Does Nichols' house hold key to OKC secrets?
Posted: April 19, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
2005 WorldNetDaily.com
On April 14, in an article headlined "FBI Waited to Check Out Tip on
Nichols," the Associated Press finally confirmed a story that we
released at WND two weeks earlier. Yes, Gregory Scarpa Jr. did give
the critical tip that led the FBI to a cache of explosives hidden at
Terry Nichols' former residence, a cracker box of a house in
Herington, Kan.
The question the AP raises is why did it take the FBI so long to
follow up. The Bureau was first alerted to the Scarpa info by forensic
economist Stephen Dresch, a respected investigator, on March 1 – 30
days before its agents went to Herington.
As Dresch told me, he made numerous attempts to alert the appropriate
agencies in the weeks leading up to this discovery. On March 22, both
the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security
acknowledged receipt of the information Dresch had received from
Scarpa, a jail mate of Terry Nichols' at the Florence, Colo. Super
Max.
On March 24, Dresch notified Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Although
Dresch is not entirely certain what finally prompted action, the death
of Terry Schiavo on the morning of March 31 may have inspired the FBI
to make its move that afternoon when one could be sure the media would
not be paying much attention. All of this happened, in fact, without
any help from the major media, which Dresch had attempted to contact,
starting March 20.
Indeed, even after the story broke, the major media – the Associated
Press nobly excepted – have chosen not to listen to Dresch or to
follow up. As one well-known investigative reporter stated, Dresch had
to first "prove" that it was the Scarpa intelligence that led to the
bust. This same reporter then demanded Dresch name his contacts in the
national security apparatus. Another reporter had to "sell" the story
to his higher-ups and was not confident he could do so.
But the story does not end with the removal of the Herington
explosives. Emilio "Tito" Bravo – a fellow Florence inmate who has
worked with Scarpa on the Nichols' information – has since alerted
Dresch that he and Scarpa have obtained disturbing new intelligence
about a "continuing imminent threat." This second threat involves
Nichols' connection with Abu Sayaff, the Philippine wing of al-Qaida,
whose master bomber is the now incarcerated Ramzi Yousef.
One is tempted to write off Dresch's prison correspondents as
unreliable – the media have certainly wanted to – but after they
provided entirely accurate information about the explosive cache
hidden in Herington, Kan. that is no longer possible.
Besides, there is excellent reason to believe that Nichols did, in
fact, receive bomb training through his Abu Sayaff connections in the
Philippines. For starters, as former ABC correspondent Peter Lance
documents in his best-seller, "1000 Years For Revenge," Yousef's
cronies took responsibility for the blast. More curious still are
Terry Nichols' multiple trips to the Philippines, including a 1994
sojourn in which he and Yousef were both staying in Cebu City, a
hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, at the same time.
What's more, during a police interrogation in 1996, former Abu Sayyaf
leader Edwin Angeles swore he had met a man named Terry Nichols, who
was introduced to Angeles as "a farmer." Angeles drew a dead-on
description of him as well. Lance quotes McVeigh's lawyer Stephen
Jones as saying, "The Philippines connection is the most credible,
most consistent and frankly most complete explanation of how they
built the bomb."
There is considerable other evidence as well, including the furious
phone calls back and forth to the Philippines in the months leading up
to the April 19, 1995, blast. Oklahoma City TV reporter Jayna Davis
nicely documents the eyewitness evidence of Islamic accomplices in
Oklahoma before and after the blast in her persuasive book, "The Third
Terrorist." The FBI cited these eyewitness accounts during its
detention hearing for McVeigh. These accounts led the Bureau on the
most intense manhunt in its history for McVeigh's short, swarthy
partner in crime, "John Doe No. 2" – a manhunt that was inexplicably
dropped without a peep from the major media.
Indeed, even former intelligence czar Richard Clarke, has speculated
openly about Nichols' likely training in bomb making with Ramzi Yousef
and other Abu Sayaff members in late 1994 when he and Yousef were both
in the Philippines. "We do know that Nichols' bombs did not work
before his Philippine stay," writes Clarke in "Against All Enemies,"
"and were deadly when he returned."
According to Kathy Sanders, author of the new book "After Oklahoma
City" and grandmother of two children killed in the blast, Nichols is
prepared to tell her what he knows of the events leading up to April
19, 1995. Prison officials, however, have denied her request to speak
to Nichols because she "could pose a risk to the internal security of
the institution."
Peter Lance received a comparable rejection when he attempted to
interview Scarpa at the same prison. "The Bureau of Prisons makes
every effort to accommodate media personnel," wrote Warden Richard
Hood, "as long as the request does not negatively affect the security
and operation of our institutions." The federal prisons, it should be
noted, are also run by the Department Of Justice.
There is one very good reason why at least some within the Justice
Department may want to keep Scarpa inaccessible. In the summer of 1996
the FBI put a mob informant in the cell next to Ramzi Yousef, then
being tried for the Bojinka plot. The informant told Yousef that he
could use his mob connections to place Yousef's calls to the Middle
East and elsewhere. Yousef took him up on the offer. In fact, though,
the calls were being routed through the FBI. Alas, the FBI could not
translate Baluchi, Yousef's native tongue. Worse, some of the calls
went to Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the 9-11 mastermind.
After TWA Flight 800 went down, the Justice Department had to wonder
what role it played in facilitating the plane's destruction. In any
case, there was to be no reward for the informant. Justice buried him
for a hard 40 in the Florence, Colo. Super Max on a non-lethal
anti-racketeering charge. The informant's name was Gregory Scarpa Jr.
When the AP "broke" the story confirming Scarpa's role in the
Herington raid, the AP's Mark Sherman noted, "The FBI refused to
comment on the delay." The general counsel for the FBI is Valerie
Caproni. As a New York U.S. Attorney in the late 1990s, she managed
the FBI's eavesdropping on Yousef, then prosecuted Scarpa, illegally
pulled the National Transportation Safety Board off the TWA 800
investigation, and oversaw the prosecution of Jim and Elizabeth
Sanders for Jim's reporting on her corruption of that investigation.
Scarpa and Bravo now fear for their lives at the hands of skinheads
and neo-Nazis who see Nichols as an heroic figure. They can expect
little help from Ms. Caproni.
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