McVeigh found `common ground' with Unabomber

DENVER - Fighting in the Gulf War left Timothy McVeigh angry and disillusioned, he said in an interview broadcast yesterday on "60 Minutes," and the clashes at Waco and Ruby Ridge showed the government will use violence "as an option all the time."

McVeigh also said that while in the federal prison in Florence, Colo., he spoke with Ted Kaczynski, the convicted Unabomber and one of his cellblock neighbors. McVeigh said he and Kaczynski were similar in that "all we wanted out of life was the freedom to live our own lives."

In the interview with CBS' Ed Bradley, McVeigh did not say he was innocent of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The explosion killed 168 people.

His lawyers last week filed an appeal of his conviction and death sentence, claiming pretrial publicity and defense attorneys' alleged leaks of inflammatory stories to the press deprived him of a fair trial.

McVeigh said during the Feb. 22 interview at the federal maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Ind., that he was angry and bitter after fighting in the Gulf War, where he won several medals for heroism.

"I went over there hyped up, just like everyone else," he said. "Not only is Saddam evil; all Iraqis are evil. What I experienced, though, was an entirely different ballgame. And being face to face close with these people in personal contact, you realize they're just people like you."

His anger deepened when Randy Weaver's wife and son were shot and killed in a standoff with federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and dozens of members of the Branch Davidian sect died in a fire after a 51-day standoff with federal officers in Waco, Texas, eight months later.

McVeigh said U.S. citizens must keep government in check.

Asked if violence is a way to do that, McVeigh said: "If government is the teacher, violence would be an acceptable option.

"What did we do to Sudan? What did we do to Afghanistan? Belgrade? What are we doing with the death penalty? It appears they use violence as an option all the time," McVeigh said.

He also told Bradley that he could not ask him directly if he was the Oklahoma City bomber.

One claim in McVeigh's motion for a new trial is that images of him in an orange jumpsuit, leg irons and handcuffs two days after his arrest prejudiced jurors.

Jurors interviewed by CBS, however, denied they were influenced by pretrial publicity. "He's the Oklahoma City bomber, and there is no doubt about it in my mind," John Candeleria said.

McVeigh until last summer was housed in the same Colorado prison as Kaczynski, who in 1998 was jailed for life for sending package bombs that killed three people and injured 23.

McVeigh, 31, said he and Kaczynski "have somewhat different views, but there is some common ground there. I found that . . . we were much alike in that all we ever wanted or all we wanted out of life was the freedom to live our own lives."

McVeigh said he sees government as the problem while Kaczynski focused on technology.

If his latest appeal fails, McVeigh said, he is prepared to die. "I came to terms with my mortality in the Gulf War," he said.

Information from Reuters is included in this report.