19-04-2009, 02:39 PM
The emphases in the following transcript are mine.
CBS News TranscriptsApril 19, 1995, Wednesday
SHOW: CBS EVENING NEWS (6:30 PM ET)
FEDERAL OFFICIALS BEGIN INVESTIGATION OF BOMBING IN OKLAHOMA CITY
ANCHORS: CONNIE CHUNG
BYLINE: JIM STEWART
LENGTH: 406 words
CONNIE CHUNG, co-anchor:Law-enforcement teams are pouring in from Washington here to Oklahoma City trying to help investigate who--who is responsible for this bombing. Some are arv--were already on the scene looking for clues early this morning, while smoke and flames were billowing from the building. Jim Stewart has that part of the story on the investigation.
JIM STEWART reporting:By pure chance, a federal explosives expert was only a block away when Oklahoma City shuddered this morning. Within minutes, he told his bosses the explosion was definitely a bomb, probably in a car, and it was big. ATF Director John Magaw immediately sent two bomb teams to the scene.
Mr. JOHN MAGAW (Director, ATF): ...we'll be looking to--to investigate the entire bombing and what it was made up of, where it was placed, how it got there--all those kind of things.
STEWART: The FBI, which will head the investigation, is also pouring manpower into the case and has alerted field offices to forward suspicious mail to headquarters for a fingerprint comparison with those of suspected terrorists.
Ms. JANET RENO (Attorney General): We will find the perpetrators, and we will bring them to justice. The death penalty is available and we will seek it.
STEWART: Bomb experts say it will take two days to make even an initial evaluation of the blast site. By comparison, the World Trade Center bombing was centered in a garage, and the FBI labs had to analyze more than 3,000 tons of rubble in that case. Victoria Toensing headed up the Justice Department's first anti-terrorism unit.
Ms. VICTORIA TOENSING (Counterterrorism Expert): The FBI and the ATF have an expertise: an ability to take apart a bomb, look at the bomb fragment and tell who made the bomb.
STEWART: But investigating terrorist attacks, say the experts, is still easier than predicting them.
Mr. OLIVER "BUCK" REVELL (Former FBI Terrorism Expert): Federal agencies and local agencies generally are prohibited from collecting intelligence on groups until after the fact. And that, I think, is our biggest weakness.
STEWART: First intelligence reports in this case suggested a revenge attack by the Branch Davidians, many of whose members were killed in a raid by federal agents two years ago today in Waco, Texas. Now the betting here, however, is on Middle Eastern terrorists with a far bigger agenda. Jim Stewart, CBS News, Washington.
As with 911, within minutes what will end up being the official government line is already nailed down. The rest is just window dressing.
"If you're looking for something that isn't there, you're wasting your time and the taxpayers' money."
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses