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The FBI confiscates the suspected getaway vehicle
In the early stages of my investigation for KFOR-TV, I discovered the FBI seized a suspicious brown Chevy pickup after Oklahoma City police towed the abandoned truck from a local apartment complex on April 27, 1995. According to the police report, law enforcement suspected it might be the same vehicle seen fleeing the federal building with Middle Eastern suspects. The Chevy Silverado had been stripped of its license plate, inspection tag, and all its Vehicle Identification Numbers. It also had been hastily spray-painted yellow, but the original color was listed as brown.
FBI documents revealed Dallas FBI Agent Jim Ellis was assigned to investigate the impounded truck. He interviewed several residents at the apartment complex where the vehicle was recovered. One witness told the agent she saw the driver of the mysterious pickup hours before it was deserted. She described him as being "clean shaven with an olive complexion, dark wavy hair, and broad shoulders," in his late 20s or early 30s, and of Middle Eastern descent. She later identified the man from KFOR-TV's surveillance photos of the Iraqi soldiers who were employed by the Palestinian businessman's property management company.
Terry Nichols, Iraqi Intelligence, and the Philippines Factor
The brief summary of the witnesses' testimonies provides only a glimpse into the eighty pages of notarized statements and 2500 supporting documents which present a persuasive argument that 4-19 was the precursor for 9-11. A probing look into the background and travels of convicted bomber Terry Nichols further substantiates that disturbing theory.
I have obtained sealed filings by McVeigh's defense team which outline reasons why they believed Terry Nichols received bomb making expertise through Iraqi intelligence based in the Philippines. Nichols, a small time Kansas farmer of modest means, took expensive and unexplained trips to the Philippines, frequently without his Filipino mail order bride.
Phone records reveal Nichols received and made numerous calls to a boarding house in Cebu City, which according to McVeigh's defense lawyers, sheltered students from a local university well known for Islamic militancy. In an attempt to cover their tracks, Nichols and McVeigh used a phone debit card to make a series of cryptic calls to untraceable numbers in the Philippines from public pay phones in Kansas.
The court record reveals the Oklahoma City bomber, Terry Nichols was in Cebu City in December 1994 at the same time as the convicted mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack Ramzi Yousef. Did Ramzi Yousef and Terry Nichols cross paths? According to the sworn statement of the late Edwin Angeles, co-founder of the Filipino Muslim terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, that meeting took place in the early 1990's on the island of Mindanao. Angeles said he was present when Terry Nichols, Ramzi Yousef, and two Middle Eastern co-conspirators met to discuss the acquisition of firearms and bomb making.
On April 19, 1995, Abdul Hakim Murad, a Middle Eastern terrorist who was later convicted with Ramzi Yousef in a foiled plot to blow up twelve U.S. airliners in Manila, corroborated the testimony of Abu Sayyaf leader, Edwin Angeles. Murad told a prison guard at a New York City detention center where he was confined that as a member of the Philippine Liberation Army, he was responsible for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. In addition to his verbal confession, Murad put this startling admission in writing.
Official interrogation reports detailing Murad's 1995 statements to U.S. and Filipino authorities reveal the Islamic terrorist disclosed visionary details of the 1994 plot to hijack commercial airlines and convert them into flying missiles. One of the alleged targets, according to Murad, was CIA headquarters.
In summation, Abdul Hakim Murad proved he was familiar with intimate details of the failed 1995 plot to destroy U.S. airliners, the 1993 attack on World Trade Center, and a future scheme to convert commercial jets into bombs. But FBI investigators discounted the confessed terrorist's emphatic claim on April 19 that a radical Islamic group based in the Philippines was behind the Murrah building attack - this allegation coming from a man, who according to the leader of Abu Sayyaf, was present when Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef met to discuss bomb making.
The Islamic recruitment of two "lily whites" to strike on U.S. soil
While the Philippines connection implies Iraqi involvement in the 1995 terror campaign, intelligence collected by the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare also points the finger of blame at the nation of Iran, the most notorious proponent of state-sponsored terrorism in the world.
The Director of the Task Force, Yossef Bodansky, shared he independently came across the same Middle Eastern suspects KFOR-TV was investigating. In the years that followed, he disclosed sensitive intelligence documents that refuted the notion that two disenfranchised army buddies had the bomb making expertise to execute such a massive attack.
On February 27, 1995, the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism issued a prior warning which stated there would be an "Iran-sponsored Islamic attack" on U.S. soil. Washington, D.C. topped the hit list. The primary targets were Congress and the White House, a foreshadowing of the events of 9-11.
The warning was distributed to the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies. In response to the alert, security was beefed up in the nation's capitol, so the focus then shifted from Washington, D.C. to America's Heartland.
On March 3, 1995, the Task Force chief authored an updated warning that predicted the terrorists now planned to strike at "the heart of the U.S." Twelve cities were placed on the potential target list because of the radical Islamic groups and terrorist networks operating within those cities. Oklahoma City was on the original list.
But more importantly, the Task Force learned that the Middle Eastern terrorists had recruited two "lily whites" to carry out the bombing of an American federal building. "Lily whites" in the lexicon of the intelligence community refer to individuals who have no criminal history and no obvious ties to Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. Both Timothy McVeigh, a decorated Gulf War veteran, and Terry Nichols, a former soldier and Kansas farmer, both fit that criterion.
The 1995 prior warnings were generated from multiple intelligence sources in several Middle Eastern countries over a period of 18 months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing. Intelligence was also gathered from terrorist conferences which took place in the fall of 1994 and early 1995 in which Tehran's overriding desire to strike inside the "Great Satan" was unveiled. Osama bin Laden attended those conferences.
There was ample evidence that an international terrorism offensive, sponsored by Iran and Syria, was about to be launched inside the United States in the spring of 1995, sometime after the start of the Iranian New Year on March 21. However, I must emphasize that at no time did I uncover any evidence that would indicate law enforcement had enough information to stop the bomb.
The Congressional Task Force also obtained intelligence that revealed two "Oklahoma City Islamists" had traveled to Chicago in the summer of 1993 to attend a Hamas terrorist training camp to learn how to make car bombs from readily available, off the shelf materials. According to Mr. Bodansky, the bomb making techniques involved materials and design similar to the type of explosives used in the Oklahoma bombing.
Mr. Bodansky believed the heartland terrorist attack bore a distinct Middle Eastern signature. In his written analysis, the Task Force director postulated the "initial forensic investigation in Oklahoma suggests strong similarities to bombing techniques used by Iran-sponsored Islamic terrorists." He illustrated the uncanny analogy to the Middle Eastern car bomb that destroyed the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina on July 18, 1994. The AMIA bombing involved the Islamic terrorist recruitment of a "lily white" Caucasian who delivered the truck bomb.
The striking parallel to the Oklahoma City operation led Bodansky to deduce the AMIA bombing was a "test run" for Oklahoma City, just as the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina served as the "test run" for the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
Timothy McVeigh: Saddam Hussein's unabashed devotee
Until the date of his execution on June 11, 2001, McVeigh steadfastly maintained he acted alone, with minimal participation from Terry Nichols. Yet even in death, the lingering suspicion of McVeigh's treasonous collusion with enemy soldiers, upon whom he had once fired as a Bradley gunner in the Gulf War, persists today.
In March 1998, McVeigh's ire ignited as U.S. troops gathered in the Persian Gulf to launch air strikes if Saddam Hussein continued to block United Nations' inspections of his weapons arsenal. The veteran of Operation Desert Storm fired off a jarring salvo from his death row cell, expressing outrage at opinion polls that showed widespread favor for bombing Iraq. In a published essay, which received little fanfare, the convicted terrorist accused the federal government and public of "blatant hypocrisy."
"Do people think that government workers in Iraq are any less human than those in Oklahoma City? Do they think Iraqis don't have families who will grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones?" McVeigh asked, expressing unambiguous sympathy for Iraq.
But most unnerving was this former Army sergeant's shameless condemnation of the U.S. bombing of Baghdad during the Gulf War, in which he donned the American military uniform. Brimming with righteous indignation, he passionately argued the Iraqi dictator's justification for "stockpiling weapons of mass destruction" in order to protect his people against neighboring hostile nations. In an April 2001 letter to Fox News, McVeigh made known his tacit endorsement of Ramzi Yousef's 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center when quoting the Muslim defendant's statement to a New York court before sentencing. "Yes, I am a terrorist and proud of it as long as it is against the U.S. government," Yousef proclaimed during a January 1998 hearing. But this telling reference to the public proclamation of a militant Islamist was not the first time McVeigh ardently defended the murderous actions of Middle Eastern terrorists.
In a rare television interview with 60 Minutes, McVeigh castigated the United States government for cruise missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for Osama bin Laden's 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa. But for years, McVeigh's empathy for bin Laden, Saddam, and Iraq would remain unknown, while courtroom evidence shaped the profile of an American terrorist, who allegedly exacted revenge against the government for what he perceived to be totalitarian actions against its own citizens, not foreigners.
Shortly after McVeigh was arrested in April of 1995, ABC's Prime Time Live aired a segment in which a former army acquaintance of McVeigh said, "Tim always wanted to become a mercenary," preferably for the Middle East, because he said they "paid the best."
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Alhussaini files a libel lawsuit
Despite the persuasive indicators pointing to Middle Eastern complicity in the Murrah Building attack and the eyewitness testimony which implicated Hussain Alhussaini, the Iraqi soldier filed a libel lawsuit against KFOR-TV in August of 1995.
Two years passed and he offered no evidence or witness affidavits that refuted Channel 4's stories or established his innocence. In 1997, the plaintiff, Hussain Alhussaini, voluntarily dismissed his libel complaint against KFOR, twenty-four hours before the state district judge was expected to rule on the station's motion to dismiss the case.
Six months later, in September 1997, the Oklahoma County Grand Jury, which was investigating the possibility of other unknown conspirators in the bombing, subpoenaed me to testify. With the permission of my confidential witnesses, I submitted to the panel copies of their sworn statements regarding Middle Eastern involvement in the bombing. One day after my publicized appearance before the Grand Jury, Alhussaini re-filed his libel suit in federal court.
Alhussaini's psychiatric records expose dark revelations about "John Doe 2"
Once again, nearly a year passed while the case languished. There were no depositions, no hearings, and no trial date. Then in July of 1998, the stalemate abruptly ended. A federal judge ordered Alhussaini to come to Oklahoma for a deposition. During the next few months, the former Iraqi army veteran stonewalled several subpoenas for him to appear in Oklahoma City to defend his contention that he had been falsely accused as a possible John Doe 2.
The dark revelations that would come to light during the ensuing weeks were astounding. After legal wrangling back and forth, Alhussaini's attorney reluctantly released to my legal counsel hundreds of pages of psychiatric records in which the Iraqi immigrant claimed to be experiencing mental delusions. The documents told a chilling story. Just two weeks after I testified before the Oklahoma County Grand Jury in the fall of 1997, he committed himself to a psychiatric hospital in Boston. He was seeking treatment more than two years after Channel 4 broadcast the stories that he contended "defamed" him and caused him emotional distress.
Most significantly, he lamented to his doctors that he was extremely apprehensive about the prospect of being subpoenaed before the Oklahoma County Grand Jury, claiming he was emotionally unfit to travel to Oklahoma to testify. He confided he had been haunted by visions of bombing victims. He claimed he fantasized about making a bomb and confessed his paranoia that the police would come arrest him in the dead of night.
After it became evident Alhussaini would have to comply with the presiding judge's order to appear in Oklahoma City for a deposition or risk an almost certain dismissal of his lawsuit, he finally appeared for questioning in October of 1998. Much to everyone's surprise, Alhussaini broke down under intense questioning by my attorneys and inadvertently disclosed self-incriminating details. Visibly shaken, he described what he said was an auditory hallucination in which a voice he believed to be Timothy McVeigh's said to him, "Why should I be executed by myself? I want you to be executed with me." He reluctantly admitted he told his psychiatrist that a voice whispered to him, "You are John Doe 2."
My attorneys speculated that even if the plaintiff was telling the truth about his unstable mental condition, he could not have imagined himself to be a bloodthirsty terrorist as a result of having viewed several brief television news broadcasts in which his identity and name had been painstakingly concealed.
We pondered perplexing questions that yielded no simple answers. Why did Hussain Alhussaini dream about making bombs, hide from the police, cower from macabre images of bombing victims, and evade being interviewed by the grand jury?
Alhussaini's tale of imprisonment as an Iraqi dissident discredited
With extraordinary frequency, Alhussaini's sworn testimony contradicted his previously published interviews with the press. His heartrending stories of persecution and imprisonment under the villainous leadership of Saddam Hussein unraveled as my lawyers placed before him immigration records that exposed glaring inconsistencies in his personal history. The documents refuted his claims of having been convicted of distributing anti-government propaganda against Saddam's regime. Most astonishing was our discovery that he failed to mention to his intake officer at the International Rescue Committee that he served eight years behind bars as a political dissident. Instead, during his alleged years of confinement and "torture" in an Iraqi prison, Alhussaini was working as a calligrapher for an Arabic advertising institute.
Intelligence and defense experts who have comprehensively reviewed Alhussaini's seven-day deposition and immigration file have concluded that his personal history was a complete fabrication. Alhussaini's absurd stories of participating in subversive activities against Saddam while serving in the Iraqi military would have led to execution, not imprisonment as he claimed. Defense intelligence analysts view his phony background as a clever means to facilitate his infiltration into the United States as a false defector and an Iraqi intelligence agent.
Federal judge rejects Alhussaini's claims of libel
On Nov. 17, 1999, U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard granted Channel 4's motion. In his ruling, Leonard determined that all fifty statements of fact and opinion that KFOR-TV set forth implicating Alhussaini in the bombing were "undisputed." Most notably, Alhussaini had not filed any witness affidavits to establish his alibi, leaving the witness testimonies, which discredited his whereabouts for the morning of April 19, unchallenged.
Another intriguing piece of this puzzle fell into place during a press conference in August of 1995 when Alhussaini first announced his defamation lawsuit against KFOR-TV. Alhussaini's lawyers refused to allow him to answer when a reporter asked where the Iraqi soldier was when the bomb went off. The lead attorney abruptly interjected, "I'm going to stop him from giving the exact location."
Seven witnesses named Alhussaini as the "dark-haired, olive-skinned" stranger they observed the company of McVeigh before the bombing, riding in the passenger seat of the Ryder truck, stepping out of that truck at ground zero, and speeding away from the shattered and burning remains of the Murrah Building in a brown pickup targeted by federal agents; yet the FBI had apparently never questioned him.
DOJ unwilling to official clear Alhussaini of suspicion in the bombing
Alhussaini's lawyers failed to produce an official on-the-record exoneration by the Department of Justice after the Iraqi national went on the local airwaves in June 1995 to publicly plead with the FBI to step forward and clear his name. That never happened. Given the controversial nature of the story, I doggedly pursued federal officials to publish an on-the-record statement exonerating Hussain Alhussaini of suspicion. The Oklahoma City FBI, U.S. Attorney's office, and a spokesman for the former Attorney General Janet Reno refused to do so.
I then reached out to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Chief of Staff for Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, Herb Johnson, asked the FBI if the Bureau was able to officially clear Hussain Alhussaini. The agency delivered this evasive response: "We cannot comment on a pending investigation." Mr. Johnson later confirmed the FBI's unwillingness to absolve Alhussaini of complicity in a letter to my attorneys.
In the fall of 1998, during his civil deposition in the lawsuit against KFOR-TV, the station's lawyers asked the Iraqi soldier this pivotal question: "To your knowledge, has any official agency of the United States government cleared you as a suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing?" After a long pause, Alhussaini sheepishly responded, "No."
Alhussaini takes job at Boston Logan where he fears another terrorist hit
When Middle Eastern terrorists unleashed their murderous fury on September 11, 2001, I scoured the investigative dossier to discover that Hussain Alhussaini went on to work at Boston Logan International Airport. In November 1997, four years before two planes were hijacked from Boston Logan on a murderous trek to the World Trade Center; Alhussaini confided to his psychiatrist he was apprehensive about his airport job stating, "If something were to happen here, I would be a suspect." He also disclosed that he was residing with two Iraqi brothers who provided food-catering services to the commercial airlines at Boston Logan. A background check into Alhussaini's former residence confirms his testimony. This intriguing fact just grazes the surface of the disturbing connections I have uncovered between 4-19 and 9-11.