Tuesday, April 13, 2004
ABOUT AS CLOSE TO 9/11 AS YOU CAN GET...
Remember 4/19? Sure...I knew you would.
From several AP articles:
1995 - A federal informant warns that white separatists in Oklahoma are threatening "assassinations, bombings and mass shootings." The FBI secretly interviews a witness familiar with a plot to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Other agents learn of a book being circulated that promotes a truck bombing of a government building.
The U.S. government obtained all of this intelligence before Timothy McVeigh detonated his truck bomb in 1995, but officials did not warn federal buildings managers in Oklahoma, according to government documents that detail such miscommunications.
Two documents obtained by the Associated Press show two separate federal law enforcement agencies had information before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that suggested white supremacists living nearby were considering an attack on government buildings.
In fact, officials at FBI headquarters in Washington were so worried that white separatists at the Elohim City compound in Muldrow, Okla., might lash out on April 19, 1995 - the day Timothy McVeigh chose - that a month earlier they questioned a reformed white supremacist familiar with an earlier plot to bomb the same Murrah Building that McVeigh selected.
"I think their only real concern back then was Elohim City," said Kerry Noble, the witness questioned by the FBI on March 28, 1995, just three weeks before McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the building and killed more than 160 people.
Noble told AP his FBI questioners appeared particularly concerned about what Elohim City members might do on April 19 because one of their heroes, Wayne Snell, was being executed that day, and another, James Ellison, was returning to Oklahoma after ending parole in Florida.
FBI officials confirmed Noble's account.
Snell, Ellison and Noble had plotted to attack the Murrah building in 1983 with plastic explosives and rocket launchers, according to Noble and FBI officials. The plan never reached fruition, and the group was arrested in 1985 after a siege with law enforcers in Arkansas.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday the information gathered by AP "is another example of the problems federal law enforcement bureaucracies have with connecting the dots, seeing the big picture, sharing information and preventing attacks, whether it's domestic terrorists like militia groups or foreign terrorists like the 19 hijackers."
The FBI wasn't alone in its concerns back in 1995, according to thousands of pages of federal investigative memos and handwritten notes obtained by AP.
In the days before he was executed for a 1980s murder of a pawn broker, Snell began making threats from his Arkansas prison of a bombing or explosion on April 19 to avenge his death, according to prison and FBI officials. He also had contact in his last days with members of Elohim City, who later took his remains back to their compound.
The government also had information suggesting that compound members had detonated a 500-pound fertilizer bomb like the one McVeigh would use and had visited Oklahoma City several times. The FBI could never verify the detonation.
The ATF informant would tell the FBI shortly after McVeigh's bombing that Elohim City members specifically discussed targeting federal buildings in Oklahoma for "destruction through bombings." She also reported that compound members were particularly interested in April 19 as the two-year anniversary of the deadly ending of the Waco siege.
But when ATF considered raiding Elohim City two months before McVeigh struck, the then-FBI agent in charge in Oklahoma, Bob Ricks, stopped the plan.
"I do remember I told them I didn't want another Waco on our hands," Ricks said, comparing the danger of a raid on Elohim City to the ill-fated ATF action on David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993. "At the time, they hadn't told me everything they apparently knew."
Neither the FBI nor the ATF passed on information or misgivings to the agency that manages federal buildings in Oklahoma City.
Remember 4/19? Sure...I knew you would.
From several AP articles:
1995 - A federal informant warns that white separatists in Oklahoma are threatening "assassinations, bombings and mass shootings." The FBI secretly interviews a witness familiar with a plot to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Other agents learn of a book being circulated that promotes a truck bombing of a government building.
The U.S. government obtained all of this intelligence before Timothy McVeigh detonated his truck bomb in 1995, but officials did not warn federal buildings managers in Oklahoma, according to government documents that detail such miscommunications.
Two documents obtained by the Associated Press show two separate federal law enforcement agencies had information before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that suggested white supremacists living nearby were considering an attack on government buildings.
In fact, officials at FBI headquarters in Washington were so worried that white separatists at the Elohim City compound in Muldrow, Okla., might lash out on April 19, 1995 - the day Timothy McVeigh chose - that a month earlier they questioned a reformed white supremacist familiar with an earlier plot to bomb the same Murrah Building that McVeigh selected.
"I think their only real concern back then was Elohim City," said Kerry Noble, the witness questioned by the FBI on March 28, 1995, just three weeks before McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the building and killed more than 160 people.
Noble told AP his FBI questioners appeared particularly concerned about what Elohim City members might do on April 19 because one of their heroes, Wayne Snell, was being executed that day, and another, James Ellison, was returning to Oklahoma after ending parole in Florida.
FBI officials confirmed Noble's account.
Snell, Ellison and Noble had plotted to attack the Murrah building in 1983 with plastic explosives and rocket launchers, according to Noble and FBI officials. The plan never reached fruition, and the group was arrested in 1985 after a siege with law enforcers in Arkansas.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday the information gathered by AP "is another example of the problems federal law enforcement bureaucracies have with connecting the dots, seeing the big picture, sharing information and preventing attacks, whether it's domestic terrorists like militia groups or foreign terrorists like the 19 hijackers."
The FBI wasn't alone in its concerns back in 1995, according to thousands of pages of federal investigative memos and handwritten notes obtained by AP.
In the days before he was executed for a 1980s murder of a pawn broker, Snell began making threats from his Arkansas prison of a bombing or explosion on April 19 to avenge his death, according to prison and FBI officials. He also had contact in his last days with members of Elohim City, who later took his remains back to their compound.
The government also had information suggesting that compound members had detonated a 500-pound fertilizer bomb like the one McVeigh would use and had visited Oklahoma City several times. The FBI could never verify the detonation.
The ATF informant would tell the FBI shortly after McVeigh's bombing that Elohim City members specifically discussed targeting federal buildings in Oklahoma for "destruction through bombings." She also reported that compound members were particularly interested in April 19 as the two-year anniversary of the deadly ending of the Waco siege.
But when ATF considered raiding Elohim City two months before McVeigh struck, the then-FBI agent in charge in Oklahoma, Bob Ricks, stopped the plan.
"I do remember I told them I didn't want another Waco on our hands," Ricks said, comparing the danger of a raid on Elohim City to the ill-fated ATF action on David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993. "At the time, they hadn't told me everything they apparently knew."
Neither the FBI nor the ATF passed on information or misgivings to the agency that manages federal buildings in Oklahoma City.
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