Atrios and David Niewert today both discuss the right wing attempted revival of the possibility of a connection between the Oklahoma City Bombing and Iraq, based on this Frank J. Gaffney Jr. column in the Washington Times. Roger Ailes discusses it here.

The McVeigh defense team tried to explore this angle, although as everyone knows, McVeigh never veered from insisting there was no such connection. This brief filed with the court and available free here, lays out the possible connection uncovered up to that point in time, and what further materials the defense was seeking from the Govenrment so as to be able to complete it's investigation. For those who are interested in this issue, we highly recommend reading the brief. Here is a quote from the brief:

The defense believes that there is credible evidence that a conspiracy to bomb federal property, very possibly the Murrah Building, is centered in Elohim City and the persons described which are associated with Elohim City, but that the technical expertise and possibly financial support came from a foreign country, most likely Iraq, but possibly Iran or another state in the Middle East. Dennis Mahon has admitted publicly to received money from Iraq, approximately once a month. D.E. 2191 at 11. According to Mahon, the money started arriving in 1991 after he began holding rallies protesting the Persian Gulf War. Id. Although the defense has no direct evidence linking Suspect I with Iraq, there is evidence indicating an indirect connection between Suspect I and Iraq through the militant Posse Comitatus group in Kansas.

McVeigh's lead counsel, Stephen Jones, wrote an excellent book, "Others Unknown" detailing his suspicions. But the journalist-written book "American Terrorist" is equally compelling for the proposition that there was no such connection.

Also read David Niewert's Salon article on the controversy over the Government's insistance there was no John Doe II.

We also agree with David Niewert (and disagree with Roger) about Laurie Mylroie. As David points out, she "was for a long time a serious and well-respected Middle East analyst."

We haven't taken a definitive position on Iraq/middle eastern connection--but we have always believed, contrary to the Government's assertion, that there was a real John Doe II.

Here's a bump for one of our earlier posts on the issue:

The conspiracy theorists and right-wing websites are abuzz with the physical similarities between U.S. Citizen and military detainee Padilla and John Doe 2 who witnesses at the Ryder Truck rental facility in Junction City, KS identified back in 1995 as the companion of Timothy McVeigh. Witnesses also put John Doe 2 at the Dreamland motel (answering the door to accept a delivery of chinese food) and in Kingman, AZ. The Goverment lobbied hard for the proposition that John Doe 2 didn't exist--that the witnesses confused him with the associate of another truck renter the day before. Here are the pictures, the resemblence is quite striking, we think the matter needs to be investigated into a bit more. For starters, was Padilla in jail or out and about in April, 1995?

John Doe 2 (left) and Padilla (right)