“We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain and severe. These people are killers and they must be treated like killers”.

Janet Reno spoke right afterwards, promising to seek the death penalty against whoever was responsible:

Q. Ms. Reno, the current crime bill that the President has signed includes a death penalty provision. Assuming you do catch these people, will you go for that?

A. 18 U.S.C., Section 844, relates to those who maliciously damage or destroy a Federal building. If there is death, if death occurs, the death penalty is available, and we will seek it.

That, of course, would have been in violation DOJ death penalty procedures, which provide that before a decision is made to seek the death penalty, the accused's lawyer must have a chance to meet with them and argue against it.

20 years later, so many people still ask, were others involved? Was Timothy McVeigh the mastermind or just a low level pawn who decided to claim full credit after being caught. (See Andrew Gumbel's latest article in the Guardian.) Since he's dead, we'll likely never know.

Here's a 2007 excellent interview with Rob Nigh, the second leader of the McVeigh defense team, in Mother Jones. Rob represented McVeigh through the trial and until his execution. He makes some excellent points:

MJ: What failings on the part of the U.S. government were exposed by the Oklahoma City bombing?

RN: I think that it should help us to realize that when we marginalize people and the government fails to accept responsibility for its misconduct, it causes people to become disillusioned to a dangerous state.

M