December 21, 1988
PanAm Flight 103
243 passengers
16 crew members
11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, southern Scotland
As “the cockpit broke off, tornado-force winds tore through the fuselage, tearing clothes off passengers and turning insecurely-fixed items like food and drink trolleys into lethal objects. Because of the sudden change in air pressure, the gases inside the passengers’ bodies would have expanded to four times their normal volume, causing their lungs to swell and then collapse. People and objects not fixed down would have been blown out of the aircraft into the 46 °C (?50.8 °F) outside air, their 31,000-foot (9,400 m) fall lasting about two minutes. Some passengers remained attached to the fuselage by their seat belts, crashing in Lockerbie strapped to their seats.
“Although the passengers would have lost consciousness through lack of oxygen, forensic examiners believe some of them might have regained consciousness as they fell toward oxygen-rich lower altitudes. Forensic pathologist Dr William G. Eckert, director of the Milton Helpern International Center of Forensic Sciences at Wichita State University, who examined the autopsy evidence, told Scottish police he believed the flight crew, some of the flight attendants, and 147 other passengers survived the bomb blast and depressurization of the aircraft, and may have been alive on impact. None of these passengers showed signs of injury from the explosion itself, or from the decompression and disintegration of the aircraft.”
“A boy was lying at the bottom of the steps on to the road. A young laddie with brown socks and blue trousers on. Later that evening my son-in-law asked for a blanket to cover him. I didn’t know he was dead. I gave him a lamb’s wool travelling rug thinking I’d keep him warm. Two more girls were lying dead across the road, one of them bent over garden railings. It was just as though they were sleeping. The boy lay at the bottom of my stairs for days. Every time I came back to my house for clothes he was still there. ‘My boy is still there,’ I used to tell the waiting policeman. Eventually on Saturday I couldn’t take it no more. ‘You got to get my boy lifted,’ I told the policeman. That night he was moved.” (Bunty Galloway, as told to authors Geraldine Sheridan and Thomas Kenning in 1993)
“…the wing section hit 13 Sherwood Crescent at more than 800 km/h (500 mph) and exploded, creating a crater 47 m (155 ft) long and with a volume of 560 m³, vaporizing several houses and their foundations, and damaging 21 others so badly they had to be demolished. Four members of one family…died when their house at 15 Sherwood Crescent exploded. A fireball rose above the houses and moved toward the nearby Glasgow–Carlisle A74 dual carriageway, scorching cars in the southbound lanes…. Father Patrick Keegans, Lockerbie’s Roman Catholic priest was getting ready to go to visit his neighbours at around 7 pm [but] there was nothing left of them to bury as they and nine others were killed in the street….”
Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was eventually convicted of the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 and sentenced to life in prison in Scotland.
From Libya, there was eventually an admission of guilt. But there was no admission of remorse. In a BBC Two documentary, 31 August 2008, Saif al-Gaddafi said that Libya had admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing simply to get trade sanctions removed. He also described the families of the Lockerbie victims as very greedy: “They were asking for more money and more money and more money.”
From the Sunday Times Online:
Today we report on a letter written by Jack Straw, Britain’s justice secretary, to his Scottish counterpart in December 2007. In it he overturned a previous understanding that Mr Megrahi was exempt from a prisoner transfer programme agreed between Britain and Libya as part of the Blair-Gadaffi discussions. A few months earlier the government had been clear on that exemption. Lord Falconer, then lord chancellor, wrote to Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National party, saying Libya had agreed that the Lockerbie bomber would serve out his sentence in Scotland.
What changed? The strong circumstantial evidence is that a lucrative agreement to allow BP to explore for oil off the Libyan coast was being held up by Mr Megrahi’s exemption from the prisoner transfer programme. The idea that the Westminster government had no view and no influence is not credible.
Last week we reported on a letter sent by Ivan Lewis, a Foreign Office minister, to the Scottish government. In it he said there was no legal barrier to the release of Mr Megrahi, adding: “I hope on this basis you will now feel able to consider the Libyan application in accordance with the provisions of the prisoner transfer agreement.”
And so Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, reportedly with only a few months to live because of prostate cancer, was set free by Scotland on “compassionate grounds” after spending only 8 years in prison. He returned to his homeland on August 21st, where he was greeted by enthusiastic crowds.
Saif al-Islam al-Gadhafi told The Glasgow Herald in an exclusive interview published August 28th, “Lockerbie is history. The next step is fruitful and productive business with Edinburgh and London.”
So the question must be stated: Would Britain have allowed this deal to be undertaken without informing President Obama in advance?
After all, scores of Americans were murdered by his action. The families have suffered for close to twenty years. A moving account of one family’s trauma appeared in an op-ed yesterday written by Robert P. George. As George writes: “What did American officials know about the decision to free Megrahi and when did they know it? What, if anything, did our government do to try to prevent it? Remember, 180 of Megrahi’s victims were our fellow citizens. President Obama had a right to be informed in advance of what Scotland was planning to do and a duty to do everything in his power diplomatically to prevent this outrage.”
Did Barack Obama phone Gordon Brown and object strenuously before the release? Did he really not know of Britain’s plans until after it was too late? Frankly, this is rather hard to believe. If almost 200 British subjects were killed on American soil in a terrorist attack, and the perpetrator was freed in a commercial deal by the U.S. government, it is hard to imagine that any administration would not first have informed the British government of what was going to take place.
So the question remains: What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?
As both an apologist for dictators and a staunch supporter of drilling for oil – in other country’s backyards – it is not inconceivable that this adminstration knew about what is being called a trade of blood for oil. According to Obama’s very own media outlet, MSNBC:
Gadhafi, now in his mid-60’s and after 40 years in power as the region’s longest-serving leader, wants to see Libya become the gateway to development in Africa.
The United States apparently agrees with part of his vision. American companies are major players in the oil industry and development projects which will try to transform this desert nation into a modern state within the next ten years.
John Rainard is the Chief Operating Officer of AECOM, a Los Angeles-based engineering firm running a $10 billion project here to rebuild Tripoli and other population centers in Libya from the ground up. Housing, roads, water and electrical systems will form the backbones of the new country.
And from the 2008 annual report of AECOM:
The U.S. election in November 2008 produced good news for AECOM, as voters approved more than US$54 billion of state/local bond issues, and over US$60 billion of tax measures. We expect that a large portion of this money will be used to fund infrastructure projects in transportation, healthcare and environmental work in markets and geographies where we have a well-established presence. In addition, we anticipate that the U.S. economic stimulus and infrastructure packages will be focused on the type of programs that are at the core of our expertise and experience.