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James Patterson Mr. Patterson is a editorial writer for the Indianapolis Star newspaper. Listed below are several of his columns with brief excerpts of relevant information so the reader can get a quick overview. |
| If you wish to read all of Patterson's columns on the Oklahoma City bombing a full index is posted here |
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Where was 9/11 terrorist?
Indianapolis Star
May 1, 2005
Editorial Writer James Patterson
Before the court finalizes the guilty plea made on April 22 by Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, here are a few questions for him.
Where were you in early August of 2001? Do you recall speaking to the owner of a motel in Oklahoma City, who said that you, Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, two Sept. 11 hijackers, were there and inquired about renting a room with a kitchenette? Did you attend flight school 28 miles south, in Norman, as Atta claimed in the book, "The Third Terrorist," by Jayna Davis?
According to your indictment, your flight training at the Airman Flight School in Norman ended in May 2001. Why did you stick around Oklahoma for at least three more months? The indictment also says that Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, Osama bin Laden's lieutenant, wired you a total of $14,000 on Aug. 1 and Aug. 3, 2001. What did you do with the money?
• Post your comments to this article on the Indy Star Expresso Blog Site User commentsLet FBI and CIA agents talk about links to terrorism
Indianapolis Star Commentary
March 22, 2003
by James Patterson
The incursion into Iraq must seem flippant to a host of other people who are fed up with the U.S. government's deception as well, including former Fort Lauderdale, Fla., police Capt. Douglas Haas, FBI agent Robert Wright, former CIA director James Woolsey, former CIA agent Larry Johnson and former FBI agent Dan Vogel, to name a few. All were frustrated by two successive U.S. administrations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, which dismissed glaring evidence that domestic terrorism cells were flourishing.
Johnson, Woolsey and Vogel have tried to get the FBI and Congress to consider stark evidence that a former Iraqi soldier, who emigrated to the U.S. after the first Gulf War, was tied to a terrorist cell in Oklahoma City that was involved in the 1995 bombing there, but the FBI keeps telling them they are crazy.
Vogel is prepared to swear before Congress that he met with an Oklahoma City TV reporter, her husband and her lawyer on Jan. 28, 1999, at that city's FBI office and received documents implicating the Iraqi's involvement in the bombing, and that Vogel turned them over to his superiors, only to have those documents disappear.
If our government is serious about fighting terrorism, why won't it hear from its own FBI and CIA agents about terrorist acts in this country? What's wrong with letting them talk?
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The Philippines factor in Oklahoma bombing
by James Patterson
The Indianapolis Star
Published: July 27, 2002
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to make the government do something it should have done a long time ago.
That is, turn over documents that could prove others besides Nichols and executed co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh were involved in the April 19, 1995, blast that killed 168 people.
Sealed court documents that I have obtained show that Nichols, McVeigh and possibly others, using a pre-paid phone card purchased under a fictitious name, called the Philippines dozens of times in the months before the bombing.
Just what kind of files is the government holding back? For starters, some very important phone records. In the months leading up to the bombing, Nichols made dozens of phone calls from his residences in Herington, Kan. and Las Vegas, Nev., and public pay phones in Junction City, Kan., to several numbers in the Philippines, according to telephone records and other sealed documents filed in connection with McVeigh's case.
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The FBI knew in '95, why didn't we?
Published: May 25, 2002
The Indianapolis Star
Eleven months after Timothy McVeigh was put to death for the Oklahoma City bombing, a startling revelation has come to light.
Specific information has surfaced that the FBI and other intelligence agencies were told in early 1995, shortly before the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, that Islamic terrorists were about to strike government institutions in Washington, D.C.
Less than a week later, a federal task force updated its warning. The target focus had shifted from the East Coast to "government installations" located "at the heart of the U.S.," which would include Oklahoma City.
Shortly after the bombing of the Murrah building, Yossef Bodansky, executive director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, pieced together intelligence data strongly indicating that Islamic veterans of the 1979-89 Afghan war with the Soviet Union, who trained under Osama bin Laden, were responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma federal building.
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Impeachment lawyer warned us first
Published: May 18, 2002
The Indianapolis Star
Ever since he had a hand in the House vote to impeach President Clinton, practically nobody has listened to David Schippers. People will listen now.
Schippers, a Chicago attorney and a Democrat, served as GOP investigative counsel for the House Judiciary Committee when the House voted along party lines in 1998 to impeach.
When CBS News dropped the bombshell Wednesday that President George W. Bush had been warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was planning to hijack airliners, Schippers must have felt vindicated.
After all, just weeks before Sept. 11, Schippers tried to tell officials in Washington D.C. about intelligence warnings of a possible attack on buildings in lower Manhattan, but he was ignored. The same thing happened prior to the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995.
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A few questions before FBI agent exits
Published: April 20, 2002
The Indianapolis Star
An FBI supervisor facing discipline for the bureau's failure to disclose thousands of documents to the defendants in the Oklahoma City bombing case is getting out of the kitchen while it's still hot.
Danny Defenbaugh, the special agent in charge of the Dallas FBI office who led the agency's Oklahoma City bombing investigation, was one of four agents cited by the Justice Department for mishandling the case.
Whoa, pardner, where are you going so fast? I called Defenbaugh's office Friday -- the seventh anniversary of the bombing -- to ask about his sudden exit, but was told no comment.
Just a few questions, lest you head off into the Texas sunset before your work is done:
* What happened to the 22 affidavits that former TV reporter Jayna Davis submitted to the FBI through agent Dan Vogel on Jan. 28, 1999? Vogel reiterated again Friday that he had turned those documents over to the Oklahoma City office.
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Ex-CIA agent believes in a John Doe 2
Published: March 23, 2002
The Indianapolis Star
Though the U.S. government clings to the notion that Timothy McVeigh, acting alone, set off the horrendous explosion on April 19, 1995, that pancaked the nine-story Oklahoma City federal building, a former high-ranking CIA official says there's solid evidence to indicate he worked with an Iraqi John Doe No. 2.
Larry Johnson, former CIA officer and deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism, told a network news show this week the FBI had failed to properly investigate significant eyewitness accounts of McVeigh meeting with the man believed to be a former Iraqi soldier.
Johnson made those comments on The Big Story with John Gibson, a Fox news program airing nightly at 5 p.m., which delved into an extensive dossier on the case compiled by former Oklahoma TV reporter Jayna Davis.
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The Middle Eastern Connection to Oklahoma City
Indianapolis Star Commentary
By JIM CROGAN
February 17, 2002 -- Even though McVeigh went to his death denying any larger plot, serious questions remain unanswered. Did John Doe No. 2 ever exist? If so, who is he? ... The evidence that the Oklahoma City bombing involved a larger conspiracy, one with Middle Eastern connections, is compelling. And the trail begins with that mysterious pickup. The week after the bombing, Jayna Davis, a veteran Oklahoma City reporter at KFOR-TV, got a tip, which began her investigation of a local property management company.
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April 10, 2003
Missing evidence from Oklahoma City
Published: November 17, 2001
The Indianapolis Star
Officially, the FBI has dismissed the possibility of a John Doe No. 2, an olive-skinned man whose sketch they released immediately after the bombing, or other suspects. But current and former FBI agents in Oklahoma City say they received documents pointing to another person or even a cell of Middle Eastern operatives.
At a minimum, Congress should question one former FBI agent who says he obtained 22 affidavits and more than 30 witness statements describing sightings of Middle Easterners with McVeigh. Although he passed the materials on to a superior, the evidence never surfaced and was not given to McVeigh's or Nichols' defense teams.
The affidavits and witness statements described a close-knit group of Middle Eastern men living in Oklahoma City and surrounding areas who were seen with McVeigh on numerous occasions in the months and weeks leading up to the bombing.
The former agent does not want his name used, but, if subpoenaed, is willing to testify about the documents either in court or on Capitol Hill.
In January 1999, the agent got the documents from former Oklahoma City KFOR-TV reporter Jayna Davis. Davis had done a six-year investigation beginning on the day of the bombing, documenting a cell of Middle Eastern individuals operating in Oklahoma City under suspicious circumstances.
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Justice Department won't let agent testify
Published: November 3, 2001
The Indianapolis Star
While Terry Nichols, already convicted on federal charges in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, returned to court Monday to face the state's case against him, the government was squirming to squelch evidence that Nichols and Timothy McVeigh did not act by themselves.
Nichols' attorneys asked Judge Ray Dean Linder if former FBI Agent Dan Vogel could testify that he had received 22 affidavits from Oklahomans who had seen McVeigh in the company of Middle Eastern men in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the bombing, and on the day of the attack.
Nichols' attorney, Barbara Bergman, said Agent Vogel, who has since retired, also wanted to testify that he had sent the 22 affidavits he got from former TV investigative reporter Jayna Davis to FBI Agent Henry C. Gibbons. But the FBI has not shared those affidavits with anyone, and may have destroyed them.
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