OKC BOMBING FALLOUT
Was FBI early arrival
in Oklahoma City?
Hotel receipt shows top terror man showed up 9 hours
before blast
| Relire l'enquête d'amnistia.net
intitulée: Les forces spéciales terroristes du réseau "Stay Behind" (28.09.2001) Extrait de la conclusion (...) Une semaine avant l'exécution de McVeigh, ses avocats ont accusé le gouvernement de "fraude aux dépens de la Cour". En effet, le FBI s'était refusé de remettre à la défense un dossier de 4000 pages qui, selon les avocats de McVeigh, contenait les preuves que leur client n'avait pas agi seul. Toujours selon les défenseurs, derrière la bombe d'Oklahoma City il y avait "une vaste conspiration qui implique des segments du FBI, alertés à l'avance de la préparation de l'attentat." A l'époque le chroniqueur judiciaire de CNN, John Cusack avait commenté ainsi l'événement: "McVeigh risque d'emmener la vérité et ses secrets dans sa tombe". Ils y sont bien ensevelis depuis.... |
By Jon Dougherty
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
The FBI's top counterterrorism agent checked into an Oklahoma City hotel nearly nine hours before a truck bomb nearly leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Building, according to a receipt obtained by WorldNetDaily, despite claims that he was in Texas the morning of the attack.
The Embassy Suites Hotel receipt of Danny Coulson, then-director of the FBI's Terrorist Task Force and founding commander of the bureau's Hostage Rescue Team was dated April 19, 1995, with a check-in time of "00:20" – military time for 12:20 a.m. (Editor's note: His last name is spelled "Coulsen" on the receipt, but it indicates he is with the "FBI," located at "50 Penn Place, Suite 1600; OKC, OK.")
The truck bomb exploded at 9:03 a.m., devastating half the building and killing 168 men, women and children.
According to the receipt, Coulson checked out of his hotel – room 406 – April 27 at 11:16 a.m.
The existence of the receipt and subsequent questions it raises surrounding the FBI's official denial of prior knowledge of the OKC bombing was first reported by J.D. Cash of the McCurtain (Oklahoma) Daily Gazette – a small-town paper that has been out in front of scores of OKC-related stories.
"Since the bombing, officials at the Department of Justice have repeatedly assured victims that the FBI had no prior knowledge of any plot to bomb the Murrah federal building," the paper said Wednesday. However, "evidence of Coulson's clandestine trip fits squarely with a substantial body of details found in hundreds of pages of other official documents obtained [via Freedom of Information Act requests] by" the paper – "evidence revealing weeks of planning by an elite corps of drug and counterterrorism experts who were closely monitoring members of various far-right groups they considered religious extremists and threats to the safety and security of the nation."
WorldNetDaily reported June 1 that Ricardo "Rick" J. W. Ojeda, a former FBI special agent involved in the original Oklahoma City bombing investigation, was given details of a relationship between convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and members of a white supremacist group that may have helped McVeigh carry out the attack.
McVeigh was put to death 10 days later. His accomplice, Terry Nichols, is facing state charges in Oklahoma for his role in the bombing after having been convicted in 1997 on federal charges.
In his 1999 book, "No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter-Terror Force,"
authored with Time magazine's Elaine Shannon, Coulson said he was in Dallas the
morning of the Murrah attack. He said he and his wife were house-hunting and
staying with friends:
We were finishing up breakfast with some old friends in Fort Worth when we heard the first news bulletin, something about a big explosion up in Oklahoma. ... My pager went off, displaying a number I knew by heart. "It's the SIOC," I said. The Strategic Information and Operations Center at the Hoover Building in Washington. John O'Neil, the headquarters official in charge of domestic terrorism investigations, answered. His voice was flat. "I guess you heard a bomb went off in Oklahoma City. 9:02 a.m." "Yes, it's all over the news." "A lot of people have been killed and injured. We don't know what we have. Ricks needs help. Can you catch the next flight?" "We're right in the middle of thunderstorms," I said. "Nobody in Texas is getting on a plane. I'll drive. ..."
But according to the Gazette's investigation – aided by the discovery of the hotel receipt – Coulson was apparently already in OKC, "tied to an FBI investigation that ... was part of a highly sensitive operation that few outside the criminal division of the FBI knew existed until long after it was disbanded."
That operation, allegedly begun by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in August 1994, was dubbed VAAPCON, assigned the number MC-111 (Major Case 111) and was aimed at investigating "the so-called religious right in America and possible ties to violent acts," the paper said.
Cash said he was unclear what VAAPCON meant, but he believes it has something to do with a Reno initiative to investigate violence against abortion providers.
The paper also noted that Coulson referred to MC-111 as his initial reason for going to Oklahoma City, using the case number in a May 16, 1995, report filed he filed with the bureau.
Others have also tied McVeigh and Nichols to white supremacist groups. WND reported June 27 that Indiana State University criminologist Mark Hamm, in a book published last fall, named former Aryan Republican Army member Mark Thomas, originally of Pennsylvania, and other members of his group as alleged coconspirators.
Based on court records and other evidence, WND also reported similar connections May 30.
Others, however, have said they believe McVeigh and Nichols were tied to Middle Eastern terrorists.
Jayna Davis, a former investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly May 14 that she had gathered massive evidence pointing to a conspiracy between McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.
Davis said last year that she took her evidence – including hundreds of court records, 24 sworn witness affidavits and reports from law enforcement, intelligence and terror experts – to the FBI, which refused to accept the material or the leads.
Some details may never be revealed. For example, travel records and vouchers for Coulson and fellow FBI agent Larry Potts, also assigned to investigate the OKC bombing, were listed as "missing," according to documents examined by WND. One for Coulson, in the amount of $1,313.80, was dated the day of the explosion – "4-19-95."
"After this many years, the National Archives regularly disposes of these kind of records," FBI spokeswoman Barbara Miller told the Gazette.
Coulson could not be contacted for comment.
Receipt Shows Head of FBI Anti-Terrorism Task Force
in OKC Hours Before Blast
By J.D. Cash
Copyright 2002 McCurtain Daily Gazette
Published by American Freedom News
with the expressed permission of McCurtain Daily Gazette
Despite statements to the contrary preserved in a
national best-selling book, a hotel record obtained by the
McCurtain Daily Gazette indicates the director of the FBI’s Terrorist Task
Force and founding commander of the Hostage Rescue Team, Danny Coulson, checked
into a hotel in Oklahoma City – hours before terrorists struck the Murrah
building on April 19, 1995.
Additional evidence obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
notes the FBI sleuth was in Oklahoma City as part of a secret project set up by
former Attorney General Janet Reno.
Known only to a handful of agents in the Criminal Division of the FBI, Reno had
months earlier ordered the FBI to form a special task force to gather
intelligence on suspected
terrorists operating inside a myriad of America’s so-called right-wing religious
and militia groups.
Evidence of Coulson’s late-night trip to Oklahoma City fits squarely with
a substantial body of details found in hundreds of pages of other official
documents obtained by this paper – evidence revealing weeks of planning by an
elite corps of drug and counter-terrorism experts who were closely monitoring
members of various far-right groups they considered religious extremists and
possible threats to the safety and security of the nation.
Since the bombing, officials at the Department of Justice have
repeatedly assured victims that the FBI had no advance knowledge of any plot to
bomb the Murrah federal building.
Thus, evidence of the pre-bombing arrival of the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force –
ahead of the terrorists – would be a monumental disaster for an agency
whipsawed by scandals last year after the discovery of
thousands of pages of eyewitness statements that had not been
released to bomber Timothy McVeigh’s attorneys
in the same case.
Days after the bombing, Danny Coulson submitted for reimbursement a number of
expenses related to his travels during the bombing investigation.
Included was a computer-generated hotel billing record at the Embassy
Suites Hotel on South Meridian in Oklahoma City where Coulson stayed during the
initial investigation.
According to that Embassy Suites record: On April 19, 1995, FBI agent Danny
Coulsen (sp) checked into the hotel at 12:20 a.m.
Nine hours later, the Murrah federal building would become a smoldering ruin and
downtown Oklahoma City cast into blood-soaked chaos.
The Embassy Hotel receipt –
submitted by the FBI’s “top gun” in the agency’s long running war against
terrorists – belies statements recorded in his book,
No Heroes: Inside the FBI’s Secret Counter-Terror Force, co-authored with
Time Magazine’s Elaine Shannon.
Published in May of 1999, Coulson wrote that he was in Fort Worth the morning of
the 19th, when the bombing occurred in Oklahoma City.
He said he and his wife were down in the Lone Star state, house-hunting
and staying with friends.
“We were finishing-up breakfast with some
old friends in Fort Worth when we heard the first news bulletin, something about
a big explosion up in Oklahoma,” Coulson wrote.
“My pager went off, displaying a number I knew by heart. ‘It’s the SIOC,’ I
said. The Strategic Information and
Operations Center at the Hoover Building in Washington.
John O’Neil, the headquarters official in charge of domestic terrorism
investigations, answered. His voice
was flat.
“‘I guess you heard a bomb went off in Oklahoma City.
Nine oh two a.m.’”
“Yes, it’s all over the news.”
“A lot of people have been killed and injured. We don’t know wha
we have. Ricks needs help. Can you
catch the next flight?”
“We’re right in the middle of thunderstorms,” I said. “Nobody in Texas is
getting on a plane. I’ll drive.”
Coulson then went on to describe a harrowing trip through rain and high winds as
he made his way to the crime scene in Oklahoma City – arriving in the early
afternoon. He reported in a separate record of travel to the FBI that he left
Dallas at 11 a.m. and checked into Embassy Suites at 1:30 p.m. the day of the
bombing.
As founding commander of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, Coulson is
credited with building the clandestine unit from the ground up.
The HRT is the government’s civilian equivalent of the top-secret Delta Force
and the FBI’s primary unit responsible for counter-terrorist operations.
In times of crisis this unit deploys to the location of known terrorist
targets or crime scenes – operating on orders from Strategic Information
Operations Center (SIOC), located on the fifth floor of the Hoover building in
Washington, DC.
Because of the well-publicized disasters the HRT encountered at Ruby Ridge in
1992, and at Waco in 1993, the FBI made changes in the agency’s strategic and
tactical procedures.
Beginning in 1994, additional support and pre-operational training was made
available to senior FBI personal likely to confront domestic terror threats.
FBI Director Louis Freeh created the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) and
based its operations at the FBI’s training camp in Quantico, Va.
Director Freeh and others believed Ruby Ridge and Waco would have turned out far
differently had there been better communications between field commanders and
FBI’s crisis managers, while operations were ongoing.
In the future, senior personnel would be closer to the action.
Cross-trained with elements of the Navy SEAL’s and Delta Force units, the
HRT melds the world’s most advanced civilian law-enforcement tools and equipment
with an elite corps of hardened FBI agents to produce a potent strike force
capable of handling the most dangerous domestic terror threats, while skirting
the constitutional restraints restricting the use of the military in domestic
police operations.
Some have been unimpressed with the results, however. Months following the
bombing in Oklahoma City, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley lashed out at the overall
track record of the HRT.
“This is the start of the militarization of the FBI,” he warned. “The
swashbucklers are in control.”
Coulson’s
assignment in Oklahoma was tied to an FBI investigation that this paper has
learned was part of a highly sensitive operation that few outside the Criminal
Division of the FBI knew existed until long after it was disbanded.
FBI documents obtained by the
Gazette
indicate Coulson’s activities in Oklahoma City were part of an intelligence
operation established by then-Attorney General Janet Reno.
On the 19th,
Coulson noted on his travel records that his investigation in Oklahoma City was
related to “MC-111.”
Several days later, Coulson’s voucher indicated his
assignment in Oklahoma was “MC-117” – the official FBI case number assigned to
the bombing of the federal building.
The Gazette
learned that FBI MC-111 (MC stands for “major case”) evolved from VAAPCON – a
project Reno started in 1994.
At Reno’s
instruction, the FBI began gathering intelligence on right-wing religious groups
and cults that espoused the same hate rhetoric found at Pastor Butler’s
Aryan Nations in Idaho and at Christian Identity enclave
Elohim City in Oklahoma.
But critics charge that in practice, Reno and the FBI took
the project much further – gathering a vast database of intelligence on people
active in the anti-abortion movement with absolutely no history of criminality.
Reno said she suspected some of these groups were doing
more than preaching racial separatism and anti-abortion politics. She told
senior FBI agents to look into the possibility that a conspiracy was at work
inside the so-called Christian-right movement in America, a conspiracy possibly
linked to the surprising growth of the armed militia movement.
During the mid ‘90’s, the rapid growth of militia groups
was taking place at the same time a wave of violence targeting abortion clinics
and abortion services providers was also making headlines.
Convinced there must be a nexus, Reno ordered the FBI to investigate.
Deep inside the bowels of the Criminal Division of the FBI
during this period, VAAPCON was reportedly not well received. Some agents
questioned whether it went beyond constitutional bounds in spying on citizens
just because of their religious affiliations or stated beliefs.
Reno countered that her authority came by virtue of
legislation Congress passed months earlier in response to the abortion clinic
bombings and related violence.
In August 1994 an FBI task force began investigating
individuals and groups suspected of having connections with a nationwide
conspiracy to commit violent acts against reproductive health care providers and
other targets. “MC-111” was the case number assigned to that very brief and
ill-fated investigation.
A few months after the bombing in Oklahoma City, MC-111 was
quietly shut down. Officials reported they could find no such “right-wing
conspiracy” in America.
The FBI’s VAAPCON Task Force investigation and MC-111
remained secret until a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group, Judicial
Watch, discovered faint clues of the
surveillance operation.
Following up on a tip, Judicial
Watch filed a FOIA request and received a tiny number of documents related
to the covert operation. Although the government refused to release all the
records requested, what the agency did release was sufficient to confirm rumors
of the Reno’s efforts to infiltrate and monitor the activities of various
Christian-based organizations.
