McVeigh Admits Bombing, Calls Children 'Collateral Damage'

Convicted Bomber Finally Talks About The Crime In New Book

A remorseless Timothy McVeigh calls the children killed in the Oklahoma City bombing "collateral damage," regretting only that they detracted from his cause to avenge Waco and Ruby Ridge, according to a new book. The book represents the first time that McVeigh has publicly and explicitly admitted to the crime and given his reasons for the attack.

“Damn, I didn't knock the building down. I didn't take it down .”

Timothy McVeigh
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber

"I understand what they felt in Oklahoma City, I have no sympathy for them," McVeigh told the authors of "American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing" (Regan-Books). McVeigh told Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, reporters for The Buffalo News, that he didn't know there was a day care center inside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the authors said on ABC's "PrimeTime Thursday." The program will air at 9 p.m. on Denver's 7. Bombing Survivors React To McVeigh Book "I recognized beforehand that someone might be ... bringing their kid to work," McVeigh said. "However, if I had known there was an entire day care center, it might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage." Still, McVeigh said that he was disappointed when part of the building remained standing after his 7,000-pound bomb blew. "Damn, I didn't knock the building down. I didn't take it down," he said. The April 19, 1995 bombing killed 168 people, 19 of them children. McVeigh, 32, was convicted and sentenced to death during a federal trial in Denver. He is scheduled to be executed May 16. McVeigh said that he was the sole architect of the plan, resorting to threats against Terry Nichols' family when his Army friend hesitated before helping to load the rental truck with the bomb. In 75 hours of prison interviews with the Buffalo reporters, McVeigh, who was raised in Pendleton, outside Buffalo, got choked up while talking about killing a gopher in a field, but never expressed remorse for the bombing. The interviews began in May 1999 and are continuing, according to the newspaper. Tears Over Waco But he had been brought to tears two years earlier while watching the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, by government agents in search of illegal guns. He was in the living room of Nichols' Michigan home when the compound burned to the ground, killing about 80 members of the religious sect. The model soldier had left the Army disillusioned, unable to live with the thought that he was an ally of "the biggest bully in the world, the U.S. government," Herbeck said. Then when Congress banned certain assault weapons, "I snapped," McVeigh said. "He developed a plan for a young warrior to defeat the dragon," said Dr. John Smith, the psychiatrist who evaluated McVeigh for the defense. Smith spoke about McVeigh, with McVeigh's permission, for the first time on the television program. He concluded that McVeigh suffers from no "major mental illness." Why The Murrah Building? Before deciding to bomb the Murrah building, McVeigh considered a number of different possibilities, including assassinating elected officials, Michel said. The Murrah federal building, McVeigh decided, had everything he wanted: federal agents, glass in the front, making it vulnerable and giving television cameras a good shot. The morning of the bombing, like a soldier, he had cold spaghetti for breakfast. "Meals ready to eat ... are meant for high intensity. I knew I was going through a firestorm and I would need the energy," he said of the rations frequently used by soldiers in the field. McVeigh, two blocks away when the bomb exploded, was lifted off the ground by the force of the blast. As he fled, he called to mind the song, "Dirty for Dirty" by the group Bad Company: "What the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge was dirty. And I gave dirty back to them at Oklahoma City," he said. In 1992 at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the wife and son of white separatist Randy Weaver were killed by federal agents during a standoff. McVeigh Thought He Would Be Caught McVeigh told the authors that he knew he would get caught and even anticipated execution as a form of "state-assisted suicide." Yet he worried initially about snipers as he was being charged. "He was ready to die but not at that moment -- he wanted to make sure that his full message got out first," Herbeck said. McVeigh In Colorado Prison At Supermax, a federal prison in Florence, Colo., McVeigh found himself in the company of Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber" responsible for three mail bomb deaths. Kaczynski would later write to Herbeck and Michel that McVeigh's action was "unnecessarily inhumane," but "on a personal level, I like McVeigh and I imagine most people would like him." The authors also talk of McVeigh's regrets over not having a family -- that he's thought about smuggling sperm out of the prison -- but that overall, prison is hardly torture. "I lay in bed all day and watch cable television ... I don't pay the electrical bill or the cable bill," he said. Michel and Herbeck said that they believe McVeigh chose to speak with them because they are reporters from his hometown and had a reputation for accuracy and fairness. McVeigh was raised in Pendleton, north of Buffalo. A Question From McVeigh McVeigh dismisses those who believe foreign terrorists or domestic militias helped him with the bombing. "Because," McVeigh said, "the truth is, I blew up the Murrah building and isn't it kind of scary that one man could reap this kind of hell?" Previous Stories: