IRAQIS AND THE MURRAH FEDERAL BUILDING BOMBING

Many researchers consider the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City to be yet another case of an inside job—one that foreshadows the covert machinations that led to 9/11 six years later. The connection of the Oklahoma bombing to the growing scandal around 9/11 and the Iraq war becomes evident in the account below. Despite a loud silence in the corporate-controlled mass media, many alternative articles as well as researchers have pointed to the involvement of Iraqis in the event.

So much evidence became available pointing to Iraqi complicity in that terrorist act that in March of 2002, Judicial Watch filed suit against the Republic of Iraq on behalf of seventeen survivors of the bombing. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, was brought against Iraq, as a State Department-designated terrorism sponsor, under the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. This suit was still being pursued in the mid-2000s but seemed destined for oblivion following the US invasion of Iraq.

According to court papers, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building “was not as simple as has been portrayed by the United States government. The entire plot was, in whole or in part, orchestrated, assisted technically and/or financially and directly aided by agents of the Republic of Iraq.” However, researchers looking into recent developments in the investigation are encountering confusion and obstructions in confirming such a connection.

The suit also charges that Iraq knew in advance of the 9/11 attacks and that there was wrongdoing in both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

A portion of the evidence concerning foreknowledge of 9/11 involves an Iraqi newspaper column published on July 21, 2001, in which it stated that Osama bin Laden was thinking “seriously, with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert, about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.” The column also mentioned that bin Laden was “insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting,” an apparent reference to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Jim Kreindler, one of the lawyers pursuing the suit, said the columnist, Naeem Abd Muhalhal, had advance knowledge of bin Laden's plans and that “Iraqi officials were aware of plans to attack American landmarks.” He added, “Further, we have evidence that Iraq provided support for bin Laden and his al Qaeda terror organization for nearly a decade.”

This charge was supported by Craig Roberts, a former Oklahoma policeman and National Guard officer, who said, “At the end of the Gulf War, over 5,000 former Iraqi soldiers (mainly consisting of officers) were transported (illegally) to this country by the administration for ‘humanitarian purposes’ and resettled at taxpayer expense. This created a massive stir in the veterans organizations, who remembered how many American POWs had been abandoned by our government in past wars, but was only publicized in their magazines.”

Roberts, a decorated Vietnam veteran and author who participated in the official Oklahoma City investigation of the Murrah Building bombing, said these Iraqi officers had worked with the CIA during the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran. They feared Saddam's wrath after losing the Gulf War. Within this group were many men who joined various Muslim extremist groups, such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, after arriving in the US. Some of these soldiers, along with a considerable amount of Semtex and other military explosives, were transported to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

“This [transfer of Iraqi soldiers] was well publicized. One of the largest groupings of resettled former Iraqi soldiers, coincidentally, became Oklahoma City. This places the Iraqis who were experts in demolition (re: Kuwaiti oil field destruction) only 60 miles from the stored Semtex, cratering charges and other military explosives stored at Fort Sill,” stated Craig.

Initial reports from witnesses placed two “Middle Eastern males” wearing blue jumpsuits or jogging suits in the vicinity of the Murrah building at the time of the explosions. The FBI put out “John Doe” sketch bulletins on at least three men, all of whom resembled Middle Eastern males. In fact, one such man, a Jordanian living in Oklahoma City, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport only to be released shortly thereafter. FBI and media attention then shifted to right-wing extremists. Interestingly, the British media reported that this man had photos of weapons and missiles in his possessions as well as a blue jogging suit.

Yet despite the compelling evidence of Iraqi involvement in what to that time had been the worst bombing in US history, there was no federal-level investigation. Despite the rush to judgment by the federal authorities that only one man, Timothy McVeigh, bombed the Murrah Federal Building, controversy continues today over the facts of the tragedy. Oklahoma City has been added to the list of controversial and never properly investigated American tragedies beginning with the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and the killings at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas. Sadly, public interest in the Oklahoma City bombing waned following the attacks of 9/11.

Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key in 1997 tried to bring facts concerning the Middle East connection in the Oklahoma City bombing to the public and finally produced a five hundred-page report released in 2001. As far back as 1997, Key and many others had raised questions about McVeigh's contacts prior to the bombing that killed 161 men, women and children.

Many still recall the FBI “John Doe” bulletins issued immediately after the bombing seeking several Middle Eastern men reportedly driving a brown pickup truck. This was in addition to the reports of the alleged Arab men seen in the vicinity of the federal building shortly before the explosions.

As in the case of District Attorney Jim Garrison attempting to question the official verdict of the Kennedy assassination, Key was raked over the coals by the mainstream media and accused of “howling at the moon” by Oklahoma governor Frank Keating, a former FBI agent. “Why was there such extreme opposition?” Key wrote in a letter to constituents. “I believe the answer is because some in our federal law enforcement agencies (i.e., ATF and FBI) had prior knowledge that certain individuals were planning to bomb the Murrah Federal Building! I believe that because of at least four reasons:

1. “Six different individuals have come forward and reported seeing the bomb squad in the immediate vicinity of the Murrah Building early on the morning of the bombing.

2. “The Oklahoma City Fire Department received a call from the FBI the Friday before the bombing and was told to be on the alert for a possible terrorist attack on a government building.

3. “Bruce Shaw, who had frantically come to look for his wife inside the smoldering building, was told by an ATF agent, ‘You won't find any ATF agents in the building because they were warned on their pagers not to come in this morning and they're now in debriefing.’ This conversation was corroborated by his boss, who accompanied Bruce to help him find his wife.

4. “Carol Howe, a paid informant for the ATF, has recently come forward to confirm that she informed the ATF that two individuals, Dennis Mahon and Andreas Strassmier, were planning to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City. She also said that the likely date for the bombing was April 19!”

In addition to the suppressed information concerning the Middle East connection to the federal building bombing, at least one Oklahoma City investigative reporter claimed to have gathered evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved. Jayna Davis, former news reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City, KFOR-TV, tried to make public this information several months prior to 9/11.

Davis said she developed information that a Middle Eastern terrorist cell was operating only blocks from the Murrah Building and that Timothy McVeigh on the day of the bombing was in contact with an Iraqi who had served in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. This man was the object of an “all-points” bulletin immediately after the bombing that was later inexplicably withdrawn.

Davis said her evidence led her to believe that McVeigh, along with Terry Nichols (now serving a life sentence without possibility of parole as an accomplice in the bombing) and at least seven men of Middle Eastern ethnic backgrounds were involved in a conspiracy masterminded by bin Laden. The reporter said she took her evidence, composed of hundreds of court records, twenty sworn witness affidavits and reports from law enforcement, intelligence and terrorist experts, to the FBI but bureau officials refused even to accept the material.

Further clouding the issue of why the FBI refused to even look at the evidence that refuted the Clinton administration's assurance that the bombing was the work of one lone man, McVeigh, plus a friend, was evidence showing that the FBI’s top counterterrorism expert checked into an Oklahoma City hotel just after midnight on the morning the federal building was destroyed.

Danny Coulson, then director of the FBI’s Terrorist Task Force, checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel at 12:20 a.m., about nine hours prior to the bombing, according to a hotel receipt obtained by WorldNetDaily. The hotel receipt showed Coulson checked out of the hotel on April 27. Coulson, in a book published in 1999, claimed he was in Fort Worth, Texas, when he received a call from John O’Neill, the FBI counterterrorism expert, informing him of the Murrah Building bombing. The discrepancy of these stories adds support to those who claim the FBI was involved in the case well before the explosion.

One lawsuit alleged that Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was an Iraqi government agent who, prior to his arrest, went to the Philippines, where he recruited Terry Nichols, McVeigh's accomplice in Oklahoma, to join in the “Bojinka” plot to blow up several US-bound airliners.

It is a matter of fact that Terry Nichols made more than a dozen trips to the Philippines right up until 1995 but the Yousef connection has not been fully substantiated. Yousef, of course, was the al Qaeda operative with the plans for “Operation Bojinka,” the plan to crash planes into prominent structures including the World Trade Center towers.

Author David Hoffman, writing in 1998, stated that FBI reports as well as research by McVeigh's defense attorneys established that in the early 1990s, terrorist leaders met on the Philippine island of Mindanao. “It was there [according to one informant] that Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah and several others discussed the Oklahoma City bombing plot,” wrote Hoffman.

Further evidence of a connection between McVeigh and the bin Laden network, over and beyond the Philippine meeting, which may have involved Nichols, is the testimony of witnesses at the Sands Motel just outside Oklahoma City.

A co-owner of the motel, who asked for anonymity, told reporter Jim Crogan of LA Weekly that he distinctly recalled terrorist leader Mohamed Atta at his motel with Zacarias Moussaoui, the infamous “twentieth hijacker,” about August 1, 2001, just six weeks prior to the 9/11 attacks. He identified a third man as Marwan al-Shehhi, reportedly one of the terrorists aboard Flight 175.

He said the men asked for a weekly rate on some rooms at the motel but they were told the rooms were all occupied. He said all three men were friendly but that Atta did most of the talking. “I asked him what they were doing here in the area,” the owner said. “And Atta told me they were going to flight school. I thought he meant training in Oklahoma City. But Atta told me no, they were taking flight training in Norman. “I said I didn't understand why they would want to rent one of my rooms, since we were about twenty-eight miles from Norman and there are a lot of reasonably priced motels a lot closer. But he said they had heard good things about my place and wanted to stay there.”

The man explained that there were no weekly rooms available and the trio left. Later, following the 9/11 attacks, the motel owner saw their pictures on the news and called the FBI. But there was never any significant follow-up to his report. One law enforcement source said he considered the motel owner's story credible and took the information to the FBI but was told, “it probably wouldn't go nowhere.” “They were afraid the whole Oklahoma City bombing can of worms would be opened up and the FBI would have to explain why they didn't investigate this material before,” the officer told a reporter.

“One reason for the FBI’s apparent lack of interest might be this motel's alleged connection to Timothy McVeigh and a group of Iraqis who worked in Oklahoma City,” noted reporter Crogan. “According to the motel owner and other witnesses and investigators interviewed by the Weekly, McVeigh and several of these Iraqis were motel guests in the months preceding the 1995 bombing. Witnesses also claimed they saw several of the Iraqis moving barrels of material around on the bed of a truck. The motel owner said the material smelled of diesel fuel and he had to clean up a spill. Diesel fuel was a key component of the truck bomb that blew up the Federal Building.”

The motel owner was interviewed by the FBI on several occasions but there was no indication that prosecutors in the case of Moussaoui were even notified of the Moussaoui-Atta connection, who was arrested prior to 9/11, and has been characterized as a marginal figure in the plot. But if he was connected to Atta, it makes him much more of a participant than previously thought. Reporter Crogan wrote, “If this recollection is correct, the entire incident, and its absence from the public record, raises new questions about the FBI investigation of Moussaoui and the 1995 destruction of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”

There were so many leads and bits of information about the cover-up in the Oklahoma City bombing that it occasionally slipped into the mainstream media. According to a report in U.S. News & World Report in late 2001, McVeigh possessed several Iraqi telephone numbers, which prompted Pentagon officials to suspect that he was some sort of Iraqi agent. Writer Paul Bedard wrote, “Why haven't we heard this before about the case of the executed McVeigh? Conspiracy theorists in the Pentagon think it's part of a coverup.”

Since there is such compelling evidence of Iraqi involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing, one might well ask why this was not brought out by the Bush administration to rally support for their invasion of that nation. The only answer would seem to be that to admit that FBI- and CIA-supported Iraqis were involved in that terrorist event might prompt speculation about the true culprits behind the 9/11 attacks.