FBI Releases Secret OK City Bombing Tapes

[alsaqr]

For years the FBI has refused to release the tapes from four security cameras that were on buildings close to the Murrah building.  Finally the FBI was ordered to turn them over in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. 

One little problem there is no footage of the period prior to the bombing-Nada.  This does nothing for the credibility of the feds.  What is it that the FBI does not want us to see? 

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Long-secret security tapes showing the chaos immediately after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building are blank in the minutes before the blast and appear to have been edited, an attorney who obtained the recordings said Sunday.

"The real story is what's missing," said Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who obtained the recordings through the federal Freedom of Information Act as part of an unofficial inquiry he is conducting into the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

Trentadue gave copies of the tapes to The Oklahoman newspaper, which posted them online and provided copies to The Associated Press.

The tapes turned over by the FBI came from security cameras various companies had mounted outside office buildings near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. They are blank at points before 9:02 a.m., when a truck bomb carrying a 4,000 pound fertilizer-and-fuel-oil bomb detonated in front of the building, Trentadue said.

"Four cameras in four different locations going blank at basically the same time on the morning of April 19, 1995. There ain't no such thing as a coincidence," Trentadue said.

He said government officials claim the security cameras did not record the minutes before the bombing because "they had run out of tape" or "the tape was being replaced."

"The interesting thing is they spring back on after 9:02," he said. "The absence of footage from these crucial time intervals is evidence that there is something there that the FBI doesn't want anybody to see."

[Graybeard]

Well after all it was FBI HQ and yet as I recall no one from the FBI was there when it exploded. That ain't a coincidence.

[alsaqr]

Well after all it was FBI HQ and yet as I recall no one from the FBI was there when it exploded. That ain't a coincidence.

After the release of those doctored tapes, I totally agree with you.  Something stinks here. 

[Graybeard]

It ALWAYS has.

I won't say that the FBI was directly involved in making it happen tho I'd NOT rule it out either but I will say that in my opinion they were fully aware of it and the timing of it. They could have prevented it but for reasons only those involved know decided to let it happen.

[The Hermit]

Truth is always stranger than fiction. I feel that more than McVey and his friends were involved.
Does anybody notice the pattern of lies from FBI. CIA. etc.? Dems always say never let a good crisis go to waste. Like the poor kids that were killed had no value at all.


   The Hermit

[lrs]

Well after all it was FBI HQ and yet as I recall no one from the FBI was there when it exploded. That ain't a coincidence.

After the release of those doctored tapes, I totally agree with you.  Something stinks here. 

I can add some stink to this.
The video tapes of the raid at Waco were also doctored.

[Ruskin]

A friend who was an army ranger pointed out that a bomb which caused an explosion of that size would have had some residual affects.  He specifically pointed out NH3 should have been in the air.  I don't remember any tears caused by the bomb residue in the air.  The rescue people should have had a problem breathing.

I was watching an interview on a news channel just after the explosion.  The reporter asked a young woman a question.  The woman went off on a speaking spree that took back the reporter.  She was asking why some were not there that day.  I called my wife to watch the next newscast thinking it would be replayed.  It was not replayed.  The reporter was back pedaling and wanted away from that woman.

[searlock]

on top of all that mc vey had just killed all those people and he drives out of town in a car that has no license plate and lets a stupid cop pull him over and and cuff him, don't shoot the cop, don't have a pipe bomb to throw at the cop? something don't jive

[lrs]

Wouldn't it be ironic if he had once been ATF?

[powderman]

All too cut and dried. Like Bill said, no fbi in the building when it happened. Mcveigh was caught too easily and quickly. I always believed he had somehow cut a deal to take the blame. He never resisted and should have been smarter than to steal a car with no plates, almost like he wanted to be caught. Lots more to it than we'll ever know. POWDERMAN. 

[blind ear]

Oklahoma city is what got the first of the current Homeland Antiterrorisn Laws passed. Some that remove the right to a speedy trial and privacy issues. The FBI was warned a couple of times about McVey in the previous year.

[powderman]

Oklahoma city is what got the first of the current Homeland Antiterrorisn Laws passed. Some that remove the right to a speedy trial and privacy issues. The FBI was warned a couple of times about McVey in the previous year.

Sounds like they knew when not to be there. POWDERMAN. 

[blind ear]

Perhaps it was a sacrafice of lives to build public support for a cause as the Spartans did at the Gates of Fire or the British did at the Valley of the 600 or the Americans did at the Kasarine Pass in North Africa.

[rex6666]

I am having a problem understanding what the FBI would have to gain from this.
Why would they need to build public support?
In what way would killing 170 unconected people help the FBI, CIA or anyone else.

[lrs]

Good point. 
But this is what happens when govt's lie.
People become suspicious, and in the absence of truth, we have to struggle to understand what the truth might be.

[blind ear]

Instilling fear in the population so that they would allow laws that take away rights and freedoms in this case. Two earlier trade center bombings, the attack on the Coal and others attacks weren't big enough to have the needed effect. They didn't have to plan it or impliment it, they only had to wait and see if it happened. Some areas have rejected Homeland Security because of it's infringements.

[mechanic]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain how you can fashion a shape charge from drums of fuel and ammonium nitrate in a rental truck.  It would have taken a shape charge to do what was done with one explosion.  An expertly crafted one. 

[searlock]

last thing i heard was a gas charge such as fulminate of mercury, in which a small charge would push the gas towards the building then be ignited by the larger charge in the truck. i agree that a normal explosion should have done equal damage 360 degrees from center of detonation. i remember seeing film of cars across the street that were smoking but didn't show blast damage consistent with shock wave from large explosion, but thats just me.

[Mikey]

Mechanic:  The structure of the charge is what causes it to be 'shaped' (but you know this).  If the mixture was set-up, that is, firm enough to be molded, so the back of it was flat against one wall of the van and the side toward the building was 'V' shaped so the legs of the 'V' faced toward the building you would have a charge properly shaped to cause that type of destruction. 

I do not recall the exact time of the detonation but you can bet that if it was earlier in the morning none of the feds would have been in their offices - coffee and donuts first ya know. 

Instilling fear in the population is typical of government agencies - how else can they justify their existence, and the sacrifice of lives to build public support is not a uncommon tactic governments.

And what greater sacrifice do we offer up to the gods of social protection than those of our innocent women and children.  As for the fbi not being there when the bomb went off - either it went off before they normally got to the building (but then you have to wonder if they close up shop at 5:00 pm every day and re-open only at 9:00 am the next day) or they knew something was up and just kept it to themselves (typical of intelligence types to be smarter than anyone else and not believeing anything until it actually happens); but as with any sacrifice, people do not object as strongly to police, etc., being killed as they object to the loss of innocent lives.  This situation still stinks worse than a open sewer pit.  jmtcw.

[jlwilliams]

I am having a problem understanding what the FBI would have to gain from this.
Why would they need to build public support?
In what way would killing 170 unconected people help the FBI, CIA or anyone else.

  I ageree.  I have long suspected the 'cover up' has more to do with hiding incopetance than any sort of planned disaster for effect.  For example, maybe they had an agent or agents who were in on the plot, but somehow screwed up and failed to swoop in and stop the bombing and arrest all the bad guys.  Then, once the damage was done, there was no way to admit to the American public that whatever agency had a hand in it.  Once the lies start there is no way out but to own up or lie more.

  At the time, my local paper (Providence Journal) ran a big (possably AP) article with pictures and diagrams of the scene.  I remember discussing it with the only two guys I know with real explosive expertese.  One was a lifer military man with a few years in EOD, the other was a commercial explosive demmolitions man.  The demmo man had experience dropping buildings and blasting all sorts of stuff that needed blasting.  Both agreed that the pictures and the description of what hapened don't add up.  A truck full of (relatively) low velocity explosive didn't do what's in the pictures.  There is more to the story, but neither claimed any idea what that is.

  I think the FBI would have done themselves better to refuse to release the footage instead of releasing it with a big gap at the important moment.  BTW, satelite imagery of the area at the time immediately before the bombing is still classified and won't be released.  They site 'national securtity' concearns.  Aparently if we see what vehicles were where that morning The Republic may fall.

[Elijah Gunn]

I saw a video tape from a TV news report immediately following the bomb going off saying that they had found another bomb INSIDE the building. I don't remember where I saw it, but I do specifically remember hearing from a demolition expert that  the truck bomb could not have cut through the support columns to collapse the front of the building the way it happened. One other thing was something about some seismic evidence which shows that there may have been 2 bombs going off almost simultaneously.

[blind ear]

The charge was "directed". If detonated on the side of the van toward the building the explosive it's self would form a backstop for the pressure wall and push out toward the building as it created its own back stop from the fuel continuenng to burn. The ground was also directing the pressure. The fertilizer/fuel mix is slower than other explosives but it has a very large gas volume. That is why it was used to "move" tree stumps, beaver dams and excavate ditches as well as being cheep and available to farmers. Add some excellerant like powdered metal and it steps things up a lot. Simple but effective, it is hard to light and takes a commercial explosive ,like dinomite,to detonate it reliably. It is basically the same material as bianary explosives used today.

[billy_56081]

Anybody here ever used any ANFO? I have and I have no dought that 1000 lb would do that kind of damage. 25 lb is one heck of a big charge. Now if you add powdered aluminum it is even more of an animal.

[blind ear]

A 100 lb bag of ammonia nitrate/diesel fuel detonated will remove a beaver dam that has had tractors with eauipment attached driven across it and leave a hole you can out a few pickups in and rain debree for 3 or 4 hundred yards around the blast.

[mechanic]

If reports are correct the bomber used compressed oxogen as an accelerant.  The mix was in 55 gal. drums, staged in the van.   The cube of the van would have made such a set-up hard to direct.  As a matter of fact, it would seem the Fed. bld. would have directed the blast toward the other side. 

I'm certainly not an expert, but I can't wrap my head around how this could be done with one truck bomb, parked where it was.

[The Hermit]

eddiegjr, you are right. In another life, I helped use anfo, fertilizer(pure nitrogen) and diesel fuel mixed in a cement mixer and dumped into a long plastic sock. We placed a charge (1/2 stick dynamite) about every 8 feet with a detonater in it. Our object was to blow open a drainage ditch. The area was "supossed" to be rock free. When we touched it off dirt and debris flew skyward and to my horror huge boulders were raining down. Well, I'm not a small man, but me and 3 others slid under a Datsun pickup truck and listened to glass smashing and the truck rocking as it got hit. The explosives guy in charge was red faced. To this day, I'm not sure how we all fit under that truck. Nasty stuff. I don't help out anymore either.

  The Hermit

[blind ear]

Mechanic;

I'm no expert either, I have read a lot about it in commercial and restricted military manuals. The det line would be laid on the floor in the bottom corner along the wall of the van on the side by the building. The van woulld be filled with as much mix as prepared and it would be stacked epually up the wall and across the floor to make a wedge with the detinator on the bottom 90 degree angle with the floor and the van wall. The rest of the space might be filled with sand bags on top of the mix. Detonate the charge in the middle of the van wall and the mix detonation, the sand bags and the ground, forces the gas expansion away from the explosive stack and towaard the low presure area toward the building. Doesnt seem it would work but it is the same principal as a shaped charge except the fuel is very slow but very high volume. As I understand it. Very similar theory is used in felling buildings in a dirrection or in a stack.

The pressure 'wave" blew the debree into the building rooms.

eddiegjr

[billy_56081]

eddiegjr, you are right. In another life, I helped use anfo, fertilizer(pure nitrogen) and diesel fuel mixed in a cement mixer and dumped into a long plastic sock. We placed a charge (1/2 stick dynamite) about every 8 feet with a detonater in it. Our object was to blow open a drainage ditch. The area was "supossed" to be rock free. When we touched it off dirt and debris flew skyward and to my horror huge boulders were raining down. Well, I'm not a small man, but me and 3 others slid under a Datsun pickup truck and listened to glass smashing and the truck rocking as it got hit. The explosives guy in charge was red faced. To this day, I'm not sure how we all fit under that truck. Nasty stuff. I don't help out anymore either.

  The Hermit

Hermit Ammonium nitrate fertilizer is not anywhere near "pure nitrogen" It is usually 28 to 32% nitrogen. I believe there was some that was about 45% at one time but you cannot get pure AN.

[blind ear]

Billy56. The hottest I know of is ammonium nitrate used to fertilize rice. It usually runs from 42% to 44% nitrite concentration. The rest is fillers and prilling, anticakeing agent and flow enhancers. The ship of fertilizer that blew up the Texas City, Texas port had parafin as the lubricant/anticakeing agent. Bad combnation. eddiegjr

[Big Nasty]

I truly believe McVey is living it up at a wonderful sandy resort somewhere. He made a deal, sorry how could this be done with all the people one would want to be the target of this horrific crime all be at home safe and sound. Sorry I smell a rat and it isn't obamie for once.