Posted on 11/28/2003 4:06:52 PM PST by drypowder
Clark Post During Waco Gets New Attention
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Nov 28, 5:03 PM (ET)
By PETE YOST
(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.
Playing monica means sucki' clinton's....
What you THINK you have is based on either wilful or mistaken identification of what McNulty has identified on tape. PURE and simple.
Here is my own personal reason why I think you and the other fed groupies are wrong in following blindly, the spoken fed word.
Take all we have spoke of thus far and set it aside...that is, everthing but the FLIR imagry showing muzzle flashes at the rear of the compound(kitchen exit). I firmly believe that this is gunfire for one reason, and only one reason. In three to five differient locations, the timing of the flashes in each location is unmistakingly gun fire. There is no, repeat no anomaly that can be flashing at the rate and precision these locations showed. It would be impossible for mirrors to be broken and the pieces laying in such a way as to send reflected light toward the FBI chopper in such a fashion.
If you can sit there and type that this is indeed an anomaly, and do not come up with a single thing that could cause this, you, and the others are indeed full of shit.
Are you sure you're not towing the party line because of the heat JR may take by posting the truth?... Are you sure you're not sucking up here my man??
I seriously doubt that that's so. A human body is perfectly capabable of causing a mis-mesh between a tread and a wheel, causing a derailment of the tread, in probably less than two full traverses of the tread. Human bones are not made of chicken fluff and derailment does not require a pile-driver's worth of force, just a properly angled wedge, or jam, to prevent a sproket from finding its link.
Hmmm...That must be the same one who was at the Senate hearing that was on last week.
Also this story was mentioned on "Special Report with Brit Hume"(Brian Wilson was filling in tonight I think) during the "Grapevive" segment. I didn't really see what he said as I had Mark Levin on the radio and the TV was in the other room, but my ears perked up when I heard 'Waco' and 'Clark'.
Given the simultaneous failure of 4 federal cameras to provide correlating evidence, and the fact that feds have been caught outright fibbing about the deployment of flashbangs--why would anyone grant credibility to accused's tapes? An honest judge in a murder case wouldn't. When you get caught repeatedly lying under oath to congress, your credibility is worth nothing. &, at any rate, how is this an excuse to kill a bunch of children?--we had to use the full force and authority of our government to kill them first? Those tapes, whatever their credibility, do not sound like a mass suicide attempt to me--they sound like a desperate defense against tank breachments, however ill-advised. The branch dividians did not have advanced arsenal technicians on staff experienced in subduction fires--the forces outside did. This does not provide a valid law-enforcement excuse for ventilating the building with TANKS and filling it with flammable gas & throwing flashbangs around. It provides a valid law-enforcement excuse, that anyone but a democratic congressman or an FBI officer in heat can understand, not to.
Yes? And what "facts" were those?
That's sheer nonsense.
You're absolutely right! They didn't want to burn them out. They wanted to burn them alive, with no survivors - not to make them escape. They failed, though - a few people managed to get out.
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