Secret Pentagon Report on Oklahoma City Bombing--Evidence of an Inside Job?
THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING COVERUP--FBI BATF CIA FAILED STING OPERATION
U.S. government attempts to portray Timothy McVeigh as the "lone bomber" (with assistance from Terry Nichols) in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City have completely collapsed with recent revelations of McVeigh's associations with individuals connected to the Aryan Republican Army, as well as with a BATF informant and an agent of German military intelligence.
This has led some to conclude that there has been a U.S. government (primarily BATF and FBI) cover-up motivated by the desire to destroy evidence of a "government sting gone bad," much as with the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City.
The secret Pentagon report shows, however, that such a judgment may be too kind to the agencies concerned. The principal damage to the Alfred P. Murrah Building was brought about by explosives placed on five columns of the Murrah Building, according to the Pentagon report, and not by the ANFO bomb in the truck supposedly driven by McVeigh. Thus, until the individuals who placed the explosives on the columns of the Murrah Building are identified, any proposed explanation of how the bombing came about is woefully inadequate. The existence of demolition charges placed on some columns at the third-floor level of the Murrah Building is strongly suggestive of inside participation by at least some federal employees.
The Pentagon commissioned nine explosive experts to write independent reports on the bombing, and adopted two of the nine reports as the "official" report. I spoke to both experts, but they declined to be interviewed, citing confidentiality agreements with the Pentagon. Sources familiar with the Pentagon report, however, have confirmed that the conclusions were similar in nature to those of a private report prepared by General Benton K. Partin, dated July 30, 1995, except that the Pentagon report concludes there were demolition charges placed on five columns, not four as concluded by General Partin.
Partin's report showed that the pattern of damage to the Murrah Building was inconsistent with the ANFO truck bomb as a point source for the explosion, and that the damage sustained by the columns could not possibly have come from this source.
Explosive pressure drops off approximately with the cube of the distance. Double the distance, and you reduce the explosive pressure (pounds per square inch) to one-eighth its original value.
If the 4800 pounds of ammonium nitrate in the Ryder truck bomb were in a compressed sphere and detonated from the center, it would have generated a blast wave with an initial pressure of about 500,000 pounds per square inch. By the time the nearest Murrah Building column was reached, that pressure would have fallen to about 375 pounds per square inch.
The rows of columns in the Murrah building can be labeled from front to back as rows A, B, and C. The rows are about 35 feet apart. The columns in each row can be labeled from left to right (as seen by an individual facing the front of the building) as numbers 1 through 11. The third column in the first row would thus be labeled "A3". The columns are 20 feet apart within each row.
The concrete in the columns had a compressible yield strength of at least (and probably higher than) 3500 pounds per square inch. Since this value is almost ten times the strength of the blast wave hitting the columns from the truck bomb, the blast wave is insufficient to produce a wave of deformation in the concrete (and thus to turn it back into its sand, gravel, and clay components).
However, a high detonation velocity contact explosive attached to a column would have generated pressure of 1 to 1.5 million pounds per square inch-- about 300 times the yield strength of the concrete, and thus would have pulverized it into sand until the blast wave front had dropped below the yield strength of the concrete. Left behind would be a smooth granular surface with protruding steel reinforcement rods (which have a much higher yield strength).
General Partin's report shows strong evidence of such contact explosive charges placed on columns B3, A3, A5, and A7. While the truck bomb itself was insufficient to destroy columns, it was responsible for ripping out some floors at the second and third floor levels, Partin concluded.
The notion of a government-sting gone awry would at best suggest the idea that BATF or FBI agents planned to arrest McVeigh in a dramatic flourish of publicity when he pulled up in front of the Murrah Building in his rented Ryder truck containing the ANFO bomb. But this story becomes faintly ridiculous when you consider that demolition charges were placed on five Murrah Building columns well before McVeigh's arrival. If there was a government sting in operation, then someone was using their knowledge of the sting as cover for the actual bombing. Either way, it suggests an inside job.
Finally, McVeigh was not arrested prior to the bombing. Which leads one to ask, What government sting? We are basically left with evidence of government complicity and government cover-up, but with no evidence of a government sting. Did some government agency take advantage of the general expectation that something would happen that day, and, for its own reasons, ensure these fears were realized?
Prior Knowledge of the Explosion
There are several sources of evidence of a prior expectation of a bombing to take place on April 19, 1995.
Executed on the day of the Oklahoma bombing was Richard Wayne Snell for murder of a black Arkansas trooper. Snell had been involved in a plot to blow up the Murrah Building in 1983. And, according to Alan Ables, an Arkansas prison official quoted by the Denver Post, "Snell repeatedly said that there would be a bombing or explosion the day of his death." The explosion took place at the Murrah Building, the previous focus of Snell's attention.
Snell's information would appear to have come from Robert Millar, who was in attendance as Snell's spiritual advisor. Millar was the founder of Elohim City, a religious commune in Oklahoma near the border with Arkansas. Timothy McVeigh had made numerous visits to Elohim City in the weeks before the bombing (see, for example, William F. Jasper, "More Pieces to the OKC Puzzle," The New American, June 24, 1996).
A BATF informant named Carol Howe wrote her BATF case officer in Tulsa that the Elohim City group, or its operational arm the "Aryan Republican Army", was planning to blow up a building with a possible date of April 19, 1995 (McCurtain Daily Gazette, February 11, 1997). Howe said there were three possible targets, two in Tulsa, and one in Oklahoma City.
(Members of the Aryan Republican Army are currently charged with bank robberies in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This includes Peter Langan, on trial in Columbus, Ohio, and Michael Brescia, indicted in Philadelphia. Witnesses have identified Brescia as "John Doe II", originally sought by the FBI in the Oklahoma City bombing.)
The BATF says the warnings were too vague to prompt any actions. Too vague, apparently, to warn security guards at the Murrah Building, who overlooked all the activity involved in placing demolition explosives on the building columns.
But not too vague not to warn BATF employees to stay home for the day. No BATF employee was among the 168 killed in the bombing.
NOW VISIT A WESITE www.alamoministries.com click on WORLD NEWSLETTERS GO TO APRIL-JUNE 2003 ISSUE TO READ A TRANSCRIPT AND/OR LISTEN TO FORMER GOVERNMENT AGENT JOHN GARRY PEELERS CONFESSIONS TO DON SWEAT ABOUT THE OK CITY BOMBING,THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACKS, AND OTHER US GOVERNMENT MISCONDUCT AND DIRTY LITTLE TRICKS.
The Oklahoma City Bombing Were there additional explosive charges and additional bombers?
"McVeigh had been filmed by a security camera at a nearby McDonald's 24 minutes before the time stamped on the rental agreement, wearing clothes that did not match either of the men seen at Elliott's. There is also no plausible explanation of how he traveled the mile and a quarter from McDonald's to the rental agency, carless and alone as he claims, without getting soaked in the rain.
The three people interviewed agreed John Does 1 and 2 were dry. According to Stephen Jones, who has seen the interview transcripts, it took 44 days for the FBI to convince the car rental agency owner that John Doe 1 was Timothy McVeigh. And in the end they did not dare put him on the witness stand, for fear of what might happen under cross-examination."
THE RYDER TRUCK IN THE SECRET ARMY COMPOUND
Before proceeding to the acoustical data, let me explain a little something about explosives and how people perceive them.
I work in special effects. In films, great use is made of low velocity explosives such as untamped black powder and ANFO because they are low velocity explosives. With a great whoosh and roar they belch forth with fire and smoke in a manner that has caused folks to drop their popcorn in matinees ever since sound came in.
Movies have conditioned people to expect a certain look and sound to explosions, all based on very low velocity explosives. In a stunning ironic twist, moviegoers seem to perceive the slower explosions as more powerful.
Demolition experts will tell you that high brissive or high velocity explosives actually are more powerful, as they build up a powerful shock wave. However, except for actually collapsing a structure, such explosives are unsuitable for film. The blast is over so quickly it can be missed while the film is moving between one frame and the next. There is very little visible smoke and flash, and the "crack" of a C-4 cutter charge is downright disappointing to hear.
Thus, the average person's awareness of what an explosion is supposed to look and sound like is based on the movies and low velocity explosives only. In not knowing what high velocity explosives sound like or feel like (as the shock wave moves through the earth), many people might not understand what they have heard or felt on April 19th.
With that in mind......
The Lawyer's Dictation Tape
This is the dictation tape made by a lawyer which captures the sounds of the blast which destroyed the Oklahoma Federal Building on April 19th, 1995. Note the sounds of a rattle which precedes the blast by one second. This sound is the surface wave from the ANFO Truck Bomb which arrives ahead of the airborne concussion, traveling through the Earth's surface. 4.2 seconds ahead of the start of the rattle, a "thump" is heard on the tape, overlapping the second syllable of the word "attorneys".
Events marked on the jpg file
The thump at -4.2 seconds.
An airborne event which arrives at the correct place to be associated with event 1, if it originates at the same location as the truck bomb itself.
This marks the start of the arrival of the surface wave from the truck bomb. On the tape, this can be heard as a rattle building under the lawyer's voice. Note that unlike the lawyer's voiceprints, which show clear banding in frequency, the sounds from the truck bomb surface wave are smoothly distributed in the lower frequencies.
This is the arrival of the airborne concussion from the truck bomb. Like the surface wave, this signal lacks the striations of the lawyer's voice. The most notable difference is the sudden transition to high frequency components.
Note that the Surface Wave / Air Wave delays are identical in both cases, indicating similar distances from the recording device.
When I originally heard this tape, I discarded the "pop" at the -4.2 second mark as just noise on the tape. However, when the Water Board tape (which follows) also had an artifact at the -4.2 second mark, I ran a frequency domain audio spectrogram on the lawyer's dictation tape. The spike corresponding to the pop at the -4.2 second mark is circled. The other event marks were added later. The stripe at the top is electronic noise, possibly from the dictation machine itself.
The Oklahoma Water Board Tape
At the time when the Truck Bomb exploded outside the Murrah Federal Building on April 19th, The Oklahoma Water Board was meeting in a building diagonally across the street. 4.2 seconds prior to the truck bomb blast, a loud "thump" is heard on the tape, just as the speaker finishes the phrase," are four elements that I have to..".
On this tape, the speaker pauses after the thump is heard, and just prior to the main blast, if you listen real close, other voices can be heard just starting to speak up.
What does it all mean?
From the above evidence, it is clear that an event which generated a high frequency surface wave which preceded the main truck bomb blast by 4.2 seconds. This event was recorded at two different locations at distances of 100 yards and 1/3 of a mile. Because the 4.2 second interval remains constant at both distances, theories of mechanism producing echoes are eliminated. Because the spectrogram of the lawyer's tape shows BOTH surface and airborne waves separated by 4.2 seconds from BOTH surface and airborne waves of the truck bomb, arguments of a surface/air phenomenon are invalid. Two events at the Murrah building 4.2 seconds apart produced two sets of surface/air pairs 4.2 seconds apart at the lawyer's office.
The Seismographic Records from Norman Oklahoma
These images are scans of the seismographic output from the Norman Oklahoma Z-axis recorder for April 19th and May 23rd; the bombing and the demolition respectively. This is the raw data which led Ray Brown and Charles Mankin to decide that there may have been a second explosion. It turns out that the 10 second delay is caused by differing propagation times through the layers of shale and sandstone that lie under Oklahoma City.
The minister who married my wife and I was in OK City right after the Murrah Building bomb(s) exploded, and he volunteered to help dig for survivors. He told of three very odd occurrences. In the first, he was required to show his ID six times before being allowed to help look for survivors. In the second, he confirmed the stories told by others that men in suits and ties were literally stepping over the wounded in their haste to gather up files and certain other items in the debris.
Lastly, and the oddest story of all, he told of more men in suits and ties taping plastic sheeting over portions of the building wreckage! The plastic sheeting used was very thin, could not possibly provide any mechanical support for the covered items, and seemed to serve no other purpose than to conceal the wrapped object from view. This story has also been confirmed by other witnesses.
Finally, a photo surfaced which confirms this story (see right).
Note at the very right edge of the photo a large piece of the building covered in shiny black plastic, partly obscured by the flat piece of floor leaning against it. Note the ladder to get a sense of the size of the covered object.
UPDATE: Oklahoma Bombing
Cover-Up
OKC BOMBING FALLOUT Officials had prior knowledge of bombing McVeigh's contacts, activities known to ATF year in advance
A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms memo shows that the agency knew about the activities of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh a year before the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building, while dozens of witnesses have testified that federal, state and local officials had prior knowledge of the bombing.
According to a new 500-page report authored by the Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation Commission, led by former state Rep. Charles Key, "many people in Oklahoma City began to recall … conversations they had had or overhead," indicating that "the federal government had prior knowledge of an impending attack on the Murrah Building. …"
At the very least, the commission's report said, officials had "a general warning of an attack in the Oklahoma City area" or at several other locations around the country -- all of which had been put on alert that day.
Portions of the new report -- made available exclusively to WorldNetDaily -- included a copy of an April 30, 1995, ATF intelligence memo written by Special Agent Angela Finley.
"In August 1994 this agent began an investigation of White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.) leader Dennis Mahon and Elohim City," an Oklahoma-based center for right-wing extremists, the memo said. "Confidential Informant has close ties with Mahon and has visited Elohim City on numerous occasions."
The "confidential informant," the commission's report said, turned out to be Carol Howe, who at one time was Mahon's lover but who was recruited as an informant for the ATF after she and Mahon had a falling out.
"W.A.R. trains at Elohim City and Posse Comitatus" -- another extremist group -- "members also frequent" the area, said the memo.
"ATF is primary enemy of all three (sic) people," the memo continued. "Elohim City's leader Robert Millar was contacted by McVeigh April 5, 1995, after he had contacted Ryder rental that day."
The ATF's mention of McVeigh and the Ryder truck -- most likely the same truck used in the OKC bombing -- was corroborated by the Key commission, which interviewed a Pennsylvania attorney about another Ryder truck incident near Oklahoma City just days before the attack.
What the attorney, who requested anonymity, wrote in a Dec. 7, 1997, e-mail to the Key commission seemed to suggest that other law enforcement agencies were aware of not only a possible threat to structures in Oklahoma City, but also that some officials even knew how a portion of the attack would be carried out:
"I have clients in Ohio who have an adult babysitter who, with two of her female relatives, moved a load of household goods from California to Ohio. Their route took them through Oklahoma City several days before the explosion. They had rented a Ryder truck for this trip and, as they drove near Oklahoma City, they were pulled over by several Oklahoma state troopers. … You can imagine their shock when, a few days later, the explosion occurred, and it was revealed that a Ryder truck was involved."
At the request of the commission, the report said, the attorney contacted the oldest of the three women -- the mother of the other two -- to find out more details about the stop.
"She said the stop occurred four days before the explosion," the attorney wrote in an e-mail to the commission, following his interview of the women. "There were three Oklahoma State Police cars involved, but there was no search. The first trooper who approached [the women's Ryder truck] did so with gun drawn," the memo said.
"After a few questions regarding who the women were, where they were coming from and where they were heading, they were told they could go. No explanations, no tickets, just a frightening stop and the shock of the explosion days later," the attorney wrote.
ATF gets prior warning
About two months before the bombing, the commission said ATF informant Howe "reported that members of Elohim City were making plans to bomb federal buildings and assassinate politicians. Howe reported that members of the group had begun staking out federal buildings in Oklahoma City and Tulsa."
As WND reported earlier, witnesses who were employed in the Murrah Building said they saw McVeigh and others there in the days prior to the bombing.
Besides McVeigh, Howe -- in her reports to the ATF -- said Dennis Mahon and "a West German national, Andreas Carl Strassmeir," were involved in staking out the building. Howe said they had made trips to Oklahoma City in November and December 1994, and again in February 1995, to inspect the Murrah building specifically.
"She also advised that militants within their group were advising that action needed to be taken by April 19th," which is formally known as Patriot's Day in the U.S. and is also the anniversary of the FBI's final raid against the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas.
Another ATF informant, Cary Gagan, was also able to provide federal officials with prior warning and knowledge of planned domestic terrorist attacks.
Gagan told the commission that "due to his ability and reputation for obtaining false identification papers, he was approached by Arab-looking individuals who offered him $250,000 to help them in a bombing plot," the commission's report said.
"Gagan usually met with these individuals in and around the Kingman, Ariz., area," the report said. "He knew them as Omar and Ahmad. They were often in the company of an unidentified third man."
The commission said Gagan informed the U.S. Department of Justice in September 1994 "that he had been approached by these men to take part in the bombing of a federal building somewhere in the Midwest," the report said, adding that "the plot included Latin American conspirators."
He was given a letter of immunity by the Justice Department and he "continued to meet with the individuals who recruited him," the commission's report continued.
"On March 17, 1995, Gagan met with these people in a motel room in Las Vegas, where they examined drawings of the Murrah Building," said the report. "Three times Gagan was sent by the group to Oklahoma City to case the building. He said he reported these occurrences to Justice Department officials in Denver."
In the bombing's aftermath, Gagan filed a civil lawsuit against the federal government for withdrawing his immunity without advising him and for "attempting to prevent him from testifying in the criminal and civil trials resulting" from the attack, the commission said.
"He alleged the government took this action in order to cover up their wronging in not acting on the bomb warning he had provided to them," the commission said.
Regarding the ATF's specific prior knowledge, then-Director John McGaw, in a news conference May 25, 1995, said he had ordered the agency's field offices to be more alert.
"I was very concerned," McGaw said. "We did some things here in headquarters and in all our field offices throughout the country to try to be more observant."
ATF absent from Murrah Building
According to the Key commission's report, several witnesses reported that ATF agents were not in the Murrah Building the morning of the bombing because, as some alleged, agents had been warned ahead of time to stay out.
Tiffany Bible, a paramedic with OKC's Emergency Medical Services Authority -- the city's ambulance service -- arrived four to five minutes after the bombing, she told the commission.
"She recalls having thought that there must have been a natural gas line explosion," the report said. "She approached an entrance to the building where an ATF agent was standing and asked how a gas line explosion could do that much damage. The agent replied that it was the result of a car bomb."
Bible "expressed concern" to the agent, the report said, "because there were fellow agents of his in the building. The agent responded by saying, 'No, we weren't in there today.'"
Another witness, Bruce Shaw -- whose wife worked in the Murrah Building at the Federal Credit Union -- testified that another ATF agent said "agents were tipped on their pagers not to come into the office that morning," the report said.
And Katherine E. Mallette, an Emergency Medical Technician-Intermediate -- also with EMSA -- said in a sworn affidavit to the commission that, as her ambulance was waiting to transport victims to area hospitals, "two ATF agents walked by … and she heard one of the agents say to the other, 'Is that why we got the page not to come in today?'" the report said.
ATF officials denied having any prior knowledge of the bombing and especially denied warning agents stationed in the Murrah Building not to report for duty the morning of the bombing.
Director McGaw, at the time, said it was not uncommon for agents not to be in the office, because they were likely out working cases or in court.
But, the commission found, witnesses in the Murrah Building who worked for different agencies and offices there said they had noticed that the ATF contingent in the office the morning of the bombing -- reported to be about five persons -- was smaller than usual.
Other witnesses discuss prior warnings
A number of other witnesses, the commission said, testified to instances that seem to indicate federal, state and local officials knew an attack was coming.
A female Army captain who was stationed at Walter Reed Medical Center at the time of the bombing said her office had "received two phone calls" from "a person [who] identified himself as 'Pentagon' or 'congressional liaison to the governor of Oklahoma's office,'" the report said.
The officer said the man on the phone had asked to speak to a doctor about medical protocols, and "specifically about 'triage for victims of blast overpressure.'"
Also, in a sworn affidavit to the commission dated Dec. 10, 1997, Jeffrey H. Broyles, who was an inmate in the custody of United States deputy marshals, was being transported from the Oklahoma County Jail in OKC to the McCloud [Okla.] Correctional Facility, said the report.
"Sometime between 8:30 and 8:40 a.m." the morning of the bombing, the report said, quoting Broyles' affidavit, "a radio dispatch came in. At the end of it, a female officer made a statement to a male officer, 'I wonder why they're going to evacuate the federal building.'"
About ten minutes later, "another dispatch came in," the report said. "The male officer made the comment, 'Well, now they're not going to evacuate it.'"
Harvey Weathers, then a deputy fire chief for the Oklahoma City Fire Department, told the commission that the FBI "issued a warning the week prior to the bombing for them [the fire department] to be on alert."
In a later interview with USA Today, Weathers elaborated, saying the OKCFD "did receive a report on Friday, April 14, about 'some possibilities of some people entering the city over the weekend,'" the commission's report noted.
Calena Flo Groves, an OKC Police Department dispatcher, contacted Key personally to "volunteer information concerning a call she had taken on approximately April 12, 1995," the report said.
"The caller told Groves that he had overheard two men discussing a bomb plot," said the report. "The man also said he had heard the name 'Nichols' mentioned by the two men" who were discussing it.
"When police officers did not arrive to take his statement, the man called and talked to Groves two or three more times," the commission said. "Groves told interviewers Roger Charles and Charles Key [commission members] that she did not believe the caller was impaired or unbalanced, as depicted in the police report, which was not filed until after the bombing,"
Randy Yount, a park ranger for the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, said in a sworn affidavit that he saw a friend of his -- a member of the local sheriff's department bomb squad -- within minutes after the bombing.
Yount, the commission reported, said he learned of the bombing after feeling the explosion in his west Oklahoma City suburb and turning on local TV. He then headed downtown after putting on his uniform to see if he could help.
After a state trooper dropped him off at the Murrah Building, he saw his bomb squad friend and went over to speak to him.
Yount told the commission his friend said: "Yeah, we've been down here since early this morning looking. We got word that there was going to be a bomb, and we thought it was going to be the courthouse. We went over everything and couldn't find anything."
Renee Cooper, who lost her infant son who was in the daycare center of the Murrah Building the day of the bombing, told the commission she saw "several men in dark jackets with the words 'Bomb Squad' written on them standing in front of the Federal Courthouse, across the street south of the Murrah Building, at 8:05 a.m.," said the report.
Commission's conclusions
The commission concluded that "federal, state, county and city officials were obviously given some kind of warning prior to the bombing," but "how specific that warning was, we do not know."
The report said the warning could have been "a general alert to be more vigilant," as some government agencies have said and -- with some agencies -- "this may be true."
"But with other government entities, the threat seems to have been more specific," the commission said. "The presence of the bomb squad in the downtown area that morning and the page to the ATF agents telling them to not come into the office supports this conclusion."
"We question why government agencies have tried to quash these reports," the commission's report said, as well as why those same agencies "have provided disinformation and have tried to discredit the witnesses. …"
OKC BOMBING FALLOUT Witnesses heard multiple explosions Experts say Murrah Building damage not done by truck blast alone
Multiple witnesses reported hearing more than one explosion the day the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, while other explosives experts contend that the damage done to the building could not have been caused by a single bomb placed outside in a truck.
According to excerpts of a new 500-page report authored by the Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation Commission, led by ex-Oklahoma state Rep. Charles Key, "the FBI concluded that the damage to the Murrah Building was caused by one ammonium nitrate truck bomb, which was concealed in a 20-foot Ryder rental truck."
However, the commission's report said, multiple witnesses "have testified to hearing a second bomb" go off shortly after 9 a.m. the morning of April 19, 1995.
Furthermore, the report said, "explosives experts contend that the extent of the damage to the building" -- of which aerial photos showed nearly one-third was destroyed -- "could not have resulted from a single truck bomb. …"
A summary of the damage report to the building, which was made available exclusively to WorldNetDaily, said witness accounts regarding the explosions "vary, depending upon their location at the time of the bombing." And just a few of those accounts were provided to WND via the report summary.
Nevertheless, the accounts cast doubt on the federal government's insistence that a single ANFO -- ammonium nitrate and fuel oil -- bomb, driven to the front of the Murrah building by convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and, witnesses say, at least one other person, caused all of the damage.
The bombing killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others.
Witness statements
The commission said a Housing and Urban Development employee reported feeling an "initial shock" while she was on the ninth floor, which "she assumed was an earthquake." A "massive explosion then followed" that sensation, she said.
A local CBS affiliate reporter also said she had interviewed "a number of people who had climbed under their desks to seek shelter." That indicates, according to some analysts who agree with the commission's conclusions, that another device likely exploded -- perhaps in the garage area of the Murrah Building -- before the Ryder truck bomb, because a "sensation" was felt and people had enough time to get under a desk before the ANFO explosion.
Another witness, the report said, "felt a 'boom,' then heard a second explosion," while another, who "was at a third floor stairwell," also "heard a second explosion."
Bomb numbers, characteristics change
Initial reports in local media said city and county bomb squad personnel, as well as some government agents, had discovered up to two other unexploded bombs in the building. But those reports virtually disappeared a few days after the bombing. The sightings of the additional bombs were, when reported, confirmed by local, state and federal officials.
The commission's report said Dr. Raymon Brown, a seismologist with the Oklahoma Geological Survey, "explained how two explosions" could be heard or felt by witnesses.
"He stated that the ground wave [from a single explosion -- outside, in front of the building] was probably heard first, with an air wave following, giving the impression of two explosions," the report said. "Because the speed of sound is faster in the earth, the ground wave arrives early. The air wave follows, which allows the explosion to be heard." Other experts refuted that explanation.
As the commission report showed, there were discrepancies in witness accounts, seismological accounts, and even official federal accounts about the bomb's makeup, the shock waves it caused and specific characteristics surrounding the bomb's size.
The report said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms "reported the blast as being the result of a car bomb containing 1,200 pounds of … ANFO. Then, it was reported that the bomb weighed 4,000 pounds. The story changed again immediately preceding [McVeigh's 1997 federal] trial [in Denver, Colo.] when it was asserted that the bomb was a mixture of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane (ANNM), weighing 4,800 pounds."
Also, the commission pointed out, "as rescue efforts began, there were reports of other bombs being found in the building, causing [it] to be evacuated twice" during the early rescue efforts.
Later, "the government, however, denied that any bombs were found within the building, but eyewitnesses refuted that contention."
Reports of other devices
In an interview with Oklahoma City police and fire department officials in the days after the bombing, Firehouse Magazine -- a trade journal for firefighters -- quoted officials who said "four bomb scares" were eventually reported: 10 a.m., 10:22 a.m., 10:45 a.m., and 1:51 p.m., all on April 19, the day of the bombing.
Furthermore, the commission said, the "Oklahoma Final Report," which was issued in July 1996 and published by the City of Oklahoma, reported two bombs. According to this report, the commission noted, "a bomb scare occurred at 10:29 a.m. and … 1:30 p.m.," and that "both times the building was evacuated."
In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, Dr. Randall Heather, a terrorism expert who was being interviewed by local TV station KFOR, "was quoted as saying that he was aware that the FBI received a [bombing] threat the previous week," the report noted.
"It's a great stroke of luck that we actually have got diffused bombs," he told the station, because, the commission's report quoted Heather as saying, through bomb material "… we will be able to track down who committed this atrocity."
TRAIL OF TERROR McVeigh, Nichols 'did not act alone' OKC investigating committee concludes U.S. 'had prior knowledge of the bombing'
A 500-page report written by an investigative committee on the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, Okla., is set to be released this month, the head of the project tells WorldNetDaily.
Charles Key, a former Oklahoma state representative and head of the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, said the report contains volumes of evidence citing inconsistencies and omissions in the government's official version of events.
Damage to Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995.
Key, who left the state legislature in 1998, said he hopes the report will help Americans finally "get to the truth" about the bombing just weeks before one of the prime suspects, Timothy McVeigh, is to be executed in Terre Haute, Ind., for his role in the attack.
McVeigh was convicted in 1997, the same year as his accomplice, Terry Nichols. Nichols received a life sentence from a federal court in Denver, but still faces charges in Oklahoma, where he could receive the death penalty if convicted.
"The purpose of our report is to document the truth," Key told WorldNetDaily. "We, as so many others do, believe that facts regarding other perpetrators, prior knowledge, and the number of explosive devices used to damage the Murrah Building has been concealed."
Key said that when he began his investigation he hoped to accomplish three main tasks: empanel an Oklahoma grand jury to look into the bombing; lobby Congress to hold open hearings on the bombing and the government's handling of the case afterwards; and finally, produce a comprehensive report about his findings.
"Most of that was accomplished," Key said, noting that several congressmen, on his six trips to Washington, D.C., had urged him to put his findings in a final report.
Prior government knowledge
Though the Justice Department has vehemently denied that federal law enforcement officials knew anything about the attack before it happened, Key's committee found what members believe is substantial evidence proving otherwise.
First, the report documents that two of the government's own informants had warned federal officials of "possible terrorist attacks in the United States," but that neither of these witnesses were allowed to testify in the federal trials surrounding the case.
Also, two informants affiliated with organizations in foreign countries issued terrorist warnings to the U.S., the report says. And, the committee found evidence that officials from four government agencies "were notified to be on the alert for possible attacks against individuals, federal institutions, or the public at large. ..."
Of those four agencies, two of them -- the U.S. Marshals' office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- were actually officed in the Murrah Building. In addition, the Oklahoma City Fire Department was warned by the FBI, says the report. And Federal Judge Wayne Alley admitted in an interview the day of the bombing (published in the Portland Oregonian, April 20, 1995) that he also had been told to be on the alert for a possible bombing.
Five witnesses who spoke to Key and his committee said they talked to federal officials who in turn claimed that no Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were in the building at the time of the bombing.
And another five witnesses said they saw bomb-squad vehicles in downtown Oklahoma City shortly before the blast went off at just after 9 a.m.
McVeigh … and others?
Key said his committee found "over 70 witnesses" who said they saw McVeigh "and one or more 'John Does'" in the days before -- and on the day of -- the bombing.
After the blast, said the committee in its report, about 40 witnesses came forward in response to FBI composite drawings of "John Doe 1" and "John Doe 2," thought to be of Middle Eastern descent.
Many of these witnesses notified federal authorities "about seeing McVeigh with one or more John Does," the report said.
How many bombs?
The Key committee talked to a number of witnesses who were in the Murrah building at the time of the blast who said they felt it "shaking before the bombing and assumed it was an earthquake," suggesting that there was another blast before the truck bomb went off in front of the building that was ultimately blamed for all of the damage.
Some of those witnesses told the committee they owed their survival "to having had time to seek protection under their desks just before the [truck] bomb exploded," the report said.
Also, the committee obtained seismologic evidence from an expert source that "supports the fact that there were multiple explosions" that morning. But, as was the case with other witnesses, the expert "was not allowed to testify at the federal trials," the report says.
The committee noted that estimates of the size of the ammonium nitrate-fuel oil ("ANFO") truck bomb changed frequently, but officials eventually said the bomb was 4,800 pounds. "This finding was calculated on incorrect measurements of the crater" left in front of the Murrah building, the report said, "rather than on forensic evidence."
The committee's report also documents "at least four sightings of [additional] bombs inside the building," which were reported by witnesses and local news agencies, as
WND documented in an April 23 story.
The sightings, the report said, resulted "in rescue personnel being evacuated from the building, leaving behind the injured and dying" victims.
None of the five experts in munitions and explosives, whose reports all concluded that no ANFO bomb of any size could have caused the type and extent of damage at the Murrah building, were allowed to testify at the federal trials, Key's group documented in its report.
Feds knew of others besides McVeigh
Though only McVeigh and Nichols were arrested, tried and convicted for their roles in the bombing, the Key committee found that the federal government knew that others were involved, despite official denials.
The committee found that "in addition to McVeigh and Nichols," suspects listed as "others unknown" were also named "in indictments … in both federal trials."
The report said McVeigh was reported by witnesses to have been in the company of "several Middle-Eastern [persons] in the downtown area shortly before the bombing," and that Nichols "frequently visited the Philippines, where it is possible that he developed connections with Middle Eastern terrorists."
Corroborating this, Jayna Davis -- a former investigative reporter for Oklahoma City television station KFOR -- told Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor"
on March 20 that Nichols may have been in contact with associates of Saudi billionaire terrorist Osama bin Laden in the Philippines. "Davis also points to court records offered in the Nichols defense that suggest he had contacts with a member of bin Laden's terrorist organization in the Philippines prior to the bombing," WND reported, based on excerpts of Davis' interview with the show's host and WND columnist Bill O'Reilly.
McVeigh, she said, was also in the company of Mideastern men shortly before the bombing, one of whom was a former member of Iraq's elite Republican Guard army corps.
As Davis noted, the Key committee also said that shortly after the bombing, an "all-points-bulletin" was issued by authorities for a man of Mideastern descent who had been spotted with McVeigh in the Ryder rental truck containing the bomb.
But both Davis and Key's committee said the APB was rescinded later in the day "without explanation," and, the Key report noted, "federal law enforcement officials subsequently denied that there was involvement by anyone other than McVeigh and Nichols."
Federal court, law enforcement failures
The committee's report also detailed failures by federal law and court officials -- before, during and after the bombing.
"There is sufficient evidence to confirm that law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma City, as well as Washington, D.C., had sufficient prior knowledge of the impending disaster, yet took minimum measures to avert the bombing," the report said. "Documents and witnesses support this conclusion."
Also, the report said the "FBI quashed reports of explosive devices found in the … building and reports showing that the ATF [was] unlawfully storing explosives inside."
The committee said the FBI also refused to allow Federal Emergency Management Agency officials access to the building to conduct their portion of the investigation, and that the FBI failed to run checks "on over one thousand fingerprints that were obtained in this case."
In the aftermath of the bombing, when federal and state grand juries were convened to examine evidence, Key and his committee said "blatant bias against anyone asking questions or probing into facts was evident. ..."
"Virtually all of the rules governing grand juries were broken," the report says.
Conclusions
The report concludes that the Clinton administration's law enforcement agencies and officials "had prior knowledge of the bombing," and that "McVeigh and Nichols did not act alone."
Also, Key's committee said government informants were not allowed to present testimony at the federal trials, and "critical scientific evidence" was never presented in either McVeigh's or Nichols' trials.
"The final report represents years of extensive investigation and countless interviews," Keys said. "It contains information never reported before in any forum."
The actual tape-recorded confession can be heard of former goverment agent John Peeler on the Alamo Ministries website. www.alamoministries.com click on world newsletters April-June 2003 issue or the transcript can be read at http://www.freewebs.com/govwebsites to confirm the governments involvement and coverup of the Oklahoma City Bombing.
OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING VICTIMS FAMILIES / WIDOWS SUPPORT GROUPS
TINA TOMLIN / 405-324-5362
GLORIA CHIPMAN / 405-340-0947
JANIE COVERDALE / 405-232-1463 (Grandchildren)
Those Who Were Killed We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.
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