RESEARCHER
OKC BOMBING, JAYNA DAVIS INTERVIEWED
Tue Mar 16 20:18:56 2004
64.140.158.168

"This brief overview provides but a glimpse into the 80 pages of witnesses’ affidavits and 2000 supporting documents, which cause all who delve into the investigative file to ponder if 4-19 was the test run for 9-11."
http://www.jaynadavis.com/story-oklahomamag.html

OW: How has reporting on the Oklahoma City bombing affected you both personally and professionally?

JD: Shortly after 9:02 AM on April 19, 1995, I found myself staring at the smoldering shell of the Alfred P. Murrah Building with a photographer at my side recording unspeakable bloodshed and carnage. I grappled with horror and disbelief as I observed Journal Record Building employees comforting a severely wounded co-worker. Emergency crews and paramedics were delayed in coming to her aid, overwhelmed by the insurmountable number of casualties. Within 24 hours, Channel 4’s news director tapped me to cover the FBI’s manhunt for the perpetrators and the infamous John Doe 2. On June 7, 1995, KFOR-TV broadcast its first investigative report in which the disgruntled Gulf War veteran, Timothy McVeigh was identified drinking beer with a former Iraqi soldier in an Oklahoma City tavern. That broadcast marked a turning point in my life. Within 48 hours, the national media espoused the theory that domestic, not foreign terrorists were the likely suspects. But I had uncovered compelling evidence of Middle Eastern involvement that could not be dismissed. I pursued that thread and have continued to this day.

OW: What have you discovered that makes you believe that the terrorist strike on America’s heartland was more than the work of two anti-government zealots, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols?

JD: During the past seven years, I have amassed the following evidence: 1) Twenty-six sworn affidavits from eyewitnesses who implicate specific Arab men acting in collusion with McVeigh and Nichols during various stages of the bombing plot. 2) Classified government intelligence reports that tie Middle Eastern terrorist organizations to the attack. 3) Court documents, public records, as well as statements by law enforcement and intelligence sources that have independently corroborated the eyewitnesses’ testimonies. The findings have been documented through nearly seventy hours of videotaped interviews, recorded phone conversations, and hundreds of pages of transcripts.

I submitted these materials for evaluation to Chicago attorney, David P. Schippers, the former chief investigative counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in the 1998 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, and Larry Johnson, former Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. Both of these gentlemen have publicly endorsed the credibility and veracity of the investigation that lays the blame for the murder of innocent Oklahomans at the doorstep of Middle Eastern terrorists.

OW: What is the most incriminating evidence you have uncovered during the course of your research into the possibility of foreign participation in the 1995 bombing?

JD: After interviewing nearly 80 potential witnesses, I deemed only two-dozen to be credible because the veracity of their testimonies was independently corroborated and their stories did not conflict with the government’s timeline of the movements of the convicted bombers. I had the honor of meeting several sincere, brave Oklahomans who have confidently identified eight specific Middle Eastern men, the majority of whom are former Iraqi soldiers, collaborating with McVeigh and Nichols. Seven of the witnesses directly link a former Iraqi soldier in particular to Timothy McVeigh, the Ryder truck that exploded, the Murrah Building, and a getaway vehicle vigorously pursued by law enforcement the morning of April 19. Timothy McVeigh was behind the wheel.

According to the affidavits, this Iraqi national was identified as the man who climbed into the cab of the Ryder truck at an Oklahoma City motel at 8:00 AM on April 19 before it pulled off the lot and headed downtown. A tire store employee five blocks north of the Murrah building gave directions to McVeigh at 8:30 AM that morning, at which time he peered through the driver’s side window of the Ryder truck and observed the same Middle Eastern man sitting in the passenger seat. A customer standing inside the Social Security office pegged this individual from a photo spread as the man the witness observed stepping out of the Ryder truck at ground zero moments before the massive.

A fourth witness standing at Main and Robinson Streets, stepped into the path of a speeding brown Chevy pickup careening around the corner sixty seconds after the blast. She locked eyes with the driver, then she jumped back to avoid being hit. She later identified the same Iraqi soldier, proclaiming he was the man she encountered in a brush with death as he fled the crime scene in a getaway vehicle that matched the FBI all- points-bulletin issued on April 19 for Middle Eastern suspects. Two witnesses named this Iraqi national as the dark-haired, olive-skinned male they observed timing his run from the Murrah building one block east shortly before daybreak on April 19. A bartender and patron of an Oklahoma City tavern independently selected the Iraqi national’s photograph from a lineup as the subject they witnessed drinking beer with McVeigh prior to the bombing.

The evidence also implicates several of the Iraqi soldier’s co-workers. One of these men was identified sitting in the driver’s seat of a Chevrolet pickup at an Oklahoma City apartment complex hours before it was abandoned on the lot and towed to the FBI command post. According to police records, the FBI suspected the truck was the same vehicle that was seen speeding away from the vicinity of the federal building with two Middle Eastern looking occupants moments before the bomb went off.

Five witnesses independently fingered several of the Iraqi suspect’s Middle Eastern associates as frequent visitors to an Oklahoma City motel in the months, weeks, days, and hours leading up to 9:02 AM on April 19. On numerous occasions the Arab subjects were seen in the company of McVeigh, and during a few rare instances, associating with Terry Nichols.

The most startling evidence was recounted through the eyes of the motel owner and a maintenance worker who came within a few feet of a large Ryder truck parked on the west side of the parking lot at 7:40 AM on April 19. An unexplained strong pungent odor of diesel fuel emanated from the rear carriage. Minutes later, McVeigh entered the motel office and returned the room key. He then climbed behind the wheel of the moving van and headed east down Interstate 40 towards the intersection of 5th and Harvey. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has to this day refused to return the original registration logs for this motel. After two federal trials, and the most exhaustive criminal investigation of the 20th century, which included 700 field agents, the FBI has failed to turn up credible evidence establishing McVeigh’s whereabouts the night of April 18 or the early morning hours of April 19.

This brief overview provides but a glimpse into the 80 pages of witnesses’ affidavits and 2000 supporting documents, which cause all who delve into the investigative file to ponder if 4-19 was the test run for 9-11.

OW: The federal indictment of McVeigh and Nichols alleges they acted with “others unknown,” but government prosecutors presented no evidence at the trials of the convicted bombers of a wider conspiracy. What is the most groundbreaking piece of evidence you uncovered that motivated you to continue researching the theory of foreign participation?

JD: In May of 1996, I flew to Washington D.C. and met personally with the Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Yossef Bodansky. Mr. Bodansky’s resume included international acclaim as a terrorism expert and former consultant to the Departments of State and Defense. He shared that he had independently come across the same Middle Eastern suspects that KFOR-TV had been investigating. In the years that followed, we forged a unique working relationship in which he disclosed sensitive intelligence documents that convincingly refuted the notion that two disenfranchised army buddies single-handedly pulled off America’s deadliest terrorist attack of the 20th Century.

I obtained copies of the significant portions of an alert that was disseminated prior to the bombing that predicted Islamic militants were planning to strike. On February 27, 1995 the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare issued a prior warning that stated there would be an “Iran-sponsored Islamic attack” on U.S. soil. Washington D.C. topped the hit list. The primary targets were Congress and the White House, a prescient insight into the events of 9-11. In response to that warning, security was beefed up in the nation’s capitol, so the focus then shifted from Washington D.C. to America’s heartland. On March 3, 1995, Mr. Bodansky authored an updated warning that stated the terrorists now planned to strike at “the heart of the U.S.” Twelve cities were placed on the potential target list because of the radical Islamic groups and terrorist networks operating within those cities. Oklahoma City was on that original list.

The intelligence data I collected indicated the Islamic sponsors included members of the terrorist group Hizballah. But more importantly, the Task Force learned that two “lily whites” had been recruited to carry out the bombing of an American federal building. “Lily whites” in the lexicon of the intelligence community refer to individuals who have no criminal history and no obvious ties to Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. Both Timothy McVeigh, a decorated Gulf War veteran, and Terry Nichols, a former soldier and Kansas farmer fit that criterion.

One of the main reasons why the Task Force narrowed down the potential target cities to the heartland in the spring of 1995 were indications that lily whites would be activated for the forthcoming operation to bomb an American federal building. “This meant Oklahoma City would have been on the short list of objectives because of the known prominence of the local Islamist networks,” Bodansky wrote in one of his intelligence reports. The 1995 prior warnings were generated from multiple intelligence sources in several Middle Eastern countries over a period of 18 months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing. Intelligence was also gathered from terrorist conferences which took place in the fall of 1994 and early 1995 in which Tehran’s overriding desire to strike inside the “Great Satan” was unveiled. There was ample evidence that an international terrorism offensive, sponsored by Iran and Syria, was about to be launched inside the United States in the spring of 1995, sometime after the start of the Iranian New Year on March 21.

However, I must emphasize that at no time did I uncover any evidence that would indicate that law enforcement had enough information to stop the bomb. The warnings were disseminated to the FBI and other intelligence agencies within the federal government, but unfortunately, there was no way of knowing a Ryder truck loaded with a 5,000 pound bomb was on a deadly trek to the Alfred P. Murrah Building at 9:00 AM on April 19. The Congressional Task Force also obtained intelligence that revealed two “Oklahoma City Islamists” had traveled to Chicago in the summer of 1993 to attend a Hamas terrorist training camp to learn how to make car bombs from readily available, off the shelf materials. According to Mr. Bodansky, the bomb making techniques involved materials and design similar to the type of explosives used in the Oklahoma bombing. Reportedly, Iranian intelligence told Hamas operatives in 1988 to train “lily whites” to manage and conduct a series of terrorist strikes on U.S. soil without the need to bring in bomb experts from the Middle East.

In recent months, Chicago FBI Special Agent Bob Wright publicly disclosed shocking
revelations that the Bureau prevented him from conducting a criminal probe into the organizer of the Hamas training camp. Instead, his legal recourse was limited to freezing $1.5 million of the suspect’s financial assets under civil statutes. Mr. Bodansky also shared excerpts from his classified analysis of the heartland terrorist attack in which he postulated, “The initial forensic investigation in Oklahoma suggests strong similarities to bombing techniques used by Iran-sponsored Islamic terrorists, including the car bomb which destroyed the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina on July 18, 1994.” The AMIA bombing involved the Islamic terrorist recruitment of a “lily white” Caucasian who delivered the bomb truck. The striking parallel to the Oklahoma City operation led Bodansky and his intelligence sources to deduce the AMIA bombing was a “test run” for Oklahoma City, just as the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina served as the “test run” for the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. I received these confidential documents in the spring and fall of 1996 and was initially given permission to broadcast the information. However, soon afterwards, Mr. Bodansky requested I kill the story because it was deemed too politically volatile and potentially disruptive to the prosecution of McVeigh and Nichols. As a journalist, I chose to honor the request of a confidential source.

OW: The Iraqi soldier whom witnesses accused of being John Doe 2 subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit against KFOR and you. What is the status of the litigation?

JD: Twenty-four hours before the Oklahoma state district judge was scheduled to deliver a ruling on KFOR’s motion to dismiss the case, the plaintiff dropped his libel lawsuit against Channel 4. Six months later, in September 1997, I was subpoenaed to testify before the Oklahoma County Grand Jury. Within three days, the Iraqi soldier refiled the defamation action in federal court. On November 17, 1999, Federal Judge Timothy Leonard dismissed the case, deciding in favor of Channel 4’s motion for Summary Judgment. The ruling upheld as “undisputed fact” all fifty statements of fact and opinion that I had uncovered as the reporter on the story which implicated the Iraqi national in the Oklahoma City bombing. Most remarkable was the fact that the plaintiff did not present a single witness affidavit to establish his alibi during the critical hours of April 19. I have conducted extensive research into this individual’s alleged whereabouts that fateful morning and presented the evidence that discredited his alibi to the court. The judge sustained the proof that repudiated the man’s claims of painting a rental house at the time in question as “undisputed.” I invite Oklahomans to read the court record in this litigation and render their own verdict.

Another intriguing piece of this puzzle fell into place during a press conference in August of 1995. The Iraqi’s lawyers refused to allow him to answer a reporter who asked where he was when the bomb went off. The lead attorney abruptly interjected, “I’m going to stop him from giving the exact location.” In an August 15, 2002 meeting with lawyers for the House Government Reform Committee, I learned that the Department of Justice has been unable to provide Congressional investigators with the whereabouts of this Iraqi soldier during the hours leading up to the bombing. I would like to recount the extraordinary measures I took as a journalist by repeatedly requesting the DOJ/FBI publish an on-the-record statement exonerating this Iraqi soldier of suspicion. The FBI spokesman refused to do so, stating the Bureau was “not in the business of clearing people.” After receiving a similar response from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Oklahoma City, I contacted the office of former Attorney General Janet Reno in Washington D.C., but no statement was forthcoming. Instead, I was referred back to the Oklahoma City FBI. I then reached out to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The late Chief of Staff for Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, Herb Johnson, demanded a direct answer from the FBI as to w