Posted on 06/20/2002 10:39:50 AM PDT by I_Publius
Jun 20, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) - Just weeks before Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, U.S. authorities 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 concrete 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.
McVeigh's former trial attorney decried the disclosure Thursday, and accused the government of a cover-up.
"We specifically asked on the record for all evidence, documents and tangible objects to show whether the government had received a warning of acts of terror against federal buildings. We didn't receive this," attorney Stephen Jones said.
Some survivors and relatives of victims said they still don't think the intelligence would have led to McVeigh because it pointed to Islamic extremists.
"What bothers me is that people say the government was warned, but there was nothing specific. How can you lock down all federal buildings?" asked Dan McKinney, whose wife, a Secret Service employee, and niece perished in the attack.
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. Marshals 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 marshals 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.
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 marshals warning explained that Islamic extremists had issued a fatwa to kill marshals personnel 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 Quran 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.
AP-ES-06-20-02 1220EDT
This story can be found at : http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAYWLGUO2D.html
THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN
August 11, 1995, Friday CITY EDITION NEWS; Pg. 1
2 Indicted in Bombing McVeigh, Nichols Face 11 Counts; Fortier Pleads Guilty to Lesser Charges Grand Jury Cites "Others" In Conspiracy
This story was written from reports by staff writers Robby Trammell, John Parker, Nolan Clay, Randy Ellis and Chris Casteel.(snip)
"No matter how thin we make our pancakes, they always have two sides," McVeigh's lead defense attorney, Stephen Jones, said at a news conference. "We urge the public not to accept the grand jury's
actions as the final and definitive answer as to who is behind the Oklahoma City bombing." Jones, an Enid attorney, also suggested Islamic terrorists might be behind the Oklahoma City attack.
Jones disclosed he has been contacted by a government "informant" who claims to have told FBI agents last September of a plot to bomb federal buildings. Jones said the informant, after being given immunity from prosecution, told FBI agents he had met with American citizens and "either Latin Americans or Arabs" about the plot.
Jones said the informant claims he told the FBI and the U.S. Marshal's office "that a federal building would be blown up or destroyed by a bomb during the middle of April 1995.""There are obviously other questions that need to be explored," the court-appointed attorney said.
(snip) (The rest is unrelated to this thread, but I HAD to include the following for posterity.)...
Grand jurors made only one reference to possible unknown co-conspirators.
Agents spent weeks searching for another bomb suspect labeled "John Doe 2" who was thought to have helped rent the bomb truck.
Three sketches were released worldwide.
Agents later concluded the sketches resembled an innocent Army private who had helped a friend rent a similar truck a day later.
But they said then the investigation was continuing into other possible suspects.
Reno said Thursday: "What we will do is pursue every lead based on the evidence, but we have charged everyone involved that we have evidence of at this point. "The lead prosecutor, Hartzler, said: "The indictment alleges that there are unknown co-conspirators. We will continue the investigation. We will continue it until we determine whether or not there are others who aided and abetted these conspirators that are charged today.
"Obviously, by implication of the indictment, you know that the grand jury found probable cause to believe that there are others who were involved. But bear in mind, the indictment alleges that McVeigh and Nichols planned the bombing, gained the materials, made the bomb and delivered the bomb. "FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said federal buildings still could not be considered completely safe.
"I think the threat is still present and still significant enough for everyone to be concerned about it," he said.(Now, wasn't that special?!)
Who was that informant? Carol Howe?
Sadly there will accountablilty for the feds lies and coverups even if they continue lying because they are still not getting it right to protect us from the next terror attack.
Proof of this is that we had 9/11/2001 in spite of my pesistent complaints and pleadings with COngressional legal cousels and COngressmen and Senators after April 19, 1999 about Failed FBI and Federal policies of deliberatley allowing known AlQaueda and Hamas terrorists to circulate in the US for years without doing anyting (Ali Mohammed and Atta and Hanjour and Al Shihei,etc).
The FBI and CIA will not be held accountable because to do that the COngress would also have to hold itself accountable which Congress does not have the guts to do since all they want is the perks of re-election.
Please answer my Freepmail to you. Thanks.
What are the chances that it was just McVeigh by sheer chance that set off a massive bomb at the same federal building that was in the immediate target of Muslim extremists? Anyone for ZERO? Occam's razor cuts right through all the B.S.
"What did President Clinton know and when did he know it?"
"My constituents are now asking these questions!"
Latin Americans??? Like Padilla?
That was my first optimistic thought after seeing this article. "Oh boy, Oh boy, Oh boy!!! Someone is trying to pave the way for the upcoming dirt on Clinton's coverup and manipulation of 'The Islamic Problem.' Yippee Yo Ki-yay!!"
But then I came out of my dream state and remembered those stolen FBI files and all the compromised politicians inside the beltway.
It just ain't gonna happen. No way, no how, never, ever, ever.
Well, I take that back. It'll happen the day Trent Lott, Orin Hatch, and the rest of the Wimpy Wonders grow some gonads.
Like I was saying...
(On another matter, check your mail in a sec.)
Hey Man! It ain't their fault!
Bush is deluded when it comes to Islam and the Bush proposals for giving Jerusalem to the PLO. Bush war on terror will fail in the end if Bush continues to be blinded by Isalm and by his business partners and campaign donars that are Saudis and backers of Hamas and ALQaeda.
Bush still will not call Arafat and the PLO terrorists. He still believes the AMerican Muslim COuncil and Saudi propaganda that they are freedom fighters. Bush is still protecting Hamas cells in OKC and the US! Busg abd his attorneys were involved at Holy Land Foundation in Dallas until 9/11. Soon after taking office, Bush ordered the FBI to stop investigating Saudi businessmen and officials (friends and business assoicates of Bush-this is fact and I am a conservative Republican) and the Bin Laden family in the US for their support of ALQaedea and Hamas in the US and worldwide. Any chance that if Bush had not done this that 9/11 might have been averted??
In this case, knowing what we know now about, it would be more than foolish to say the bombing timed with prior known threats was just a coincidence and even more outlandish to suggest the FBI and Tim McVeigh should be taken at their word. And now we also know what investigators knew before, that there are strong links between neo-Nazis and Islamofascists.
in a nut shell: I think soloman is carrying somebody's water. there was more ass coverin' going on there than you'll find at the jockey factory.
Believe it or not, the terrorists are an even larger threat than the Clintonists.
I'm glad President Bush is spending our limited time and resources unraveling the web of Islamists in our midst and not on unraveling the web of felonies committed by the Clintons.
Clinton cannot escape the full judgment of history...and he knows it.
Thanks for the definition of Occam's razor !!!
Kinda ironic that conspiracy charges are the most frequently used charges by federal prosecutors in the U.S.
I guess the LSD experiments on GI's and syphillis experiments on black GI's by the U.S. government never happened according to the government.
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