Posted on 06/20/2002 12:04:19 AM PDT by grimalkin
WASHINGTON, Jun 20, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Just weeks before Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement received several warnings that Islamic terrorists were seeking to strike on American soil and that a likely target was government buildings, documents show.
The information, though it was never linked to McVeigh, was stark enough that the Clinton administration urged stepped up security patrols and screening at federal buildings nationwide, including those in Oklahoma.
The government, however, didn't fortify buildings with cement barriers like those hurriedly installed after McVeigh detonated his explosive-laden truck at the curb of the Murrah building on April 19, 1995, officials said.
Islamic extremists are determined to "strike inside the U.S. against objects symbolizing the American government in the near future," said one warning obtained by The Associated Press.
The intelligence that prompted the warnings was gathered across the globe from Iran and Syria to the Philippines and became more specific as to the potential type attack (suicide bombing), target (government building) and likely date (after the third week in March 1995), the documents show.
The U.S. Marshal's Service issued an alert on March 15, 1995, to federal courthouses it protects, including the one in Oklahoma City across the street from where McVeigh's truck bomb killed 168 people, the documents show.
"Iranian extremists want it made clear that steps are being taken to strike at the Great Satan," a term used frequently in the Mideast to describe the United States, the marshal's memo said. It said a fatwa - a religious order - had been issued to attack marshals or their buildings.
"There is sufficient threat potential to request that a heightened level of security awareness and caution be implemented," the memo added.
Separately, the General Services Administration received a warning from the FBI and asked hundreds of federal buildings it operates to increase security details, including the Murrah building, officials said.
"We were told there was a fatwa threatening to target federal buildings," GSA spokeswoman Viki Reath said this week. "We increased our patrols to 12-hour shifts."
More than two dozen current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials interviewed by AP said the period of spring 1995 was a time of heightened "chatter" among terrorists seeking to strike the United States.
But the officials cautioned the FBI and CIA exhaustively investigated whether McVeigh could have been aided by Mideast terrorist and found no credible evidence linking him to any Islamic extremists, including those who prompted the 1995 warnings.
The information about 1995 emerges as a joint House-Senate panel examining the intelligence and law enforcement failures that preceded Sept. 11 has expanded its mission to look back at the late 1980s and 1990s.
John Gannon, former deputy CIA director for intelligence under President Clinton, said spring 1995 was one of a handful of periods in the 1990s when intelligence on terror threats peaked as the government increasingly turned its attention to Osama bin Laden and his emerging terrorist network.
Gannon said the 1995 warnings were plentiful enough that he initially assumed Islamic extremists had struck when the bomb exploded in Oklahoma City. Law enforcement too issued initial bulletins looking for Arab suspects and borrowed Arabic translators from the military.
"When I first heard about the Oklahoma bombing, the first reaction I had was I wonder if this were a foreign group that had done this or the Islamic extremists that had come up on our screen," Gannon said.
He said it was in 1998, after bin Laden issued a fatwa urging specific attacks on America and two U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed, that U.S. anti-terrorism efforts escalated markedly.
"If there was a watershed year, it was 1998. That significantly elevated our concern and resulted in a concerted effort, and a very strong program to go get Osama bin Laden," he said.
The 1995 intelligence was specific enough that "if that was today, you'd have (Bush Homeland Security Director) Tom Ridge going out and saying we have this threat," said former Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., who in 1995 was a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
McCollum formed a congressional task force in the late 1980s that began warning of the growing threat of terrorism, and which issued some of the 1995 alerts.
"For a good number of years, there was a failure to acknowledge the severity of the threat," he said. "There really had been this disbelief or unwillingness to scare people."
Former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said "protecting America against terrorists was a high priority" during the 1990s. "Threat information regularly came in and steps were taken to deal with it," he said.
"In general, the record is very clear that the Clinton administration increased counterterrorism funding and focus more than any other prior administration based on the emerging threats," Lockhart added.
Some of the 1995 warnings were pointed.
"Iranian sources confirmed Tehran's desire and determination to strike inside the U.S. against objects symbolizing the American government in the near future," said a Feb. 27, 1995, terror warning by the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.
The warnings became increasingly specific as to the possible location, type of attack and likely dates.
"These strikes are most likely to occur either in the immediate future or in the new Iranian year - starting 21 March 1995," the congressional task force predicted.
U.S. intelligence monitored a series of meetings and conferences between senior officials of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and other terror organizations in mid-February 1995 in which the subject of killing Americans on U.S. soil came up, officials said.
During these conferences, known terrorists made specific mention of Congress and the White House as "institutions that are great enemies of the Islamist movement," according to a congressional warning.
"This is a deviation from past discussions beyond referring to the U.S. as a single entity to pointing to specific branches of government as their true enemies," it added.
Around the same time, the FBI received intelligence from the Philippines that two men later convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had been arrested as they were plotting to blow up U.S. airliners. The men planned to hijack one airliner and crash it into the CIA, Pentagon or White House, documents show.
The marshal's warning explained that Islamic extremists had issued a fatwa to kill marshals personnel or strike their buildings because of an episode at the end of the World Trade Center bombing trial in which deputy marshals accidentally stepped on a copy of the Koran during a scuffle.
"Allegedly, the fatwa is being disseminated to persons in the United States who have the capability to carry it out," the memo said.
The terrorists could be suicide bombers who may "target as many victims as possible and draw as much media coverage as possible," it added. "Once the press is on the scene the new plans call for blowing up everyone."
Yes, but although he thought at first (and said on TV) that "miltant Islamic groups" might be involved, he backed away from it:
"As soon as the details of the McVeigh arrest emerged, it was obvious he was responsible and had probably acted nearly alone. Up to that point I had suspected that Islamic radicals were involved. Now I realized I was wrong. I've never wavered from that since then, and I have refused to support the conspiracy theorists who insist that McVeigh himself was actually involved with Muslim groups."
I'm not saying Emerson's right, just that it's odd, given his knowledge of terrorism, particularly in OKC, that he backed off so soon. He was blackballed by the major media for his original comment, so that may have something to do with it.
From a letter by OKCPD Officer Terry Yeakey before his murder
Luke Franey (a BATF agent who claimed he was in the building) was not in the building at the time of the blast, I know this for a fact, I saw him! I also saw full riot gear worn with rifles in hand, why? Don't make the mistake as I did and ask the wrong people.
I worry about you and your young family because of some of the statements that have been made towards me, a police officer
Possibly some publication like WND or Insight will take that and footnote it and get it in front of more folks. It's Excellent.
There was a brief blurb on our local news at noon about there being forewarning about OKC, but it was obviously "constructed" to shift blame or diminish it. It stated that the FBI was looking at the wrong cast of characters; domestic vs. M.E. instead of any combination, so they missed it. Early covering smoke is being fired.
Total B.S. They're not that Dumb. How did they come up with a list of names for the plane crashing idiots just days after the WTC attacks?
This story will continue to Morph 'til the final tiny mea culpa and the "positive news" that it's all taken care of now.
Schippers referred to this memo in an interview with Jim Quinn that was posted on the FR late last year. THe story may also have been mentioned by James Patterson of the Indy Star in another story posted on FR at the beginning of this year.
Please see reply #54 also.
Also it was reported that SS agent Mickey Maroney received a call at around 9am in his office in Murrah that would have kept him at his desk when the bomb went off. Maroney had once allegedly detained Richard Snell who was connected to the FBI compound at Elohim City and who was executed the day of the OKC bombing after predicting an attack in Oklahoma to the warden in Arkansas.
And here's the kicker. I hadn't heard this one before. The second warning mentions the possibility that lily-whites might be involved, which Davis said is intell speak for Caucasians with a clean criminal record who've been brought in by the terrorists as accomplices. Anyone else see this?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.