-Caveat Lector-
The New American
Waco Deception Up in Smoke
September 15, 1999
Waco Deception Up in Smoke
by William Norman Grigg
Clinton Administration scandals display a common pattern. The initial
disclosures of wrongdoing are indignantly denied. Pleas are issued by
Administration spokesmen for people to "stay calm" and wait for "all the
facts" to come out. A cover-up of the relevant facts is then undertaken.
When damaging facts leak, Administration spin-controllers minimize their
significance, or if necessary preside over a controlled release of
further facts over a protracted period of time. When the full truth
about criminal misbehavior, or some significant portion thereof, is
finally made public, Administration spinners and their media allies
insist that the public has grown weary of the matter and that it's time
to "move on."
This approach has served the Administration well in its efforts to
surmount the Chinagate treason scandal, the Lewinsky affair, and
numerous other episodes. Not surprisingly, the FBI has followed a
similar approach in managing disclosures about its conduct in the 1993
slaughter of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, which is the subject of a
federal wrongful death lawsuit by survivors and families of the victims.
An order from U.S. District Judge Walter Smith requiring federal
authorities to turn over all relevant evidence left from the April 19,
1993 siege turned up a shell casing from an M-651 CS canister, a 40 mm
incendiary grenade "that releases tear gas with a burning explosive
capable of sparking fires," observed the Dallas Morning News.
Spin Strategy
Confronted with inescapable facts, the Justice Department followed
standard Clinton Administration procedure. First came the admissions of
proven facts that had long been denied. In late August, Danny Coulson, a
founder of the FBI's "Hostage Rescue Team" (which was involved in both
the Davidian massacre and the murder of Randy Weaver's wife and son at
Ruby Ridge) told the Dallas Morning News that pyrotechnic grenades had
been used by the FBI during the final assault on the Mount Carmel
church. After stalling for a news cycle by issuing further half-hearted
denials, the FBI, in the words of the August 26th New York Times,
"backed away from six years of unqualified denials to Congress and to
the public" and admitted that the canisters which were 'pyrotechnic'
only in a limited sense," the Bureau hastened to specify had indeed been
used at Waco. (The "limited sense" qualification, which savors of Bill
Clinton's equivocation over the meaning of the word "is," offers another
example of sophisticated dishonesty.)
The coinage of new euphemisms is a major Clinton Administration
industry, and FBI spokesmen enriched the vocabulary of double-speak by
allowing that they would have to "recant or modify" the previous
unqualified denials that FBI personnel had fired upon the Branch
Davidians on that tragic April morning. This provided a segueway into
the next step of the Administration's familiar spin strategy -- playing
for time to devise a new cover story: "We've seen the reports, and we're
trying to get to the bottom of them," stated Justice Department
spokesman Myron Marlin. Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director
Louis Freeh, clinging to the story that they have been the helpless
victims of unreliable information, promised a new, comprehensive
investigation of the matter, which is to say that they began the search
for a subordinate who would be a credible scapegoat.
Unfortunately for the FBI and the Justice Department, the chosen spin
for the "discovery" of the pyrotechnic shell casings undermines their
case. The Bureau's official line is that a Bradley Fighting Vehicle
carried an FBI agent to within 40 yards of the Mount Carmel church about
six hours before the catastrophic fire. The tear gas grenades, according
to the FBI's account, bounced harmlessly off a concrete structure
without causing any lasting damage. Furthermore, as the Times pointed
out, the FBI has "no new information to challenge the finding that the
Davidians themselves started the fire."
In other words, the detailed account explaining the presence of the
expended grenades was not new information. The FBI has knowingly,
systematically, lied to Congress and the public about this matter, and
the new "investigation" is an exercise in misdirection and delay.
Controlled Release?
Why did the FBI and Justice Department offer a damaging admission that
undermines their new cover story? One possibility is that the admission
was part of the third step in the Clintonite spin control process -- the
effort to minimize the significance of the long-denied but now
inescapable facts. By admitting that two grenades were fired at the
church several hours before the fires began, the Administration offered
a tardy admission which actually allows them to cling to the official
story that the Davidians were responsible for the catastrophic fire.
It is important to understand that the FBI's chief concern is not to
offer a candid disclosure of the relevant facts; as the Times observed,
the FBI and Justice Department are "far more worried that the
recantation will fuel the suspicions of people who have long doubted the
Federal Government's motives and actions in the incident." As one
anonymous official told the Times, "we're fighting the conspiracy
theorists." The Times editorial board, while offering perfunctory
criticism of the FBI and Justice Department for looking "at best sloppy
and at worst untruthful," endorsed the Clinton junta's priorities in an
August 27th house editorial by archly stating that the new disclosures
gladden "the hearts of conspiracy theorists everywhere." This is to say
that the real scandal here is not the needless immolation of over 80
people, or the government's persistent, culpable dishonesty regarding
that tragedy, but rather the fact that the evidence is vindicating
critics of the government's actions. Any residual doubts that the FBI
had engaged in a cover-up dissipated with the September 2nd "discovery"
of a recorded conversation in which Richard Rogers, the Special Agent in
Charge (SAC) during the final siege, authorized HRT supervisor Steven
McGavin to use the pyrotechnic grenades. As the Los Angeles Times
reported, Rogers "later sat behind William S. Sessions, then Director of
the FBI, as he testified before Congress that no flammable munitions had
been used" against the Davidians. Janet Reno ordered U.S. Marshals to
seize the new evidence from the FBI, purportedly for use in the new
inquiry; but as Reno's handling of the "Chinagate" inquiry demonstrates,
her priority will be to bury the truth, not expose it.
Delta's Role
On August 27th, the Dallas Morning News reported that former CIA officer
Gene Cullen had been informed that three or four Army Special Forces
troops had been "present, up front and close" during the final assault
on the Branch Davidian church. "When they explained to me the depth to
which they were involved down in Waco, I was quite surprised," remarked
Cullen. "They said basically they were out there in the Bradley
[fighting vehicles], the CEV [tanks].... They were active." Absent a
presidential waiver, such participation would constitute a violation of
the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the military to participate
directly in domestic law enforcement operations.
On the following day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that
"Army anti-terrorism specialists, including the commander of the
top-secret Delta Force, attended the 1993 meeting at which Attorney
General Janet Reno approved the use of tear gas against members of the
Branch Davidian group near Waco, Texas." On the same day, the
WorldNetDaily Internet news service published a transcript of
contemporaneous, non-verbatim notes describing that meeting, which
occurred on April 14, 1993. Among those present at the meeting were
Major General Pete Schoomaker, who at the time was assistant division
commander of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas; Colonel John
Boykin of Delta Force; Dick Rogers, commander of the FBI's Hostage
Rescue Team; HRT co-founder Danny Coulson; Attorney General Reno;
then-Assistant Attorney General Webster Hubbell; and two unnamed
individuals who refused to identify themselves and are believed to have
been White House personnel reporting directly to Bill Clinton. A
"Special Forces source" who possesses an "unredacted" copy of the notes
from that meeting provided WorldNetDaily with critical facts that had
been excised from the "redacted" version; according to the source, the
document was signed by Colonel (now General) Boykin.
According to the notes, "It was obvious that Attorney General Reno had
already been briefed on the concept of the operation" that is, to insert
CS gas into the building for "up to 48 hours" and then "to use an
armored platform with a blade to start removing the front of the
building." When asked by Reno to offer an assessment of the plan, the
Delta Force officials replied, "This was not a military operation and
could not be assessed as such. We explained that the situation was not
one that we had ever encountered and that the Rules of Engagement for
the FBI were substantially different than for a military operation." "We
can't grade your paper," stated one military official by way of summary.
If this were to be handled as a military operation, continued the
officers, it would be important to remember that "the principles of
surprise, speed and violence of action were essential to any operation"
and that "momentum should be maintained and that ground gained should
not be relinquished."
Reno asked the FBI officials present why the standoff should be ended
quickly. The FBI's reply focused upon three points. First, "There is no
reason to believe that Koresh has any intention of coming out
voluntarily." Second, "There are indicators that children are suffering
abuse" -- true enough, once it is understood that they were being held
hostage by armed federal troops and subjected to a psychological torture
campaign designed with the aid of Soviet psy-war specialist Igor Smirnov
of Moscow's Institute for Psycho-Correction. Third, the FBI's Hostage
Rescue Team was losing its edge as the standoff wore on.
The military officer who compiled the notes emphasized, "I made it clear
that I was not encouraging an immediate execution of the operation. My
exact words were, I don't have a dog in that fight." He also suggested
that the FBI "should consider pulling their people off the target for a
short while" to "retrain and polish" some of their skills. And he
emphasized that "the plan which was executed at Waco was an FBI plan
which neither [redacted] nor I helped prepare." The Special Forces
source who consulted with WorldNetDaily commented that the notes clearly
indicated that their author "didn't want to be directly involved in [the
operation], and did not want to be dragged into it. Delta Force
operators continually cautioned the FBI against attempting an "Open Air
Assault" on the target, and continually stated they did not want to be
involved in firing on or [an] assault [upon] American civilians. These
official and unofficial comments went ignored and, in fact, one Special
Operations officer was threatened with court-martial if he continued to
protest." This perspective, coming from a veteran of the Special Forces,
underscores a critical point: The release of the redacted notes may have
been intended to make the military the scapegoat for the FBI's debacle.
This is not to say that the military was blameless in this matter or
immune to political considerations. Both Boykin and Schoomaker have been
promoted. (In fact, as the commanding general of the U.S. Special
Operations Command Gen. Schoomaker has enthusiastically embraced the
concept of "build[ing] training links" between U.S. Special Forces and
comparable units of the Red Chinese People's Liberation Army; see "Green
Berets Going Red?" in our September 28, 1998 issue.) In addition, if the
account offered by ex-CIA officer Gene Cullen is accurate, then Delta
Force was directly involved in the final siege, despite the fact that
the unit didn't have "a dog in that fight."
More to Come
Publication of the notes of the April 14, 1993 meeting precipitated a
crisis at the Army's Fort Bragg Special Forces headquarters. "Special
Forces command has sent the orders down the ranks that nobody is to talk
to the press," a Special Forces source who has provided detailed legal
depositions regarding the Waco tragedy told The New American. "There's
nothing they can do about the facts that have already been publicized,
of course, but they are trying to forestall the disclosure of even more
damaging information. There are other shoes yet to drop, and I don't
think that they're going to be able to catch them all."
As the controlled implosion of yet another Clinton scandal produces new
revelations, it is important not to lose sight of the most damning
evidence: forward-looking infrared (FLIR) footage suggesting that FBI
personnel gunned down Davidians who sought to flee from their burning
home. SAC Rogers' go-ahead order to use pyrotechnic grenades was
recorded on an aerial infrared videotape, presumably the same recording
on which the incriminating FLIR footage is found. That order was issued
at 7:49 a.m., several hours before the fire was ignited and the
tell-tale heat signatures of automatic weapons fire directed at the
compound were recorded. Mike McNulty, producer of the forthcoming
documentary Waco: A New Revelation, asserts that Delta Force commandos
were "deployed and pulling triggers" during the final siege at Mt.
Carmel.
Two years ago in these pages ("Quartered Among Us," September 1, 1997),
U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Steven Barry (ret.), who at the time was
an active duty Special Forces soldier, pointed out that the Waco episode
illustrates the danger of "fusing" military and law enforcement
operations." SFC Barry noted that the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team is a
carbon copy of the Combat Action Group (CAG) of the Pentagon's Joint
Special Operations Command: "HRT uses the same equipment, the training
is identical, and HRT uses CAG's training facilities, instructors, and
standard operating procedures."
"Trial Balloon"
"Waco was not an aberration," concluded SFC Barry. "It was a 'trial
balloon' sent up by those who perceive a "coalition" of military and law
enforcement to be a good thing. It was, therefore, a portent of the
future. And the military's involvement in that unspeakable outrage,
along with its subsequent cover-up of its involvement, bodes ill for
America's future."
As this is written, it appears that the Clintonite spin control
ministry, displaying the institutional "loathing" for the military for
which the Administration is properly notorious, appears to be angling to
make the military the scapegoat for the Waco massacre. While military
officials involved in the episode have much to answer for, it must be
remembered that Bill Clinton himself must have issued a presidential
waiver authorizing Delta Force involvement. Filmmaker Mike McNulty,
producer of the award-winning documentary Waco: Rules of Engagement and
its forthcoming sequel Waco: A New Revelation, told Internet newshound
Matt Drudge that the "chain of command" in the Waco tragedy eventually
leads to the late White House Counsel Vince Foster. Might the
incriminating presidential waiver have been among the documents removed
from Foster's office by Clinton operatives following his "suicide"?
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