David Jennings <djenning at ai.uga.edu> wrote:
> Question: How reliable are the claims in the film? How reliable are
> the criticisms of it?
I think a lot of us would like to know the answer to that question. But judging from recent new disclosures, like the article below from today's New York Times, I think the only answer is that there isn't yet an objective record to check competing claims against.
Michael
September 5, 1999
Documents on Waco Point to a Close Commando Role
By PHILIP SHENON
W ASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's elite Special Operations Command sent
observers to the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas more
than a month before the final assault on the compound, suggesting that
military commandos had a far longer and closer involvement in the
disastrous 1993 operation than previously divulged, according to
declassified Government documents.
The documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also show
for the first time that officials at the highest levels of the Defense
Department, including Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, were briefed by the Special Operations Command about
the events near Waco.
The command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida,
oversees the military's most secretive commando squads, including the
Army's Delta Force and the Navy Seals, and the documents suggest that
the command was monitoring the situation virtually from the start of
the 51-day siege. The command's spokesmen did not return calls for
comment on the documents.
The exact relationship between the military and law-enforcement
agencies in the planning of the raid on April 19, 1993, which ended in
the fiery destruction of the compound and the deaths of about 80
people, has long been a mystery. It is expected to be a topic of
Congressional hearings this fall into the siege, especially given the
new disclosure that possibly incendiary military-issue tear-gas
canisters were fired near the compound. Congressional officials say
they want to know where the canisters came from, and who gave approval
for their use.
Clinton Administration officials, aware of the severe legal
restrictions on the use of American troops in the United States, have
long said that the military's role in the siege was purely advisory to
law-enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
The heavily censored documents do not show that the military took an
active part in the siege and F.B.I. officials have long acknowledged
that the military assisted the law enforcement agency. Today, John
Collingwood, an F.B.I. spokesman said "The Department of Defense
played no operational role at Waco."
A report issued last month by the General Accounting Office, the
accounting arm of Congress, which examined the military's role in
Waco, did not contradict the F.B.I. account, but did find that the
military had provided about $1 million in equipment, supplies and
electronic surveillance gear to the F.B.I. and the A.T.F., which had
launched an ill-fated arrest raid on the compound in February 1993.
Although Administration officials have previously acknowledged that
three soldiers assigned to Delta Force were at the cult compound on
the day of the fiery raid as observers, the documents show that the
first Special Operations monitors actually went there more than a
month earlier, and that their findings were reported to Washington and
to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The documents were provided to The New York Times by the National
Security News Agency, a nonprofit research group in Washington that
has often unearthed Government documents and other information
embarrassing to the Pentagon.
In a report to the Joint Chiefs and the F.B.I. in Washington that was
dated March 2, 1993, commanders of the Special Operations Command said
they had carried out "observation of operations in Waco, Tex."
The one-page document was heavily edited by military censors but
appears to outline the deteriorating situation found by the monitors
at the site near Waco, where the Davidians had barricaded themselves
in their compound.
The siege began on Feb. 28, when agents of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms conducted a failed raid on the compound,
resulting in a firefight in which four Federal officers and two of the
cult members were killed.
The report is stamped "secret specat," or special category, which
would have limited its distribution to a select group of Government
officials with security clearances. The identity of the monitors sent
to Texas and their ranks were not revealed.
In a report dated March 30, nearly three weeks before the final
assault on the compound, the Special Operations Command responded to
an "F.B.I. request for assistance" at the site.
The exact nature of the request is not clear in the heavily censored
copy of the document that was released by the Defense Department. But
the request clearly was important because the report prepared by the
Special Operations Command was forwarded to the highest levels of the
Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Aspin, and to the Joint Chiefs,
then led by Gen. Colin Powell.
Federal law-enforcement agencies at the compound requested help from
the Pentagon, including heavy weapons and military training, almost
immediately after the raid on Feb. 28. Over the next weeks, the F.B.I.
was provided with military helicopters, tanks, armored personnel
carriers and weapons.
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company