Oklahoma bombing/Iraq link - Australian article.

For the first time since the Alfred Murrah Building came down in Oklahoma City in 1995, the recent anniversary of the bombing that killed 168 people passed largely unnoticed in America. There were ceremonies, but the explosion's echo was hard to hear above the sound of Baghdad's toppling statues.

According to investigators, the case was closed with Timothy McVeigh's execution. He was a wacko, the authorised version insists, a right-wing loner. Oklahoma's loose ends have all been tied up; time to move on.

Except in an Oklahoma courtroom, where the families of the dead beg to differ. Last week lawyers representing 24 families of the dead attempted to persuade a dubious judge that McVeigh and his partner, Terry Nichols, were part of a much larger plot. Pick at the loose ends, they say, and the threads lead all the way to Iraq - even, perhaps, to September 11.

Judge Deborah Robinson gave the legal team more time to bolster its argument that McVeigh was working for Saddam Hussein. Yes, she said, a series of coincidences all point to Baghdad, but she couldn't begin to consider billions of dollars in damages on the strength of circumstantial conjecture. Bring me a smoking gun, she said.

Lawyers put a brave face on the ruling. All that was missing, they said, was documentary proof - Iraqi intelligence records of the sort that seem to be turning up almost every day.

For true believers, there is more than enough evidence already. As they see it, the trail begins seconds before the blast, when nine witnesses reported a brown pickup truck speeding from the scene with a man of Middle Eastern appearance at the wheel. Police looked for it until a patrolman radioed the news that he had just handcuffed a young, white male after a routine traffic stop. It was McVeigh, and his arrest ended inquiries into an Iraqi connection.

Except for Jayna Davis, then an Oklahoma City TV reporter. Eight witnesses told her of that pickup's rubber-burning departure. Despite investigators' warnings that Davis was wasting her time and theirs, she kept digging. Her sleuthing became the basis of the relatives' suit.

The dossier begins with the pickup's owner, whom Jayna identified as Hussain Al-Hussaini, a former Republican Guardsman and Iraqi immigrant. She also established that Hussaini's six-man workforce - all former Iraqi soldiers - didn't report to work on the day that McVeigh hired the truck used in the bombing.

Could they have helped mix the fertiliser and diesel fuel - a task the FBI says would have taken one man several days? At the cheap motel where McVeigh had stayed, the owner added weight to her suspicions: not only had he seen McVeigh entertaining Hussaini and other Middle Eastern visitors, they had all fussed with a yellow truck that dripped diesel fuel all over his parking lot.

Then there was "John Doe Number Two", the mysterious co-conspirator for whom the FBI issued an all-points bulletin, only to abandon the hunt several weeks later. John Doe, the G-men announced several weeks later, was actually Terry Nichols.

Davis was sceptical, not least because Doe's identikit picture bore only a slight resemblance to the man in custody but was a close match for Hussaini.

Although officials derided Davis as a crank, she kept ferreting out tantalising links. Nichols was unemployed, yet he flew several times to the Philippines, where he stayed in the same hotel as Ramzi Youssef, the convicted mastermind behind the first attempt to destroy New York's World Trade Centre in 1993 and the nephew of Khalid Mohammed, the al- Qaeda man who oversaw the September 11 attacks.

The relatives' lawyers argue that there is one more reason why the legal system should indulge their theorising. If it were to be explored, they say, the result might unite the Oklahoma bombing, September 11 and the Bush Administration's as-yet-unproven assertions that Saddam worked hand in glove with Osama bin Laden.

Their final link: Shortly before Mohammed Atta flew his hijacked plane into the Twin Towers, he and a fellow terrorist visited Oklahoma. Investigators aren't sure why, but they do know that he stayed in McVeigh's old motel. Could it be that someone in Iraq advised him that the motel had been a safe refuge in the past?

That's the theory, anyway. Now all the plaintiffs have to do is hope that, somewhere in Baghdad, the evidence they need emerges from the rubble.

Jim, how is it that you have access to this 'mountain' of unquestionable evidence? Do you work for the FBI ? Were you on the Jury? Are you a computer hacker so you can access any Govt file you want? Please explain how you have so much (so called) unquestionable evidence... because simply saying over and over again that McVeigh and Nichols were involved (which EVERYONE agrees with) MAY be only part of the story.

You say that "no one" has been able to prove there were other accomplices. I would argue that unless you are with the FBI or other high-level security clearance agency, you don't know that to be a fact. Unless you have a security clearance that gives you access to documents that the general public cannot see, you don't know if there ARE accomplices that have been kept out of the picture.

The phone card is NOT proof that McVeigh/Nichols did not make other calls on other phone cards, or from other land line locations, or from cell phones that they held for only short periods of time under false names, or collect calls, etc. It only proves what calls were made on THAT particular phone card.

If you do have a security clearance, perhaps you can debunk these flimsy connections:

Ramzi Yousef utilized local pawns for the first WTC bombing. He took locals with a hatred for America and directed them throughout the 'mission'. And then Yousef left the country the day of the bombing. One of those pawns that Yousef used was the guy who actually drove the truck into the WTC building parking lot. He was not a very smart guy, because he made 46 calls to Iraq during the preparations for the bombing. This guy was arrested when he tried to get back his cash deposit on the truck he had rented for the bombing.

A few dates:
Early 1991 (around the end of the Gulf War): Ramzi Yousef showed up in the Philippines seeking contact with a Muslim group there. Introduced as "the chemist", he proposed to collaborate in bombing conspiracies.

September 1, 1992: Ramzi Yousef arrived at JFK airport in New York City. He presented an Iraqi passport without a U.S. visa, was briefly detained (and fingerprinted) for illegal entry, and granted asylum pending a hearing. Yousef went to stay at the apartment of Musab Yasin, an Iraqi living in Jersey City (in the vicinity of where the Anthrax letters originated... but that's another story).

February 26, 1993: First World Trade Center bombing. Ramzi Yousef flew to Pakistan that afternoon. He subsequently ended up in the Phillipines.

November 22, 1994, Nichols went to the Phillipines, where he allegedly stayed at the same hotel as Yousef.

January 1995: Yousef accidentally started a fire in his apartment in the Phillipines, mixing the chemicals to be used in a plot to blow up 11 commerical airliners mid-air, enroute to the United States. This information was gleaned from his laptop computer which was left behind when he fled due to the fire.

February 1995: Yousef is arrested in Pakistan.

April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City Bombing.

Thoughts... **IF** there is an Iraqi connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing:

Yousef would have learned from his first WTC bombing, and as such he may have insisted that all of his communications with McVeigh/Nichols were in person, and/or in the Phillipines. Thus, there would be no record of telephone calls to connect further accomplices. McVeigh/Nichols could have been Yousef's willing pawns for this 'mission' just like he had willing pawns in the WTC bombing.

WTC = Ryder Truck
OKC = Ryder Truck

WTC = Truck Bomb
OKC = Truck Bomb (and yes, I understand the explosives were entirely different - but the method was the same)

WTC = planning time: 6 months (after Yousef enters country)
OKC = planning time: 5 months (after Nichols visits Phillipines)

Why did Nichols have an "in the event of my death" letter prepared?

Where did McVeigh/Nichols get the $20,000 cash and other funding for hotels, travel, expenses, supplies, etc.? (Yousef??)

How does a so-called white supremacist (McVeigh) have an affair with a Phillipino woman? Was the white supremacy stuff a well-rehearsed act? A true white supremacist wouldn't have felt bad about killing Iraqis in the Gulf War, and McVeigh did feel bad and sought counseling for it.

There may not be a paper trail from McVeigh/Nichols to other accomplices... but unless you had full audio and video surveillance on Nichols the entire time he was in the Phillipines, you don't know who he met with, what was discussed, etc.

In other words, as Dr. Frank has tried to say several times, it is POSSIBLE there were others involved. The evidence that is publically available may not substantiate it, but that does not mean it isn't still possible.

As for why the reporter wasn't able to find evidence of any accomplices, that reporter doesn't have the time or resources available that the Govt does for looking into such things. NO ONE had Nichols under surveillance in the Phillipines, so NO ONE can say what he did over there... while staying at the same hotel as Yousef.

I also wonder why "Jim" is so adamant that his opinion is the only right opinion, given that he has not proven his case any more than the 'conspiracy theorists' have. His entire case seems to be that because McVeigh/Nichols DID DO IT, that is the full and complete "end of story." When in fact, it MAY BE only a part of the story.

As a matter of fact, Jim's own 'evidence' - the Grand Jury document - states the following about John Doe II:

"However, in spite of all the evidence before us we cannot finally put closure to the question of the existence of a John Doe II. We are encouraged that the FBI continues to have an agent assigned full-time to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing and are confident that if any new evidence comes to light, they and other law enforcement agencies will pursue those leads."

So it is clear that even the Grand Jury, who did review the mountains of evidence, was UNABLE to conclude that John Doe II was a phantom, leaving open the possibility that John Doe II does/did exist.

At any rate, Jim is free to draw his own conclusions, as are we all. Perhaps one day, when all the documents are unclassified, we will all know the truth, whatever that may be.

Nichols defense claims cover-up

By J.D. Cash

MCALESTER - Claiming government misconduct and an outright cover-up by federal and state prosecutors in the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, attorneys for Terry L. Nichols on Monday filed a 90-page motion to dismiss charges in the 161-count mass-murder case.

Monday's defense filing included several hundred pages of supporting exhibits presented under seal, thus unavailable to the public.

In their most direct attack yet on the government's handling of evidence in the case, Nichols' lawyers provided a litany of examples where lawyers said they had to turn to journalists - including this newspaper - to find evidence still hidden by the government, evidence that tends to show convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh was involved with a group of bank bandits operating from a far-right compound in eastern Oklahoma called Elohim City.

"The federal government has withheld critical information from the defense," the motion states, "has sanitized or redacted 302s (witness statements) and has buried other materials in the discovery provided to the defense, all in an effort to mask the connection between Timothy McVeigh and his conspirators."

Nichols says his lawyers were denied critical evidence that a gang the FBI called the Midwest Bank Bandits or Aryan Republican Army assisted McVeigh. The defense contends that Nichols was "framed" by his former friend to shield McVeigh's co-conspirators operating out of Elohim City and elsewhere.

Referring to a series of recent articles by Washington, D.C., Associated Press reporter John Solomon, and materials used in earlier stories copyrighted by this newspaper, "It was only after the disclosures by AP reporter John Soloman and our subsequent review of other federal investigatory files (the federal bank robbery files of Peter Langan, one of the Midwest bank robbers) that we discovered critical exculpatory material buried in the 1B file in the 37 file cabinets in the District Attorney's office."

Hoping to convince District Court Judge Steven Taylor to toss the case out, defense attorneys argued that prosecutors as recently as March 1 claimed they turned over all exculpatory materials.

"This court made it perfectly clear, however, that if that reliance proved to be misplaced, and it was discovered that any exculpatory material had not been disclosed to the defense, the remedy would not be a mistrial, it would be dismissal with prejudice."

"Put bluntly, this Court has been misled. The federal government and state prosecutors have withheld - and continue to withhold - critical information from the defense that shows that Timothy McVeigh was aided by persons other than Terry Nichols in his plot to bomb the Murrah Building."

Film shocker

From details discovered in a Secret Service file on Richard Lee Guthrie Jr., one of the Midwest bank bandits (now deceased) defense lawyers told the court that they discovered references to a video that appears to have captured the bomb truck arriving and individuals exiting, then leaving the scene before the blast. The existence of such a film has never been confirmed before.

"Security video tapes from the area show the truck detonation three minutes and six seconds after the suspects exited the truck," the Secret Service file notes.

The Secret Service document also records that an eyewitness at the scene recalled a woman waving the bomb-laden Ryder truck into a parking place minutes before it exploded.

"ATSAIC McNally noted that this fact is significant due to the fact that the security video shows the Ryder truck pulling up to the federal building and then pausing (7-10 seconds) before resuming into a slot in front of the building. It is speculated that the woman was signaling the truck when a slot became available."

Phone records discovered

Discovered during an inspection at this newspaper by a member of the Nichols defense were critically important phone records the FBI gathered during their investigation into the Midwest bank bandits seven-state bank robbery spree.

Nichols' lawyers say these records are the missing link between the bank bandits and McVeigh at crucial times in the bombing conspiracy.

"It was not until Mr. Earnest (Nichols lawyer) found the attached prepaid telephone calling card account records in Peter Langan's BOMBROB file in Mr. Cash's office that the defense had any idea that some of numbers in the OKBOMB file were connected to the Midwest bank bandits," the motion states.

Referring to an FBI memo the defense only learned of after this newspaper used it in story published Dec. 14, 2003, the motion states:

"This FBI memorandum is a veritable bombshell. It was from the Director of the FBI and it specifically contains the Oklahoma City bombing FBI case number. ... The importance of this memo cannot be understated."

Referring to information in the mption, defense lawyers point out critically important facts such as that McVeigh had a lengthy relationship with someone at Elohim City prior to the bombing and that he called there twice before the blast.

Until now the Department of Justice and the FBI have said they never had any evidence that McVeigh had contacts in Elohim City or called there more than once.

Concerning this memo, the motion states: "It (the memo) unquestionably indicates that the FBI had additional, important information about an unknown "second conspirator" not set forth in the memo. The motion also sets forth a series of references to several witness statements contained in files obtained by this newspaper involving the Midwest bank bandits and their possible links to McVeigh.

The motion points out that the government withheld those items of evidence in spite of orders to turn over any evidence McVeigh may have been involved with others beyond Nichols.

Judge Taylor said he would need at least until Wednesday to consider the material before deciding on whether the case should be dismissed or if there might be another appropriate remedy.

Gazette reporter J.D. Cash has been subpoenaed to testify Wednesday.

Below are the links to this and other related articles.

McCurtain County Oklahoma Daily Gazette
World Net Daily Article
Center For Security Policy.org

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