel strongly that early on the government and FBI decided that McVeigh and Nichols acted alone, and after that the FBI refused to investigate any evidence that might suggest that there were more accomplices. But, in fact, many, many people saw McVeigh with many different John Does. There's a mountain of evidence that clearly suggests that McVeigh certainly could have had more accomplices, right?
Charles Key : There's no question about it. Absolutely. Possibly Middle Eastern terrorists. And/or anti-government terrorists. It's all in our report.
Disinformation: Due to your efforts, a Grand Jury was impaneled in June 1997 to investigate the bombing. But you feel that the Grand Jury ended up being rigged. You feel the Grand Jury was manipulated by the courts in Oklahoma so that the jurors would hear evidence that would implicate only McVeigh and Nichols.
Charles Key : There was a lot of information they refused to call. The prosecutors worked the grand jury to get the result they wanted. Before the Grand Jury was impaneled the judge, Judge Burkett, said that he had no intention of allowing the Grand Jury to reach any conclusions that would conflict with those reached by the federal government--that McVeigh and Nichols acted alone. We submitted all this pertinent information to them, but it was ignored. We gave a list of 149 witnesses who had pertinent information, but a hundred of them weren't called. From its beginning, the Grand Jury was manipulated by the prosecutors, the District Attorney, the Attorney General, and even the presiding judge. Justice was not served.
Disinformation: Your Final Report is very critical of the FBI. According to your report, the FBI--among other things--intimidated and harassed witnesses, falsified reports, lied to the court, and failed to investigate dozens of solid leads. Of course, right before McVeigh was scheduled to be executed it was revealed that the FBI had withheld from the defense team 3,000 pages of documents related to the bombing. You make no bones about it that in your opinion the FBI is the culprit in a massive cover-up.
Charles Key: Absolutely. In our Final Report we list forty-two instances of government improprieties. Forty-two examples of when we feel the government engaged in misconduct. And something like twenty of those instances are related to FBI misconduct.
Disinformation: There were a couple of surveillance cameras right out side the Murrah Building that would have caught everything on tape that morning--they would have shown who pulled the Ryder truck up to the building, and how the building came down. The FBI confiscated the film from those cameras and they're not releasing it. If the FBI would just release those tapes, then we could see exactly what happened, couldn't we? The film would show who drove the Ryder truck up to the building.
Charles Key : Yes, they could prove real easily with those tapes and with some others across the street that they also will not release whether or not people like me are a bunch of conspiracy theorists or not, you know. They could prove finally whether or not McVeigh really was alone, and whether there really was another car, other vehicles across the street, that were working in conjunction with his activities.
Disinformation: They won't release those?
Charles Key : They will not release them. Recently we had a Freedom of Information Act trial here in an attempt to get the government to release the tapes. They stonewalled it. They won't release them.
Disinformation: In your opinion, what is more irrational--the magic bullet theory from the Kennedy assassination, or the contention that a 4,800 pound ANFO bomb brought down the building in Oklahoma City?
Charles Key: They're about equal. Toss them up. It's a coin flip.
Disinformation: How do most of the people down in Oklahoma City feel? Do they feel McVeigh acted alone? Or do they feel the whole story hasn't been told?
Charles Key : No, most people know that McVeigh did not act alone. They know the whole story's not been told. There's been some scientific surveys that show that at about 65%. That was several years ago. I'm sure that it's higher now, after all the stuff that's happened in the last year or so. But, also, there's been a number of polls that radio stations have done, unscientific though they are, that asked even more extensive questions, and they came out real lopsided, people saying McVeigh didn't do it alone.
Disinformation: Most of the rest of the country probably thinks that McVeigh did it alone because they weren't close to the event, and weren't privy to the local whisperings, the insider stuff.
Charles Key: That is probably right.
Disinformation: Do you have any personal opinions about who was behind the bombing?
Charles Key : Well, in my mind I feel it was cooked up, it was thought up and financed by Iraq and other Middle Eastern terrorists. Strong evidence indicates that. But one of the big questions is how did they get McVeigh and Nichols, how is it that a couple of Americans, or more than one, would join in in an effort with some Middle Eastern terrorists to do something like this. That's the big question, because we've never had that happen before.
Disinformation: So you don't believe that this was the government. Because some people have claimed--falsely--that the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee is saying that some people in the government had something to do with it.
Charles Key : Well, after I've seen the way the government's operated, and everything I've learned in this case, I wouldn't exclude other possible scenarios offhand. I would not exclude them offhand. And the reason I say that is because I've seen people do that in this case, they couldn't somehow conceptualize multiple bombs so they wanted to just exclude all the information about multiple explosions. Some people in the early days, they just couldn't understand how Middle Eastern terrorists could be a part of this, and work with white Americans to do something like this. They excluded all the information about Middle Eastern terrorism.
Disinformation: And you've learned that you shouldn't exclude other possible scenarios?
Charles Key : Right, and that's where I'm coming from with this . . . Could there be somebody in the government that . . . For example, I'll tell you this . . . I've been told by a source that the genesis of the Oklahoma City bombing began right after Waco, and that some ATF officials and that other government officials--these were the words that were used by the source--began to put together a publicity sting operation to make the ATF look good, because the ATF looked so bad because of Waco. So they started planning a publicity sting operation. And this source told me that "after that I don't know what happened, how it further developed, but I know it started off as a publicity sting operation."
Disinformation: Yes, some people in Oklahoma believe that the bombing was all about a failed sting operation. That ATF and other government agents knew McVeigh and accomplices were planning to bomb a building. And the government agents were following McVeigh, or undercover agents were working with him, and the plan was to catch him at the last moment, and arrest as many co-conspirators as possible. And your source is saying that this was also a publicity thing for the ATF . . . But then what happened? The sting operation went a little too far and 168 people were killed?
Charles Key : Well, this person made it very clear that he had that information that that's the way it began. This would be in 1993, after Waco. Late '93, early '94. What he was trying to say to me was that, "what else happened, how this developed further, I don't know. But I know there were officials that were starting to come up with ideas about how could we do a publicity sting operation."
Disinformation: Can you say if that source was an ATF, or government employee? How reliable do you consider him to be?
Charles Key: The source was and is an employee in the legislative branch of the federal government. The person is a very reliable source.
Disinformation: You said that you feel that the bombing started in Iraq with Middle Eastern terrorists. A lot of information about that has come out recently. But if it began in the ATF as a publicity sting operation then it couldn't have started in Iraq. Or could it have? Could those two plans have become intertwined?
Charles Key : Either theory, or set of facts-information, would not cancel out the other. Project Bojinka--the Middle Eastern terrorists' code name for the bombing plot--was in play as early as 1993--or earlier--the same year as Waco. If my source is correct and that government officials planned a publicity sting operation immediately after Waco then the time frame would work . . . What we don't know is what all did the plan include? Who all had knowledge about it? Did the plan include getting or using someone like McVeigh or Nichols--knowingly or unknowingly? Did McVeigh discover he was under surveillance and decide to 'turn the tables' on the government by eluding or eliminating the Fed's tracking of him? By changing the time he was going to show up at the building? There are at least several realistic possibilities.
Disinformation: Some conspiracy theorists claim there is government complicity here. Some people believe that elements in the US Government want our Civil Rights destroyed and want America to become a part of a New World Order. An undemocratic, globalized world. The conspiracy theorists believe that government agents planted bombs, or let bombs be planted in the Murrah Building as a way to justify anti-terrorism legislation that would destroy our Civil Rights, and bring America closer to the condition of a police state. In April, 1996, as a result of the bombing, President Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism Act. A month prior to that FBI Director Louis Freeh had informed the Congress of his plans for expanded wiretapping. These actions are a real threat to our civil liberties. Do you believe these conspiracy theorists are crazy and irrational? Or could they be onto something?
Charles Key : This is the way I would respond to that, and how I've always tried to respond to that. In the way I just did--that there's indications that this may have been a failed sting operation. And I would further say that whatever the case may be it has produced a situation where public officials have taken away, or they're trying to take away, our civil liberties. And that's wrong. I'm not going to go as far to say I believe that there's government officials that wanted to do this because I don't know that as a fact. But I know what the results are, and the results are we're losing our civil liberties unnecessarily. Unjustifiably. I don't think it's necessary. It's not necessary at all.
Disinformation: Some people believe that if the bombs were inside the building then that indicates government complicity. Even General Partin said, "You have to think about who had access . . . You don't just walk through security with explosives like this." . . . But unless we have the absolute proof then we certainly can't assume that agents of the government planted the bombs, or let the bombs be planted. But the problem is--why isn't the government acknowledging that an ANFO bomb couldn't have done this? And why isn't the government acknowledging that McVeigh was seen with a lot of John Does? And that all the people in the building felt two explosions, not one? There seems to be a lot of dishonesty here.
Charles Key : My theory is that there were other government informants or undercover agents that were involved with this and that's the reason the FBI won?t go down this path to identify the other "John Does" because it will identify one or more government agents or informants. We've already had some. For example, the guy who stayed in the Dreamland Motel with McVeigh. This is another one of the instances in which the FBI has tried to claim that a person who was there with McVeigh wasn't there with McVeigh. Witnesses tell that he was there. This is the guy, the Chinese food delivery guy, he clearly tells the story that he delivered food to a hotel room that McVeigh was registered under, but the guy there was not McVeigh. And the FBI's tried to--in essence--tried to pressure him to change his story. But he's adamant. He says, "No. There was somebody else there in the room. I saw him." And, so why would the FBI not--you see, they didn't run the fingerprints. The FBI lifted fingerprints from that room. But they didn't run them. Why would you not do that?
Disinformation: Well, it could be your theory. That the government doesn't want to find these John Does because that investigation might lead back to the government--the John Does might end up being government informants or undercover agents. And if that's true, does it legitimize posing the question: Did some element in the government do it?
Charles Key : I try to maintain credibility. I try not to go and take a giant leap of faith and say the government did it. Because I don't have the facts to back that up. But I do have the facts to back up that the government refuses to find out who did it.
Disinformation: Yes, because your Final Report points out that the FBI has more than a thousand fingerprints and about a hundred palm prints and these all came from places where McVeigh was seen with other people.
Charles Key : That's right. The government does not . . . Whether its city, state, or national law enforcement, where there's a capital murder case like this one--and this is the biggest case the FBI ever had--law enforcement people don't sit around and say, "Well, I wonder if we oughta run the fingerprints." They always run the fingerprints. Especially when it's the biggest case the FBI ever had. So when you don't run the fingerprints, there's a reason for it and its not because it's too expensive, because it wasn't too expensive to run those fingerprints. They already spent eighty plus million dollars. And they estimated it might cost four hundred thousand dollars to run all those fingerprints through the thirty-five or forty million fingerprint data base it has . . . They didn't want to.
Disinformation: The fingerprints are a solid piece of evidence. They could reveal the identity of the other participants in the bombing.
Charles Key: It's rock solid evidence. And to this day the FBI still hasn't run them.
Disinformation: Shortly before the bombing, former CIA Director William Colby said in an interview that he felt the amounts of people joining the militias were dangerous. Some people would say that the government used this incident to frame somebody connected to the militias, to make the militias look bad, so that legislation would be passed that allowed the FBI to more easily stop the militia movement?Whether or not conspiracy theorists are irrational, or rational, remains to be seen. But your conviction that the whole story of the Oklahoma City bombing hasn't been revealed isn't based on theory, right? It's based on this mountain of evidence that you've documented that clearly shows that there are still many unanswered questions.
Charles Key : We're raising the questions. We've detailed them effectively. There's information in our report that has never been revealed to the public before. We feel mass murderers are still at large. We want the truth to come out. As I understand it, Dan Burton, the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, is planning to reinvestigate the bombing. That's because there's new, strong evidence of Middle Eastern and Iraqi involvement. This evidence apparently also has relevance to the September 11 attacks . . . We have never said the government bombed its own building. I don't think we have proof of government complicity. All we have is very clear proof of government complicity in the cover-up, and wanting to cover this thing up and do whatever it takes to cover it up. That says something right there. That says a lot. But if we could ever prove that the government was involved in it that would be . . . something big. But I haven't seen that, yet.
Disinformation: The Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee (okcbombing.org; 800 334-5597) questions the extent to which the power of Government law enforcement agencies has been allowed to expand in recent years. You cite a series of articles from the Pittsburg Post-Gazzette written by reporter Bill Moushey that reveals dozens of cases in which the government "lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, engaged in cover-ups, paid for perjury, and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments." You make 17 recommendations that the Congress could implement to help curb this tide of government abuse and corruption. Ultimately, the OBIC feels it's critical that a panel be established to scrutinize FBI operations and make recommendations that can be implemented immediately. But, also, you feel the panel should be made up of mostly people outside the government, because it's often useless to have the government investigating itself.
Charles Key : Yes. Absolutely. Congress supposedly has the oversight responsibility for the FBI, but the Congress has failed to censure this out-of-control agency. The FBI answers to no one. A panel to investigate the FBI should be made up of people from the private sector--investigative journalists, political watch organizations, academia, the legal field. If it's a situation where the government is investigating itself, the FBI is investigating itself, then it just becomes another joke.
Charles Key : Right, and that's where I'm coming from with this . . . Could there be somebody in the government that . . . For example, I'll tell you this . . . I've been told by a source that the genesis of the Oklahoma City bombing began right after Waco, and that some ATF officials and that other government officials--these were the words that were used by the source--began to put together a publicity sting operation to make the ATF look good, because the ATF looked so bad because of Waco. So they started planning a publicity sting operation. And this source told me that "after that I don't know what happened, how it further developed, but I know it started off as a publicity sting operation."
Disinformation: Yes, some people in Oklahoma believe that the bombing was all about a failed sting operation. That ATF and other government agents knew McVeigh and accomplices were planning to bomb a building. And the government agents were following McVeigh, or undercover agents were working with him, and the plan was to catch him at the last moment, and arrest as many co-conspirators as possible. And your source is saying that this was also a publicity thing for the ATF . . . But then what happened? The sting operation went a little too far and 168 people were killed?
Charles Key : Well, this person made it very clear that he had that information that that's the way it began. This would be in 1993, after Waco. Late '93, early '94. What he was trying to say to me was that, "what else happened, how this developed further, I don't know. But I know there were officials that were starting to come up with ideas about how could we do a publicity sting operation."
Disinformation: Can you say if that source was an ATF, or government employee? How reliable do you consider him to be?
Charles Key: The source was and is an employee in the legislative branch of the federal government. The person is a very reliable source.
What can possibly be said?
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I'm glad to see that a committee is supposed to re-open this investigation. I'm not holding my breath that anything will come of it or change the govt's position.
If the govt. knew this was going to happen, whether through a sting or whatever and didn't tell anyone except the ATF workers, IMO they were complicit in the deaths of two of my relatives. The least they could do is reveal the truth about the whole situation instead of covering it up.
The most preeminent experts have said that an ANFO truck bomb couldn't have done this. It's very strange that Jones didn't use that in the defense.
Charles Key : It is. It's . . . I don't know. I have some speculation about that, but if I talked about it, it would have to be off the record.
anybody want to make a stab at what Key would speculate "off the record"????
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