Emergency preparedness failures and the Oklahoma City bombing response

Oklahoma City Bombing and Emergency Preparedness

On April 19, 1995, at 9:02 A.M., people in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, were going about their daily workday routines; car pools, day care, school, babysitters, jobs; the things that most people, at least most Americans, do everyday of their working weekly life. However, on this particular day the residents and surrounding communities of Oklahoma City, especially those families whose loved ones worked in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, or whose children were cared for in the daycare housed in the building. Later that day, a stunned nation watched on television as rescue workers struggled to work their way through the debris of what had once stood as a federal government building, and, in the aftermath of Ryder truck used as the bomb delivery mechanism, stood in rubble (Dyer, 1998, p. 1). In search of survivors, the rescue workers witnessed several miracles that day: a young child badly injured but still alive, another life pulled from the rubble. At the end of the day, 169 people were murdered in the blast or from injuries suffered in the blast (Allen, 2008, film documentary).

In the aftermath of the tragedy, there remained unanswered questions that the federal government under the Bill Clinton administration was not quick to answer, or did not answer to the satisfaction of experts and investigators, and certainly not to the satisfaction of the victims' surviving family members. This essay looks at the Oklahoma City bombing to examine the facts, based on published information and investigations, about the pre-bombing preparedness of the federal, state and local officials on the date of the bombing. Also considered in this essay is the emergency disaster response to the bombing by the respective official agencies at the local, state and federal levels. The date of the bombing is significant, because, as most people are now aware, April 19, 1995 was the two-year anniversary date of the Waco, Texas Branch Davidian event, when federal officials stormed the David Koresh compound virtually incinerating the building and killing David Koresh and some of his followers, including young children (Thibodeau and Whiteson, 1999). If the federal government was not on an official alert that day, it probably should have been. Even two years later, Waco remained a sensitive subject, and given human nature, the government should have been on alert.

Allegations have been made that there were bomb threats made, and that the general public and especially people working in the Murrah Building should have been better prepared and forewarned. Unfortunately, when the government fails to answer questions from the public in a forthright and verifiable way, it gives rise to speculation, rumors and conspiracy theories. All of which have survived the Oklahoma City bombing, although some of the questions and allegations have in fact been answered since that time.

Before April 19, 1995

Given the facts that we now know, and since the man who stood accused and convicted of being responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh, was executed on June 11, 2001, for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing (Shapiro, 2001, p. 4). We can now, more than a decade later, go back to the events leading up to the Oklahoma City bombing and assess the preparedness for the events that occurred that day.

The story actually begins with the armed assault made on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993. It was an event that caused the federal government, Bill Clinton, and especially U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno look very bad. Referring to the government agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the FBI, and the other government forces present, the National Rifle Association described the events at Waco this way:.".. jack-booted government thugs, federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens (Shapiro, 2001, p. 4)." There were events that precipitated Oklahoma City, creating the atmosphere of, if not of a federal government out of control, at least paranoia feeding just about any conspiracy theory that a person might choose from many.

Representative Helen Chenoweth, who declared that America's national parks had been taken over by the United Nations; Senator Bob Smith, who temporarily dropped his GOP affiliation in favor of the paranoid, antigovernment populists of the U.S. Taxpayers Party; and anti-choice fanatics who pointed the way to Oklahoma City with their abortion clinic bombings in the early nineties. It is easier to treat Tim McVeigh as an inexplicable aberration who can be evicted from history than to recall just how widely evident were obsessions like his (Shapiro, 2001, p. 4)."

In other words, the social conditions were ripe for the fanaticism that would grip the thinking of people in a way that might cause them to lose control of their sensibilities and to especially lose sight of the fact that Americans have rights they can exercise, and when they perceive that their government officials and leaders are going rogue, the American people have the right of voting in or out of publicly elected and held offices. Americans have the power of impeachment, the power to petition to remove a public official from office for misconduct or rogue behavior; that came close to happening in the case of President William Jefferson Clinton, whose behavior brought about his impeachment, though not removal from the highest elected office in the United States.

After Waco, the U.S. Government should have been on alert for the predictable and the unpredictable. The question that was asked in the aftermath of Oklahoma City is: Which public officials knew of bomb threats to the Murrah Federal Building, what did they do about it? Also, who is responsible for the explosive devices housed in the ATF's 9th floor area, and which has actually since that time been cited as resulting in greater death and damage than the actual Ryder truck used by Timothy McVeigh to deliver the bomb.

In the Charles Allen documentary film (no year given), Oklahoma City: What Really Happened?(found online at: (http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/oklahoma_city_what_really_happened.php),the filmmaker and other witnesses allege that the Federal Government was aware of bomb threats, but failed to adequately notify employees in the Murrah Building as to the threats (Allen, 2008). The documentary, which raises questions and really furthers certain conspiracy theories, was supported in its making by Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key (Allen, 2008).

Representative Key states in the documentary that he called for a federal investigation into the preparedness of the ATF, occupying offices in the Murrah Building, and why that agency had a cache of explosives in a government office building (Allen, 2008). Allen's request was rejected by officials, and no formal inquiry into either the lack of preparedness or the ATF's cache of explosives that have since been credited with causing greater damage and taking more lives than the Ryder truck bomb (Allen, 2008).

There is also the issue of the John Doe, whom witnesses stated was with Timothy McVeigh, and who might constitute a Middle Eastern connection to the bombing; which would not have been unusual given that an attempt to bomb the World Trade Center had been carried by Islamic fundamentalists in New York City in 1993 (Jones, 1998, p. 106). Oklahoma City also had a large Islamic fundamentalist population in 1995 (Jones, 1998, p. 8). It raises the question: Did a disgruntled Timothy McVeigh turn to Islamic fundamentalist in his frustration with the American system that struck him as subverting the American people's rights?

An FBI communique that was circulated on the day of the bombing read, "We are currently inclined to suspect the Islamic Jihad as the likely group," and suggested that the attack was carried out in retaliation for the prosecution of Muslim fundamentalists in the World Trade Center case. These were not the suspicions of small town sheriffs or beat cops but of numerous government and law enforcement experts at the highest levels (Jones, 1998, p. 106)."

If the federal government had received bomb threats, and if the government was on alert because of its information surrounding Islamic fundamentalists, how is the question: Were they adequately prepared at the Murrah Building for a potential attack on that building? The answer is an overwhelming no.

While many of the witnesses in the documentary Oklahoma City: What Really Happened? Would like for it to be part and parcel of some ongoing conspiracy theory that the ATF was housing explosives on site at the Murrah Building; it is not surprising because the ATF is an agency that confiscate weapons and explosive that are being held by citizens illegally. Also, as an agency that responds to threats on American soil as ordered by the duly elected administration, as happened in Waco, Texas; the ATF would, like the FBI, CIA and Secret Service have access to weapons on site, including explosives. Was it prudent, especially in the face of potential attack on federal buildings as had been warned that day, to house those kinds of explosives and weapons in a federal building with minimum structural reinforcement to withstand an attack and to keep stable that kind of a weapons cache; the answer is no.

As far as preparedness for the events that happened on April 19, 1995, the federal government could in fact be cited as negligent. However, it was, as Representative Key points out, not the desire of the government, or even the governor of Oklahoma at the time, to pursue an investigation as to the lack of preparedness for the events that took the lives of 169 people that day.

It leaves unanswered, too, the question of the man referred to as John Doe who was seen with McVeigh that day, and who was described as "Middle Eastern" by witnesses (Allen, 2008). The federal government has said that there was no such man, and that witnesses are confused in their recollections; witnesses adamantly stand by their recollections (Allen, 2008). Why, then, the question arises, would the government take the position that no such man exists? The only answer could be that the government is still looking for the man and continuing to investigate its leads on this reported McVeigh accomplice, who, in fact, given the events of September 11, 2001, was the focus of renewed public interest and speculation. Could this man lead to additional information and evidence surrounding the events of September 11, 2001?

This is a question that remains unanswered until such a time as the investigation is resolved - if there is an ongoing investigation.

If not since 1995, certainly since 2001, the events of domestic terrorism has caused the United States government to be more concerned with security in not just federal buildings, but also airports and other sites of public access and transportation that might once have been vulnerable.

Profile of a Domestic Terrorist

Timothy McVeigh is cited as having revealed his disconnect with the rules of society prior to the 1995 OKC bombing. In his book, David J. Whittaker (2004), Whittaker says this about McVeigh's breaking point:

As a security guard at a defence contractor's plant in 1991, McVeigh was able to hone his capacities for surveillance and method taking. More than ever it was the tyranny of governmental intrusion that threatened his way of life, indeed, his very survival. He wrote to a local paper in heated, anguished terms: 'America is in serious decline and I am too. Do we have to shed blood to reform the present system? I hope not - but it might be so (65)'."

McVeigh did not understand how to direct his frustration towards a constructive criticism of the government, which resulted in a social disconnection and destruction.

McVeigh's convicted accomplice, Terry Nichols, was less in the fore front than McVeigh. In their book, Stephen Jones and Peter Israel say this about Nichols:

Like McVeigh, Terry Nichols was interested in firearms and explosives, and the two men had worked the gun-show circuit together, dealing in weapons and military paraphernalia and consorting with a variety of arms dealers and right-wingers. Like McVeigh, Nichols was outspoken about his political convictions. But Terry Nichols had taken it a step further. After a series of failed plans and moneymaking schemes that led them from Michigan to Utah to Las Vegas, the Nicholses broke up. Marife and their daughter returned for a time to the Philippines, and Terry moved first to Marion, Kansas, where he worked as a farmhand, then to a little house in Herington, a poor town in the central part of the state, some seventy miles north of Wichita, where Marife and their daughter rejoined him. Whatever Terry's state of mind beforehand, by the time he got to Kansas he was so strongly antigovernment that in March 1994 he walked into the courthouse in Marion and formally renounced his U.S. citizenship (Jones and Israel, 1998, p. 74)."

Nichols was a background figure in the OKC bombing, and refuted the allegation that he had been complicit in the event (Jones and Israel, 1998, p., 88). Indeed, Nichols had an alibi for the day of the bombing and for key days leading up to the bombing (p. 88). His story sounded convincing, and there were elements that could be corroborated; the authorities, in the end, found enough uncorroborated evidence to convince them that Nichols was lying to them (Jones and Israel, 1998, p. 89).

Nichols has continued to maintain his innocence; that he did not participate in the OKC bombing (Jones and Israel, 1998, p. 136). Nichols gave up all the available he could in casting attention away from himself and onto McVeigh (Jones and Israel, 1998, p. 89). It worked only to the extent that the evidence showed McVeigh had a greater part in the bombing, and that Nichols was complicit in the conspiracy (Jones and Israel, 1998, p. 136). The outcome, as most people by now know, was that McVeigh received a death sentence and Nichols was sentenced to life in a federal prison where he remains incarcerated today.

As we look back on the evidence that convicted Nichols we find that it was Nichols who:

Provided some of the vital ingredients in the homemade bomb that was inside the Ryder truck; even though those ingredients were used daily in Nichols business

That it was Nichols who provided McVeigh assistance when on his way to OKC, McVeigh's car broke down he needed help

That Nichols was attentive in arranging alibis for vital times and dates, but that the alibis were not flawless and were dismantled by the government

That Nichols was nowhere near OKC on the day of the bombing

Interestingly enough, Terry Nichols has maintained, too, that there was no Middle Eastern man, which seems to be at least one point the government agrees with.

A he Terry Nichols jury, as I mentioned, was unable to agree on a sentence in the second stage of their trial. Therefore the burden of sentencing the convicted man reverted to the court. In spring 1998, Judge Matsch made a kind of judicial "proffer" to Terry Nichols. The only way Nichols could avoid life without parole, he said, was for him to name names. If Nichols would identify "others unknown" to the court and provide some answers, then Matsch would consider a lighter sentence.

Nichols failed to respond. Accordingly, on June 4, 1998, Judge Matsch pronounced the sentence of life without parole (Jones and Israel, 1998, p. 311)."

Would Terry Nichols have withheld the name of the unidentified John Doe alleged by some witnesses to have been with McVeigh on the day of the bombing? Only if, as a conspirator, as a disgruntled American convinced that he was guaranteed the right to revolution under the Constitution of the United States, and because Nichols already knew that he would not receive the death penalty it is very possible that there exists a third man that has gone unidentified. Or whom the FBI is still investigating and, therefore, the element of withholding information on such a suspect would still be rational and logical and acceptable.

Conclusion

Based on the evidence studied for this essay there are several conclusions that can be reached. First, that the federal government should have been better prepared for the events of April 19, 1995. However, it is more likely than not that the federal government failed to attach the significance or even the possibility of a terrorist attack, arising out of domestic or foreign sponsorship, with a remote area like Oklahoma City. It might have been the thinking of government officials that terrorist attacks, like the attack against the World Trade Center in 1993, would be made, if at all, against a more high profile target and in a more metropolitan setting. It is, after all, based on terrorism observed in the Middle East and elsewhere around the globe, a goal of terrorism that targets be of the highest profile priority.

However, the fact that weapons and explosives were stored in the Murrah Building, and the notion that such information might not be held completely private, should have served as motivation to secure those weapons and explosives in a way that would not lent them to increased destruction and death. The warnings that were made locally and specifically to the Murrah Building, if any, because there is no evidence, other than generally, to suggest that the Murrah Building was specified as a definite target; and, therefore, it remains to be seen if there was negligence on the part of the government. Yet the government's refusal to conduct a formal inquiry into the events of the day - and government inquiries jump on numerous events, which makes it hard to understand why there was no formal inquiry into the OKC bombing; is not understood. In their refusal to investigate the OKC bombing further, beyond Timothy McVeigh, and their refusal to openly discuss the ATF weaponry cache; is negligent.

It has been alleged that the government acted too quickly in demolishing the ruins of the Murrah Federal Building. Given the nature and numbers of lives lost, it would have been empathetic to allow the mourners of children and other loved ones the time to be satisfied with that there was no more evidence to be sifted out of the ruins. However, that would not be prudent as the extent of the danger in a building that has been attacked by a bomb really remains unknown until the debris has been cleared away, and it was, agreeably, in the best interest of the public that the debris be removed from the site. The government already stood accused of keeping explosives and other firearms in an office building; later, they would accept some responsibility for that, but not in a way that satisfied the families of the victims.

There were allegations during the trial, too, that the government had manufactured or altered important chemical tests, which would be consistent with allegations that the government was trying to cover up its own liability in keeping such materials illegally in an office building (Jones and Israel, 1998, p. 238). This did not help ease the minds of conspiracy theorists, although most people seemed convinced that Timothy McVeigh did indeed ignite the initial explosion that might have triggered any other explosion externally or internally (Allen, 2008).

At the end of the day, it can only be said that the right man, Timothy McVeigh was indeed the main character in the events that unfolded surrounding the OKC bombing. Whether or not the investigation was handled in a way that demonstrated the government's liability would probably be determined to not have been correctly handled. There was probably some covert effort to cover up the ATF's extensive, perhaps even massive arsenal of weapons and explosives maintained in the building. However, there is nothing to suggest that the government was aware of the danger that morning such that they deliberately chose to let the arsenal remain unmoved in the hopes of - in the hopes of doing what? That is the weakness to the conspiracy theorists' theory. What would the government accomplish in that deliberateness that would not be accomplished by the McVeigh act, except to cause death and harm beyond what McVeigh's own homemade device was capable of? There is logic to that allegation; only to the allegation that the ATF kept an arsenal that, in lieu of the date and the numerous threats received by federal officials, it would have indeed been prudent, and legal, not to have maintained the arsenal that has been alleged was maintained by the ATF at the Murrah Federal Building.

There remain many unanswered questions surrounding the OKC bombing, but probably no one would argue that Timothy McVeigh was a scapegoat in the way that Lee Harvey Oswald is alleged by some theorists to have been one. Charles Allen, director and producer of the documentary endorsed by Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key, maintains asserts that there is a greater conspiracy, one that the United States Government is covering up and relies upon witnesses and others whose lives were forever and tragically altered that day. The witnesses do support Allen's contention of a conspiracy, a cover up; but they are emotionally charged witnesses who are looking for answers for some things that there are not, even now, answers for.

There is a very real and logical reason as to why there continue to be conspiracy theories surrounding the OKC bombing.

The bombing in Oklahoma City killed 168 people, more people than any other single act of domestic terrorism in American history. Consequently, Oklahoma City could claim the dubious distinction of being "first and worst" in the hierarchy of American terrorist attacks. It took place in what was envisioned as America's "heartland, " shattering the assumption that Middle America was immune to acts of mass terrorism as well the assumption that the nation still had "zones of safety, " such as day care centers. It murdered not only government employees and other adults but also babies and young children, many of them in the America's Kids Day Care Center, located in the Murrah Building. "The death of such precious beings, " wrote Harrison Rainie in U.S. News and World Report, "violates the order and meaning of life (Linenthal, 2003, p. 2)."

There is, too, the government's inability to satisfactorily address the alleged Middle Eastern connection, and the connection to the attempted attack on the World Trade Center prior to the OKC bombing.

The local authorities responded timely and efficiently to the events of the day; however, the federal authorities erred, continue to ere by minimizing and not talking about the role of the federal government in the extent of damage that resulted from the ATF arsenal.

However, there is very likely not the complex and intricate conspiracy that is alleged, and which do not make sense even today.