The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 29

As in Oklahoma City, this would become the catch-all phrase that would set everything right and prove the government had no involvement. Of course, this would be somewhat difficult in Revell's case, since he pulled his son and daughter-in-law off the plane minutes before it took off. (This was suspiciously reminiscent of the ATF agents who were paged not to come into work on April 19.) Interestingly, Revell was the FBI's lead investigator in the crash of an Arrow Air DC-8 which exploded on December 12, 1985 in Gander, Newfoundland, with the loss of all 248 personnel. As in Oklahoma City, that site was quickly bulldozed, destroying crucial forensic evidence, with an Army official maintaining a watchful eye at all times.[1017]

Hiding behind the cover-up was the same cast of characters - Oliver North, Duane "Dewy" Clarridge, and Vince Cannistraro - who was North's deputy at the NSC during Iran-Contra, and would later appear in Lockerbie. The same cast of characters that lurked behind the scandals in Nicaragua and Iran, and would appear like ghostly apparitions in the smoldering ruins of Oklahoma City.[1018]

It was also an act that the U.S. Shadow Government, responsible for precipitating, was anxious to cover up. Had the true cause of the crash - North's double-dealing with the Iranians - been revealed, the Iran-Contra scandal would have surfaced two years before it did.

Oliver "Buck" Revell would be on hand to make sure it didn't.

Three years later, in Lockerbie, the government was still claiming it's hands were clean. Yet it vigorously protested Pan Am's attempts to subpoena warning memos and other doc.u.ments that would have revealed the government's foreknowledge, just as it did in Oklahoma.

Simply stated, the attack on Pan Am 103 was in retaliation for the downing of the Iranian airbus. The reason for targeting Pan Am was simple: the airline was regularly used by al-Ka.s.sar's operatives to ferry drugs. It would be a simple matter to switch a suitcase containing drugs for one containing a bomb.

That appears to be just what happened. According to Lester Knox Coleman, III, a former DIA agent in Cyprus seconded to the DEA: "I knew from the conversations around me in '88, that he (Lebanese drug courier Khalid Jaffar) was involved in the controlled deliveries. There's no doubt in my mind about that at all. When I found he was on 103 and was killed, and there was a controlled delivery going through at the time, and I knew the security problems the DEA had, and the relations.h.i.+ps they had with the people in Lebanon, with the issues involving security, it was very simple for me to put one and one together and get the big two - that the DEA's operation had a role in all this."[1019]

According to Juval Aviv, the drug suitcase was switched at Frankfort, where Turkish baggage handlers working for al-Ka.s.sar had been regularly switching bags for those containing heroin.[1020]* As the Interfor report stated: On December 21, 1988, a BKA surveillance agent watching the Pan Am flight's loading noticed that the "drug" suitcase subst.i.tuted was different in make, shape, material and color from that used for all previous drug s.h.i.+pments. This one was a brown Samsonite case. He, like the other BKA agents on the scene, had been extra alert due to all the bomb tips. Within an hour or so before takeoff he phoned in a report as to what he had seen, saying something was very wrong.[1021]

The BKA reported this to the CIA team in Wiesbaden, who, strangely, did not reply. According to Aviv, "[The CIA unit] reported to its control. CONTROL REPLIED: DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, DON'T STOP IT, LET IT GO." *

Apparently, the CIA team "did not want to blow its surveillance operation and undercover penetration or to risk the al-Ka.s.sar hostage release operation," wrote Aviv. It seemed the CIA figured the BKA would intercept the terrorists, keeping the CIA out of the picture, thereby maintaining its cover.

Yet this explanation hardly seems credible. The BKA had informed the CIA about the threat - a threat to one of its own planes. They also knew the Americans were running a sensitive undercover operation, and must have a.s.sumed the Americans would want to handle the situation themselves.

Moreover, there is no indication that the CIA had instructed the BKA or any other German authorities to stop the bombing. The question is: why not? Certainly the CIA wouldn't blow its cover by asking the BKA to intercede, as they were already aware of the CIA/DEA operation.

This raises even more disturbing questions. Had the CIA "control" in Was.h.i.+ngton, monitoring the situation, purposely allowed the bombing to occur? Was the McKee team, about to blow the whistle on the Octopus, specifically targeted for elimination? Had Middle Eastern terrorists knowingly or unknowingly conspired with the Octopus in eliminating a group of pesky whistle blowers?[1022]

Strangely, after the crash, large numbers of American "rescue" personnel began showing up rather quickly. As one searcher, a member of a mountain rescue team recalled: "We arrived within two hours [of the crash]. We found Americans already there."[1023]

The first to appear was an FBI agent. According to George s...o...b.., a Lockerbie police inspector, "[I] started to set up a control room, and [between] eleven o'clock and midnight, there was a member of the FBI in the office who came in, introduced herself to me, and sat down - and just sat there the rest of the night. That was it."[1024]*

Was this so-called FBI agent there to observe the Scottish police's investigation, and report any conflicting findings back to her superiors?

Tom Dalyell, a member of British Parliament, remarked: "...Absolutely swarms of Americans [were] fiddling with the bodies, and shall we say tampering with those things the police were carefully checking themselves. They weren't pretending, saying they were from the FBI or CIA, they were just 'Americans' who seemed to arrive very quickly on the scene."

The scenario was eerily similar to that in Oklahoma City, where rescue workers and bomb squad technicians seemingly appeared out of thin air.

Recall that Oklahoma City eyewitness Debra Burd.i.c.k, who was near ground zero when the bomb went off, said: "And right after that, here comes the Bomb Squad, before the ambulances and the Fire Department."

"They would have had to have had some kind of warning to respond that quick, said Burd.i.c.k's husband, "because they would have had to get in their gear and everything."[1025]

As mentioned previously, Burd.i.c.k wasn't the only one who saw federal agents and rescue personnel arrive a bit too quickly. J.D. Reed, who was in the County Office Building when the bomb went off, later wrote: "The paramedics and firemen were already at work. How could they move so quickly? They were there by the time we got down to the street!"[1026]

Then there was Sergeant Yeakey's ominous letter to his friend Ramona McDonald, which stated: "Everyone was behind you until you started asking questions as I did, as to how so many federal agents arrived at the scene at the same time...."

In Lockerbie, a number of American agents - some wearing Pan Am jumpsuits - were desperately searching for something. As Dalyell recalled: "It was... odd and strange that so many people should be involved in moving bodies, looking at luggage, who were not members of the investigating force. What were they looking for so carefully? You know, this was not just searching carefully for loved ones. It was far more than that. It was careful examination of luggage and indeed bodies."[1027]

Dr. David Fieldhouse, the local police surgeon, identified Major McKee early on. "I knew that [the identification of] McKee was absolutely correct because of the clothing which correlated closely with the other reports and statements, and the computers that were linked up to Was.h.i.+ngton."[1028]

This would subsume that Was.h.i.+ngton knew exactly what McKee - who hadn't told Control he was coming - was wearing. In other words, it means he was under surveillance by the Octopus.

Fieldhouse also tagged over 58 bodies. "I later learned that when the bodies were taken to the mortuary, all the labels which had been put on them had been removed with the exception of two," said Fieldhouse, "but all the rest had been removed and discarded."[1029]

A similar incident would occur in Oklahoma City. After nurse Toni Garret took a break from tagging dead bodies, she walked back to the makes.h.i.+ft morgue that had been set up in a nearby church. "When we came back in, there was a cold, callous atmosphere," said Garret. "I found out later that the FBI had taken over...."

Not only had the FBI taken over, but for some reason, they were suppressing the body count, which they originally claimed as only 22 dead. This enraged Garret, who had personally tagged over 120 bodies. While giving a news interview, FBI agents rushed over and told her to stop. Garret recalled the scene: "He said, 'Well, we're down here now, and we're taking over the building. It would be advisable and recommendable that you keep your mouth shut."[1030]

In Lockerbie, police officers and military personnel would be prohibited under the Official Secrets Act from talking about what they had witnessed.

Just what had they seen that was so sensitive?

Jim Wilson knows. A local farmer, Wilson told relatives of Pan Am victims that he was present "when the drugs were found." The Tundergarth farmer had discovered a suitcase packed with heroin in one of his fields. Worried that it might harm his sheep, he informed local police, who notified the Americans, who then raced to the scene in an all-terrain vehicle. Wilson noted that the Americans seemed extremely angry that the drugs had not been discovered earlier by their own personnel.

One Scottish police officer who did speak out said that his department had been told to keep an eye out for the drugs early on. He also overheard American personnel say that there was a drug courier on the plane - Khalid Jaffar - one of the Lebanese informants used by the DEA.[1031]

Had the heroin belonged to Jaffar? Since the drug suitcase had been switched at Frankfort, it would seem unlikely. A more probable explanation is that it belonged to Gannon or McKee - evidence of the illegal operation being run by the Octopus.

It would certainly explain why U.S. officials were so desperate to find the suitcase before the Scottish authorities did. Once located, the heroin was removed, and the bag placed back in its original position like nothing had happened.

In Oklahoma City, 10 hours after the blast(s), federal agents halted rescue efforts to remove files from the building. While limited numbers of rescue workers were constrained to the lower right side of the building, between 40 and 50 federal agents began carting away boxes of files from the ATF and DEA offices.

"You'd think they would have let their evidence and files sit at least until the last survivor was pulled out," one angry rescue worker told the New York Daily News.[1032]

Then, approximately 10 days after the blast, two white trucks pulled up to the postal annex across from the Murrah Building that was being used to store emergency supplies. A dozen men in black unmarked uniforms, wearing ski masks and carrying submachine guns, jumped out and formed a protective corridor to the building. Others, wearing blue nylon windbreakers and carrying hand-held radios, formed an outer perimeter. As a witness watched, he observed "box after box of what appeared to be files or doc.u.ments in boxes [that] were loaded on the unmarked trucks that looked like Ryder rental trucks, but were white."[1033]

The witness, a Tulsa Fire Captain who was filming the site of the explosion, was told by one of the agents to put down his camera. His film was later confiscated.

What were in the boxes - boxes that were originally stored in the Federal Building - that over a dozen mysteriously anonymous federal agents armed with submachine guns were so anxious to secrete into hiding? Were they files that were being taken away to be destroyed... or to be protected? And by whom?

The public would never learn of this bizarre incident, just as they would never learn of the Mid-Eastern connection, the numerous John Does, the prior warnings of Cary Gagan and Carol Howe, and the elaborate cover-up. The government had convicted their man - Timothy James McVeigh - just as they had done with Lee Harvey Oswald 34 years ago. The victims who subscribed to the government's version of the case could now begin to experience a sense of "closure," whether they had learned the truth or not.

Five years before, the government had attempted to provide "closure" to the Pan Am bombing by announcing its newly discovered "evidence" - a tiny piece of microchip allegedly linked to the bomb. This new evidence, discovered in a remote field ten months after the crash, would conclusively prove, the government claimed, that Libyan terrorists had destroyed the plane.

Like the evidence of McVeigh's racing fuel purchases which suddenly came to light 18 months after the bombing, or the startling new "revelations" of Eldon Elliott, Thomas Manning, and Daina Bradley, this "new evidence" would help the government divert attention from the true perpetrators of the crime.

Interestingly, Tom Thurman, the FBI lab technician who matched the chip - a tiny charred fragment that had miraculously survived two Scottish Winters - would later be accused of perjury in unrelated cases.

Nevertheless, the discovery was hailed as a major find. Vince Cannistraro, the CIA Counter terrorism Chief on the National Security Council, was the front-man for new "Libyan" theory.

"The principle avenues that led to identification of a foreign role in an act of terrorism," Cannistraro quipped with mock a.s.surance, "was forensic evidence recovered by the Scottish police at Lockerbie themselves. Investigators and townspeople on their hands and knees, crawling along the countryside, picking up minute bits of debris. And one of those bits of debris turned out to be a microchip, which was a.n.a.lyzed microscopically that led to the Libyan connection."

Like the Ryder truck axle in Oklahoma City that was allegedly discovered by several different people, so the microchip would have a confusing and contradictory bevy of claimants. "Three of his people (FBI agents) had sworn that they had found this piece in a piece of a coat and had signed a paper to this effect," stated Bollier. "I later heard that it was the Scottish police who had found the piece in a s.h.i.+rt that came from Malta." Yet in spite of this, the Scotts would attempt to have a townsperson sign a statement that he had found the chip.[1034]

Yet the townsperson whom the FBI claimed had discovered the chip could not even recall finding it. The man, named "Bobby," said "I got a call from a policeman asking if he could come down to my home, and would I sign to say that I picked those [items] up. He brought with him three small bags about the size of an eight-by-five piece of paper, one of which contained an item of cloth, one of which contained a brown piece which looked very much like a piece of plastic, the third piece I couldn't tell what it was."

Had the chip been planted by the FBI? The Bureau admitted that it already possessed two such timers, confiscated from two Libyans in Dakar and Senegal in 1986. The incident was remarkably similar to the Oklahoma City bombing witnesses who were coerced into signing statements that differed from what they actually saw.

Yet British authorities would willingly cooperate with the U.S. as the result of a phone call made by President Bush to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. According to Was.h.i.+ngton Post syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, the two heads of state agreed that the investigation should be "limited" in order to avoid compromising the two nations' intelligence communities.[1035]

For his part, Cannistraro had developed, along with NSC staffers Howard Teicher and Oliver North, the Reagan-inspired propaganda policy of destroying the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi. As Bob Woodward wrote in the Was.h.i.+ngton Post: Vincent M. Cannistraro, a veteran CIA operations officer and director of intelligence on the National Security Council staff, and Howard R. Teicher, the director of the office of political military affairs in the NSC, supported the disinformation and deception plan....

"I developed the policy toward Libya," said Cannistraro. "In fact, I even wrote the draft paper that was later adopted by the President."[1036]

In spite of the obvious propaganda ploy, the evidence against Libya was dubious at best. Even more dubious was the government's theory of how the bomb got on board. According to "Buck" Revell, the bomb, built by two Libyan intelligence agents - Abdel Ba.s.set al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhima - was placed inside a suitcase and smuggled into the airport at Malta, and tagged for its final destination to JFK airport in New York. It then flew, unaccompanied, to Frankfort, where it changed planes, also unaccompanied, then flew to London, where it managed to change planes again, only to explode over Lockerbie.

Like the specter of two lone amateurs with a fertilizer bomb, the government actually expects the public to believe that a sensitive alt.i.tude-triggered time-bomb managed to pa.s.s through three countries unaccompanied, pa.s.s through security and customs checks, change planes twice, then detonate at precisely the right moment over its target destination!

Such a suggestion, even to the uninitiated, is ridiculous.

And there was no evidence to support it. According to Dennis Phipps, former head of security for British Airways: "...the records of handling of that fight were made available for me to see. There was no evidence of any unaccompanied bags. All of the bags that were carried as pa.s.senger baggage on that flight, had to be checked in by a pa.s.senger who actually traveled on the flight."

Said Michael Jones, Pan Am's London Security Chief: "I've never seen any doc.u.mentation whatsoever, produced by Pan Am or anybody else, showing there was any interlying baggage to Pan Am from the Air Malta flight..."

Even the FBI's own telex, dated October 23, 1989, stated: To Director, FBI, Priority - Records there is no concrete indication that any piece of luggage was unloaded from Air Malta 100 sent through the luggage routing at Frankfort airport then loaded on board Pan Am 103.

In fact, it is absurd to suggest that trained intelligence agents or even clever terrorists would opt for such a far-fetched and risky plan. Especially given the security measures regarding unaccompanied bags, which would have surely aroused suspicion. This premise becomes even more ludicrous considering the unexpected delays inherent in Winter holiday flights. How had the bomb, after pa.s.sing through three countries, managed to arm itself and detonate at precisely the right moment?

Miraculously, eight months after the bombing, a baggage print-out was obtained by the BKA showing an unaccompanied bag that had been transferred from Air Malta.

The government finally had its "evidence."[1037]

Just as they had suddenly dropped the Middle Eastern lead in Oklahoma, the government was now switching tracks and blaming the Libyans for the Pan Am bombing. But why? Why, after two years of solid evidence pointing to Syrian and Iranian involvement, was the government now blaming Libya - and on such flimsy pretenses?

Naturally, like the theory of McVeigh's "revenge for Waco," the government had a handy explanation: Libya's motive for the attack stemmed from the April, 1986 U.S. air-raid on Tripoli and Benghazi, in which over 37 civilians, including Qaddafi's infant daughter, were killed. That raid was in retaliation for the bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in Berlin a year earlier, in which two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman were killed.[1038]

In fact, the involvement of Libya in the dis...o...b..mbing was highly questionable. It is also curious why Qaddafi would wait two-and-a-half years to extract his revenge on the Americans for the Benghazi attack.[1039]

Essentially, government's desire to implicate Libya for the bombing of Pan Am 103 was no different than its desire to implicate the militia for the bombing in Oklahoma City. In that case, they claimed, the motive was revenge for the government's atrocities at Waco.[1040]

In fact, President Bush knew perfectly well who had bombed flight 103. Six months after the bombing, Secretary of State James Baker visited with Syrian Foreign Intelligence Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. Baker asked: "What are you doing about the GLC group?"

"What are you talking about," asked al-Sharaa.

"Jibril," answered Baker. "We know they are responsible for Lockerbie. What are you doing about them?"

"How do you know that?"

"We have the evidence," Baker replied. "And the evidence is irrefutable."[1041]

Nevertheless, the government lied to the American people.[1042] The investigation had turned political. In July of 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. President Bush began forming his Gulf War coalition. Syria, formerly viewed as a terrorist state, was now seen as a necessary ally.

Interestingly, Bush had been quietly making overtures to Syrian President a.s.sad for years. a.s.sad was a bitter enemy of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. In order to bring Syria into the coalition, all evidence pointing to them was dropped. And, in November of 1991, the Libyan theory became the "official" version of the bombing.[1043]

The real story appears somewhat different.

On December 20, an intercept of a call made to the Iranian emba.s.sy in Beirut confirmed that an American operative named David Lovejoy (AKA: Michael Franks, Michael Schafer) had spoken to Iranian Charge d'Affaires Hussein Niknam, and advised him that the McKee team had changed its travel plans and booked pa.s.sage on flight 103. The next day, Niknam called the Interior Ministry in Teheran and pa.s.sed on Frank's information.[1044]

The DEA was also monitoring McKee, and separately informed the CIA in Was.h.i.+ngton, British MI6, and the CIA team in Wiesbaden.[1045]

Al-Ka.s.sar's operatives had also observed Gannon making travel arrangements in Nicosia, and reported this to their CIA handlers in Wiesbaden. This wasn't difficult, as the DEA's "controlled delivery" operation, run by DEA Station Chief Michael T. Hurley in Cyprus, utilized Arab informants, some of whom, according to Coleman, were reporting back to Ahmed Jibril.[1046]

As one source familiar with the case said, "Every spook in Europe knew that McKee and Gannon were flying home on flight 103."

Yet while the McKee team was obviously compromised, the question begging to be answered is, who is Michael Franks? And why did Franks inform the Iranian emba.s.sy, a bitter enemy of the U.S., of McKee's travel plans?

An a.s.sociate of Oliver North, Franks worked for Overseas Press Service (OPS) a television consultancy firm run by W. Dennis Suit. A former CIA operative in Central America, Suit was an a.s.sociate of North, William Casey, Jack Singlaub, Jack Terrell, and Contra leaders Adolfo and Mario Calero. Lester Coleman aptly described him as a representative of North's "Georgia Mafia."

In other words, Franks worked for the Octopus.

Sent to Cyprus by OPS as a "cameraman," Franks was in a perfect position to monitor the activities of the DEA.

The other question begging to be answered is: who at the CIA Control in Was.h.i.+ngton (not their headquarters in Langley) told the CIA team in Wiesbaden: "DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, DON'T STOP IT, LET IT GO"?[1047]

It has been argued by apologists for the CIA that the Agency didn't stop the bombing because it didn't want to compromise its hostage-rescue mission - an operation being run by the Octopus in collusion with Monzer al-Ka.s.sar. Essentially, we are asked to accept the idea that the CIA was ready to sacrifice the lives of 270 people so as not to risk the opportunity to free six people.

A more plausible explanation is that the Octopus didn't want to compromise its profitable drug and gun running operation - an operation that traces its roots from the Corsican Mafia, through the Hmong tribesman in Laos, to the Mujahadeen in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and finally to the cartels in Columbia and Mexico. It is an enterprise run by many of the same spooks that ran the Cold War, channeling billions of taxpayer dollars into the military/industrial establishment, while funneling thousands of tons of heroin and cocaine into our cities' streets.[1048]

As intelligence a.n.a.lyst Dave Emory notes, "When federal intelligence agencies in the United States decide to move in a particular direction - or when a faction of them decides to move in a particular direction - they do so when to move in that direction would scratch a number of different itches at different levels simultaneously."[1049]

By pa.s.sing on the travel plans of the McKee team to the Iranians, Franks allowed Ahmed Jibril to bomb the plane, eliminating McKee and Gannon in the process, and preventing exposure of the Octopus. At the same time, the Iranians got revenge for the shootdown of their airliner, and the drug dealers kept their operation relatively intact.

Using the Iranians as proxies permitted the Octopus to maintain "plausible deniability."

Describing how proxies or "cut-outs" are used in a.s.sa.s.sination work, 25-year DEA veteran Mike Levine said, "...when you say 'they wouldn't do it,' surely you don't think that the Sicilian Mafia (to use an example) sends out a couple of Italians to do a hit on a U.S. Attorney that they could link directly back? No, absolutely not. What they might do is use what's left of [August] Record's organization (a drug dealer in South America), they might talk to an Italian who lives in Paraguay or Monte Madeo, he then talks to the son of a German who lives in Paraguay. An arrangement is made. They want them hurt. This organization finds out that this guy's wife is flying on a plane. Not that that's happened. I'm giving you a scenario... that's the way it's done. We're living in a world where murder has become very, very high-tech, very convoluted, with cut-outs...

"TWA, Pan Am 103 - this is the perfect M.O. of this organization," adds Levine. "Not that they (Ricord) did it, but when they did things, there was no way it would ever go back to them, because they would do it for someone else."[1050]

In the case of Pan Am 103, it appeared that the Octopus was more interested in covering up its involvement with drug smugglers than in securing the release of American hostages. And it was willing to sacrifice 270 lives to do so.

9.

The Sting "There were people in a position of authority that knew something was going to come down, and they didn't do anything about it... and people got killed."

- Tom G., 22-year CIA/DIA veteran

The logistical apparatus which allowed the PFLP-GC to bomb flight 103 was a controlled drug delivery at Frankfort airport - a sting operation run with the full knowledge of American, German, and Israeli intelligence. It was a sting operation that had been penetrated by Middle Eastern terrorists intent on wrecking havoc.

In Oklahoma City, another sting operation was underway. Like the DEA's controlled delivery of drugs through Frankfort, the ATF and the FBI would seek to utilize a "controlled delivery" of a bomb in Oklahoma City.

As previously discussed, the FBI, ATF, and U.S. Marshals, all had ample prior warning. Not only had the Marshals Service been warned of a Fatwa against American installations as a result of the World Trade Center convictions, but the FBI had received warnings from the Israelis, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and their own informant, Cary Gagan, concerning threats against federal buildings in Phoenix, Denver, and Oklahoma City.

Additionally, ATF informant Carol Howe had specifically warned authorities about a neo-n.a.z.i plan to blow up a federal building in either Tulsa or Oklahoma City as far back as November of '94.[1051]