Who is John Doe #2?

April 19 was the tenth anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (OKC). On that date, California Representative Dana Rohrabacher announced that he is thinking about holding hearings on unanswered questions surround the bombing -- including questions about the so-called "third terrorist," unindicted co-conspirator "John Doe #2."

as chairman of the investigative arm of the Committee on International Relations, I was asked by several people whom I respect to direct my attention to the Oklahoma City bombing and to a possible foreign connection. That this mass murder of Americans was accomplished by two disgruntled veterans acting alone seems to be the conclusion reached by those in authority. However, there are some unsettling loose ends and unanswered questions that deserve to be considered before joining those affirming the official explanation.

Rohrabacher's office received a tip in March, reportedly from a mobster in prison, that additional weapons remained hidden at Terry Nichols's home in Herington, Kansas. The FBI found previously unknown explosives, so Rohrabacher and others have been claiming that we should all have a "degree of skepticism" about the official story about Oklahoma City.

Rohrabacher, a very conservative Republican, seems intent on investigating whether a so-called "third terrorist" had Middle Eastern connections. Indeed, after years of saying that Timothy McVeigh and Nichols had links to a former Iraqi soldier, or even to Saddam Hussein, some on the right are now saying that the Oklahoma City bombing was backed by Iran.

What was in Orwell said so memorably about war? Oh, this:

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

In this case, however, the alleged Iran/Iraq/Middle East link to OKC might not fly.

Today, the AP is reporting that a letter written by Terry Nichols from prison acknowledges that a third man helped with the bombing. The man named by Nichols is Roger Moore (who may also be known as Robert Miller). From the letter Nichols wrote to a member of an OKC victim family member:

"That case of nitromethane came directly from Roger Moore's Royal, Arkansas, home, and his prints should be found on that box and/or tubes, and Karen Anderson's prints may be there as well," Nichols wrote.

"The Fed Gov't knows of Roger Moore's corrupt activities and they are protecting him and covering up his involvement with McVeigh at the OKC bombing!" Nichols wrote.

Moore was a gun dealer, apparently robbed by Nichols before the OKC bombing. McVeigh, Nichols and Michael Fortier sold the stolen guns to earn cash to finance the operation.

At trial, Nichols disputed Moore's account of that robbery, alleging that Moore was commiting insurance fraud. Many of the stolen weapons were previously found at Nichols's home.

Some years ago, credible news agencies reported that Robert Millar, the leader of the white separatist Elohim City "compound" in Muldrow, Oklahoma, was secretly a government informant! This is kind of interesting because McVeigh supposedly visited the compound on occasion and may have been there at the same time as several bank robbers associated with the supremacists (the so-called "Aryan Republican Army"). When the robbers were arrested, they apparently had in their possession Roger Moore's fake driver's licence in the name of Robert Miller, as well as some blasting caps similar to the type used by McVeigh in OKC.

If you surf the internet, the identities of Roger Moore/Robert Miller/Robert Millar seem to fuse, even though Moore/Miller resides in Arkansas and Millar was in that camp in Oklahoma. Plus, I've found a picture of the elderly Millar on the web, and he died in 2001. While I have not been able to find a photo of gun seller Roger Moore on the internet (fans of mediocre James Bond films know why), I did find a court drawing by a trial artist. Moore was 62 in 1997, Millar was 72 then; they are not the same person.

They were both too old to be the man sketched as "John Doe #2."

In any case, the bank robbers appear to link either Moore/Miller or Nichols/McVeigh to Millar and Elohim City, but that angle is apparently still under investigation by authorities. It may be that Moore's fake ID was stolen in the gun robbery and McVeigh passed it along to the bank robbers while at Elohim City.

What should be made of the latest news involving Nichols? While the right wants to use this twist in the OKC case to focus potential blame on the Middle East, it still appears as if the real links are to the world of right wing anti-government, white supremacist, and pro-gun types (terrorists?), ticked off by the sieges of Waco and Ruby Ridge.