Posted on 10/03/2002 8:14:28 AM PDT by aculeus
I'M NOT A conspiracy guy. I think Oswald killed Kennedy, and that he acted alone. And, like all Americans, I figured that the tragic bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was the work of two sick ex-Army guys, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.
Now I'm not so sure.
Last night, my radio station, the Big Talker 1210, brought three speakers to town for a remarkable presentation: Jayna Davis, a reporter from Oklahoma City; Larry Johnson, ex-deputy director of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, and Patrick Lang, Mideast expert formerly of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
In a spellbinding presentation, they made the case for a connection between Mideast terrorism, the Murrah bombing - and the attacks on the Twin Towers.
Now I know why former CIA Director James Woolsey has been quoted as saying that when the full truth is known about these acts of terrorism, the nation will owe Davis "a debt of gratitude."
Why her name is not already a household word is the greatest mystery of all. Just this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that U.S. intelligence has "bulletproof" evidence of links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld didn't offer specifics. But here is what we know from the work of Davis.
When the Murrah bombing occurred at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, Davis was a reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City. She was among the first journalists to broadcast that an enormous truck bomb had rocked the heartland, killing 168 and injuring hundreds.
In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, the FBI launched an international pursuit of several Middle Eastern-looking men seen fleeing the Murrah Building in a brown Chevy pickup right before the blast. Without explanation, that all-points bulletin was later canceled. Two days later, Timothy McVeigh was a household name. So was Terry Nichols.
And that's where most of us left the tale. Stunned, but convinced that two Army buddies, homegrown terrorists, acted alone.
Thankfully, Davis didn't close this book as quickly as most of us did. She pursued the APB and set off to track reports of multiple sightings of McVeigh with an elusive dark-haired accomplice. The infamous sketch of John Doe No. 2 was always tucked firmly in her grip.
Davis soon uncovered that several employees at an Oklahoma City property- management company said they had seen a brown Chevy truck like the getaway vehicle aggressively pursued by law enforcement parked outside their office in the days before the bombing. The company's owner was a Palestinian with a rap sheet and suspected ties to the PLO.
Davis learned that, six months before the bombing, the Palestinian hired a handful of ex-Iraqi soldiers to do maintenance at his rental houses. Eyewitnesses told Davis that they celebrated the bombing.
She was also made aware that these same men were absent from work on April 17, 1995, the day McVeigh rented the Ryder truck that carried the bomb.
While pursuing the story of these Middle Eastern men, Davis also became aware of another ex-Iraqi soldier in Oklahoma City named Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini. She was taken aback to see that Al-Hussaini's picture, when overlaid with the government sketch of John Doe No. 2, was arguably a perfect match. He even sported a tattoo on his upper left arm indicating that he likely had served in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.
Davis then set about looking for a connection to McVeigh, Nichols, Al-Hussaini and other Iraqis. It came when a colleague located two eyewitnesses who claimed to have independently seen Al-Hussaini drinking beer with McVeigh in an Oklahoma City nightclub just four days before the bombing.
This convinced her station to run with the Iraqi-connection story. It was met with some controversy.
The Justice Department responded that the identification of John Doe No. 2 was merely a case of mistaken identity. Al-Hussaini contacted local reporters, claiming to be falsely accused. Davis did not back off because she believed she could repudiate Al-Hussaini's alibi.
AND SHE LOCATED two dozen witnesses who identified eight specific Middle Eastern men, the majority of whom were ex-Iraqi soldiers, who were seen with McVeigh and Nichols. Two witnesses named Al-Hussaini as the dark-haired, olive-skinned man they observed one block from the Murrah Building just before daybreak on the day of the blast.
She also uncovered evidence that implicated several of Al-Hussaini's co-workers. One of these men was identified as sitting in the driver's seat of a Chevy pickup at an Oklahoma City apartment complex hours before the truck was abandoned on the lot and towed to the FBI command post. According to police records, the truck had been stripped of its vehicle identification numbers and identifying body molding.
The story gathered steam. Here, it would appear, was the deserted pickup that was the same vehicle that was seen speeding away from the vicinity of the Murrah building with two Arab-looking occupants.
And there was more. Five witnesses independently fingered several of Al-Hussaini's associates as frequent visitors to an Oklahoma City motel in the months, days, and hours leading up to 9:02 a.m. on April 19. On numerous occasions, the subjects were seen in the company of McVeigh, and during a few instances, associating with Nichols - at the same motel!
Davis spoke to the motel owner and a maintenance worker who said the men came within feet of a large Ryder truck parked on the west side of the parking lot at 7:40 a.m. on April 19. An unexplained odor of diesel fuel emanated from the rear carriage. Minutes later, McVeigh entered the motel office and returned the room key. The motel owner then saw McVeigh drive off the lot with a man identified as Al-Hussaini.
To this day, the Justice Department has refused to return the original registration logs for the motel.
Davis has 80 pages of affidavits and 2,000 supporting documents, and they suggest not only an Iraqi connection to the Murrah bombing, but also to the attacks against the Twin Towers.
For example, Nichols was a man of modest means. Yet he traveled frequently to the Philippines. Davis discovered that Nichols was there, in Cebu City in December 1994, at the same time as the convicted mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef.
She has also found evidence that Islamic terrorists boasted of having recruited two "lily whites" for terrorism.
Al-Hussaini had a very American response to Davis' investigation. He sued for defamation. In a ruling on Nov. 17, 1999, federal Judge Timothy Leonard dismissed the case.
In 1995, the federal grand jury proclaimed in the official indictment that McVeigh and Nichols acted with "others unknown." And several members of the Denver juries who convicted the two said publicly that they thought they had help.
Since 1997, Davis has repeatedly tried to interest the FBI in her investigation. She has been rebuffed.
As for Al-Hussaini, after leaving Oklahoma City, he went on to work at Boston's Logan International Airport, the point of origin for several for the 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammad Atta.
One more thing. That motel where McVeigh, Nichols and Al-Hussaini were seen together was later visited (pre-9/11) by Atta, Zacharias Moussaouy and Marwan Al-Shehi.
Michael Smerconish's column appears Thursdays. E-mail mas@mastalk.com.
© 2001 philly and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
..,He bravely sniveled while pinging backup. I notice you managed to frame an angry retort before hitting abuse. Poor form, thang. Very poor form.
One can only hope Spector make better of this than he did with the contents of the Ford Bldg. during the impeachment, etc.
may be hard to sweep this under the rug.
p.s. I appreciate the recognition you posted earlier on pat briley's research seeking to flesh out the truth about the murrah bombing. he's been a relentless bulldog in making this public.
NOW he may be interested since the press is on this. Let us know how this turns out.
But where is Poop-Bah? - where is Stinkspur?
another major development!
the iraqi connection, particularly hussain al hussaini has been well documented with witness afadavits and is undeniable imo.
connecting the dots to saddam is another thing.
it will be interesting to watch the congress critters dance around this one now that spectre has gone public.
I suspect that "to James Woolsey" should be "by James Woolsey." Woolsey, former director of the CIA (1993-1995), has endorsed Jayna Davis's work publicly in recent weeks (see the Wall Street Journal, September 5). I imagine that the proposal was for Woolsey to brief Mueller on his findings.
PPS. Never forget ... the original poster of the article!
;-)
I do believe that is the most common cause of cover-ups. Like any lie, once they're started, the prospect of revelation gets more and more embarrassing, and the efforts to conceal increase.
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