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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
The Justice Department says no, but an Oklahoma City TV reporter says yes. With war against Iraq looming, her conspiracy theory has new support among right-wingers and hawks.
Dec 2, 2002 | Whatever you do, don't call Jayna Davis the darling of the right wing. A former Oklahoma City television reporter, Davis for the last seven years has been amassing a 2,000-page dossier which, she says, shows that a Middle Eastern terrorist cell made up of former Iraqi soldiers helped Timothy McVeigh plot the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
As an investigative reporter for local NBC affiliate KFOR-TV, Davis first started hammering away at the story of an Iraq-McVeigh connection right after the deadly terrorist blast killed 168. Few people paid attention. Now, with a war against Iraq pending, Davis' conspiracy theory has suddenly gained new currency inside the Beltway, and all sorts of doors are being opened for her. Even though some intelligence pros, like Vince Cannistraro, the CIA's former chief of counter-terrorism, label Davis' dossier "total bullshit," some conservatives in Congress and in the media are hyping a possible connection between Baghdad and the Oklahoma City massacre.
Davis insists neither she nor her suddenly hot conspiracy have been bought and paid for by the right. "I hate it when they say 'She's right wing.' You can't categorize Jayna Davis, except to call me a reporter and a crusader," she told Salon.
Still, her theory has been embraced by Fox News celebrity Bill O'Reilly and by the wild Clinton-haters at Free Republic. She's recently been toasted in the far-right editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times as a "brave" and "intrepid" reporter.
And defense hawks like former CIA director James Woolsey, and former Reagan Defense Department official Frank Gaffney--always on the hunt for additional reasons to invade Iraq -- have been singing Davis' praise. Woolsey told the Journal that when the truth finally comes out, America will owe Davis "a debt of gratitude."
Meanwhile, in September Davis shared the bill with right-wing Fox host Sean Hannity and former Clinton impeachment general Rep. Bob Barr, at Phyllis Schlafly's 31st annual Eagle Forum, where Schlafly recalled her battles against the Equal Rights Amendment.
Another major player from the impeachment saga, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., sent staff investigators from the House Government Reform Committee out to Oklahoma City to interview Davis' 22 confidential witnesses. They're local bartenders, motel workers, gas station attendants, and joggers who say they saw McVeigh in the company of former Iraqi soldiers -- men who relocated to Oklahoma City in the '90s and supposedly helped him plan the terrorist attack, perhaps as revenge for the Gulf War. Like the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Burton and his committee were at the heart of the darkest Clinton conspiracies; the congressman once shot at a pumpkin to prove it was possible White House Counsel Vince Foster, who committed suicide, had been murdered.
Still, Davis insists she hasn't signed up to play on anybody's team. "I deeply respect the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, and Frank Gaffney, and Phyllis Schlafly," she says. "But I'm not a right-wing darling. I pride myself for being an objective, mainstream reporter."
The theory that Middle Eastern terror played a role in the Oklahoma City bombing is not a new one. In the immediate aftermath of the Murrah Building explosion, terrorism expert Steven Emerson went on television and suggested Islamic terrorists may have been responsible. Ostracized when proven wrong, Emerson admits his mistake in his recent book, "American Jihad," and stresses, "I have refused to support the conspiracy theorists who insist that McVeigh himself was actually involved with Muslim groups."
That's exactly what Davis insists: That McVeigh worked alongside Middle Eastern terrorists in plotting the Murrah Building attack and that law enforcement has refused to investigate the connection. The theory is anchored in the government's own prosecution and the elusive "John Doe 2" figure who has baffled Oklahoma City experts for years.
Immediately following the Murrah Building attack, prosecutors issued warrants for John Does 1 and 2, along with artist sketches of the men who were reportedly seen together prior to the bombing. John Doe 1 turned out to be McVeigh, a dead ringer for the sketched rendition. With McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols in custody, prosecutors came to the conclusion that there was no John Doe 2, and that witnesses who say they saw a man with McVeigh right before the attack were confused. (Since Nichols was not with McVeigh immediately before the attack, he couldn't have been John Doe 2.)
"It's like all the [erroneous] talk about a white van being used in the Beltway sniper case," says Cate McCauley, an investigator appointed by the U.S. District Court to assist with McVeigh's appeal. "There was no John Doe 2." But Davis argues the man she's identified as a former Iraqi soldier is the real John Doe 2.
"The whole idea was pretty much dead in the water a couple years ago," notes Mark Potok, who covered the Oklahoma City bombing for USA Today as the paper's Southwest bureau chief. "Now it's come back to life like a zombie. I think it's being used by people who'd very much like to go to war with Iraq."
To be fair to Davis, she's not suggesting there's a Saddam Hussein link hidden in her dossier. "I don't think this is a reason to go to war with Iraq," says the Oklahoma city wife and mother. "Was there Iraqi sponsorship? I am so far away from connecting those dots. I don't think anybody's going to find evidence between Iraq and Oklahoma City unless we go over there and literally find documents outlining the attacks. All I know is those guys [with McVeigh] were Iraqi soldiers."
But don't tell Gaffney and his circle of hawks. He wrote a column for Fox News suggesting Davis' reporting "implicates Saddam Hussein" in deadly terrorist acts against America.
"I just think it's folly. The Oklahoma City case attracted every conspiracy theorist on the planet, including some second-rate reporters who believe they've stripped the cover off the conspiracy of the 20th century," says Potok, now spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Nothing against Jayna Davis, but she's gotten an idea in her head that's not based on real evidence."
Others are even harder on Davis and her crusade. "She's gone off the deep end," says former CIA official Cannistraro. He told Rep. Burton the same thing, after his staff requested a meeting with the terrorism expert this fall to discuss Davis' investigation. "I looked Burton right in his eye and told him this was bullshit and that he was wasting his time. He seemed taken aback. I'd be amused if the whole thing weren't being used as a pretext for war." Burton's office did not return calls seeking comment.
In mid-November Burton's investigators announced the most newsworthy finding from their conspiracy investigation: One of Davis' witnesses had lied. He not only lied about his military background, but about seeing a video surveillance tape that showed a Middle Eastern man getting out of McVeigh's rented Ryder truck just moments before a homemade bomb inside brought down half the Murrah Building. The witness may soon be prosecuted by the Justice Department.
Davis' defenders dismiss the possible perjury charge as a hiccup. "Does that discredit the whole investigation? Not in my mind," says James Patterson, columnist for the Indianapolis Star. He remains one of Davis' staunchest backers in the mainstream press and is convinced she's onto something very big. "I told Jayna Davis, it's the biggest coverup since Watergate. She said it's bigger."
For the record, Oklahoma City FBI spokesman Gary Johnson insists, "Through an extremely extensive investigation, we're 100 percent confident we've investigated and prosecuted all of the individuals responsible for the 19995 Oklahoma City bombing. We found absolutely no ties to any Middle Eastern connection."
