Posted on 01/16/2002 11:04:13 PM PST by JohnHuang2
A small group of senators is set to take a fresh look at materials that cast doubt on former special counsel John Danforth's conclusion that FBI agents did not fire on Branch Davidians who were fleeing their burning Mount Carmel complex outside of Waco, Texas, nearly nine years ago.
A spokesman in the Tempe, Ariz., office of Republican Sen. John McCain confirmed that he has been given "a tape" as well as a summation of findings "submitted by another individual" that refute Danforth's November 2000 report, where the former Missouri senator concluded "with complete certainty that the government did not direct gunfire at the Branch Davidian complex. ..."
Tom McCanna, an aide to McCain, told WorldNetDaily that he is currently examining the materials.
"I'm just now finishing up my review of the tape and this document, and I'm going to send it up to Washington [D.C.] within the next few weeks," he said.
When asked about McCain's plans for the materials, McCanna quickly said, "No one has decided to do anything. They don't even know anything about this. This is all premature," he added, noting that even his boss didn't know he was looking at the materials. "They will figure out where they need to go with it."
Without naming names, McCanna said, "There are other senators looking at" the materials as well.
One source familiar with the events said the renewed interest in Danforth's conclusions could be related to reforming an FBI hurt by years of scandals.
"This is all being done in the context of renewed interest in cleaning up the FBI," said the source, who asked not to be identified.
Danforth was assigned by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in 1999 to take one final look at allegations that FBI agents shot at fleeing Davidians. As part of that effort, he staged a recreation of the assault in March 2000 at Fort Hood, Texas.
One of his mandates was to see if flashes of light picked up by an aircraft-mounted FBI infrared camera during the final assault in 1993 were agents firing their weapons at fleeing Davidians.
Infrared and weapons experts who saw the tape identified the flashes as gunfire, but the government has long maintained the flashes, called "glint," were reflections of sunlight off debris.
After the fire, government officials said some of the 80-plus Davidians who burned to death were found with gunshot wounds to their heads. The FBI maintained that some Davidians committed suicide or were shot by other members of the group.
When he issued his final report in November 2000, Danforth backed the FBI, noting that his recreation proved "that the government did not direct gunfire" at Davidians.
Said to be part of the materials currently under examination by McCain's office, WorldNetDaily has obtained a copy of a draft report criticizing Danforth's conclusions and recreation. The report, whose author requests anonymity, also suggests that many of the conditions present at Waco in 1993 were not present in the March 2000 recreation.
"If considered individually, the numerous errors that riddle the [March 2000] Danforth 'Waco Recreation' might be consistent simply with massive incompetence," said the draft report. "But when all of these errors are considered cumulatively, it becomes much more difficult to accept the 'bumbling idiot' explanation."
The report goes on to say Danforth's conclusions that FBI agents did not fire at Davidians "is more suggestive of an intentionally rigged test, and thus of a continuing cover-up of the Waco tragedy by the very persons who were charged with finding the answers" to lingering questions.
Fatal flaws?
The firm Danforth employed to help stage the recreation and analyze FLIR – forward-looking infrared – videotape of staged gunfire "had never before been hired" for that task, the draft report said.
The company, Vector, of Great Britain, "is a wholly-controlled subsidiary of a firm (Anteon Inc.) which draws a majority of its income from contracts with the U.S. government, whose customers include the Justice Department and the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms)," the draft charged, and "was neither expert nor independent."
Those charges echo earlier ones made by Waco documentary filmmaker Michael McNulty and others in a series of exclusive WND reports last year, in which McNulty – citing his own findings as well as those of other experts – claimed that Danforth's test was rigged.
McNulty said Danforth's team used the wrong weapons and ammunition to stage the recreation and failed to adequately reproduce dust conditions, all of which combined to reduce gunfire signatures on Danforth's infrared tape when compared to the FBI's original.
"Determining whether the flashes were gunshots keyed to a large degree on determining the brightness, size and duration of gunshot flashes," the draft report stated. "The FBI riflemen at Waco were issued civilian ammunition. The Danforth 'recreation' protocol called for use of the same ammunition that [was] used at Waco. Instead, someone substituted military ammunition treated with a flash retardant composition. ..."
Also, the report said, FBI agents at Waco were carrying carbine versions of the M-16 rifle, but shooters in Danforth's recreation "were instead issued a standard M-16" with a longer barrel. Carbines tend to produce more flash, experts say.
Environmental conditions were also questioned.
"Dust is an important variable in a test of this type," the draft said. "Experiments have demonstrated that airborne dust greatly increases the size, intensity and duration of a gunshot flash as seen by a FLIR sensor."
Noting that conditions at Waco were "quite dusty," the draft report said Danforth's team took "exceptional measures ... to suppress dust" during the recreation, such as saturating the test area with water, then keeping it "covered with tarps until the test was ready to begin. ..."
"No explanation has ever been given for these measures," the report states.
McNulty, a court-sanctioned weapons expert, also told WND in the past that the flashes on the FBI infrared tape could not be sunlight "glint" because the "cyclic rate" of reflection is too rapid.
Danforth impartial?
Others have questioned whether Danforth was ever in a position to be impartial.
Appointed by President Bush to be special envoy to Sudan in September, Danforth also was recently asked by troubled Enron auditor Arthur Andersen, LLP "to conduct an immediate and comprehensive review of Andersen's records management policy and to recommend improvements," the Associated Press reported last week.
Also, at the time he was asked to re-examine Waco-related charges, Danforth was being considered as a running mate for George W. Bush. That lone fact, believes Mike Caddell, an attorney for surviving Branch Davidians, should have disqualified him.
"I think Danforth is a very ambitious person, and I always distrust someone who says they are not ambitious and yet seems to pursue ambitious goals," Caddell said.
"At the same time that he was claiming that he had no interest in political office, he was spending hours with Bush interviewing for the job of vice president."
Danforth's recreation was held in March 2000; by May, Bush was contemplating him as a running mate.
"He had his people working around the clock in May [2000] so he could get his report out and eliminate that as an obstacle to his becoming Bush's running mate," said Caddell. "When he issued that report, he believed he would become Bush's running mate."
Caddell said that alone doesn't prove that Danforth consciously covered up wrongdoing, "but does it mean that he dug as deeply as he could have?"
"It was easier for him, if he was to have any shot at becoming Bush's running mate, to not author a report that was going to be critical of the Justice Department and the FBI," Caddell said. "He could not go into a campaign with that cloud hanging over his ability to work with those people."
"At the same time he was examining the ethics and morals of the FBI and the Justice Department, he himself was compromised," he added. "Inevitably, no matter how moral a person you are, you cannot help but have that influence you. Were they going to issue a report that said that high FBI officials and lawyers with the Justice Department should be criminally prosecuted? No – and they didn't."
Recommendations
The draft report lists four recommendations for action to reverse what its authors believe were a series of "biases" in Danforth's recreation.
The authors recommend a new recreation be conducted "in Texas ... with non-federal family member[s] presiding." Also, any new recreation "must incorporation all of the principles illustrated in [McNulty's third documentary film] The F.L.I.R. Project, conform to a proper scientific protocol, and be observed by all concerned parties and the press."
Also, the results of any new recreation "must be published for any interested party to view freely," though authors did not list how or where results should be posted.
"Depending on the results," the authors said, "further investigations or criminal referrals may be warranted. ..."
Finally, the report suggested that "an appropriate congressional committee" investigate Danforth's recreation "and the firm which conducted it," with an eye toward disciplinary actions.
"A U.S. district court was induced, by Mr. Danforth's staff, to accept a supposedly impartial and expert firm as a witness for the court," the draft report said. "The firm was paid considerable sums for meeting a fixed protocol, and yet violated its most critical elements..."
"Offenses which may merit investigation," the draft continued, "include obstruction of justice, perjury, filing false information with federal agencies or departments, and violations of the False Claims Act."
Is "beginning an investigation" (your #27) the same as "planning a raid" (your #30)?
Just curious.
The 'out of control ATF' under x41 planned the raid. The same 'out of control ATF' under x42 executed it. It was still the same 'out of control' ATF under both administrations and no matter what there would have been a raid.
In other words it was the same out of control ATF under both administrations and while the outcomes would have been diffrent since the people calling the shots (Hillary and Web) were not the same... the plan would have still been carried out.
It is also still the same 'out of controll ATF' today as it was under both those administrations. The same people still work there. The new director Benton was appointed in 94 by Clinton has now been promoted to head the ATF by Bush.
My point is that while all these administrations may have executed things diffrently, the policy within the out of control ATF has been the same and still has not changed. Beck being the most recent example I can think of.
BATF is still "out of control."
Good, I thought we might be :-)
The only American politician I know of who sought justice on Waco was John Shadegg, Republican of Arizona. Both Bush' and Clinton are in full support of the murders at Waco.
During the congressional hearings John Shadegg was questioning Reno. He showed her video of the American tank moving forwards and backwards repeatedly, 17 times in total, for the purpose of demolishing a portion of the Branch Davidians' buildings. The portion destroyed was an addition that measured 45 ft by 45 ft. It was completely destroyed in a precision manner so that the attached buildings had minimal damage, but this 45' by 45' part was completely demolished. Shadegg asked Reno, 'why did they do this?' and Reno merely responded that it was 'inadvertent'. Shadegg forced her to respond over and over and over. She kept saying it was 'inadvertent'.
The american news media could've used that video and that exchange as well as so much other evidence to seek justice, they did not. The christians of Waco were simply murdered and our whole nation accepted it.
The only credible explanation I've read about why the government did it was given to us by the CIA official named Wilcher who was killed 6 weeks after he gave that explanation. Alamo-Girl has it on her web site. There is a document known as the Wilcher memo and I've read portions of it. Wilcher said the government believed that the Branch Davidians had some biological weaponry that they may use in a terrorist act. He also said that Koresh and others inside the Branch Davidians were subjects of mind control programs that had gone bad. Koresh was said to be a sleeper agent of the governemnt who didn't even know he was a sleeper agent, but he 'woke up' and remembered some things of what they'd done to him. They wanted him and everyone else dead to keep this mind control program secret. If they'd merely used the force necessary to seize the WMD's, then Koresh and others would've survived, then they might've talked. Wilcher said they didn't want that.
May god forgive us for accepting the Waco murders!!!
This says it all ...
Lest we forget ... an appropriate excerpt from Sen. Danforth's Interim report:
(a) FLIR Testing and Analysis.Virtually the only evidence cited by those claiming government agents fired shots into the complex on April 19, 1993, are the FLIR videos recorded by the FBI Nightstalker aircraft from approximately 10:42 a.m. to 12:41 p.m. on that day. In fact, however, this evidence strongly supports the conclusion that no employee of the United States fired a shot on April 19.
The FLIR tapes show 57 flashes, emanating principally from alleged Davidian positions inside or on top of the complex. Eighteen of the flashes occur on the back side of the complex, with some occurring around government vehicles that were operating near the complex. During the past three years, representatives of the Davidians and several independent experts retained by the media and Congress have concluded that gunfire could have caused or did cause these flashes. The FBI and its experts have claimed that the flashes are reflections or “glint” coming from debris scattered in and around the complex.
The Office of Special Counsel retained two teams of experts to analyze the FLIR tapes from April 19. Working with the United States District Court judge in the civil litigation brought by some of the Davidians and their families against the United States government, the Office of Special Counsel and its expert, Vector Data Systems (U.K.) Ltd., conducted a field test of FLIR technology at Fort Hood, Texas on March 19, 2000. The purpose of the test was to identify the thermal signature, if any, that gunfire and debris would leave on a FLIR recording. The Office of Special Counsel conducted the test under a protocol agreed to and signed by both the attorneys and experts for the government and the attorneys and experts for the Davidians and their families. The protocol identified the FLIR equipment, the weapons, and the other conditions that would best approximate the scene atWaco in 1993.
Based on a detailed analysis of the shape, duration and location of 57 flashes noted on the 1993 FLIR tapes, and a comparison of those flashes with flashes recorded on the March 2000 FLIR test tape, the expert retained by the Office of Special Counsel concluded with certainty that each of the flashes noted on the 1993 tapes resulted from a reflection off debris on or around the complex.
These conclusions are supported by color photographs which show the reflective debris at the exact location of many of the flashes noted on the 1993 tapes.
Lena Klasèn, a second independent expert retained by the Office of Special Counsel also concluded that thermal activity caused by human movement or motion did not exist near or around the area of the flashes noted on the FLIR tapes.
Moreover, she concluded that photographs show no people at the points from which the flashes emanated. After performing a relational analysis of the Nightstalker’s movement and sensor position, Klasèn, like Vector, has concluded that the flashes on the 1993 tapes were from debris. The FLIR test and the expert analyses prove conclusively that the FLIR tapes do not evidence gunfire directed at the Davidians from government positions.
Of that I have NO doubt. And he won't be alone.
But I won't hold my breath.
LOL - you share my enthusiasm. Actually, it's just McLame's True Conservatism fighting its way to the surface through the thick crust of liberal unconstitutionalist crud that covers him. By election time he'll look fully Conservative. Emphasis on the "Con" in "conservative."
What was assembled was a cast of hundreds consisting of every available misanthropic crackpot in every federal law enforcement agency backed up by snipers, helicopters, tanks, and attack-kooks dressed in ninja costumes. The people involved, most of whom had rote-programed wind-up toys for minds, had long since ceased contact with any sense of proportion or with the reality of the situation. They were at the stage of responding primarily to each other and hopping each other up like mentally dumbass high school kids on a wilding spree looking for excitement and thrills. They were drunked up on the exhilaration of power, license, and group dynamics. They went out with a killer mob mentality and equipped to act out a killer mentality. In their mindless giddy chance to attack and kill, there was no warrant present because real interest or intent in serving it had long sense been forgotten.
They stormed the Branch Davidian facility like an army of angry poisonous ants while taking the effort to shoot the Davidian dogs. I saw part of the news accounts of agents in black attack costumes trying to crash in through windows.
What converged on the Davidians was stark pure run amok evil.
The rest is well-known history. Bulldozers subsequently destroyed evidence of what happened. Video tapes documenting misconduct mysteriously became lost.
Essentially, what had happened is that a large group of government-licensed criminal psychotics had now formed their own private army and were acting out their bizarre fantasies upon American citizens.
Had I been president during the Waco siege I would have gone there personally with two companies of army Special Forces. Upon arrival I would have declared martial law. All federal personnel present would have been given to the count of twenty to throw down their weapons, raise their hands, and move quickly into a designated area. At the twenty count, anyone not over that line would have been shot. The count would have proceeded without hesitation. At that point all participants in the designated area would have been arrested for further processing by state authorities and the attorney general on crimes of attempted murder or other pertinent crimes. That's what should have been done if we had a president. Had that been done, there would have been no Oklahoma City Bombing.
Not having done that, what would it have taken to restore government order, reestablish principles of personal freedom, and prevent the Oklahoma City bombing? What was needed was a public presidential statement of the simple truth. The president should have gone on national television to declare an escalating wave of excesses and criminality was being conducted against the American people by elements within the government and that it was going to stop immediately, starting with full prosecution of all people recently committing such acts and continuing with full prosecution of any future acts. The current president should still do the same.
But America hasn't had a president since Reagan.
There must be maintenance of a sense of proportion throughout the legal and justice system. The legal reaction, and any law officer's personal reaction to a person or group should be in proportion to the threat that person poses to society and/or the physical threat a person poses to the law officer. That means unprovoked threat. People defending themselves from abuse or criminal acts against them is not to be considered social or personal threat. If there is no threat or serious problem involved, you leave the person alone. Anyone who can't understand and live by that shouldn't be in law enforcement as a primary officer, or in legal prosecution, or in the judiciary.
Trivialities vs. Sense of Proportion
I'm aware of a debate ploy, and a certain warped mentality, that looks for trivial infraction, abstracts it, then magnifies it through dramatizing it, and then rationalizes killing somebody over the equivalent of a parking meter expiration while theatrically decreeing they are protecting the rule of law. That is not law. It's madness.
Robert L. Kocher
http://www.zolatimes.com/V5.46/mcveigh10.html
Sammy Weaver came to find the dog screaming in pain and dragging itself by its front legs just before it died. Sammy fired a wild shot into the woods. One of the agents immediately shot him and nearly blew his arm off. When the now mortally wounded Sammy turned and started to run from the agents, one of them shot him in the back with a submachine gun to finish killing him.
Kevin Harris saw the dog being shot then saw Weaver's son get shot in the back as he ran. Harris fired off a quick shot in the direction of the still unidentified ambushers in self defense, and killed one of them.
The federal agents panicked and ran. In their calls for support they claimed they were being pinned down and fired at from multiple positions by what they called heavy weaponry. They presented themselves as poor misunderstood ambushed victims who had not returned fire.
In response, State and federal law enforcement authorities rapidly assembled a force of hundreds of eager armed personnel, better and more completely equipped and in higher aggressive spirits than any operation the U. S. conducted in Viet Nam—all to finish the job on two men, a woman, two kids, and an infant, confused and cowering in a plywood shack.
"Her head exploded like a ripe watermelon."
During the period between the federal agent's retreat and the gathering of a lunatic horde for a new assault, Harris, Randy Weaver, and his wife had taken Sammy's body to a near-by shed. When Harris, Randy, and his daughter, went to the shed the next evening for a farewell, they walked into a new federal ambush. Weaver was shot in the shoulder, Harris was wounded, and FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi killed Vicki Weaver with a shot to her head as she held her baby. At this point there is no real sense in going further into additional brutal detail.
Ruby Ridge was brazen premeditated murder built around purposely fabricated fraudulent justification. That's what the government agents came outfitted for and the opportunity they were hoping for. They seized whatever opportunity they could find to kill anything or anybody. What happened was that a group of severely mentally unbalanced federal officers had formed themselves into a rogue killer pack.
The Weavers were later given $3,100,000 in compensation for the wrongs committed at the siege. This constitutes implicit establishment of some vague condition of guilt by government agents or agencies. But it is not serious accountability. It's the same type of travesty as one witnessed when Bill Clinton or Janet Reno walked up before TV cameras to say they took full responsibility, then pranced off to a cocktail party somewhere. It's empty words to immobilize people and mark time while the intention is that nobody will pay a serious penalty.
WACO
Waco was one of the most wanton and vicious acts in American History. I look for a legal or justifying reason for it on the manifest level, and I can't find it. The Branch Davidians were another group of seclusionists with no intention of interacting with the outside world. They were a threat to themselves in the sense of wasting their lives in an involuted cult, but there is no indication they were a danger to the outside world. If left alone, they probably would have died out through slow decline in membership. There is asserted speculation, but poor evidence, that they were breaking laws. For dangerous people supposedly armed with everything short of nuclear missiles, they showed little capability during the confrontation with the government. Attempts to demonize the Davidians fall flat. They were basically unattractive withdrawn kooks who, again, weren't reasonably worth 15 minutes of the government's or anybody else's time.
Robert L. Kocher
We can also add they were citizens. They were humans. There were children burned to a crisp. Every time I hear references to Oklahoma's children, I think of Waco's children. But to the press, the left, and a majority of the right, those children at Waco weren't children. They were colateral damage.
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