General Ben K. Partin

As one of the world's foremost experts in both the theoretical and practical applications of explosives technology, General Partin possesses virtually unparalleled qualifications to authoritatively evaluate the public-source information available on the bombing.When we contacted General Partin shortly after the explosion, he expressed very strong misgivings about the official story that the horrendous damage to the federal building had been caused solely by the reported truck bomb.Too many facts, he said, "simply just don't add up" to support that convenient explanation.However, unlike other "experts" who were offering instant analyses and publicly speculating about various bombing scenarios, he had a great deal of investigating to do before presenting a definite opinion.After three weeks of intensive examination of the evidence, he was ready.
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General Partin appealed for action to delay destruction of the Murrah building until a full, independent forensic examination of the site could be conducted.
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General Partin offered what he called an "oversimplified analogy" to illustrate his point.The pattern of damage to the reinforced concrete columns was so totally at odds with the laws of physics and explosives experience, he said, that it "would be as irrational or as impossible" as a situation in which a 150 pound man sits in a flimsy chair causing the chair to collapse, while a man weighing 1,500 pounds sits in an identical flimsy chair and it does not collapse.

"To produce the resulting damage pattern on the building," wrote Partin.
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What makes General Partin's position so noteworthy and compelling is his methodical, scientific analysis combined with his sterling career and credentials.Twenty-five of his 31 years of active service in the Air Force were involved in intensive research, design, testing, and management of weapons development at all levels.This included extensive hands-on work at the Ballistic Research Laboratories and field testing of all types of explosive devices on a broad spectrum of structures and targets.He served as commander of the Air Force Armament Technology Laboratory and was the first chairman of the joint service Air Munitions Requirements and Development Committee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.This committee was responsible for the harmonization of air munitions requirements and development for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.

General Partin is recognized as a long-time guiding force behind our modern precision-guided weapons and related target acquisition, target designation, and guidance systems.He initiated, fought for, and helped get into service many weapons now in our nation's munitions inventory.As the Air Force System Command's Special Assistant for Advanced Weapons, he started the earliest focused energy weapons program in 1957, wrote the first contract for a coherent optical frequency generator (i.e. Laser) in 1958, and pushed for development of a functional "Star Wars" missile system decades before it became the hotly debated issue in the 1980s.General Partin was a Command Pilot and Command Missileman, a Distinguished Graduate of the Air War College, a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal and thrice a recipient of the Legion of Merit.He received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering, an M.S. in aeronautical (armament) engineering, and completed academics for a Ph.D. in operations research and statistics.

In short, General Ben Partin is not just your average "expert," and his reasoned analysis deserves a careful examination, instead of snide dismissal as "just another Elvis sighting" a response typical of the media elite's and "sophisticated" political savants.

Single Bomb Problem

"When I first saw the pictures of the truck bomb's asymmetrical damage to the Federal Building in Oklahoma City," Partin wrote in his letter, "my immediate reaction was that the pattern of damage would have been technically impossible without supplementing demolition charges at some of the reinforced concrete column bases (a standard demolition technique)."

Partin then explained some of the basic physics problems associated with the single-truck-bomb scenario: "First, blast through air is a very inefficient energy coupling mechanism against heavy reinforced concrete beams and columns.Second, blast damage potential initially falls off more rapidly than an inverse function of the distance cubed.That is why in conventional weapons development, one seeks accuracy over yield for hard targets.Columns in large buildings are hard targets for blast."

This principle was very well illustrated, he noted, in the bombing of the World Trade Center.In that case, General Partin told THE NEW AMERICAN, a similar truck bomb blew a large cavity through several floors above and below the bomb but caused very limited lateral damage."The floor areas directly above and below the bomb were accelerated by the blast force and completely stripped away, but you can see in the published photos [as, for instance, in Time magazine of March 8, 1993] that the column is still standing there in the middle of the cavity."

"The entire building in Oklahoma City could have been collapsed with relatively small demolition charges against the base of the columns and with even less explosives if linear cavity cutting charges had been used," General Partin wrote in his letter to Senator Nickles.
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Partin provides a careful look at the Murrah building' s structure in the following description and accompanying diagram:
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Seven other explosives experts we interviewed endorsed General Partin's analysis as the most coherent and logical explanation of an otherwise unexplainable dilemma.
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Responding to these critiques, General Partin observed that it is not surprising that even many people with a professional knowledge of explosives might be unduly impressed with the size and explosive wallop of the bomb and fail to reckon with the fundamental laws of physics."Yes, this was a big bomb with a big blast," agreed General Partin."But most people fail to appreciate how inefficient a blast is in air and how dramatically its destructive potential drops off just a few feet from the explosion.In the Lebanon barracks bombing, the truck was driven directly under the building so that the explosion had maximum effectiveness against a much lower building with much smaller columns."

Demolitionists, Partin pointed out, rarely deal with the size of explosive charge used in the Oklahoma City truck bomb.
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General Partin cites accounts of the many laboratory and field tests he ran using large-yield bombs on numerous structures and targets.That experience, he says, together with all the known history of modern warfare shows that bombs can detonate close to a hard structure without causing severe destruction.
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The most critical evidence that has to be assessed, said Partin, would be the collapsed column bases, especially those of columns A9 and B3."If a satchel charge or linear cavity cutting charge or other explosive were used on the columns," he explained to THE NEW AMERICAN, you would find a very distinctive signature."Is it likely that the defense team would have been able to make that kind of visual examination during its inspection?"Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the investigators had the time or opportunity.It is doubtful that they had access to the critical points."

Because of the care taken by the demolition team to cover the remaining debris, and the use of minimal demolition charges, verification of General Partin's analysis should still be possible if the evidence has not been deliberately destroyed.

Thanks to General Ben K. Partin, who did a private investigative study (which this writer has in possession) of the Oklahoma City Bombing and sent his findings to every member of congress, the "Anti Terrorism Bill" - H.R. 666 - the beast bill was stopped!General Ben K. Partin has 25 years of expertise in research, design, development, test and management of weapons development.This included: hands-on work at the Ballistic Research Laboratories; Commander of the Air Force Armament Technology Laboratory, and ultimately management responsibility for almost every non-nuclear Air Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) levels.He was also the first chairman of the OSD joint service Air Munitions Requirements and Development Committee.

Ben Partin, a retired brigadier general in the United States Air Force, has provided every member of Congress a detailed, comprehensive report of his analysis of the April 19, bombing.

The general contends the explosion was caused in part by demolition charges placed at critical structural points inside the building.

The official story by the Clinton administration's FBI, accepted virtuallly without question by the Establishment media, is that the bombing was caused solely by a single truck bomb consisting of 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate transported to the location in a Ryder truck which was parked outside the building.

Partin said the destruction to the building could not have possibly resulted from such a bomb alone.

To verify his analytical conclusions, Partin visited Oklahoma City during the last week of June 1995, where he had the opportunity to review hundreds of photographs taken throughout the cleanup operation.

The photos, taken before the debris was hauled off and buried at another site, provide, in Partin's view, "irrefutable evidence that at least four demolition charges were set off at four critical columns of the reinforced concrete structure at the floor level of the third floor."

Says Partin: "Based on my experience in weapons development and bomb damage analysis, and on my review of all evidence available, I can say, with a high level of confidence, that the damage pattern on the reinforced concrete superstructure could not possibly have been attained from a single truck bomb without supplementing demolition charge.

"The total incompatibility of this pattern of destruction with a single truck bomb lies in the simple, incontrovertible fact that some of the columns collapsed that should not have collapsed if the damage was caused solely by a truck bomb, and some of the columns were left standing that should have collapsed if the damage had been caused by the truck bomb."

The architect of the Alfred P. Murrah Building, Partin said, agrees with the retired general's assessment."In my discussions with the building architect," said Partin, "he told me that the residual building was structurally sound and that the Murrah building could have been rebuilt.This is totally consistent with the collapse of columns with demolition charges because the inflicted structural damage is localized."

PRESERVE LIBERTIES

Partin has requested that action on so-called anti-terrorism legislation, which raised serious civil liberty questions, be deferred until the causes of the bombing are determined by independent investigators.That measure, introduced in Congress in February 1995, was going nowhere until the tragic bombing occurred.

Each lawmaker [member of Congress] has been provided by Partin with a packet of documentation including a letter, an 11-page report, his biography, charts and colour photographs documenting his analysis.

Partin's background includes 25 years in weapons development.He was also the first chairman of the OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) joint service Air Munitions Requirements and Development Committee.

The report concludes "the primary reinforced concrete structural failure soley attributable to the truck bomb is the stripping out of the ceilings of the first and second floors in the "pit" area behind columns B4 and B5.0.

The effort required to bomb the building, said Partin, "pales in comparison with the effort to cover it up.

As one of the world's foremost experts in both the theoretical and practical applications of explosives technology, General Partin possesses virtually unparalleled qualifications to authoritatively evaluate the public-source information available on the bombing.When we contacted General Partin shortly after the explosion, he expressed very strong misgivings about the official story -- that the horrendous damage to the federal building had been caused solely by the reported truck bomb.Too many facts, he said, "simply just don't add up" to support that convenient explanation.However, unlike other "experts" who were offering instant analyses and publicly speculating about various bombing scenarios, he had a great deal of investigating to do before presenting a definite opinion.After three weeks of intensive examination of the evidence, he was ready.
...
General Partin offered what he called an "oversimplified analogy" to illustrate his point.The pattern of damage to the reinforced concrete columns was so totally at odds with the laws of physics and explosives experience, he said, that it "would be as irrational or as impossible" as a situation in which a 150 pound man sits in a flimsy chair causing the chair to collapse, while a man weighing 1,500 pounds sits in an identical flimsy chair and it does not collapse.

"To produce the resulting damage pattern on the building," wrote Partin, "there would have to have been an effort with demolition charges at column bases to complement or supplement the truck bomb damage.
...
What makes General Partin's position so noteworthy and compelling is his methodical, scientific analysis combined with his sterling career and credentials.Twenty-five of his 31 years of active service in the Air Force were involved in intensive research, design, testing, and management of weapons development at all levels.This included extensive hands-on work at the Ballistic Research Laboratories and field testing of all types of explosive devices on a broad spectrum of structures and targets.He served as commander of the Air Force Armament Technology Laboratory and was the first chairman of the joint service Air Munitions Requirements and Development Committee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.This committee was responsible for the harmonization of air munitions requirements and development for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.

General Partin is recognized as a long-time guiding force behind our modern precision-guided weapons and related target acquisition, target designation, and guidance systems.He initiated, fought for, and helped get into service many weapons now in our nation's munitions inventory.As the Air Force System Command's Special Assistant for Advanced Weapons, he started the earliest focused energy weapons program in 1957, wrote the first contract for a coherent optical frequency generator (i.e. laser) in 1958, and pushed for development of a functional "Star Wars" missile system decades before it became the hotly debated issue in the 1980s.General Partin was a Command Pilot and Command Missileman, a Distinguished Graduate of the Air War College, a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal and thrice a recipient of the Legion of Merit.He received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering, an M.S. in aeronautical (armament) engineering, and completed academics for a Ph.D. in operations research and statistics.

In short, General Ben Partin is not just your average "expert," and his reasoned analysis deserves a careful examination, instead of snide dismissal as "just another Elvis sighting" -- a response typical of the media elites and "sophisticated" political savants.

Single-Bomb Problem

"When I first saw the pictures of the truck bomb's asymmetrical damage to the Federal Building in Oklahoma City," Partin wrote in his letter, "my immediate reaction was that the pattern of damage would have been technically impossible without supplementing demolition charges at some of the reinforced concrete column bases (a standard demolition technique)." Partin then explained some of the basic physics problems associated with the single-truck-bomb scenario: "First, blast through air is a very inefficient energy coupling mechanism against heavy reinforced concrete beams and columns.Second, blast damage potential initially falls off more rapidly than an inverse function of the distance cubed.That is why in conventional weapons development, one seeks accuracy over yield for hard targets.Columns in large buildings are hard targets for blast."

This principle was very well illustrated, he noted, in the bombing of the World Trade Center.In that case, General Partin told The New American, a similar truck bomb blew a large cavity through several floors above and below the bomb but caused very limited lateral damage."The floor areas directly above and below the bomb were accelerated by the blast force and completely stripped away, but you can see in the published photos [as, for instance, in Time magazine of March 8, 1993] and by the BATF , that the column is still standing there in the middle of the cavity."

"The entire building in Oklahoma City could have been collapsed with relatively small demolition charges against the base of the columns and with even less explosives if linear cavity cutting charges had been used," General Partin wrote in his letter to Senator Nickles.
...
Partin provides a careful look at the Murrah building's structure in the following description and accompanying diagram: