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JAMES PATTERSON Ex-CIA agent believes in a John Doe 2 March 23, 2002
Though the U.S. government clings to the notion that Timothy McVeigh, acting alone, set off the horrendous explosion on April 19, 1995, that pancaked the nine-story Oklahoma City federal building, a former high-ranking CIA official says there's solid evidence to indicate he worked with an Iraqi John Doe No. 2. Larry Johnson, former CIA officer and deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism, told a network news show this week the FBI had failed to properly investigate significant eyewitness accounts of McVeigh meeting with the man believed to be a former Iraqi soldier. Johnson made those comments on The Big Story with John Gibson, a Fox news program airing nightly at 5 p.m., which delved into an extensive dossier on the case compiled by former Oklahoma TV reporter Jayna Davis. The program aired just days after a lawsuit filed by the watchdog organization Judicial Watch that alleges Iraqi involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing and seeks compensation for victims from frozen Iraqi assets. Davis, who reported from Ground Zero in Oklahoma City for NBC-affiliate KFOR, broadcast a series suggesting a possible accomplice to the bombing who had been seen with McVeigh on the days leading up to and the day of the bombing. Gibson unabashedly reported Davis' work to a national TV audience on three consecutive days this week. On Monday, Gibson relayed that Davis' evidence is based "on the simple proposition that Tim McVeigh's John Doe 2 was an Iraqi, a former Iraqi soldier from the Gulf War, paroled into the U.S. under a claim of political asylum, known to be in Oklahoma City as of November of '94 almost a year before the Murrah bombing, spotted with McVeigh by multiple witnesses, and who in recent years was working at (Boston) Logan airport," where the Sept. 11 hijackings originated. On Tuesday, Gibson posed the question to Johnson about a possible link between Iraq and Oklahoma City. "I think this woman (Davis) has done a remarkable job of finding a link that was overlooked," Johnson said. Johnson also commented on a Justice Department review of the thousands of documents that resurfaced or were destroyed, delaying McVeigh's execution for a month. "The FBI . . ., they still have not turned over all of the documents to the defense teams that came out of Oklahoma," he said. "In particular, the information that links, shows possible links to Middle Eastern subjects." KFOR's reports distorted the face of one of those suspects and did not name him. However, on his own volition, a former Iraqi soldier who claims he surrendered to the U.S. in the Gulf War and who was brought to the United States from a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia, stepped forward and identified himself to two other Oklahoma City TV stations and The Associated Press as the man that KFOR had implicated as John Doe No. 2. Hussain Hashem Alhussaini sued KFOR and Davis for defamation, saying the reports falsely identified him as John Doe No. 2. But a U.S. District Court disagreed. In ruling for KFOR, U.S. District Judge Timothy Leonard found in November 1999 that the station had taken extraordinary measures to hide Alhussaini's identity. Leonard added that KFOR's reports were either "based on fact or a matter of opinion," and not negligence or reckless disregard for the truth. Alhussaini, who went to work at Boston's Logan International Airport after leaving Oklahoma City, continues to deny any involvement in the bombing. Former CIA Agent Johnson is unconvinced. "I compared it to all the human intelligence I've looked at," he said. "And comparing it to classified material, this is not from just one witness, this is not from two witnesses; you're talking 23 people, you're talking at least 10 people who put Tim McVeigh with Hussain Alhussaini before the Oklahoma City bombing. "Two people who identified Hussain Alhussaini and Tim McVeigh in a bar on April 15; three people who identified Hussain Alhussaini running from the federal building early in the morning at 5:30 as if he is practicing timing himself. You have two witnesses that put Tim McVeigh with Hussain Alhussaini in the Ryder truck; you have one witness inside the Murrah Building who sees Hussain Alhussaini eating out of the truck . . . "The point is the FBI has not thoroughly, fully investigated this. It is an outrage. I went along for many years thinking they have covered the bases. They have not, John." You can't say Davis didn't try. She tried to give the witness statements to the FBI in the fall of '97, but it wouldn't take them. Patterson is a Star editorial writer. Contact him at 1-317-444-6174 or by e-mail at james.patterson@indystar.com (Note: This correlates rather nicely with this article:
OKLAHOMA BOMBING LINKED TO BIN LADEN
and this:
Get Ready for Twenty World Trade Center Bombings: http://www.meforum.org/meq/june97/emerson.shtml
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