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
You're in CA, aren'tcha? KFBK skips all over after sundown. 1530 AM on the right side of your dial.
The Feds find the Nichols OK state trial as another convenient reason not to release this tape evidence. I have helped an OKC attorney Mike Johnston prepare his court motions trying to get the tenth circuit court of appeals to have the tapes released. That is when AShcroft moved in to shut it down.
Do you think flight 800 is connected to the same group, and if so, do you think this will all come out now? I have heard that OkC is now being reexamined, but will those who have covered all of this up for so long continue to? Someone is obviously talking since this is leaking out. Perhaps 911 has really bothered those who know what happened before.
72 posted on 6/20/02 9:27 PM Pacific by ladyinred
At this point, I'm not inclined to make a judgement regarding Flight 800 other than that we have been lied to and the Feds knew they were misleading the public. What has taken place with Flight 800 involves criminal activity. I suppose national security could be claimed, but look what the result was. Our guard was down, we ate it big time on 09/11. If there was a middle-eastern component, it could have heightened our homeland readiness. I just don't know if this dynamic is valid.
The OKC area is evidently a hotbed of middle-eastern activity. So is Florida. Why have we mastermined a situation that sees us with people inside our nation that hate our gutts? This did not have to happen.
On the John Gibson Fox show this afternoon, he touched on John Doe #2. He had a guest and she was an ex-television reporter. She she was quite good. Gibson was so moved that at the end of his show he did an editorial in which he said that it appeared that the government knew about middle-eastern involvement and covered it up. I was hoping I could record the show this evening, but I wasn't able to.
I believe these issues are about to explode. And further, I believe that when one of them does, people are going to open their eyes on other topics.
TWA 800, Waco, Ruby Ridge, the first attack on the WTC are all going to be picked over with a fine toothed comb. If the government is proven to be culpable in a coverup, whew, I wouldn't want to be an elected official or an national security official. They'll be about as popular as the plague.
I always want it not to be Iran, just because I so appreciate that land and its culture. However, people are one thing, and governments quite another.
In a funny way, everything that has happened since Sept 11 hs benefitted Iran. The Taliban was knocked over, and they didn't have to do it themselves (which they had planned to, then thought it was too difficult.) Also, now the US is poised more strongly than ever against Iraq, and Iran waits for the day when that govt falls. They will be straight into southern Iraq - part of the Shia heartland - as well as site of major oil reserves.
But surely, if Iran was behind any of these major events, the intelligence services would know it ... wouldn't they?
Guess where I am posting from? I am in Amman, Jordan, in an internet cafe. I am travelling, will go home soon.
I listened to Glenn Beck for the first time yesterday on 570AM in the Dallas-Ft.Worth area during the morning commute hours. He provided an excellent introduction to the information available that establishes the Middle Eastern connection to the OKC bombing.
April 6, 1995 - Gagan enlists the aid of his friend, Bill Bayers, a Denver cab driver, to hand-deliver his final written warning to the U. S. Marshal's Service. (See Sidebar Box) Bayers receives the signature of Sharon Hoff at 9:00 a.m. Hoff happens to be the same U. S. Marshal to whom Gagan had delivered his March 27th warning, and he notes that the signatures match. Gagan's note says, "Call 832-4091 NOW!" Gagan is prepared to pinpoint Oklahoma City as the target. Although Gagan emphatically tells them of a plot to blow up a federal building within two weeks and that "if the information is false, charge me accordingly," no call is forthcoming.
disregard back side question.
As far as Clinton's concerned, I think the rocket would currently have to be outgoing. Let's face it, Clinton's an Untouchable who happens to reside at the very top (rather than at the bottom, as in the case of India). He isn't required to drink from stagnant pools of water, and he certainly isn't about to make a living digging iron ore. For lunch, he has far better than cabbage and beets.
If push comes to shove, however, we may have to export him to North Korea.
I also appreciate the compliment regarding my "membership" in a certain "out-of-favor group." I usually get ridiculed because my tinfoil beenie is so out of style, you know, so I'll take the compliment in hopes that it will spur me on to greater foil! :)
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