-Caveat Lector-
SATURDAY AUGUST 28 1999
Reno planned final assault with Delta Force operatives Classified
documents, Special Forces sources show military warned her about use of CS
gas
By Betsy Gibson © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Contrary to public statements made in recent days, Attorney General Janet
Reno and FBI officials planned the final deadly assault on the Branch
Davidian church in Waco, Texas, with top officers of the Delta Force,
according to classified documents obtained through the Freedom of
Information Act and Special Forces sources.
The FBI actually requested that Special Forces Delta Force operatives
consult with them, be present on the scene and maintain equipment in
preparation for a resolution of the 1993 51-day standoff that resulted in a
fire that killed 80 civilians including many children, according to the
documents and a knowledgeable military source.
Despite this powerful evidence, as of yesterday an FBI spokesman, Tron
Brekke, was still telling the Dallas Morning News that he could not say
whether Delta Force might have actively assisted the FBI in any way in Waco
"because I don't think anybody knows. ... That's part of the reason that
the attorney general and the director are, in a very expeditious manner,
going to have 40 assistant inspectors and whoever is chosen to lead them
come down and find out definitively what did happen," he said. "I don't
know what was done or wasn't done down there."
Meanwhile, the documented information WorldNetDaily has obtained reveals
that not only did Reno actively seek involvement by Delta Force, but she
was warned at one meeting she attended with the FBI, Delta Force Colonel
John Boykin and Webster Hubbell that the use of CS tear gas would have a
variety of effects, one of which would be "Some people would panic, Quote:
"mothers may run off and leave infants."
The FBI's admission just days ago that pyrotechnic tear-gas canisters "may
have been used" was an abrupt reversal of a six-year denial that its agents
used anything capable of sparking a fire at the compound. The Delta Force
document detailing the Delta Force/Reno/FBI meeting notes that when Reno
asked Delta Force officers for their "assessment" of the plan, she was
told: "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. [name redacted] stated, "We can't grade your
paper," as a way of explaining our position."
A WorldNetDaily Special Forces source who analyzed this and other
statements says Delta Force was clearly uncomfortable with any association
with the FBI's plans at Waco.
In another section of the document, a Delta Force colonel writes: "My final
comments were that I believed that the HRT (Hostage Rescue Team) should
consider pulling their people off the target for a short period to retrain
and polish some of the perishable(WND: difficult to read, looks like
"perishable") skills. 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 this fight."
WorldNetDaily's source says he believes that statement shows again how
Delta Force cringed over getting involved at WACO, "I believe he (the Delta
Force colonel) meant that he didn't want to be directly involved in it, and
did not want to be dragged into it. Delta Force operators, and Task Force
160 operators continually cautioned the FBI against attempting an "open air
assault" on the target, and stated emphatically that they did not want to
be involved in firing on or assaulting American civilians, according to a
source. These official and unofficial comments went ignored and, in fact,
one Special Operations Officer was threatened with court-martial if he
continued to protest, the source said. At another point in the document,
Delta Force personnel explain to Reno that Special Forces encounters are
almost always militaristic and involve outright enemies who are often
heavily armed. Delta Force explains that in its standard modus operandi it
was, "The principles of surprise, speed and violence of action [that] were
essential to any operation. [redacted] stated that momentum should be
maintained and that ground gained should not be relinquished." A WND
military source says "violence of action" usually refers to killing the
"hostiles."
A former Special Forces commando says he spoke yesterday to a Delta Force
commando who was present at the final tear-gas assault on the Branch
Davidian compound. Keith Idema, who was a member of Special Forces and
Special Operations units from 1975 to 1992 and helped to train hostage
rescue team personnel for both Delta Force and the FBI, says pictures from
Waco released this week by the Texas Department of Public Safety have been
mistakenly identified by the department as gun silencers and suppressors
belonging to David Koresh and
