Clark Post During Waco Gets New Attention

(AP) Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, then NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, is... Full Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Army division commanded by Wesley Clark supplied some of the military equipment for the government's 51-day standoff with a religious sect in Waco, Texas, and Clark's deputy, now the Army Chief of Staff, took part in a crucial Justice Department meeting five days before the siege ended in disaster, according to military records.

Clark's involvement in support of the Waco operation a decade ago was indirect and fleeting, according to his former commanding officer. But the assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies by military officers around Clark and soldiers under his command has prompted a flurry of questions to his presidential campaign.

Internet chat rooms and several news stories speculate that Clark played a role in the tactical planning for the operation that ended with the deaths of about 80 followers of the Branch Davidian religious sect and its leader, David Koresh.

Clark's campaign flatly denies any planning role by Clark in Waco. And an investigation by a Justice Department special counsel, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., bears out that assertion. Danforth found no improper actions by anyone in the U.S. military regarding Waco and concluded that the fiery end to the siege resulted from the Davidians setting fires inside the building compound where they were holed up.

Federal law restricts the role of the military in civilian law enforcement operations and "we weren't involved in the planning or execution of the Waco operation in any way, shape, form or fashion," says retired Army Lt. Gen. Horace Grady "Pete" Taylor, who ran the Fort Hood military base 60 miles from the site of the Waco siege.

Waco "was a civilian operation that the military provided some support to" and "any decisions about where the support came from were my decisions, not General Clark's," Taylor said this week.

"Clark's totally innocent in this regardless of what anybody thinks about him," says Taylor, Clark's former commander. "He played no direct role in this activity nor did any of us."

Regarding Taylor's comments, Clark campaign spokeswoman Mary Jacoby said "this is exactly what we've said all along; Gen. Clark had no involvement."

But critics such as documentary filmmaker Michael McNulty say there are many unanswered questions about the deaths at Waco, including the nature of the military equipment that came out of Clark's division and whether it was used.

Taylor said the FBI sent requests for assistance to the Department of Defense, which forwarded them to the Department of the Army and "ultimately some of these requests came down to me," said Taylor.

Much of the military equipment for Waco came from the Texas National Guard, including 10 Bradley fighting vehicles. It is unclear from the public record precisely what military gear Clark's 1st Cavalry Division supplied to civilian law enforcement agents at Waco. One government list of "reimbursable costs" for the 1st Cavalry Division specifies sand bags, fuel for generators and two M1A1 Abrams tanks.

However, the list specifies that the tanks were "not used" and stipulates that no reimbursement for them was to be sought from the FBI. The list also specifies reimbursable costs of nearly $3,500 for 250 rounds of high explosive grenade launcher ammunition. However, the list doesn't specify whether Clark's division or some other Army unit supplied the ammo.

Regardless of who supplied the military items, Danforth's investigation concluded that no one from the government fired a gunshot - despite being fired upon - at the Branch Davidian complex on the final day of the siege.

Clark's assistant division commander at the time, Peter J. Schoomaker, met with Attorney General Janet Reno and other officials from the Justice Department and FBI five days before the siege ended with the fatal fire.

Taylor says that "anything Schoomaker did, he wasn't doing for Clark." Internal Army documents support Taylor's position.

The Justice Department and the FBI requested Schoomaker and William Boykin "by name to meet with the attorney general," states one internal Army document created before the meeting. "These soldiers have extensive special operations experience and have worked with the FBI on previous occasions. Schoomaker "told my watch NCO ... that the FBI plans to pick him up at Fort Hood and fly him first to Waco to assess the situation, and then on to Washington D.C.," states the internal Army document. Schoomaker, currently the Army Chief of Staff, has a background in Army Special Forces. Boykin, who has similar experience, is the Army general whose controversial church speeches cast the war on terrorism in religious terms, prompting recent calls from some in Congress for him to step down.

At the meeting with Reno, Schoomaker and Boykin refused an invitation to assess the plan to inject tear gas into the buildings, a move designed to force the Davidians to flee the compound, an internal Army document states.

"We can't grade your paper," one of the two Special Forces officers was quoted as telling the Justice Department and the FBI. The comment referred to the legal restrictions prohibiting direct participation in civilian law enforcement operations.

McNulty, whose documentary "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" won an Emmy in 1998, provided The AP with several internal Army documents referring to the meeting and obtained from the military under the Freedom of Information Act.

And you, as usual, are engaging in straw man arguments. I don't care who was in office when the Davidians were first investigated. What I care about is that they were murdered in a military operation under Reno and Clark - Clintonoids to the core. And you are here defending them and their actions. What was it, 6 YEARS before the FBI finally admitted after continuous denials, that pyrotechnic tear gas was used on the last day? Tell me, why would they lie about using it, if the Davidians started the fire? And why would they raise their flag on the tank over the ashes, if the fire were a mass suicide and they were all "distraught" over "how wrong it went?" They were there to kill the Davidians and they almost got them all. The rest, they put in jail for 10, 20, 30 years.

Prior to the acquisition of empirical data about gun-muzzle flashes and thermal reflections on FLIR, and prior to detailed analyses of the contents of the Waco FLIR, it was a reasonable concern that the flashes might be gunshots directed at Mt Carmel.

Right. Because a bunch of reflecting surfaces randomly scattered on the ground JUST HAPPENED to produce what looked like sustained automatic rifle fire from behind tank cover, that moved with the tank. Gee. What an incredible co-incidence. Since you are so eager for my opinion, I think EITHER the feds produced this tape after the fact, containing this HIGHLY unlikely co-incidence, or it is NOT a HIGHLY unlikely coincidence--it is gunfire.

Take your pick. If it was concocted, it was obviously so they could refute it with great fanfare to, once again, provide another distraction from their basic problem here: that they ventilated a building and filled it with flammable gas when they knew a fire was about to happen--FOR WHATEVER REASON.

And, by the way, "Oh, oops" is not the correct answer here. The FBI has had a fair amount of practice "accidently" lighting off CS gas to terminate protracted resistence. But as long as they were burning black babies in LA and Philly, nobody much noticed.

ME: The military support provided by the Army at Waco was in accordance with Posse Comitatus and applicable laws--it has been investigated exhaustively to include by people who are no friends of the military and there is no evidence of military wrongdoing--because there wasn't any!

YOU: I see, the flashbangs marched over the WACO and fired themselves off. I've got it now.

Don, your posts are filled with combinations of false premises, generalized comments, and unsupported assertions. Let me help you. To counter an argument which says that the Army followed the law, to include Posse Comitatus, and that there is no evidence of military wrongdoing, you should cite something the Army did wrong, the law that was violated, and your evidence for that violation. A reference to self-detonating, marching pyrotechnics is not a counter-argument.

Don, your posts are filled with combinations of false premises,

Disagreeing with you is an inadequate criteria for a false premise.

generalized comments, and unsupported assertions. Let me help you. To counter an argument which says that the Army followed the law, to include Posse Comitatus, and that there is no evidence of military wrongdoing, you should cite something the Army did wrong, the law that was violated, and your evidence for that violation. A reference to self-detonating, marching pyrotechnics is not a counter-argument.

Since that is not my contention, there is no point in continuing to chastise me for not supporting it. My contention is that the army, like the rest of the gangsters mustering for this fiasco, displayed no discernably effective conscience comparable to that which any uneducated ghetto mother could muster concerning using military equipment to destroy a building full of children. What this means--to anyone not hyponotized by incessent jury-rigged propaganda and still possessed of a brain and a heart--is that the act was intentional--just as it appeared to be on CBS news.

What kind of a proud claim is it that the commander of that military unit tasked to assist in this sat with his thumb up his butt watching this occur on CBS? Shame on him, and shame on you for applauding this cowardly and irresponsible behavior, if, in fact, it is what really transpired, which I seriously doubt.

Besides making no sense, your once again exhibit your seemingly impregnable ignorance about the differences between the National Guard and the Regular Army.

The fact that you appear not to be able to read my argument with your brights turned on is not a demonstration that I make no sense. The constitution was written with the specific intent of having a navy, and said so. It was also written with the specific intent of having no standing federal army on US soil, which is why there is no provision for one. Calling parts of the army by some other name is legal weaseling. Answer my question: could the texas guard have been federalized if the texas rangers had asked them to kick the DEA and FBI out before they killed any more texas citizens, without even attempting to serve a warrant? If the answer is yes, then there is no effective difference between the army and guard for the purposes of deflecting military tyranny, as the constitution intended. So, to a constitutionalist, the guard is the army, your irrelevant hairsplitting legalistic contentions to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Army did not have operational involvement, so whatever you say based on that premise is nothing other than your fevered imaginings.

I see. The army did not provide a presence at any planning or information session concerning a highly visible, highly public, excruciatingly extended siege using their equipment on national television. The army provided advanced munitions, but no advice about using that equipment. They probably sent them flashbangs wrapped as christmas presents, I suppose?

Gosh, you must be awfully proud of the army for sitting with it's collective thumb up it's butt while it's equipment and advice was being used to burn the children of US citizens who'd been convicted of nothing whatsoever.

Disagreeing with you is an inadequate criteria for a false premise.

No don, it is your adversarial relationship with facts that makes for false premises.

the army, like the rest of the gangsters mustering for this fiasco,

So General Corleone was in charge!

Don, what gives with you and the Army? BCD? A multi-year enlistment and discharged as a mosquito wing private? Never got that promotion you knew inside that you deserved? First sergeant made you dig one of those 6x6x6 holes to bury a cigarette butt?

I'm not going to bother to address anything at all you raise in the way of issues or contentions; you have in the past, argued the smallest of points up to, and including (IMO) the result of simple maths on the level of summing 2 + 2

If by, "arguing the smallest points", you mean that I cite federal sources in great detail to support my points, and actually do the math implied by their data, than I have to agree with you.

As an example. I'd like to point out that when the court of science is offered, as an explanation of an observed event, a choice between a highly miraculous explanation, or an explanation not yet presented to the court, science has, so far, observed that the first choice has a 100% failure rate.

What are the odds that the front door was ACCIDENTLY lost, the crime scene was ACCIDENTLY bulldozed, the CS gas's flammable component was ACCIDENTLY added to the equation, the children's corpses were ACCIDENTLY de-refrigerated, the flashbangs were ACCIDENTLY omitted from testimony, and the FLIR film ACCIDENTLY recorded shard reflection as automatic weapons fire.

Do the math, and tell us which scientific explanation holds water: a) gosh, it was just the darndest accident. b) the feds colluded to hide their guilt in the intentional murder of those children.

The feds lied and lied and lied about the flashbangs, on the record, in court, in front of god and everybody. That makes them officially liers, whose evidence must be regarded as concocted, by an honestly run court, not packed to the rafters with federal whores. As has so far been observed. What that means, is that we can draw a pretty glaringly obvious conclusion, which an honest court would have to underwrite:

The feds filled that building with CS gas, ventilated it, and then tossed a couple of flashbangs in simultaneously to create a couple of fireballs at once, and cause a flashover, to destroy all the witnesses and evidence, just as was the reason for the door disappearing, the crime scene disappearing, the bodies disappearing, the timing of the attack to make it look like the davidians could have started simultaneous fireballs with some kerosene, at least to the undereducated, and the court records being intentionally falsified.

You are testifying on behalf of judicially know liars using evidence they supplied, from an FBI lab that has already been embarassed several times for producing politically correct, rather than forensically correct "evidence". I don't believe squat about any evidence that came willingly from federal sources about this, and neither should anyone with an ounce of decency still clinging to their bones.

Trolling for ad hominem arguments is, I have observed, one of the first lines of of defense of professional propagandasts. Your fey unwillingness to come to grips with my arguments is getting old fast, and is one of the hallmarks of professional defenders of the feds. As long as we're swapping spit over the campfire here, tell me, are you on the federal payroll?

No don, it is your adversarial relationship with facts that makes for false premises.

Which of these facts from which I am drawing my conclusion are not from the official record as it now stands?

Take as much time as you need to answer the question, it does seem to reguire quite an effort to keep you focused on what the argument is you are actually attempting to refute.

Don, those may be good discussion points, but what does all that have to do with the legality and extent of Army involvement?

If a mother gives her son the keys to her jag, knowing he is dead drunk, is the mother in any way liable for his wreck? Your contention that the army did nothing, if correct, while the siege dragged on and on over national television, using military tanks and helicopters in front of a huge national audience, is disgraceful, if not technically indictable. And, frankly, unlikely in the extreme. I can't prove there were military on hand, and you can't prove their weren't, and I think it does not square with common sense to think there weren't, under the circumstances. "operational" participation is a matter of interpretation. Are advisers "participants"? Are the army instruction manuals in the flashbang boxes participanting? If the army gave weapons to gangbangers in the bronx, under a city-sanctioned, legal program, and they subsequently flashbanged someone's home, should the army be free of concern? The fact that the army might have a "get out of jail free" card signed by the Attorney General, or the congress, does not mean they are actually morally sanctioned to give matches to idiots in a woodshed and walk away.

I put a lot of years in the Army and I think it was grossly unwarranted on your part to describe largely decent and honorable men belonging to one of the great organizations of our country as "gangsters". So I fired back. I won't do it again.

My argument has been consistent and is correct. The Army followed all applicable laws. The Army provided limited support in the form of training, equipment and supplies. The Army had no operational involvement. Wes Clark had nothing to do with the Waco operation other than as the commander of one of the units at Fort Hood that was directed to provide some of the support. Your arguments have primarily involved outrage over dead children, allegations about federal law enforcement cover-ups that have nothing to do with the Army, and conclusions about Army involvement based on your erroneous understanding of the National Guard.

I've asked before and you have been unable or unwilling to answer, so I'll ask again--what law(s) did the U.S. Army violate and specifically how did they violate that law?

Didn't see your post 157 prior to my 158.

Don, your analogy of giving the car keys to a drunk is not appropriate to this situation. The military provided support as lawfully requested to federal law enforcement organizations which the military had no reason to believe were acting in any way irresponsibly. And that Waco turned out the way it did could not be foreseen.

Don, c'mon. Equating providing support to the BATF & FBI with arming gang-bangers in the Bronx is way too far-fetched-it doesn't work. And an instruction book packed in a crate of pyrotechnics is not even close to operational involvement.

Interesting that you refer to following the law as a "get out of jail free card signed by the Attorney General, or the congress." Isn't that the way its supposed to be--break the law and go to jail, follow the law and stay out of jail?

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