Posted on 04/16/2004 2:29:43 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
As a last question to former FBI head Louis Freeh, 9-11 Commissioner John Lehman asked whether Freeh was familiar with the information Jayna Davis has gathered for her new book, "The Third Terrorist." Davis, a former Oklahoma City newswoman, makes a powerful case that Terry Nichols had conspired with convicted World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef in the Philippines and that Timothy McVeigh had received direct aid in the construction and delivery of the bomb from, among others, likely Iraqi agent, Hussain Al-Hussaini, the alleged John Doe #2. This was an excellent question. Lehman, however, addressed it to the wrong person. He should have turned to his fellow commissioner, Jamie Gorelick, the deputy attorney general under Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1997. The Landmark Legal Foundation has now formally requested that Gorelick step down because she is "hopelessly conflicted." But truth would be served if instead of stepping down Gorelick were forced to open up. Evidence strongly suggests it was Gorelick – not the ineffectual Freeh – who not only misdirected the FBI's investigation into Oklahoma City, but also the FBI investigation into TWA Flight 800. The parallels between the two cases are shocking. And in each case, the Clinton administration constrained the FBI for the same reason: to advance the re-election chances of its standard bearer. This story rightfully begins on Election Day, Nov. 8, 1994. In a time of peace and economic growth, Democrats lost an incredible 52 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. "The election itself is being described as a total repudiation of Bill Clinton and the Democrats," Labor Secretary Robert Reich observed at the time, a "fundamental realignment." After days of anger and self-pity, Bill Clinton began to focus again on the one organizing principle that had directed his life to date. "All that mattered was his survival," Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos would write of his former boss. "Everyone else had to fall in line: his staff, his cabinet, the country, even his wife." Stephanopoulos speaks here of another circumstance, but the principle was eternal. In the next two years, the Clintons would sacrifice the nation's very security to secure another four years in office. As I report in "Ron Brown's Body," Islamic terrorism was just the half of it, but it was the urgent half. Five days before the election, in an unrelated event, Ramzi Yousef had applied for a visa to the Philippines. On the next day, Terry Nichols received a visa for the Philippines and left for Cebu City two weeks later. On the way to the airport, he unnerved his ex-wife, Lana Padilla, when he handed her a sealed package and told her, "If I'm not back in 60 days, open it and follow the instructions." Curious, Padilla opened the package only to find a will, Nichol's life insurance policy, and instructions that led her to $20,000 in cash. Two weeks after Nichols' arrival, Ramzi Yousef boarded a Philippines Airline flight in Manila and planted a small bomb. The bomb killed the Japanese tourist who took his seat after Yousef had disembarked in Cebu City. A month later, January 1995, Yousef had to flee his Manila apartment after setting it on fire while building bombs. When his roommate, a Pakistani pilot, returned to the apartment to retrieve Yousef's laptop, he was arrested. Yousef immediately fled to Pakistan where he would be seized weeks later. Terry Nichols hastily returned to the United States. When Padilla asked Nichols why he had come back so soon, he told her cryptically, "Somebody could get killed down there." Perhaps more than coincidentally, the logbook in Yousef's Manila apartment bore the signature of an occasional visitor named "Nick." In "Against All Enemies," Richard Clarke casually addresses the simultaneous visits of these two terrorists to the Philippines in general, and Cebu City in particular. "We do know that Nichols' bombs did not work before his Philippine stay," writes Clarke, "and were deadly when he returned." Nichols continued to call the Philippines frequently and surreptitiously after his return. On April 19, 1995, I was co-hosting a point-counter point radio show on Kansas City's leading AM station, KMBZ. The show aired just before Rush Limbaugh, who once worked at the station. The Oklahoma bomb detonated just as we were going on the air. My partner and I followed developments closely. Early police reports and intelligence briefings led us all to believe that the bomb was the work of Islamic terrorists. When, however, the police identified McVeigh as a suspect a day later, my partner was absolutely gleeful. A wily and well-connected Democrat strategist, he went on the air and issued an All Points Bulletin for McVeigh's "co-conspirators – Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich." He claimed their hate speech and talk of revolution had inflamed the allegedly right-wing McVeigh. My partner was simply following the Democratic National Committee's talking points. Democrats, the president included, were spreading this same message all across America. Clinton, more subtle than his supporters, assigned responsibility for the bombing to the "purveyors of hate and division." His supporters filled in the blanks. A master of strategic grief counseling, Clinton descended on Oklahoma City with an approval rating in the low 40s and left town with a rating well above 50. Late in the 1996 campaign, he would confide to reporters that his road back to the White House began in Oklahoma City. The president, however, was more interested in the points he could score off Oklahoma City than in the truth. In her stunning book, Jayna Davis documents beyond all doubt what that truth was: McVeigh and Nichols had help from Islamic terrorists – not only in the Philippines, but also in Oklahoma City. In her role as a reporter for KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, Davis interviewed more than 20 reliable eyewitnesses who identified the crew of Iraqi nationals who had helped McVeigh assemble and deliver the bomb, among them, John Doe #2, Hussain Al-Hussaini. Much as with TWA 800, however, the FBI lost all interest in the eyewitnesses as soon as the White House had established its talking points. The details of this abandonment appall the reader. "Could the al-Qaida explosives expert have been introduced to the angry American who proclaimed his hatred for America?" writes Richard Clarke of Nichols' visit to the Philippines. "We do not know, despite some FBI investigation." "Some FBI investigation"? Why was there not a massive FBI investigation? On Yousef's laptop seized from that burning Manila apartment were plans for Operation Bojinka. The following excerpt from a classified Republic of the Philippines intelligence report speaks to the nature of those plans: The document [from Yousef's computer] specifically cited the charter service of a commercial type aircraft loaded with powerful bombs to be dive-crashed by SAEED AKMAN. This is apparently intended to demonstrate to the whole world that a Muslim martyr is ready and determined to die for the glorification of Islam. Richard Clarke was well aware of these plans. In response to a question by Democrat Richard Ben-Veniste at a 9-11 hearing, Clarke admitted that the "knowledge about al-Qaida having thought of using aircraft as weapons" was relatively old – "five years, six years old." He asked that intelligence analysts "be forgiven for not thinking about it given the fact that they hadn't seen a lot in the five or six years intervening about it." He admittedly did not share these plans with the Bush administration. The reason Islamic terrorist links were ignored has more to do with politics than with security. Once arrested, McVeigh and Nichols served as poster boys for the natural progression of the "Republican revolution." If, however, they proved to be mere "lily whites" – i.e., stooges recruited by Islamic terrorists to take the fall – they would lose their political value. Moreover, liberal scolds could no longer hector those who had publicly presumed that Islamic terrorists were behind the bombing. This included not only the political right but also non-partisan terrorist experts like Steven Emerson, who had already been upbraided for "bigotry and misrepresentations" and "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs." Indeed, to the detriment of our national security, the orchestrated Democratic reaction to Oklahoma City shamed reporters and investigators from pursuing Islamic terrorism aggressively. This, Davis documents all too painfully from her personal experience. This pattern of denial climaxed in the days following July 17, 1996, the day that TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island. In this case, too, the FBI ignored – among other evidence – hundreds of eyewitnesses, the damning FAA radar tape and the scores of positive hits for explosive residue on the plane. And although Ramzi Yousef was on trial that very day in New York for his role in Operation Bojinka, there was no connection made between those plans and the destruction of the plane. Just the opposite. Richard Clarke, in fact, takes credit for suppressing the real evidence and discovering the preposterous "mechanical failure" thesis that the administration eventually made stick. Although it is easy to blame the FBI for the shameful investigative breakdowns both in Oklahoma City and on Long Island, its agents did not subvert the investigations of their own accord. Their orders came from Washington. The responsibility for enforcing these orders fell to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Soviet equivalent of the "political officer" within the Justice Department. On Aug. 22, 1996 – five weeks after the crash of TWA 800 – Gorelick summoned the FBI's Jim Kallstrom to Washington to be served up a dose of survival reality. Kallstrom had been a good soldier. He had kept all talk of eyewitnesses and satellites and radar and missiles out the news. But the evidence had led him far away from mechanical failure, and there was no easy way to turn back. To be sure, no account of the meeting provides any more than routine detail, but behaviors began to change immediately afterward, especially after the New York Times broke a headline story the next day, top right: "Prime Evidence Found That Device Exploded in Cabin of Flight 800." This article stole the thunder from Clinton's election-driven approval of welfare reform in that same day's paper and threatened to undermine the peace and prosperity message of next week's Democratic convention. On that same Aug. 23, the Federal Aviation Administration began to inquire whether any explosives-training exercises had ever taken place on the plane that would become TWA 800. From that day forward, the FBI would do no more serious eyewitness interviews. On that same day, Kallstrom was now saying for the first time, "It was possible that the PETN could have been brought on the plane by a passenger and was not part of a bomb." Jim Kallstrom was not the only one who had learned the hard way that there could be no terrorism in the summer of 1996. At the "feel good" Atlanta Olympics, the beleaguered security guard Richard Jewell, the poor soul who first spotted the Centennial Park bomb, was learning a harder lesson still. Although Davis does not document Gorelick's role in Oklahoma City, media accounts routinely describe her as the director of the Oklahoma City task force, the so-called "field commander." As Davis has told me, someone in Washington called the FBI in Oklahoma City and issued a two-word directive on its investigation into Islamic terrorism: "Kill it." If that person is not Jamie Gorelick, perhaps she could tell the 9-11 Commission who it is. By suppressing the truth in Oklahoma City, Long Island and Atlanta – and then burying it – the Clinton administration left America wide open on Sept. 11. Apologies are in order, but they will not be enough.
And the 100 or so people who saw what looked like a missle.Trumped - there are a number of reliable pireps (pilot reports) from that area/in those same flight lanes that discount any sort of 'missile' sighting ...
Well Jim, kiss my conspiracy.Bring it over.
Butter it up.
Let's go!
From: Ex_4A_appBB_MichaelJulianRussel.pdf
Mr. Russell is a civil engineer and was a passenger on a survey
vessel on July 17, 1996, which was proceeding from Moriches Inlet
to a dredge located approximately 1 mile southeast of the inlet.
He stated he was in the cabin seated next to a window and he
observed a white flash in the sky. According to Mr. Russell,
within a second of the white flash he observed a burst of fire
forming a huge fireball. He described the fireball as an object
or substance of extreme flammability being suddenly ignited as
opposed to an explosion expending side to side energy. He said
that black smoke appeared over the fireball immediately and white
smoke over the black smoke. Two large pieces engulfed in flames
fell to the ocean, side-by-side, one lower than the other. These
items fell straight down while it appeared the fireball remained
suspended in air still burning for a period of time.
Mr. Russell said that he did not hear an explosion, but advised
that the noise of the boat diesel engines is quite loud. In
addition, he related that he saw no projectiles or light from
surface to air and had not seen the aircraft flying. Also, he
emphasized that he was unaware of what he was observing and had
no idea that an aircraft was the object.
Following this event, according to Mr. Russell, the boat on which
he was a passenger proceeded to the crash site at best speed
(approximately 18 to 20 knots and a distance calculated to be
approximately 7 miles). He said he witnessed debris falling in
small pieces and described this as "raining debris." He also
radioed the Coast Guard and described that the boat began to
encounter debris when l/2 mile from the crash site. Upon getting
closer, he observed fire bubbling up and out of the ocean.
- - - - -
Ex_4B_WitnessGroupStudyReport.pdf
Observations by situation
Safety Board investigators determined the situation (land, sea, or air) of 699 of the
736 witnesses (refer to the Geographic information, which begins on page 25 of the
Witness Group Chairman?s Factual Report for more information about witness situation).
Of these 699 witnesses, 460 were on land, 202 were on water, and 37 were in aircraft.
Most of the witnesses on land were outside, and most of the witnesses on the water were in
boats. Table 1 provides more detail about the specific observations of the witnesses by
situation.
Table 1: Number of witnesses by situation and observation.
I see you are kind of new here.It is evedent that you do not know jim very well.Many of us here has sparred with ole jim, many years we have. Jim is a government conformist but that doesn't mean he is dumb or anything, on the contrary. Jim is one of the brightest members on this furum and you will see if you ever get into conversation where he does not have to take sides with the feds. There is no sarcasm in this post, I mean every word.
Trumped - there are a number of reliable pireps (pilot reports) from that area/in those same flight lanes that discount any sort of 'missile' sighting ...
Trump you back
TWA 800 Witness Statements
"We saw what appeared to be a flare going straight up. As a matter of fact, we thought it was from a boat. It was a bright reddish-orange color. Once it went into flames I knew that it wasn't a flare." - Lou Desyron, Flight 800 eye-witness; ABC World News Sunday; 07/21/96.
"I looked up because it sounded like thunder. I kept looking trying to figure out what it was. And that's when I saw a flare come off the water. The flare, trailing orange flame, shot up roughly at a 45 degree angle, then rapidly increased its angle of ascent. Then it appeared to strike something. This was the strangest thing I ever saw. Everyone calls it a 'missile theory,' but when you see something, you know what you see, and I didn't see a 'theory'." - Tom Dougherty, Flight 800 eye-witness; interviewed on Hard Copy, 1996
"It was what we would best describe as a boat flare, a reddish object going up. It went up and a few seconds later we saw an explosion in the sky. I can't say if it came off shore or on shore. At first, we thought it was a boat flare. It zigzagged a little. We thought it was strange. Then, several seconds later, we saw an eruption of fire. We never heard anything. We saw a fireball, and at that point we identified what was an aircraft. We could see it fluttering down. We were the third boat on Long Island to report the incident to the Coast Guard. It was something going up to it beforehand. Yes, I saw flaming debris go down. Something attracted us to the area before it exploded. And even my wife and my oldest daughter, we all were witnesses to it. There definitely was something there first before the aircraft went down." - Donald Eick, Flight 800 eye-witness; October 20, 1997; The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, CA.
"I picked it up three seconds before it turned into a bright white ball, which split. I thought it was fireworks. And then I didn't know what to think because from the white ball, I saw two wide orange bands of light fall down, obviously the fuel igniting. I'll lay my ass on the table and tell the president or the FBI, and someone can hypnotize me: There was no way that red light was descending. It was ascending. It made contact with what turned out to be that airplane and made a white bright light and then split in two. If I were in a courtroom and the prosecutor says I've got an eyewitness, then I become a trump card. We're not just one witness but 135 or more strong. I saw something hit the right side of the plane. My opinion was it blew the wing off on impact. I assumed something went through the airplane, like behind first class and into the wing. My honest opinion, my gut feeling, is that we have the most brilliant people in the world and the best technology, [and] if they've been on scene for a year and they've not come up with something, as a critical thinker I have to ask, could they be covering up something?" - William Gallagher, fisherman from N.J. who witnessed Flight 800 crash; October 20, 1997, The Press-Enterprise
"[The FBI] said, 'Are you sure you didn't see something going down and not going up?' I said, 'No....Gosh sakes I ain't that stupid. I ought to be able to tell if something is going up in the air or going down in the air. No, and I said I'm not changing my mind about it. I'll stick to that until I die. I said I saw something going up and I said there was no question in my mind. I said I'm telling you what I saw." - Roland Penney, Flight 800 eye-witness; quoted from an interview with Cdr. William Donaldson presented at the AIM conference, October 18, 1997. "It looked like a big skyrocket going up. The flash looked like a rocket launch at a fireworks display". - Paul Runyan, Flight 800 eye-witness; N.Y. Daily News, 11/09/96
"More than 150 credible witnesses - including several scientists and business executives - have told the FBI and military experts they saw a missile destroy TWA 800. 'Some of these people are extremely, extremely credible,' a top federal official said. 'When we asked what they saw and where they saw it, the witnesses out east pointed to the west, and the people to the west pointed to the east'." - The New York Post, September 22, 1996.
"Almost due south [of the helicopter], there was a hard white light, like burning pyrotechnics, in level flight. I was trying to figure out what it was. It was the wrong color for flares. It struck an object coming from the right and made it explode." - Capt. Chris Baur, eye-witness to Flight 800 crash; July 1996.
"This is either a train wreck in the sky, or an explosive device - mid-air, outside the plane. The measurements [from the flight recorder] indicate there was an explosion - a big explosion - outside the cockpit." - Navy Cmdr. William Donaldson (ret.); a former plane crash investigator; Louisville Courier-Journal, 1-9-98
"My God! Somebody's shooting at that airplane!" - Crew of a British Airways jet flying behind Flight 800 whom radioed to air traffic control; July 17, 1996.
"I know what I saw. I saw an ordnance explosion. And whatever I saw, the explosion of the fuel was not the initiator of the event. It was one of the results. Something happened before that which was the initiator of the disaster.'' - Frederick C. Meyer, An Air National Guard helicopter pilot who witnessed the explosion of TWA Flight 800; 7/29/97; Riverside Press.
"I know what I saw, I saw several fires go across the sky. One hit the plane at the tail and the second hit at the front, just before the wings. The fire came from both ends and met in the middle and exploded. Then the nose dropped, hung there for a minute. I understand that when a plane bursts into flames the flames fall, but this was a fire going up towards the plane." - Barbara Pacholk, Flight 800 eye-witness; November 19, 1997; The New York Post.
"We know what we saw. We weren't drunk. I looked up and my immediate response was, I never saw an alert flare like that. It was projecting upward with a stream of smoke behind. I don't think our accounts will be reflected in the final version [of the FBI report]. I have a hard time believing that the FBI believes its conclusions. I don't believe that the truth is ever going to come out." - Jim Naples, Flight 800 eye-witness; November 24, 1997, The New York Observer, (p.16)
"She [Ms. Osborn] said they were mistaken in what they saw. That's not very professional, and its not the way to dispute eyewitness statements. Those witness statements should be part of the public record. And they [the F.B.I.] have to come up with a credible scenario of why the eyewitnesses saw what they saw." - Paul Marcone - Press Secretary to Rep. James Traficant - House Aviation Subcommittee
"It's (the C.I.A.) message to the eyewitnesses: Shut up, you didn't see anything." - Philip Weiss - The New York Observer - November 24, 1997
"All evidence would point to a missile. All those witnesses who saw a streak that hit the airplane...you have to assume its a missile. In an investigation like this, you can't overlook anything." - Adm. Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff; Louisville Courier-Journal, 1-9-98 Naneen Levine "I thought it was something on the beach going straight up. The red dot went up like this, sort of curved. It came to a point where I thought little fireworks were going to come down or just fade and be a flare."
Capt. Chris Bauer - Airborne "I saw a track of light and saw a hard explosion, then another explosion," - "told officials, repeatedly that I thought a missile hit the plane."
Sven Faret, Private Pilot - Airborne "Pin flash of light near the shore" - "It looked like a rocket launch at a fireworks display. My first impression was that the National Guard had shot down one of their own planes."
Roland Penney ". . . a pencil thin white trail rising like a Grucci fireworks in the middle of the night sky, until it turned into a big ball of just plain white. Seconds later, as the ball of light descended, it exploded into an orange-red fireball."
D.A. Walsh "It is No rumor about sabotage or a missile. Having lived on Long Island for 24 years and only 8 miles from the crash site I am familiar with the area and too many of us saw what happened that nite. I believe that someone is trying to cover up for mistakes."
From: C.C.Jordan@worldnet.att.net (C.C. Jordan) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:55:29 GMT Message-ID: <33C59B43.10074841@NETNEWS.WORLDNET.ATT.NET> I live on eastern Long Island. I am good friends with several of the Air Force flyers out of West Hampton. An USAF Blackhawk was flying (training) only three miles away from Flight 800 on a heading to observe the crash. The Plane Commander, a Major, said, in my presence, that he saw what he believed was a missile, coming from sea level go up and explode. He stated this to NTSB investigators and to Air Force debriefers. He is a gulf war veteran and has seen many night time SAM launches, both shoulder launched and fixed sight. No one has yet to refute his observation. Could he be mistaken? Sure. Is it likely he is mistaken? No. NTSB and the FAA have no **real** answer for the crash, or do they? ....By the way, This guy was one of the pilots who flew the Blackhawks 650 miles out into the atlantic to rescue stranded seamen, refueling several times from a C-130. The Air force believes him. They are the 106th Rescue Wing flying C-130 and Blackhawk aircraft. Top notch professionals.
11-9-96 N.Y. Daily News "Red meteor with a smoke trail" Paul Angelides
Olympic Airline Engineer "Suddenly, I saw in the fog to my left, toward the ocean, a small flame rising quickly towards the sky. Before I realized it, I saw this flame become huge. My first impression is that it was a flare shot off a boat."
Colonel Stratemeier - Pilot "said he had seen what appeared to be the trail of a shoulder fired SAM ending in a flash on the 747"
Heidi Krieger "I think it;s a missile or friendly fire or something like that." (She took picture from her boat, squiggley white line in photo, FBI took it and negs)
Richard Grauer (25 yr old Fishing Tackle sales) "It was a thin trail of smoke going up fast - then there was this huge pink ball of fire"
Patrick Grant - 02:27pm Jul 19, 1997 ET (#300 of 321) I live on Long Island. And there were more than a hundred people out here including cops, firemen and National Guard who saw something streak into the sky before the plane came down. Now experts can tell you what would of, or should of, or could of happened. But an eye witness will tell you what really happened. And when a hundred people see something, its not an illusion. I believe the investigators are lying when they say they don't know what happened. And I'd like to see them be forced to take polygraphs. And even those who believe that the government isn't running a cover up should support giving the investigators lie detectors. We all want the truth, don't we?
I hope they are able to wipe that smirky grin off Gorelick's face.
Pinz, I couldn't agree with you more! And that playbook seemed to come from a very socialistic source. I don't think that it is by accident that Bill has been labeled the 'Slickmeister'!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, yes, it is very sad that so many people had to die because of the Clinton agenda!
It is probably correct that many of us reach to unproven conclusions out of determining the "reasonable person" doctrine application to most of these situations. We can disagree, but we need not be disagreeable.
TWA 800 Witness Statements "We saw what appeared to be a flare going straight up.UNRELIABLE WITNESSES.
I'll take any commercial pilot who was flying that night who is trained and has experience observing 'things' in the air over ANY general member of the public.
Game - set - match.
Bump for later
Bump for later
Table 1: Number of witnesses by situation and observation.
--------------------------------------------------------
Witness situation
Item Land Sea Air Subtotal Unknown Total
--------------------------------------------------------
Sight 420 195 37 652 18 670
Sound 167 48 0 215 24 239
Streak 172 78 6 256 2 258
Fireball (FB) 365 182 37 584 15 599
FB Split 122 61 16 199 1 200
FB Water 122 69 21 212 5 217
Total 460 202 37 --- 37 736
Was he really executed ?:o)
You just trying to start a fight ain't cha!
LOL......Stir, not shaken........:o)
Stay safe !
UNRELIABLE WITNESSES
They either saw something, or they saw nothing. What makes them unreliable? You? Then explain what they DID see, _jim, because they saw SOMETHING.
I'll take any commercial pilot who was flying that night who is trained and has experience observing 'things' in the air over ANY general member of the public.
So how many hours of training does it take to recognize a flaming object headed skyward? Rather, how many years of being an elitist does it take to take to ignore valid observations from "ANY general member of the public"?
Bottom line - you have witnesses who saw ANYTHING your little heart desired depending on which ones you 'pick' ...
Using the figures in the table you provided:
928 witnesses saw something, with 258 of them seeing a streak.
239 witnesses heard something.
I'd say that was a sufficient number of witnesses to indicate far more than a cargo door problem. But then again, I trust the "general public" more than you.
"Rather, how many years of being an elitist does it take to take to ignore valid observations from "ANY general member of the public"? OUCH, , Thats gonna leave a mark!
"
_Jim is not a troll, Just to engulfed with the gumint.
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