25 years ago today, federal agents launched a military style attack on peaceful Texas residents who were suspected of having modified firearms.\u00a0 At a time when much of the media is in a frenzy in favor of gun control, the ATF raid on the Branch Davidians is a reminder of how armed bureaucrats will convert a right to regulate into a license to kill.<\/p>\n
ATF agents never rehearsed how to conduct a legal, non-violent search of the Davidians’ residence. Instead, it was “Showtime” – the code name for the raid – and ATF invited television crews to film their triumph against bad guys.\u00a0 Federal agents shot first, apparently awarding themselves a divine right to kill the dogs outside before charging into the house.<\/p>\n
With the profusion of politician calls for prohibiting semi-automatic weapons, Waco offers a somber reminder of how any such ban would be enforced.<\/p>\n
Following are a few pieces I did on Waco in 1995 , when some members of Congress briefly acted like they gave a damn about the carnage.<\/p>\n
******<\/p>\n
The New Republic<\/strong><\/p>\n MAY 15, 1995<\/p>\n HEADLINE: NOT SO WACKO<\/p>\n BYLINE: James Bovard James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994).<\/p>\n On last Sunday\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d when Lesley Stahl gingerly asked President Clinton if he had \u201cany second thoughts\u201d about the raid at Waco, he didn\u2019t hesitate. \u201cBefore that raid was carried out,\u201d Clinton fumed, \u201cthose people murdered a bunch of innocent law enforcement officials \u2026 and when that raid occurred it was the people who ran that cult compound who murdered their own children, not the federal officials. They made the decision to destroy all the children that were there.\u201d You don\u2019t have to sympathize with those seeking vengeance for the raid, though, to recognize that some second thoughts are in order.<\/p>\n Start with last year\u2019s trial in which a jury found five of eleven surviving Branch Davidians guilty of manslaughter (not, as Clinton said, murder) in the deaths of four agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The bureau claimed it had a video proving that the Davidians fired first during the ATF\u2019s February 28, 1993, raid. Yet it never produced the video at the trial, and Rolland Ballestros, one of the first ATF agents out of the cattle trucks, told Texas Rangers and Waco police shortly after the raid that he thought the first shots came from agents aiming at the Davidians\u2019 dogs. Besides, as Robert Cancro, chairman of the psychiatry department at the New York University Medical Center, commented in the Justice Department\u2019s report on the Waco operation: \u201cCertainly an armed assault by 100 agents had to be seen as an attack independent of who fired the first shot\u2026. The law does not usually allow the potential attacker to fire first before a response can be called self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n Nor is it clear that the government should be absolved of blame for the fires in which eighty-one Branch Davidians died. The fires could, as the Justice Department claims, have been started by the Branch Davidians themselves, but many doubts remain. Federal officials have insisted that the CS gas (a potent form of tear gas) they lobbed into the Davidian compound was nonflammable. But according to U.S. Army manuals, there is a significant risk of inflammability from CS gas particulates. One U.S. Army Field Manual offers the following warning: \u201d When using the dry agent CS1, do not discharge indoors. Accumulating dust may explode when exposed to spark or open flame.\u201d FBI officials testified after the April 19 fire that agents had thrown flash bang grenades\u2013which can easily set off fires\u2013into the compound during the gassing operation.<\/p>\n Federal officials also misrepresented the potential effects of the CS gas on the Davidians. A 1975 U.S. Army publication on the effects of CS gas notes, \u201cGenerally, persons reacting to CS are incapable of executing organized and concerted actions and excessive exposure to CS may make them incapable of vacating the area.\u201d According to Attorney General Janet Reno, the FBI hoped that pumping the gas into the compound would force people to flee outdoors. In fact, the gas itself may have prevented people from escaping.<\/p>\n Harvard University professor of law and psychiatry Alan Stone was one of the experts brought in by the Justice Department in 1993 to evaluate the agency\u2019s action at Waco. In a recent interview, Stone observed, \u201cSome of the government\u2019s actions may have killed people before the fire started. I cannot tell whether the tanks knocked down places where people were already. I don\u2019t know if there were people in there crushed by the collapsing building as a result of FBI tanks plowing into the structure before the fire started.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither the ATF nor the FBI has made any apologies for their actions at Waco. Indeed, the ATF recently rehired two agents (with back pay) who were fired for lying about whether they knew that Koresh was expecting the initial ATF raid; the agents ordered the raid to proceed even after they were informed that Koresh was expecting an attack. James Jorgensen of the National Association of Treasury Agents denounced the rehiring last February: \u201cThis most recent callous action by the government is disgraceful. It defiles the memory of the brave ATF agents who gave their lives doing their duty.\u201d<\/p>\n All of this adds up to reason for skepticism about the federal government\u2019s version of what happened at Waco. It\u2019s not only right-wing lunatics who have such doubts. A Treasury Department report written by outside experts and issued in September 1993 found \u201cdisturbing evidence of flawed decision making, inadequate intelligence gathering, miscommunication, supervisory failures, and deliberately misleading post-raid statements about the raid and the raid plan by certain ATF supervisors.\u201d After the Justice Department issued its own considerably more favorable report on the FBI\u2019s performance at Waco (it repeatedly praised the agency for \u201cremarkable restraint\u201d during its gassing operation), The New York Times published an editorial called, \u201cthe waco whitewash.\u201d Even Justice Department investigators could find no evidence for the Yet the Clinton administration and some members of Congress, such as Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, have been adamantly opposed to any oversight hearings on the Waco raid. Last Saturday Schumer denounced one such hearing scheduled for next month: \u201cWe know what that was all about. That was an attack on the ATF. This planned hearing was simply some red meat to some of those extreme right forces.\u201d During the 1960s, conservative members of Congress reacted similarly to proposed oversight hearings on FBI abuses. Unfortunately, some liberals are now picking up the mantle.<\/p>\n ******************** The Senate voted 74 to 23 last Thursday to indefinitely postpone Attorney General Janet Reno declared on May 5: \u201cThere is much to be Here are some of the issues that members of Congress must examine on \u2013 Regarding the Feb. 28, 1993, attack on the compound by 100 Bureau \u2013 Regarding the April 19, 1993, final FBI assault on the Davidians: \u2013 Did any of the government tank incursions at Waco kill innocent \u2013 What effect did the CS gas pumped into the compound for six hours \u2013 What did the FBI hope to accomplish by gassing the Davidians? FBI \u2013 What role might the government have had in starting or spreading \u2013 Congress should force the Justice Department and FBI to make Ms. Reno told federal law enforcement officers on May 5 that the As the New York Times reported: \u201cDefense lawyer Mike DeGeurin \u2013 Why does Janet Reno keep changing her rationale for the \u2013 How did Janet Reno lose 16 machine guns? The major justification \u2013 Why are President Clinton and Ms. Reno misrepresenting the jury Mr. Clinton declared on April 23, \u201cThis is a freedom-loving democracy \u2014 Mr. Bovard is the author of \u201cLost Rights: The Destruction of American *****<\/p>\n Finally \u2013 an article that came out the day after the congressional hearings ended. I was astounded that Janet Reno\u2019s \u201crent-a-tank\u201d comment did not prove inflammatory. But the Washington media covered for Big Janet \u2013 as it always did.<\/p>\n ******************************<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n Wednesday, August 2, 1995 The Waco hearings, which ended yesterday with testimony by Attorney General Janet Reno, were marked by administration obfuscation, Democratic pettifogging and far too much feeble, half-hearted questioning from Republicans. But enough new information has come out to make mincemeat of the Clinton administration\u2019s Waco story.<\/p>\n Within 36 hours after the Feb. 28, 1993, initial assault on the Branch Davidian compound, the federal government abandoned routine law enforcement to avoid gathering evidence that might embarrass the government. A Sept. 17, 1993, Treasury Department confidential memo to Assistant Treasury Secretary Ronald Noble stated that on March 1, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms initiated a shooting review and \u201cimmediately determined that these stories [of agents involved] did not add up.\u201d Justice Department attorney Bill Johnston \u201cat this point advised [ATF supervisor Dan] Hartnett to stop the ATF shooting review because ATF was creating\u201d exculpatory material that might undermine the government prosecution of the Davidians.<\/p>\n The coverup continued on April 14, 1993. That day, the Treasury Department assistant general counsel, Robert McNamara, sent a memo to several top-ranking Treasury officials stating that the Justice Department \u201cdoes not want Treasury to conduct any interviews or have discussions with any of the participants who may be potential witnesses\u201d because of fear of creating exculpatory material. The memo noted, \u201cWhile we may be able to wait for some of [the witnesses] to have testified in the criminal trial, the passage of time will dim memories.\u201d<\/p>\n The Justice Department also warned the Treasury Department not to contact outside experts to analyze the original raid: \u201cDOJ does not want us to generate gratuitous \u2018expert witness\u2019 materials; the prosecutors are concerned that these people won\u2019t have all the facts upon which to base a thoughtful opinion and could play into defense hands.\u201d<\/p>\n Regarding the FBI\u2019s April 19, 1993, gassing of the Davidians, the Justice Department official report on Waco stressed that the FBI intended to gas the compound incrementally over a 48-hour period. A few minutes after the FBI gas attack began, the Davidians fired upon the tank that was injecting gas into the compound. The FBI, following its official plan, greatly accelerated its gassing \u2014 effectively injecting all the gas it planned to use over two days over a three-hour period.<\/p>\n While the official report portrayed the speed-up of the assault as a regrettable reaction to the Davidians\u2019 gun shots, FBI commander Jeffrey Jamar told the House committee that he believed before the final assault that the chances of the Davidians firing on the tanks was 99% \u2014 thus making the speedup of the gassing and subsequent demolition a virtual certainty.<\/p>\n Congressional Democrats, who spent the first days of the hearings denouncing David Koresh for child abuse, strove mightily to claim that the CS gas the FBI used on the 21 children and 60-plus adults at Waco was as innocuous as a Flintstone vitamin. But Bill Marcus, a senior science advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency, pointed out that the CS would effect children between eight and 20 times as harshly as it affected adults. Mr. Marcus observed: \u201cThe FBI failed to read and follow the label directions\u201d on the CS gas and the methylene chloride that agents mixed it with.<\/p>\n Regarding the methylene chloride that the FBI inserted into the compound, former ATF fire expert Rick Sherrow testified, \u201cThe Dow Chemical Corporation Materials Safety Data Sheet specifically states that this chemical forms flammable vapor air mixtures [and] \u2018[i]n confined or poorly ventilated areas, vapors can readily accumulate and cause unconsciousness and death.\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n Rep. John Mica (R., Fla.) observed that even if the children didn\u2019t die directly from the CS gas, \u201cwe sure as hell tortured them for six hours before they died.\u201d<\/p>\n The briefing book the FBI gave Attorney General Reno on April 12, 1993, contained false information on the effects of the CS gas. The document stated, \u201cExperience with the effects of CS on children including infants has been extensively investigated. Available reports indicate that, even in high concentrations or enclosed areas, long term complications from CS exposures is extremely rare.\u201d However, Defense Department toxicologist Harry Shaw testified that only two studies were available on the effects on children. One study showed that an infant exposed to CS for a few hours had to be hospitalized for 28 days; the FBI intended to gas the children in the Waco compound for 48 hours.<\/p>\n Rep. John Shadegg (R., Ariz.) made a painfully short presentation on July 28 showing the massive portions of the Davidian compound destroyed by FBI tanks before the fire began. Under vigorous questioning, the FBI\u2019s Floyd Clarke admitted, \u201cThe destruction of the building was part of the ultimate plan which was included\u201d in the briefing book given to Attorney General Reno on April 12. Yet, though FBI officials admitted that they were far along in the process of destroying the building before the fire started, the official FBI statement to the hearing still bragged, \u201cThe FBI agents demonstrated remarkable restraint and did not fire a single shot during the entire standoff.\u201d<\/p>\n And, while Mr. Clarke stated that the assault was intended to destroy the compound, former FBI commander Jamar insisted: \u201cThe intent was to hopefully get their attention to where they would engage in serious negotiations.\u201d Destroying their home was an excellent means of getting the Davidians\u2019 attention but was not the kind of good-faith gesture that could have advanced negotiations.<\/p>\n The highlight of Attorney General Reno\u2019s testimony yesterday was her assertion that the 54-ton tank that smashed through the Davidian compound should not be considered a military vehicle \u2014 instead it was just \u201clike a good rent-a-car.\u201d Such an observation does not inspire confidence in the Justice Department\u2019s moderation in its future operation.<\/p>\n The evidence of a coverup and gross federal misconduct is far stronger in the Waco hearings than in the Whitewater investigation. The Republican leadership in Congress should seize upon the recent revelations to demand a special counsel to be appointed to investigate possible federal crimes and coverups regarding Waco. 25 years ago today, federal agents launched a military style attack on peaceful Texas residents who were suspected of having modified firearms.\u00a0 At a time when much of the media is in a frenzy in favor of gun control, the ATF raid on the Branch Davidians is a reminder of how armed bureaucrats will convert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[891,1300,349,47,102],"class_list":["post-11793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atf","tag-branch-davidians","tag-coverup","tag-fbi","tag-waco"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nrationale that Reno invoked for the FBI\u2019s final assault: the need to use gas and tanks to prevent Koresh from abusing children.<\/p>\n
\nThe Wall Street Journal <\/em>
\nMonday, May 15, 1995
\nWaco Must Get a Hearing
\n<\/strong>By James Bovard<\/p>\n
\nhearings on federal government actions in Waco, Texas, in 1993 and in
\nthe Ruby Ridge, Idaho (Randy Weaver) case in 1992. Sen. Arlen Specter
\nhad urged the Senate to set a specific deadline for the hearings. But
\nSen. Orrin Hatch, the Judiciary Committee chairman, declared that any
\nhearings on Waco should be postponed until after the Oklahoma City
\nbombers have been caught, tried and punished \u2014 which could take several
\nyears. This is a grave error.<\/p>\n
\nangry about when we talk about Waco \u2014 and the government\u2019s conduct is
\nnot the reason. David Koresh is the reason.\u201d But public opinion polls
\nshow that approval of the government\u2019s action at Waco is plummeting \u2013
\ndown from 80% just after the final assault in April 1993 to barely 40%
\nnow. There can be no justification for the terrorist attack last month
\nin Oklahoma City; but likewise there is no justification for delaying
\nasking serious questions about government misconduct. House Speaker Newt
\nGingrich announced Thursday that the House would be having thorough
\nhearings on both cases by August, but no specific dates have been set.
\nThe longer hearings are postponed, the greater the danger that the FBI
\nwill repeat the same tragic mistakes that preceded scores of deaths at
\nWaco.<\/p>\n
\nWaco:<\/p>\n
\nof Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents: Who shot first? Rolland
\nBallesteros, one of the first ATF agents out of the cattle trailer that
\nmorning, told Texas Rangers investigating the case that the first shots
\ncame from agents shooting the dogs. (He recanted at the Davidian trial
\nlast year, insisting instead that the Davidians shot first.) The ATF
\nclaimed to have a video proving that the Davidians shot first, but
\nrefused to make it public. Congress should require all ATF videotapes of
\nthe initial battle to be made public.<\/p>\n
\nWhen and why did the FBI decide to demolish the compound with its tanks?
\nEven before the fire started, roughly 20% of the compound had collapsed
\nas a result of tank incursions. Amazingly, despite graphic videotapes of
\n54-ton FBI tanks smashing through the compound\u2019s walls, Ms. Reno
\ndeclared this past April 30: \u201cWe didn\u2019t attack. We tried to exercise
\nevery restraint possible to avoid violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nwomen or children? Attorney General Reno declared on May 5, \u201cIt is
\nunfair, it is unreasonable, it is a lie, to spread the poison that the
\ngovernment was responsible at Waco for the murder of innocents.\u201d
\nHowever, Harvard Prof. Alan Stone, one of the outside experts the
\nJustice Department brought in, concluded: \u201cSome of the government\u2019s
\nactions may have killed people before the fire started. I cannot tell
\nwhether the tanks knocked down places where people were already. I don\u2019t
\nknow if there were people in there crushed by the collapsing building
\n[as a result of FBI tanks plowing into the structure] before the fire
\nstarted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nhave on the women and children? While Reno recently characterized the
\ngas as a mere \u201cirritant,\u201d Technology Review noted in October 1988 that
\nCS gas is far more potent than another widely used tear gas. CS gas can
\nkill: United Nation officials estimated that the use of CS gas resulted
\nin 44 fatalities in the Gaza Strip in 1988, as well as more than 1,200
\ninjuries and numerous miscarriages.<\/p>\n
\nDeputy Director Floyd Clarke told Congress nine days after the fire that
\nthe FBI\u2019s plan was to \u201cimmediately and totally immerse the place in gas,
\nand throw in flash-bangs which would disorient them and cause people to
\n. . . think, if not rationally, at least instinctively, and perhaps give
\nthem a way to come out.\u201d Flash-bang grenades temporarily blind people
\nand, according to a U.S. Army Field Manual, \u201cGenerally, persons reacting
\nto CS are incapable of executing organized and concerted actions and
\nexcessive exposure to CS may make them incapable of vacating the area.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nthe fires in the compound? Federal officials after the fire insisted
\nthat the CS gas was nonflammable. But, according to U.S. Army manuals,
\nthere is a significant risk of flammability from the CS gas
\nparticulates. U.S. Army Field Manual FM-21-27 states: \u201cWarning: when
\nusing the dry agent CS-1, do not discharge indoors. Accumulating dust
\nmay explode when exposed to spark or open flame.\u201d Retired Army Col. Rex
\nApplegate, one of the nation\u2019s foremost experts on riot control agents,
\ndeclared in a recent interview, \u201cAny flash bang will start fires.\u201d<\/p>\n
\npublic all audio tapes from inside the compound at Waco and all
\ncommunications tapes between the tank operators and their commanders.<\/p>\n
\nDavidians\u2019 \u201cwords were recorded while they were spreading the fuels to
\nignite the fire.\u201d However, controversy exists over the audio tapes from
\ninside the compound. At the trial last year, prosecutors presented a
\ntranscript of tapes made from electronic listening devices inside the
\ncompound, claiming that the tapes showed a Davidian suicide scheme. However, after challenges from defense attorneys, the government\u2019s audio
\nexpert conceded that he altered the transcripts after meeting with
\nJustice Department officials.<\/p>\n
\ndemonstrated that more than 100 hours of FBI tapes from the compound had
\nbeen reduced to an hour of excerpts by the prosecution\u2019s audio expert.
\n\u2018We didn\u2019t hear things today from the earlier transcripts, such as
\npeople praying as tanks were bashing in their homes, or children calling
\nfor their parents.\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n
\ngovernment\u2019s final assault at Waco? Immediately after the fire, she
\njustified the assault as needed to stop David Koresh from beating
\nbabies. (The FBI later admitted that it had no information to indicate
\nthat such accusations against Koresh were valid.) But on May 5 of this
\nyear Ms. Reno announced that the \u201cfirst and foremost\u201d reason for the
\ntank\/gas assault was that \u201claw-enforcement agents on the ground
\nconcluded that the perimeter had become unstable and posed a risk both
\nto them and to the surrounding homes and farms. Individuals sympathetic
\nto Koresh were threatening to take matters into their own hands to end
\nthe stalemate [and] were at various times reportedly on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nfor the initial ATF raid was the allegation that the Davidians illegally
\npossessed machine guns. At the trial last year, the Justice Department
\nclaimed that 48 machine guns were found at the Davidian compound after
\nthe fire. Defense experts were prohibited from examining the weapons to
\nsee if they had been tampered with by the government, as happened in at
\nleast one other high-profile federal court case in recent years. On May
\n5, Ms. Reno said that the Davidians had only 32 machine guns. At this
\nrate, all the alleged machine guns will vanish by 1997.<\/p>\n
\nverdict as a vindication for the government? The jury verdict was
\ncorrectly characterized by the New York Times as a \u201cstunning defeat\u201d for
\nthe federal government; a Los Angeles Times headline declared, \u201cOutcome
\nIndicates Jurors Placed Most Blame on the Government.\u201d Bill Johnston,
\nthe lead federal attorney at Waco, burst into tears in bitter
\ndisappointment at the verdict. The defendants received relatively light
\nsentences \u2014 until the Justice Department subsequently arm-twisted the
\njudge into reinstating charges that he had originally dismissed after
\nthe jury verdict.<\/p>\n
\nbecause the rule of law has reigned for over 200 years now.\u201d The
\nfoundation of the rule of law is that government officials must obey the
\nsame laws as private citizens. The ghosts of Waco will continue to haunt
\nthe U.S. government until the truth is told about what the government
\ndid and why.<\/p>\n
\nLiberty\u201d (St. Martin\u2019s Press).<\/p>\n
\nHearings Show Waco Defense is Wacky
\nBy James Bovard<\/p>\n
\n****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"