There are many different possibilities for Ashcroft's rush to execute the main witness (and a main perp) and to avoid facing the evidence of ME involvement. Freepers will disagree over whether the main motivation is embarrassment/protection of government agencies who "cut corners" to get a perceived righeous result vs. outright collusion in the cover-up, and some will even speculate on collusion with the domestic perps (way above McVeigh) who had a reason to want the "sting" to go wrong... I'm still watchin' and waitin'.
Apart from the moral issues involved, there's still that ole practical issue: this IS coming out and people ARE going to find out about protection of ME operatives in OKC then and continuing into the present. Wouldn't it put the administrations of 43 and 41 in a much better light if they simply issued a statement right NOW that said, "We supported some of these creeps because they were double agents working for us. It's only recently that we were made aware that they were triple agents working for Iraq..." Sort of a "mistakes were made" defense--not attractive, but it would allow them to cover their butts and, much more importantly, it would allow the truth about ME OKC perps and dirty FBI/CIA agents to be faced. And dealt with.
Rd, maybe you could consider it something like a plea bargain--very unsatisfying because bad guys get away, but at least the underlying crime is addressed...