The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 28

"Others saw a malleable personality easily micromanaged by superiors in Was.h.i.+ngton," added Newsweek. A rather candid observation in a case where "micromanaging" is key.

"I don't think that Joe is in charge of the prosecution team," said Stephen Jones. "The shots are called by [Deputy Attorney General] Jamie Gorelick and [her top aide] Merrick Garland."

Justice Department officials scoff at such a notion, pointing out that they are too far away and too busy to micro-manage the trial team. Hartzler, they say, is firmly in charge....[991]

Interestingly, Hartzler was chief of both the civil and criminal division of the Chicago U.S. Attorney's office during his 10-year term, a jurisdiction not unknown for its share of corruption-ridden scandals.

His a.s.sistant, Scott Mendeloff, was accused by Sherman Skolnick of the Chicago-based Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts of covering up the murder of Wallace Lieberman, a Chicago Federal Bankruptcy Court official ready to finger several judges for bribery.

"The a.s.sa.s.sination of Lieberman, as Mendeloff knew, was tied to the corrupt activities of First National Bank of Cicero, a Mafia/CIA laundry," writes Skolnick.[992]

Naturally, Hartzler doesn't see any corruption in Oklahoma. "I am 100 percent confident that when this case is resolved, everyone will think that complete and fair due process was obtained by the defendants," Hartlzer told the American Bar a.s.sociation Journal.

To facilitate this "complete and fair due process," the DoJ transferred a.s.sistant U.S. Attorney Ted Richardson from his position as chief bombing and arson prosecutor for the Western District of Oklahoma to the bank robbery detail (where he had no experience). As previously noted, Richardson was the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Sam Khalid for insurance fraud. It was rumored that Richardson, who friends claim had a "very strong sense of conscious," was looking into Khalid's subsequent activities. On August 5, 1997, Richardson "committed suicide."[993]

As previously noted, the number of suspicious deaths skyrocketed in the 1980s, as the government attempted to cover up an increasing pattern of fraudulent and illegal activities.

Even reporters weren't exempt from the DoJ hit-list. On August 10, 1991 reporter Danny Casolaro, who had been investigating the Inslaw scandal and a related web of corruption he called "The Octopus," was found dead in his Martinsburg, West Virginia hotel room. Casolaro was there to meet with a witness who was supposed to provide the key link between the DoJ and Inslaw.

Like Sergeant Yeakey, Casolaro's wrists were slashed numerous times. Like Yeakey, his notes and briefcase were missing. And like Yeakey, the death was immediately ruled a suicide by police, who made no attempt to contact Casolaro's family before ordering an immediate and unprecedented embalming of the body. A team of contract cleaners was brought in to scour clean the hotel room from top to bottom, eliminating all forensic evidence.

The death of Casolaro led to an investigation by the Congressional Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law, headed by Representative Jack Brooks (D-Texas). The report stated: Instead of conducting an investigation into Inslaw's claims that criminal wrongdoing by high level government officials had occurred, Attorney Generals Meese and Thornbugh blocked or restricted Congressional inquires into the matter, ignored the findings of two courts and refused to ask for the appointment of an independent counsel. These actions were taken in the face of a growing body of evidence that serious wrongdoing had occurred which reached to the highest levels of the Department. The evidence received by the committee during its investigation clearly raises serious concerns about the possibility that a high level conspiracy against Inslaw did exist and that great efforts have been expended by the Department to block any outside investigation into the matter.

The DoJ also prosecuted a key witness in the Inslaw case, Michael Riconosciuto, who was set up on phony drug charges to prevent him from testifying. The Congressional committee probing the matter noted: [A DEA agent] rea.s.signment in 1990 to a DEA intelligence position in the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, prior to Michael Riconosciuto's March 1991 arrest there on drug charges, was more than coincidental... The agent was a.s.signed to Riconosciuto's home state to manufacture a case against him. Mr. Coleman stated he believes this was done to prevent Mr. Riconosciuto from becoming a credible witness concerning the U.S. government's covert sale of PROMIS to foreign governments.[994]

Another example of selective prosecution on behalf of DoJ is Juval Aviv, owner of the investigative firm Interfor. A former Israeli intelligence agent, Aviv was hired to look into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. His report was directly at odds with the government's "official" conclusions - that two Libyan terrorists were responsible for the bombing. Aviv discovered that not only had U.S. officials been specifically warned of the ensuing attack, but may have had direct complicity in the murder of 270 people.

For his embarra.s.sing disclosures, Aviv was targeted for prosecution, and investigated by the very same FBI agents who "investigated" the Pan Am case. To punish Aviv, DoJ fabricated evidence that Interfor had defrauded G.E. Capital Corporation, a client who was completely satisfied with Interfor's work, and hadn't even filed a complaint against the firm.

Nevertheless, in 1995, the DoJ indicted Aviv on three counts of defrauding G.E. - charges for which he was unanimously acquitted. In his ruling opinion, the judge wrote: The chronology of the investigation, the fact that it is resulting from no external complaint whatsoever but simply internally within the FBI as far as any witness has testified, leads to an inference that it was generated from some other sources, and the only source in the record so far for which any such purpose could be ascribed is the report in the other case, in the Lockerbie case.

Yet DoJ wasn't finished with Aviv. They canceled their contract with Interfor and began a systematic campaign to intimidate his clients. Interfor was financially devastated. The U.S. government, through the DoJ, believed that by intimidating people such as Juval Aviv, they could prevent public knowledge of their complicity in the murder of 270 innocent people.

As in Oklahoma City, witnesses who knew too much about Pan Am 103, or those who possessed politically inconvenient facts, were intimidated. Five years on, volunteers and policemen who partic.i.p.ated in the search remained recalcitrant - most so those who had searched the area where the heroin was found.

The "Justice" Department also brutally attacked Pan Am's lawyers, attempting to sanction them with huge fines for daring to challenge the government's case.

The government went after Allan Francovitch, producer of the award-winning doc.u.mentary on Pan Am 103, The Maltese Double Cross, which was due to premiere at the 1994 London Film Festival. Strangely, for the first time in its 38 year history, the festival pulled the film at the last minute.[995]

Suspiciously, a few weeks after the film previewed at London's alternative Angle Gallery, it suffered a major fire.

One day before the film was to air on Channel 4, both the Scottish Crown Office and the U.S. Emba.s.sy sent every national and Scottish newspaper a press pack smearing four of the film's interviewers.[996]

Within days of film being broadcast, Juval Aviv was indicted on fraud charges. His attorney, Gerald Shargel, applied for a dismissal on the grounds of selective prosecution. Even the judge was forced to condemn the prosecution's arguments as "pathetic" and "dishonest."[997]

Allan Francovitch wasn't so lucky. Within minutes of arriving in the United States to testify at Aviv's trial, he was detained by Customs agents in a private interrogation room, and dropped dead on the spot. All evidence and doc.u.ments in Francovitch's brief case were found "missing" from the scene. Francovitch had been working on three other doc.u.mentaries at the time, including a devestating expose of the U.S. atrocites in Panama.

For his role in revealing the truth, former DIA agent Lester Coleman would be arrested on fabricated pa.s.sport charges and forced to seek asylum with his family in Sweden.

In Oklahoma, ATF informant Carol Howe would be arrested on trumped up charges and forced to take refuge inside a jail cell, her testimony of the bombing blocked from even her own trial.[998]

While reporter Danny Casolaro was murdered investigating matters related to Inslaw and BCCI, he was also checking on a lead provided to him by Lester Coleman.

Curiously, Pan Am has never been able to review those doc.u.ments which the government claims would merely show its "innocence." Like so many other heinous crimes, the government sought to hide its wrongdoing under the catch-all of "national security." The government, claiming it had nothing to hide, conspired with Federal Judge Thomas Platt to deny Pan Am's discovery requests on the grounds of "national security." As Pan Am's lawyer, James Shaughnessy, wrote in opposition to the government's motion to dismiss the company's third party liability suit: The government has fought strenuously and successfully for three years to prevent any discovery of it.... Now, the government seeks millions of dollars of sanctions to punish and bankrupt my firm and me for having the temerity not only to a.s.sert claims against the government but also for even seeking discovery from the government....

The government condemns as sanctionable any view of the facts that differs from its own. In effect, what the government condemns is defendants' refusal to blindly adopt its version of the facts despite the government's refusal to produce the evidence from which defendants could have determined whether the government's version of the facts was correct....

The government expects this blind trust even though we had information from multiple sources that conflicted with the government's sweeping a.s.sertions and that suggested the government was responsible for the failure to prevent the bombing....

Seven years later, the DoJ and FBI would ask the victims in Oklahoma City for this same blind trust - lying about their prior knowledge of the attack. Lying about the number of bombs found. Lying about the APB put out on the brown pick-up. Lying about the presence of other suspects. Ignoring witnesses who saw those suspects and trying to get them to change their stories. Tapping people's phones and exhorting them into not talking to the press and defense investigators. And intimidating several witnesses into silence.

In their attempt to frame ATF informant Carol Howe on phony explosives charges, the government was unsuccessful. In his closing argument, Howe's attorney Clark Brewster waved his arms and pa.s.sionately announced to the jury, "there was no bomb threat here, the only threat here is what the government can do to people when they don't like what you say or what you might say...."

Howe was acquitted.

Many others wouldn't be so fortunate.

7.

The Connection "It's a total conspiracy. It has government written all over it."

- Tom Posey, Civilian Military a.s.sistance Group/Iran-Contra Player

April 19, 1995 was, like November 22, 1963, a day that devastated America. Stunned citizens everywhere watched anxiously as another painful drama unfolded before them.

Within minutes of the brutal attack on Oklahoma City, an army of agencies leapt into action. In the White House Situation Room the atmosphere was tense as officials from the National Security Council, the Secret Service, the FBI, ATF, NSA, and CIA all a.s.sembled to brief the President.

This crisis team, led by the Justice Department, linked up to command centers around the globe, monitored by a plethora of intelligence agencies on extra-high alert. The FBI, the CIA's Directorate of Operations and their domestic arm, the National Resources Division, sent agents. .h.i.ther and yonder in a frantic and desperate search for information concerning the catastrophic attack.

In a quite Maryland suburb, one former CIA official sat back and calmly monitored the ensuing chaos. He picked up his pipe, casually adjusted the volume on his television, and leaned back in his comfortable leather chair.

Two thousand miles away in Albuquerque, D'Ferdinand Carone, the daughter of former police detective, CIA operative, and Mafia bag-man, "Big Al" Carone, picked up the telephone and dialed a very private number.

A half a continent away, the former CIA Deputy Director of Covert Operations tapped the contents of his pipe into an ashtray, hit the mute b.u.t.ton on his remote control, and answered the phone.

Carone had been trying to reach Theodore Shackley for over two weeks. As they talked, her attention was suddenly diverted by a horrible scene. What appeared to be an office building lay smoldering in ruins. People and sirens were screaming in the background as bodies were carted away by ambulance.

"I said, 'oh my G.o.d, they bombed Oklahoma!'

"This was about the time they were talking about the plane they stopped in Heathrow [with Abraham Ahmed], and I said, 'here we go again.'

Carone was referring of course to the World Trade Center bombing by a group of Mid-East terrorists. She a.s.sumed that this was more of the same.

"And Ted said, 'Now wouldn't you find it interesting if you found out it was terrorists from here?'

"I said, 'excuse me?'

"And he said, 'just what I said.'

"Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I got the distinct feeling that he knew who it was, and that it actually had something to do with the Agency."[999]

While scores of intelligence and law-enforcement agencies scoured the globe for clues as to who had bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Building, one man in a small office in Maryland seemed to have the answer.[1000]

How did he know?

8.

Lockerbie - A Parallel "The covert operators that I ran with would blow up a 747 with 300 people to kill one person. They are total sociopaths with no conscience whatsoever."

- Former Pentagon CID Investigator Gene Wheaton

On December 21, 1988, in the tiny town of Lockerbie, Scotland, 270 lives came to a traumatic and fiery end when Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the skies. Two hundred and fifty-nine people plunged to their deaths, and 11 more died on the ground.

Several minutes before flight 103 took off from London's Heathrow airport, FBI a.s.sistant Director Oliver "Buck" Revell rushed out to the tarmac and pulled his son and daughter-in-law off the plane.[1001]

How did he know?

Perhaps Revell's intimate knowledge derived from his relations.h.i.+p with Lt. Colonel Oliver North. In March of 1986, North advised Attorney General Edwin Meese to head off the FBI's ensuing investigation into Iran-Contra. Meese informed Revell. Consequently, North managed to keep abreast of the FBI's investigation by conveniently receiving copies of all FBI files.[1002]

Widely known for his inestimable and illegal support of the Contras, North (along with General Richard Secord and Iranian Albert Hakim) was a business a.s.sociate of Syrian arms and drug runner Monzer al-Ka.s.sar. For his role in s.h.i.+pping Polish arms to North's mercenary army, al-Ka.s.sar became the recipient of North's undying grat.i.tude [and laundered drug proceeds].[1003]

Like so many criminals, drug-dealers, and ma.s.s-murderers the CIA had cozied up to over the years, al-Ka.s.sar enjoyed the highly valued status of CIA "a.s.set."

Al-Ka.s.sar was also closely aligned with Rifat a.s.sad, brother of Syrian dictator Hafez a.s.sad. a.s.sad's daughter Raja was Ka.s.sar's mistress, and had once been married to Abu Abbas, a colleague of the notorious terrorist Abu Nidal. Rifat himself was married to the sister of Ali Issa Dubah, chief of Syrian intelligence, who, along with the Syrian army, controlled most of the opium production in Lebanon's Bekka Valley. The drug profits financed various terrorist groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), run by former Syrian army officer Ahmed Jibril.[1004]

Al-Ka.s.sar also acted as middleman in the ransom paid by the French to effect the release of two hostages held in Beirut. Given his a.s.sistance in securing the release of those hostages, the CIA believed al-Ka.s.sar would prove invaluable in negotiating the release of the six American hostages then being held in Lebanon.[1005]*

In return for this favor, al-Ka.s.sar's drug pipeline to the United States would be protected by the CIA. This would not prove difficult, as the DEA was already using Pan Am flights out of Frankfort, Germany for "controlled delivery" s.h.i.+pments of heroin. Realizing they couldn't halt the flow of drugs coming out of Lebanon, the DEA utilized the controlled s.h.i.+pments, escorted through customs by DEA couriers, as part of a sting operation, with the intention of catching the dealers in the U.S.[1006]

Negotiation with individuals like Monzer al-Ka.s.sar had only one drawback: al-Ka.s.sar was closely linked, not only with the terrorist-sponsoring Syrian government, but with groups such Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC. Jibril, was also aligned with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which had a somewhat different agenda than al-Ka.s.sar.

On July 3, 1988, less than six months before the Pan Am 103 bombing, the U.S.S. Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner over the Straits of Hormuz, killing all 290 people on board. a.s.suming the plane was a hostile craft, the captain of the Vincennes, Will Rodgers III, gave the command to fire.

While the people of Iran grieved, the officer responsible for the fatal mistake was awarded a medal.[1007]

Under Islamic law, the crime had to be avenged. As Juval Aviv of Interfor stated in his report, "It was known at the time that the contract was out to down an American airliner."

That contract - $10 million dollars - was given to Ahmed Jibril.[1008] Jibril had already established a base of operations in Neuss, Germany, not far from Frankfort. Central to his cell was one Marwan Abdel Razzack Khreeshat. Khreeshat's specialty was in building small, sophisticated bombs incorporating timing mechanisms capable of detonating at pre-determined alt.i.tudes.

By mid-October 1988, Jibril was ready. Khreeshat had a.s.sembled five bombs, built into Tos.h.i.+ba radio-ca.s.sette players. However, the German police were watching Khreesat. On October 26, Khreesat and 14 other PFLP-GC suspects were rounded up in an operation code-named "Autumn Leaves." One of the bombs was seized. Yet four more remained at large.

While in custody, Khreesat demanded to make a phone call, then refused to answer any questions. Within hours, he was mysteriously released.[1009]

The incident is strikingly similar to the arrest of "neo-n.a.z.i terrorist" Andreas Stra.s.smeir on traffic charges in February of 1992. "Boy, we caught h.e.l.l over that one," recalled tow-truck driver, Kenny Pence. "The phone calls came in from the State Department, the Governor's office, and someone called and said he had diplomatic immunity...."[1010]

Similar calls were made on behalf of Khreesat. Former CIA agent Oswald Le Winter, who investigated the case, stated, "...pressure had come from Bonn... from the U.S. Emba.s.sy in Bonn... to release Khreesat."

It seems that both Stra.s.smeir and Khreesat were operatives of U.S. intelligence. "I had spoken to a German reporter who refuses to go on camera," adds Le Winter, "but who is very close to federal intelligence sources in Germany, who a.s.sured me that Khreesat was an agent of the Jordanian service, and an a.s.set of the Central Intelligence Agency."[1011]

Given the close relations.h.i.+p between the Jordanians and the CIA, this is not surprising. Yet it appeared Khreesat wasn't only reporting to the Jordanians and the Americans; he was also reporting to Ahmed Jibril.

Two months before the bombing, Jibril and al-Ka.s.sar were spotted by a Mossad agent dining at a Lebanese restaurant in Paris. Jibril was hoping to use al-Ka.s.sar's controlled drug s.h.i.+pments through Frankfort to effect the delivery of a bomb. The problem: how to protect the drug s.h.i.+pments while at the same time extract revenge on the Americans? Al-Ka.s.sar preferred the former option, but, due to political pressure, he grudgingly agreed to the latter.

While a CIA team in Wiesbaden, code-named "COREA," was negotiating its secret deal with al-Ka.s.sar for release of the hostages (and protecting his drug route), a second team, led by Major Charles McKee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and Matthew Gannon, the CIA's Deputy Station Chief in Beirut, had traveled to Lebanon to a.s.sess the odds for a military-style rescue operation.[1012]

According to Aviv's report, McKee's team had, while reconnoitering for the release of the hostages, stumbled onto the first team's illegal drug operation. McKee refused to partic.i.p.ate. When he and Gannon contacted their control in Was.h.i.+ngton, they received no reply. Against orders, they decided to fly home to blow the whistle. According to Aviv: They had communicated back to Langley the facts and names, and reported their film of the hostage locations. CIA did nothing. No reply. The team was outraged, believing that its rescue and their lives would be endangered by the double dealing.

By mid-December the team became frustrated and angry and made plans to return to the U.S. with their photos and evidence to inform the government, and to publicize their findings if the government covered up.

They never arrived. That night, Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the skies.

Was the death of McKee, Gannon, and five others on their team an unfortunate coincidence, or did someone want to ensure that they didn't reveal the carefully guarded secrets of the Octopus?[1013][1014]

Given the ample and specific warnings received by the U.S. Government from the BKA, the Mossad, and a Palestinian informant named Samra Mahayoun, it would seem the latter.[1015]*

Whatever the case, it is indisputable that U.S. authorities were warned of the attack, and failed to stop it.

Was their failure deliberate?

"Do I think the CIA was involved?" asked a government Mideast Intelligence specialist quoted in the financial weekly, Barron's. "Of course they were involved. And they screwed up. Was the operation planned by the top? Probably not. I doubt they sanctioned heroin importation - that came about at the more zealous lower levels. But they knew what was going on and didn't care." The expert added that his agency has "things that support Aviv's allegation, but we can't prove it. We have no smoking gun. And until the other agencies of the government open their doors, we will have no smoking gun."

The Lockerbie bombing was not the first time authorities were warned in advance of a pending terrorist attack. The situation would repeat itself five years later in New York City, and seven years later in Oklahoma.

It was an all too eerie coincidence.

Typically, U.S. authorities disingeniously denied receiving any warnings, as they would later do in New York and Oklahoma. Yet, as in those cases, evidence of prior knowledge would eventually become known. "It subsequently came to me on further inquiries that they hadn't ignored [the warnings]," said a Pan Am security officer. "A number of VIPs were pulled off that plane. A number of intelligence operatives were pulled off that plane."

Due to the warnings posted in U.S. emba.s.sies by the State Department (but not forwarded to Pan Am), many government employees avoided the flight. In fact, the large 747 was only two-thirds full that busy holiday evening. South African president Peter Botha and several high-ranking officials were advised by state security forces to change their reservations at the last hour. The South African State Security forces have a close relations.h.i.+p with the CIA.[1016]

Just as they would do in Oklahoma, government officials promised a complete and thorough investigation. Stated Oliver "Buck" Revell, who headed up the Bureau's investigation: "All of us working on the case made it a very, very personal priority of the first order."

Fronting for the CIA, Vince Cannistraro chimed in: "I had personal friends on that plane who died. And I a.s.sure you that I wanted to find the perpetrators of that disaster as much as anyone wanted to."