-Caveat Lector-
Siege tactics weighed by FBI detailed
Davidian files reveal plan to drug water
10/09/99
By Lee Hancock and David Jackson / The
Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON - Thousands of
recently disclosed internal FBI
documents show that some bureau
officials proposed drugging Branch
Davidians' water supplies and faxed a
formal assault plan directly to the
White House in the first weeks of the
1993 siege.
The documents reveal intricacies of
the FBI's 51-day operation never
previously made public in the six
years since the nation's most deadly
law enforcement tragedy.
Among the thousand of pages of
internal FBI tactical documents are
notations indicating that tanks used
by the hostage rescue team near
Waco carried such military ordnance
as high-explosive grenades,
illumination rounds and pyrotechnic
tear gas cannisters.
The notes also indicate FBI tactical
experts in Waco asked for permission
to shoot any unarmed Branch
Davidians who left the compound
and approached their armored
vehicles. That proposal was rejected
by FBI officials in Washington, who
ultimately imposed rules authorizing
deadly force only if the Branch
Davidians fired 50-caliber rifles
capable of piercing the armor of
tanks.
House and Senate investigators are
poring over the documents, some of
which were not disclosed despite
previous exhaustive congressional
requests for detailed information
about the government's handling of
the siege near Waco.
They were discovered last month at
the headquarters of the FBI's hostage
rescue team in Quantico, Va.,
stacked in four boxes. They included
infrared videotapes shot during the
early hours of the FBI's April 19,
1993, tank-and-tear-gas assault on
the Davidian compound. FBI
officials had previously sworn in
court that such tapes did not exist.
FBI officials said that the boxes -
containing notes, sketches, cartoons,
personnel rosters, interview reports
and other information - were
overlooked when bureau officials
responded to previous inquiries or
were not specifically sought by
congressional investigators.
They came to light last month after a
former senior FBI official
acknowledged for the first time that
the hostage rescue team had fired
military tear gas on April 19. That
reversed six years of government
denials that anything capable of
sparking fires had been used in the
final assault.
Attorney General Janet Reno has
said she expressly banned the use of
any pyrotechnic devices in the
tear-gas operation.
The compound caught fire that day,
six hours after FBI tanks began
inserting tear gas and dismantling the
wooden building in an attempt to
force the sect's surrender. Leader
David Koresh and more than 80
followers died. Arson investigators
later ruled that the fires were set by
compound occupants.
FBI officials maintain that they fired
only two military tear gas rounds,
aiming them at an area next to the
main compound hours before the fire
erupted.
The FBI documents kept secret for
years at Quantico indicate that agents
had at least 60 of the military gas
rounds, known as M-651 canisters,
near Waco.
FBI spokesman John Collingwood
said those devices and the
high-explosive rounds deployed in
FBI tanks during the siege are
standard equipment for all of the
bureau's SWAT teams as well as the
hostage rescue team.
Military records indicate that the FBI
obtained 250 of the high-explosive
rounds from nearby Fort Hood.
"This is part of their normal ammo
load," Mr. Collingwood said. "What
I'm confident of is that none were
used at any time during the entire
standoff."
Consulting military
The documents also suggest that the
FBI was consulting U.S. military
experts regularly during the standoff.
One undated document stated an
Army general with an extensive
special-operations background had
been given special permission to go
to Waco despite questions about the
military's authority to send him.
U.S. military special-operations
lawyers had previously ordered
Special Forces soldiers not to go to
Waco even to watch the botched
Feb. 28, 1993, raid that began the
standoff. Four agents from the
federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms died in a gunfight that
broke out as they tried to search the
compound and arrest Mr. Koresh on
weapons charges.
Federal law prohibits any military
involvement in domestic operations
against U.S. citizens without
authorization from the highest levels
of government.
"No auth. for Gen. Shoomaker [sic]
to go. Has been approved, but
approved by SEC DEF," the note on
stationery from an FBI commander
in Waco. "SEC DEF" is an
abbreviation for the secretary of
defense, then Les Aspin.
The general, Peter J. Schoomaker,
had once headed the Army's secret,
anti-terrorist Delta Force unit and
now is at U.S. Special Forces
Command at Macdill Air Force Base
in Florida. He was one of two senior
military special operations officers
who visited Waco during the standoff
and then attended FBI briefings with
the attorney general before she
approved the final tear gas plan.
Another undated, handwritten note
mentions that Delta Force
commandos and intelligence experts
should be "invited" to Waco, stating
"Delta commo/intel guys - helpful in
observation role."
A March 8 note states that a formal
assault or "ops plan" had been faxed
directly to the White House by FBI
tactical officials.
An FBI official in Washington said
that was done at the direction of
Assistant Attorney General Webster
Hubbell.
During 1995 congressional hearings,
Mr. Hubbell said he often consulted
with the White House counsel's
office about the standoff. He said
that the White House was not
involved in decision-making during
the FBI operation.
The compound fire ended a 51-day
siege in which the FBI's tactical
commanders steadily racheted up
pressure on the sect. In the final
weeks, agents disrupted the sect's
nights with loud noises and lights,
constantly circled their building with
armored vehicles and fired
flash-bang explosive devices at
anyone who ventured outside to
drive them back in their compound.
Chemical-use proposed
The documents - many marked
"secret" and "confidential" - indicate
that FBI agents considered and
rejected a number of even more
intensive tactics.
One undated, handwritten document
indicates that agents briefly
considered introducing a
foul-smelling, nausea-inducing
chemical known as ethyl mercaptan
or ethane thiol in the compound's
water supply.
Vapors from the chemical irritate
eyes and skin and can induce
headaches, and they would spread
each time someone turned on water
taps, according to a report from the
Texas Poison Control Center.
Center officials said the chemical has
caused death in rare cases. It is
sometimes used by law enforcement
to incapacitate subjects.
The FBI documents indicated that its
use was rejected against the Branch
Davidians because of the sect's
children. "Young and
smaller=worse/more serious," noted
one document bearing the name of
an ATF agent.
At one point during the siege, FBI
agents suspected that some reporters
at the scene might be monitoring law
enforcement cellular phone
conversations, according to the
documents. Justice Department
officials proposed infiltrating
reporters' ranks with undercover
officers to check that report. The
records include no indication that the
plan was carried out.
Records show the bureau's tactics at
the siege drew complaints from
compound neighbors. One FBI log
notes that a farmer near the
compound wanted the FBI to stop
blasting sounds of screaming and
dying rabbits because it was
disturbing his pregnant cattle.
Even after the standoff ended in
mass death, the newly disclosed FBI
documents indicate, FBI agents who
led the bureau's efforts in Waco and
Washington proposed rewarding
members of the hostage rescue team
with FBI medals.
One memo noted "there may be
reluctance to award such a high
number of shields of bravery, but the
discipline and courage which was
exhibited by the HRT for the
seven-week siege . . . cannot be
overstated."
The FBI Waco commanders also
proposed cash awards for the hostage
rescue team, its intelligence analysts
and its clerical staff.
The proposed awards were ultimately
rejected as inappropriate, an FBI
spokesman said.
�1999 The Dallas Morning News
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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