General Wesley
Clark was involved in the siege and final assault near Waco, Texas that
killed, by a combination of toxic gas and fire, at least 82 people
including some three dozen women, children and infants. As outlandish as
this claim may seem, it's a reasonable conclusion that can be drawn by
any fair minded person who takes the time to examine the evidence.
Further, there is substantial circumstantial evidence that, Clark, in
addition to acting as a tactical consultant, may, in fact, have been the
prime architect and commander of the entire operation.
If this is true,
why is it important? First, it represents a clear violation of US law.
The military is banned from involvement in the enforcement of US civil
law except under certain carefully defined circumstances. The incident
at Waco did not come even close to legally qualifying. Second, it casts
light on some of the more outrageous tactics used in the war against
Yugoslavia, in particular the bombing attacks on Yugoslavian news media,
essential life support services, and on civilians, the latter which were
sometimes, but not always, described as "accidents." Third, President
Clinton began the year with the statement that he is considering a
Pentagon proposal to create a new US military command,
commander-in-chief for the defense of the continental U.S., a first in
peace time and an alarming move for reasons described in "Bombing
'suspended' - and now, the future"
http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia/directory/61099a.html
One of the
officers most likely to receive this appointment would be, as the result
of his "success" in Yugoslavia, General Wesley K. Clark. Fourth, US
military leadership must be well aware of Clark's role in Waco, yet they
have rewarded him with significant promotions ever since. * The US
military was at Waco The initial reaction of virtually every person who
hears about Clark's involvement in the attack on the Mt. Carmel Center
of the Branch Davidians outside of Waco, Texas is surprise and/or
disbelief: "I thought it was an ATF/FBI operation that went wrong and
all the military did was lend a few tanks."
Let's start by
dispelling that myth. Here is the list of US military personnel and
equipment that the US Justice Department admits were used at Mt. Carmel:
"Military Personnel and Equipment - Personnel Active Duty Personnel - 15
Texas National Guard Personnel - 13 - Track vehicles Bradley fighting
vehicle (OMZ) - 9 Combat Engineer Vehicle (M728) - 5 Tank Retrieval
vehicle (M88) - 1 Abrams Tanks (M1A1) - 2 Source: Department of the
Treasury, Report of the Department of the Treasury on the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Investigation of Vernon Wayne Howell also
known as David Koresh, U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1993
If you'd like to see a photocopy of the original document, See below:
The Justice
Department list has some very important deliberate omissions as will
become clear later in the section on the final assault. * The real
command structure at Waco Since the recent bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia started, "NATO commanders" (i.e. General Wesley Clark) have
insisted that that NATO, not the UN, would be the commanding force in
Kosovo and everyone else, like the Russians, would have to submit to
NATO orders. Epic ineptitude on Clark's part may has thwarted NATO's
designs, but the lesson is of critical importance for understanding
Waco.
It is this: No
military commander "lends" 17 pieces of armor and 15 active service
personnel under his command to anybody, let alone the FBI or any other
law enforcement agency, willingly. The principle is very simple: my men,
my arms, my show. In a lawful operation, the command structure would
have been publicly announced, but since the involvement of the military
in Waco was entirely illegal and indefensible, it was necessary to paint
the situation as an FBI operation. The obviously substantial presence of
US military equipment used in the operation was dismissed as being
equivalent to a "rent a car" service.
The US news media
which received all of its information on Waco by dutifully attending FBI
press conference briefings and then repeating them uncritically
swallowed the "FBI in charge" story hook, line and sinker. Still not
convinced Waco was a military operation? There's more. * The key role of
the Fort Hood, Texas army base The military equipment and personnel used
at Waco came from the US Army base at Ft. Hood, Texas, headquarters of
III Corps. Here's an succinct account of the initial raid that caused
the standoff submitted by David T. Hardy, an attorney who battled to
force the government to release evidence in the case. Take special note
of the passages I've marked with *** "The incident originated in an
attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to serve search
and arrest warrants on a building, known to its residents as Mount
Carmel, located in a rural area a few miles outside of Waco, Texas.
The operation
required mustering approximately a hundred agents (flown in from sites
around the country), and who ***received military training*** at Ft.
Hood. They traveled in a convoy of sixty vehicles and were supported by
three National Guard helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft, ***with
armored vehicles in reserve***."(Archived)
http://www.indirect.com/www/dhardy/waco.html The personnel,
described as ATF employees, received military training at Ft. Hood in
preparation for the raid. Why? The reason is that the original charges
against the Branch Davidians included drug violations. On the strength
of these charges - which later were found to be absolutely false - the
ATF qualified to receive military training and other assistance for the
raid.
Given that the
training was customized for this particular raid, the assistance in all
likelihood included intelligence support. In other words, military
personnel looked
the
compound over, drew up attack plans, created a training program for the
ATF agents, and then, one would assume, were there on the day of the
raid - along with the local news cameras which had been tipped off in
advance - to watch the thing go down. (The Department of Justice reports
that the code word used to launch the raid was "Showtime.") Note too
that armored vehicles were held "in reserve" on the day of the raid as
well. There are at least two published local press photographs that show
armored military vehicles at and on their way to the Mt. Carmel center
on the very day of the raid.
There is another press photograph taken
the day after the raid which shows at least nine military vehicles
stationed at nearby Texas State Technical College which very soon after
the raid was completely taken over as a command center.
The presence of so much military owned
equipment on the scene, along with the
documented fact that the raid was
prepared for at Ft. Hood by military trainers seems to me to
be all the evidence needed
to show heavy military involvement preceding the initial raid. Perhaps
equally significant is the amount of dissembling that surrounded the
undeniable fact of pre-raid military involvement. For example, the
governor of Texas claimed to the press that she requested National Guard
presence after the raid. President Clinton was quoted as saying: "The
first thing I did after the
ATF agents were killed, once we knew that the FBI was going to go in,
was to ask that the military be consulted because of the quasi-military
nature of the conflict."
(Washington Times, April 24, 1993) Attorney
General Janet Reno attempted to explain away the "FBI" use of US Army
tanks as being equivalent to an innocuous "rent a car" arrangement.
The statements of these three
individuals obscure the simple fact that the military vehicles, and
personnel who operated and maintained them, were part of the initial
raid - and therefore in clear violation of US law. Also, government
statements relayed to the public by the US news media made much of the
fact that one of the tanks was operated by an FBI agent. It's
interesting to note that no reference was ever made to the operators of
the other 16 military vehicles used in the operation. * Showtime As I
mentioned earlier, the code word that launched the raid was "showtime."
The name of the operation itself, according to the aforementioned
Department of Justice report, was "Operation Trojan Horse."
Early in the siege, "Operation Trojan
Horse" became a popular destination for special forces officers both
from around the United States and from its closest ally, the UK. They
came to observe the effectiveness of various high tech devices and
tactics that were being tested against the Branch Davidians. Source:
London Sunday Times, March 21, 1993: "FBI brings out secret electronic
weapons as Waco Siege drags on" You can see a photocopy of the original
article at:
The raid was on February 28. The London
Times article ran on March 21. It's noteworthy that Waco became a focus
for US and UK special forces officers so quickly. The 3/21 London Times
report states that "observer teams from the American Delta Force and
British SAS have *already* visited Waco." (Emphasis mine.) Organizing
groups of officers to make a field trip normally takes far more lead
time than a couple of weeks. This is the military, not a group of
freewheeling bohemians who can pile in a van and travel across the
country, or the globe, on a whim. Yet, there they were, with plane and
hotel reservations, briefings, tours and the like, all arranged. Such
organization implies pre-planning or at least very strong pre-existing
relationships with Delta Force and SAS on the part of the officer in
charge. It would have taken an officer with unusual connections and
motivations to pull off this level of "show and tell."
By the way, the notion that Delta Force
and SAS officers would make such a trip to observe the *FBI* using
various secret high tech warfare devices is laughable. Who in the FBI
would know how to operate them? In any event, the equipment and tactics
used came from the military, not any law enforcement agency. In reality,
the FBI was not in charge of the Waco siege. Its role instead was
twofold: 1) to keep up fruitless negotiations with the Branch Davidians
and 2) to act as the front for the real operation which was under
military command and therefore entirely illegal. * Cold blooded murder
Based on the claim that Branch Davidian leader David Koresh was abusing
the children in the compound - a lie according to survivors - and
sympathy for the "tired" FBI agents, Attorney General Janet Reno signed
off on the plan for the final assault which resulted in the death by
toxic gas and fire of over 80 civilians.
Who presented the plan to her? An
article in CounterPunch relates the essential facts: "Two senior Army
officers subsequently travelled to a crucial April 14 meeting in
Washington, D.C. with Attorney General Janet Reno and Justice Department
and FBI officials in which the impending April 19 attack on the compound
was reviewed. The 186-page "Investigation into the Activities of Federal
Law Enforcement Agencies Towards the Branch Davidians", prepared by the
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and lodged in 1996 (CR 104
749) does not name these two officers..."
Was Clark at Waco?
On February 28, 1993 the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms launched its disastrous and
lethal raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas. Even
before the raid, members of the US Armed Forces, many of them in
civilian dress, were around the compound.
In the wake of the Feb
28 debacle Texas governor Anne Richards asked to consult with
knowledgeable military personnel. Her request went to the US Army base
at Fort Hood, where the commanding officer of the US Army's III corps
referred her to the Cavalry Division of the III Corps, whose commander
at the time was Wesley Clark. Subsequent congressional enquiry records
that Richards met with Wesley Clark's number two, the assistant division
commander, who advised her on military equipment that might be used in a
subsequent raid. Clark's man, at Richard's request, also met with the
head of the Texas National Guard.
Two senior Army officers
subsequently traveled to a crucial April 14 meeting in Washington, D.C.
with Attorney General Janet Reno and Justice Department and FBI
officials in which the impending April 19 attack on the compound was
reviewed. The 186-page "Investigation into the Activities of Federal Law
Enforcement Agencies Towards the Branch Davidians", prepared by the
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and lodged in 1996 (CR 104
749) does not name these two officers and at deadline CounterPunch
has so far been unable to unearth them. One of these officers had
reconnoitered the Branch Davidian compound a day earlier, on April 13.
During the Justice Dept. meeting one of the officers told Reno that if
the military had been called in to end a barricade situation as part of
a military operation in a foreign country, it would focus its efforts on
"taking out" the leader of the operation.
Ultimately tanks
from Fort Hood were used in the final catastrophic assault on the Branch
Davidian compound on April 19. Certainly the Waco onslaught bears
characteristics typical of Gen. Wesley Clark: the eagerness to take out
the leader (viz., the Clark-ordered bombing of Milosevich's private
residence); the utter disregard for the lives of innocent men, women and
children; the arrogant miscalculations about the effects of force;
disregard for law, whether of the Posse Comitatus Act governing military
actions within the United States or, abroad, the purview of the
Nuremberg laws on war crimes and attacks on civilians.
From the sound of
this, it appears clear that the final solution to the growing political
problem of Waco came directly from the US military. How odd if, in fact,
Waco was an FBI operation. * The final solution The final assault on the
Mt. Carmel complex occurred in three stages: 1) armored military
vehicles punched holes in both ends of the main building of the complex,
2) "crowd control" gas was sprayed in, and 3) a fire started which
destroyed the complex Witnesses expected that the gas would drive the
inhabitants out. Instead, no one came out and the complex was engulfed
in fire. Why didn't the residents come out?
The cover story as
related by the FBI and the Department of Justice is that the Branch
Davidians killed their own children and then themselves and
simultaneously set the complex on fire rather than surrender. There is
no forensic evidence to support this claim. Here's what a Failure
Analysis Associates' study found about the nature of the "crowd control"
gas that was used: "1. The first assault started at approximately 6:00
A.M. .... CS concentrations in the rooms directly injected by the M5
delivery alone ranged from 2 to 90 times that required to deter trained
soldiers. Methylene chloride concentrations in the rooms directly
injected by gas were as high as 1.8 times the IDLH (Immediately
Dangerous to Life and Health) concentration and nearly to the
concentration that would render a person unconscious. 2. The
second assault started at approximately 7:30 A.M. CS concentrations in
the rooms directly injected by gas from M5 delivery alone ranged from
2 to 80 times that required to deter trained soldiers. Methylene chloride
concentrations ... were as high as 1.6 times the IDLH...."
All in all, nearly 400 gas filled projectiles were fired into
the building, and CS was sprayed from four tank rack dispensers on
the armored vehicles. As Failure Analysis Associates concluded in
it report, this was the most intensive use of crowd control chemicals
in the history of the United States. Methylene chloride is even more
dangerous than CS--and five pounds of MeCl were injected for every
ounce of CS. MeCl is an industrial solvent, with powerful anesthetic
properties. It was once used as paint remover before being banned
for that purpose for being too dangerous to handle. Both gases are
flammable. In other words, the gases used and the quantities they
were used in were sufficient to kill many of the inhabitants on contact,
especially the young children, and would have been more or less capable
of instantly incapacitating the rest. Finally, there is the issue
of the fire which destroyed most of the evidence. Edward Allard,
a leading expert in FLIR (forward looking infrared recorder) stated
his conclusions in a court document after reviewing the official
FLIR footage of the final assault: "11. At 12:08:32, the FLIR
depicts events at the rear of the building, where the large "gymnasium" structure
has largely been demolished.
Two very bright thermal flashes are visible near to or in
the window at the center, in front of and to one side of the (armored
vehicle) which is stopped there. I see no natural explanation for
these flashes. They would not, for instance, be reflections of sunlight
off glass... I declare under penalty of perjury that the above is
true and correct."
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/clark.htm
Clark
tanks used in Waco siege
Democrat candidate's role in attack on Branch Davidians questioned
