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Subject: Waco Article
From: ACUS10@waccvm.sps.mot.com (Mark Fuller)
WACO
by M. Pietrantoni
as printed in American Survival 12/93
The flaws and lies in the search warrant which the federal
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, BATF, attempted to execute at
the Branch Davidian compound are so numerous that it would take a book
length article to detail them all. Here are just three of the more
glaring examples of the flaws in the warrant:
The February 28 raid by the BATF upon the Mt. Carmel compound,
was in all senses a disaster. Six Branch Davidians and four BATF agents
died and an unknown number of BDs (including Koresh) and 15 agents were
wounded. Every aspect of the raid, from its planning to its execution
was a case study in how not to conduct such an operation.
From the New York Times, March 28, 1993, "Moments before the
trailers arrived at the compound, two Scout helicopters and one Apache
helicopter from Austin, filled with senior federal agents, circled
overhead."
This author has heard the actual tape, (it is much longer than
30 minutes) in its normal sequence. It is chilling to listen to, as
Koresh and later Wayne Martin speak to Lieutenant Larry Lynch of the
sheriffs office, amidst a cacophony of gunshots. Two portions of these
conversations are particularly interesting. The first is Koresh speaking
to Lynch;
Koresh: "No, no, no, no, no, let me tell you something. You see,
you brought a bunch of guys out here and you killed some of my children.
We told you we wanted to talk." Later in the conversation Koresh says to
Lynch: "Now we are willing and we've been willing all this time to sit
down with anybody." It turns out that Koresh, many months before had
indeed offered to let the BATF come into the compound to check out his
weapons.
Lynch: "OK let's resolve it. Let's resolve this Wayne, before
someone gets hurt. OK?...I'm trying to make contact with the persons
outside (referring to the BATF). OK?"
The Siege--Immediately after the fiasco of the BATF raid the FBI
was given control of operations at Mt. Carmel. For 51 days the FBI tried
using psychological warfare tactics against those inside. The first
thing they did was cut off the electricity, water and sewer service to
the compound. Of course this resulted in deteriorating sanitation
conditions inside. Even though it was the government that cut off these
services, both Attorney General Reno and President Clinton would later
cite the sanitary conditions as a prime reason for the FBI assault of
April 19. "The sanitation situation within the compound we were told was
beginning to deteriorate," said Reno. And from President Clinton; "The
children....being forced to live in unsanitary and unsafe
conditions,"--Liberty magazine, June 1993.
All the while, the FBI was holding daily press conferences,
assuring the public that they "would wait as long as necessary" and that
"time was on our (the FBI's) side."
And why would those inside need or want to escape? Because the
government had for six hours or more been pumping a virulent type of
teargas known as CS into the building. Yet according to an article
entitled "Mass Murder, American-Style" that appeared in the June 1993
issue of Liberty magazine: "We find that a week before the assault, the
FBI said that it would not use tear gas on the compound, because it
feared for the safety of the children. It had evidence that the adults
had gas masks but the children did not.'" However just seven days later,
"the FBI's operational plan was to pump in gas until the masks failed --
which would require eight hours of continuous gassing." Also of interest
is the fact that CS gas is to be banned for military use as of January
1994 under terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention. According to
Benjamin C. Garrett, director of the Chemical and Biological Arms
Control Institute, CS would have particularly impacted the children:
"The reaction would have intensified for the children" since "the
smaller you are the sooner you would feel response."
It has now been determined that most of the women and all of the
children fled to the underground concrete bunker to escape the CS gas.
The bunker was located underneath the lawn on the north side of the
compound, not underneath the building itself.
Dr. N.S. Pirwani the chief medical investigator has stated that
"21 of the BDs died of gunshot wounds but the rest died of smoke
inhalation and suffocation due to being buried in debris when the bunker
collapsed." What would cause a concrete bunker to collapse? The AJF
videotape shows a tank moving backwards and forwards over what is
described as the roof of that bunker before the fire in the compound
ever started.
The End or Just the Beginning-- Waco, coming as it did just months after
the government seige of Idaho recluce and racial separatist Randy
Weaver, may not be an isolated inci- dent. Are we seeing a pattern
established where the government will use the rubric of "gun control,"
"child abuse" or other allegations to attack law-abiding people it deems
undesirable?