Declassified FBI Memo Suggests OKC Bombings Work of Islamic Terrorists
posted at 12:29 pm on April 8, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Islam ]
For years, the poster boy associated with the liberal mantra that terrorists come in all sizes and colors—not just Muslims—has been Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. A newly declassified FBI memo, however, suggests that McVeigh may have been acting as an agent of Islamic terrorists.
The non-partisan, non-profit, non-advocacy Center for Public Integrity shares this informational bombshell in a report that also notes that an unnamed senior ABC News journalist was a mole for the FBI.
The CPI provides a quote from the memo to the effect that the journalist
advised that a source within the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service advised that the Oklahoma City bombing was sponsored by the Iraqi Special Services who contracted seven (7) former Afghani Freedom Fighters out of Pakistan.
The memo was brought to the CPI’s attention by a Utah attorney named Jesse Trentadue. Trentadue discovered the document—unredacted and still marked “secret”—in a box of documents gathered by the defense team for Terry Nichols, a co-defendant of McVeigh who was convicted and is serving a life sentence.
According to the memo, a year after coming forward with the information on the Islamic connection, the reporter agreed to divulge ABC’s source for the uncorroborated claim. He or she identified the source as a former CIA officer named Vincent Cannistraro, who was on contract to the network as a consultant.
In fairness, the CPI article raises as many questions as it answers. The authors of the piece, John Solomon and Aaron Mehta, for example, report that Vincent Cannistraro, whom they interviewed, insists the information was never corroborated and was just a rumor passing through Saudi circles.
Nevertheless, the story is worth following, if for no other reason than to learn what our government knew about the Oklahoma City bombings and when they knew it. As for the FBI’s using a journalist as an informant, that’s another conversation that will need to take place.
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Iraqi involvement has been suspected from the beginning. See, for example, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_17_18/ai_86233293/
NNtrancer on April 8, 2011 at 12:44 PM
google elohim city oklahoma and Andreas Strassmeir.
Christian Identity and American Neo-Nazis have had a friendly association with middle east extremists for years.
if you haven’t studied these groups it may seem like a strange combination, but with Hitler’s admiration of islamic militants, to them it is a natural fit.
warhorse_03826 on April 8, 2011 at 12:56 PM
Also, see
http://www.jaynadavis.com/story090502-wsj1.html
NNtrancer on April 8, 2011 at 1:00 PM
Jayna Davis, a reporter for an OKC network affiliate (I forget which one) wrote a whole book about this a few years ago. Interestingly, the info from the Saudi general via Cannistraro basically accords almost perfectly with what Davis unearthed in her investigation.
J.E. Dyer on April 8, 2011 at 1:01 PM
thump thump thump
Another meme bites the dust.
And another meme down,
And another meme down,
Another meme bites the dust.
mrt721 on April 8, 2011 at 1:20 PM
“John Doe 2″ at the very beginning of the tragedy was listed as a male of middle eastern appearance. Several hours after the bombing, he disappeared from the news altogether.
Some of us have never forgotten that there originally was an accomplice to this atrocity…
Ace ODale on April 8, 2011 at 1:28 PM
The report actually says that the FBI paid off a ABC journalist to name sources because they thought Saddam Hussein was behind it – but their investigation showed no evidence of that. I’m a Jayna Davis fan myself but this rumor about this report “proving” anything just makes the idea of McVeigh and Nichols connections to Islamic radicals seem more conspiratorial.
The real story here is that journalist now are calling the journalist who helped there FBI figure out who was involved a rat.
Rob Taylor on April 8, 2011 at 2:01 PM
Actually it suggests nothing of the sort. I think the convictions resulting from the bombing are sound and the facts of the matter are pretty well understood. Intelligence and law enforcement deal with false leads all the time. This is one of those.
lexhamfox on April 8, 2011 at 2:29 PM
Seems more probable.
Though, really, I don’t think I’ve got anything like the information I would need to judge this.
Count to 10 on April 8, 2011 at 4:03 PM
I’ve spoken with a senior FBI anti-terrorist SAC, who also happens to be a friend, on this (left immediately for OKC when his beeper went off) and the Branch Davidian siege (he was on site for almost the entire picnic). Like lexhamfox says above, they followed up on several septillion leads, mostly dead ends, mostly rumor mill stuff, opinions, fantasies, and the like. The stuff of substance lead directly to McVeigh, Nichols and Co.
Nut cases are everywhere. Call them “special interest groups” if you like. I’m surprised that we get so few acting on their delusions and emotions.
Robert17 on April 8, 2011 at 6:39 PM
A properly skeptical position. I recommend reading the Jayna Davis book before making up your mind. Not saying it’s definitive, but it’s carefully researched (if very badly written), and the elements of it that deal with the practices of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and certain specific facts about it, are independently verifiable. You’ll feel like you know more after you’ve read it, at least.
In the implication that the McVeigh and Nichols convictions are not undermined by anything in this report or the Davis book, lexhamfox is quite correct. Their convictions were sound and based on evidence implicating them in exactly the crimes they were charged with.
But that doesn’t mean they had no assistance from others. There is quite a pile of evidence that they did. The Justice Department’s choice not to pursue that evidence, which has been extensively documented by Davis and by McVeigh’s defense lawyer, appears to have been a use of prosecutorial discretion, something that was also the case in the prosecution of the WTC bombing in 1993. (And that doesn’t mean it was a conspiracy, as implied by the sometimes-fevered speculations of Laurie Mylroie.)
It’s invalid to characterize the OKC ’95 attack as an Islamist terror attack in disguise. McVeigh and Nichols had their own sick ideas and reasons, and there’s no question they did it.
But it’s equally invalid to insist that they had no contact with or assistance from the IIS or jihadists (two different entities which occasionally connected on terror network diagrams). There’s evidence from multiple sources that they did. Insisting that they didn’t is not necessary to acknowledging McVeigh’s and Nichols’ own culpability.
J.E. Dyer on April 8, 2011 at 6:51 PM
I’ve always wondered if there was some connection with Iraq (Saddam), based on the initial accounts and descriptions of evidence at the time of the bombing and its immediate aftermath. It would not be unreasonable to think that Saddam’s intel guys would find a suitable American nut (McVeigh) to avenge the first Gulf War. It would also not be unreasonable to think that the second Iraq war was a payback for the plot to kill Bush the Elder, hatched by Saddam’s Iraq, and Oklahoma City. Farfetched? Probably. Can you dismiss it out of hand? No.
either orr on April 9, 2011 at 1:14 PM