From: [r--ng--r] at [panix.com] () Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: WACO: Reprint of Wall Street Journal Editorial Dated 5/15/95 Date: 18 May 1995 23:34:46 -0400 This is a reprint of a Wall Steet Journal Editorial Dated 5/15/95 by James Bovard. This is your government at work! WACO MUST GET A HEARING By James Bovard The Senate voted 74 to 23 last Thursday to indefinitely postpone hearings on federal government actions in Waco, Texas, in 1993 and in the Ruby Ridge, Idaho (Randy Weaver) case in 1992. Sen. Arlen Specter had urged the Senate to set a specific deadline for the hearings. But Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Judiciary Committee Chairman, declared that any hearings on Waco should be postponed until after the Oklahoma City bombers have been caught, tried and punished-which could take several years. This is a grave error. Attorney General Janet Reno declared on May 5: "There is much to be angry about when we talk about Waco-and the government's conduct is not the reason. David Koresh is the reason." But public opinion polls show that approval of the government's action at Waco is plummeting-down from 80% just after the final assault in April 1993 to barely 40% now. There can be no justification for the terrorist attack last month in Oklahoma City; but likewise there is no justification for delaying asking serious questions about government misconduct. House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced Thursday that the House would be having thorough hearings on both cases by August, but no specific dates have been set. The longer hearings are postponed, the greater the danger that the FBI will repeat the same tragic mistakes that preceded scores of deaths at Waco. Here are some of the issues that members of Congress must examine on Waco: -Regarding the Feb. 28, 1993, attack on the compound by 100 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents: Who shot first? Rolland Ballesteros, one of the first ATF Agents out of the cattle trailer that morning, told Texas Rangers investigating the case that the first shots came from agents shooting the dogs. (He recanted at the Davidian trial last year, insisting instead that the Davidians shot first.) The ATF claimed to have a video proving that the Davidians shot first, but refused to make it public. Congress should require all ATF videotapes of the initial battle to be made public. -Regarding the April 19, 1993, final FBI assault on the Davidians: When and why did the FBI decide to demolish the compound with its tanks? Even before the fire started, roughly 20% of the compound had collapsed as a result of tank incursions. Amazingly, despite graphic videotapes of 54-ton FBI tanks smashing through the compound's walls, Ms. Reno declared this past April 30: "We didn't attack. We tried to exercise every restraint possible to avoid violence." -Did any of the government tank incursions at Waco kill innocent women or children? Attorney General Reno declared on May 5, "It is unfair, it is unreasonable,it is a lie, to spread the poison that the government was responsible at Waco for the murder of innocents." However, Harvard Professor Alan Stone, one of the outside experts the Justice Department brought in, concluded: "Some of the government's actions may have killed people before the fire started. I cannot tell whether the tanks knocked down places where people were already. I don't 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." -What effect did the CS gas pumped into the compound for six hours have on the women and children? While Reno recently characterized the gas as a mere "irritant," TECHNOLOGY REVIEW noted in October 1988 that CS gas is far more potent than another widely used tear gas. CS Gas can kill: United Nation officials estimated that the use of CS gas resulted in 44 fatalities in the Gaza Strip in 1988, as well as more than 1,200 injuries and numerous miscarriages. -What did the FBI hope to accomplish by gassing the Davidians? FBI Deputy Director Floyd Clarke told Congress nine days after the fire that the FBI's plan was to "immediately and totally immerse the place in gas, and throw in flash-bangs which would disorient them and cause people to...think, if not rationally, at least instinctively, and perhaps give them a way to come out." Flash-bang grenades temporarily blind people and, according to a U.S. Army Field Manual, "Generally, 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." -What role might the government have had in starting or spreading the fires in the compound? Federal officials after the fire insisted that the CS gas was nonflammable. But, according to U.S. Army manuals, there is a significant risk of flammability from the CS gas pariculates. U.S. Army Field Manual FM-21-27 states: "Warning: when using the dry agent CS-1, do not discharge indoors. Accumulating dust may explode when exposed to spark or open flame." Retired Army Col. Rex Applegate, one of the nation's foremost experts on riot control agents, declared in a recent interview, "Any flash bang will start fires." -Congress should force the Justice Department and FBI to make public all audio tapes from inside the compound at Waco and all communications tapes between the tank operators and their commanders. Ms. Reno told federal law enforcement officers on May 5 that the Davidians' "words were recorded while they were spreading the fuels to ignite the fire." However, controversy exists over the audio tapes from inside the compound. At the trial last year, prosecutors presented a transcript of tapes made from electronic listening devices inside the compound, claiming that the tapess showed a Davidian suicide scheme. However, after challenges from defense attorneys, the government's audio expert conceded that he altered the transcripts after meeting with Justice Department officials. As the New York Times reported: "DeGeurin demonstrated that more than 100 hours of FBI tapes from the compound had been reduced to an hour of excerpts by the prosecution's audio expert. 'We didn't hear things today from the earlier transcripts, such as people praying as tanks were bashing in their homes, or children calling for their parents.'" -Why does Janet Reno keep changing her rationale for the government's final assault at Waco? Immediately after the fire, she justified the assault as needed to stop David Koresh from beating babies. (The FBI later admitted that it had no information to indicate that such accusations against Koresh were valid.) But on May 5 of this year Ms. Reno announced that the "first and foremost" reason for the tank/gas assault was that "law-enforcement agents on the ground concluded that the perimeter had become unstable and posed a risk both to them and to surrounding homes and farms. Individuals sympathetic to Koresh were threatening to take matters into their own hands to end the stalemate [and] were at various times reportedly on the." -How did Janet Reno lose 16 machine guns? The major justification for the initial ATF raid was the allegation that the Davidians illegally possessed machine guns. At the trial last year, the Justice Department claimed that 48 machine guns were found at the Davidian compound after the fire. Defense experts were prohibited from examining the weapons to see if they had been tampered with by the government, as happened in a least one other high-profile federal court case in recent years. On May 5, Ms. Reno said that the Davidians had only 32 machine guns. At this rate, all the alleged machine guns will vanish by 1997. -Why are President Clinton and Ms. Reno misrepresenting the jury verdict as a vindication for the government? The jury verdict was correctly characterized by the New York Times as a "stunning defeat" for the federal government; a Los Angeles Times headline declared, "Outcome Indicates Jurors Placed Most Blame on the Government." Bill Johnston, the lead federal attorney at Waco, burst into tears in bitter disappointment at the verdict. The defendants received relatively light sentences-until the Justice Department subsequently arm twisted the judge into reinstating charges that he had originally dismissed, after the verdict. Mr. Clinton declared on April 23, "This is a freedom-loving democracy because the rule of law has reigned for over 200 years now." The foundation of the rule of law is that government officials must obey the same laws as private citizens. The ghosts of Waco will continue to haunt the U.S. Government until the truth is told about what the governement did and why. --------------------- Mr. Bovard is the author of "Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty" (St. Martin's Press). ---------------------