alan
April 16, 2003, 12:57 AM
Mr. Brad Buckles:
Sir:
With respect to the following article see at www.wnd.com today, please
note the following, which obviously is my opinion, though the opinion
following is based on facts and the performance of those mentioned.
Feds Say Changes Since Waco Have Helped
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer
April 14, 2003, 8:53 AM EDT
WACO, Texas -- On a Sunday morning a decade ago, federal agents expected
to storm a religious group's compound, catch the occupants off-guard and
take their leader away in handcuffs.
It didn't happen that way.
Four lawmen and six members of the group were killed in a gun battle
during the Feb. 28, 1993, raid. It led to a 51-day standoff that ended
that April 19 in the deaths of nearly 80 people, including two dozen
children, as the compound burned to the ground.
In the years that followed the raid on the Branch Davidian complex, the
mantra "Not Another Waco" has become a powerful credo for the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- recently renamed the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- and law enforcement agencies
nationwide.
"The events of Waco were a watershed for the ATF, on a personal level
... and professional level in terms of it being a horrendous wake-up
call in terms of how we do business," said Brad Buckles, ATF director
since 1999.
The ATF was criticized for raiding the Waco compound instead of
arresting cult leader David Koresh while he went jogging or drove into
town. The agency also was blamed for not calling it off after an
undercover agent reported that Koresh, suspected of stockpiling illegal
weapons and explosives, knew about the raid.
The FBI, which assumed command the day after the raid, was accused of
ineffective negotiating with Koresh and criticized for rushing to end
the standoff with a self-proclaimed prophet who had predicted a violent
finale.
Government officials have maintained that the deadly fire was started by
Davidians. The FBI admitted in 1999 that two potentially incendiary tear
gas canisters were fired on the last day but said the devices were aimed
away from the compound hours earlier.
Criticism of federal officials built quickly. Many agents and
supervisors with the ATF, FBI and other agencies involved in the Waco
incident have since retired or been fired or reassigned.
Then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who had approved the use of tear gas,
ordered an investigation. The report in 2000 concluded that Branch
Davidians started the fire and shot each other in a mass suicide, ending
the standoff.
There is a perception "that we were big macho guys rolling in with
tanks, trying to show these guys who was boss, but there's nothing
further from the truth," said Bob Ricks, a retired FBI special agent who
worked with negotiators at Waco. "In the final analysis, our hopes and
prayers and wishes were that everyone would come out alive."
The FBI was already under scrutiny for its handling of a 1992 standoff
in Idaho, when an agent shot and killed the wife of a white separatist
as she held her 10-month-old baby. Timothy McVeigh said he bombed the
Oklahoma City federal building -- on the second anniversary of the Waco
fire -- as retribution for Waco and the Idaho standoff.
Law enforcement agencies made sweeping changes after Waco. The ATF
changed its policy on who makes decisions during an incident and
improved how intelligence is gathered and reported. Agents now get more
tactical training.
The FBI formed a crisis-response group to coordinate negotiators,
agents, hostage-rescue teams and others. Officials admitted that they
didn't communicate well with each other at Waco.
"That's the attitude in all of law enforcement. ... You have to be much
more patient," Buckles said.
That approach was tested three years later in Montana with a small,
heavily armed anti-government group called the Freemen. Members had
filed bogus multimillion-dollar liens against public officials and
others who crossed them, then issued checks against the liens.
On March 25, 1996, federal undercover agents lured the two top Freemen
leaders into the open on a ruse and captured them. A standoff lasted 81
days until a Montana lawmaker persuaded the rest of the group to
surrender. No shots were fired.
Ricks, now the Oklahoma commissioner of public safety, said agents can
wait "forever" if a barricaded suspect or group has no hostages. But
officers must consider raids and use of tear gas if innocent lives are
at stake, he said.
"There's a role for lawmen with tactical intervention," Ricks said. "The
greatest lesson is you don't initiate a process without anticipating
what the result is going to be."
Regarding the "wakeup call" that was mentioned in the article, looking
at the way that The Congress "shucked and jived", as well as complied
with the obvious desire of ATF for a cover-up, the wakeup call mentioned
sure in hell didn't come from that body. I wonder if one is to allow
that it was "internally generated", something that is, I suppose, a
possibility, but one that, looking at the record, is an extremely
unlikely one. By the bye, what ever became of poor Kenyon Ballew???
Assuming that this fioasco was quietly bough off by the government, how
many thousands of taxpayer dollars were pissed away covering up the
misdeeds of government goons, who should have been drawn and quartered,
which sir is likely an unwarrantedly polite way of putting it.
Would you care to comment?
Sir:
With respect to the following article see at www.wnd.com today, please
note the following, which obviously is my opinion, though the opinion
following is based on facts and the performance of those mentioned.
Feds Say Changes Since Waco Have Helped
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer
April 14, 2003, 8:53 AM EDT
WACO, Texas -- On a Sunday morning a decade ago, federal agents expected
to storm a religious group's compound, catch the occupants off-guard and
take their leader away in handcuffs.
It didn't happen that way.
Four lawmen and six members of the group were killed in a gun battle
during the Feb. 28, 1993, raid. It led to a 51-day standoff that ended
that April 19 in the deaths of nearly 80 people, including two dozen
children, as the compound burned to the ground.
In the years that followed the raid on the Branch Davidian complex, the
mantra "Not Another Waco" has become a powerful credo for the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- recently renamed the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- and law enforcement agencies
nationwide.
"The events of Waco were a watershed for the ATF, on a personal level
... and professional level in terms of it being a horrendous wake-up
call in terms of how we do business," said Brad Buckles, ATF director
since 1999.
The ATF was criticized for raiding the Waco compound instead of
arresting cult leader David Koresh while he went jogging or drove into
town. The agency also was blamed for not calling it off after an
undercover agent reported that Koresh, suspected of stockpiling illegal
weapons and explosives, knew about the raid.
The FBI, which assumed command the day after the raid, was accused of
ineffective negotiating with Koresh and criticized for rushing to end
the standoff with a self-proclaimed prophet who had predicted a violent
finale.
Government officials have maintained that the deadly fire was started by
Davidians. The FBI admitted in 1999 that two potentially incendiary tear
gas canisters were fired on the last day but said the devices were aimed
away from the compound hours earlier.
Criticism of federal officials built quickly. Many agents and
supervisors with the ATF, FBI and other agencies involved in the Waco
incident have since retired or been fired or reassigned.
Then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who had approved the use of tear gas,
ordered an investigation. The report in 2000 concluded that Branch
Davidians started the fire and shot each other in a mass suicide, ending
the standoff.
There is a perception "that we were big macho guys rolling in with
tanks, trying to show these guys who was boss, but there's nothing
further from the truth," said Bob Ricks, a retired FBI special agent who
worked with negotiators at Waco. "In the final analysis, our hopes and
prayers and wishes were that everyone would come out alive."
The FBI was already under scrutiny for its handling of a 1992 standoff
in Idaho, when an agent shot and killed the wife of a white separatist
as she held her 10-month-old baby. Timothy McVeigh said he bombed the
Oklahoma City federal building -- on the second anniversary of the Waco
fire -- as retribution for Waco and the Idaho standoff.
Law enforcement agencies made sweeping changes after Waco. The ATF
changed its policy on who makes decisions during an incident and
improved how intelligence is gathered and reported. Agents now get more
tactical training.
The FBI formed a crisis-response group to coordinate negotiators,
agents, hostage-rescue teams and others. Officials admitted that they
didn't communicate well with each other at Waco.
"That's the attitude in all of law enforcement. ... You have to be much
more patient," Buckles said.
That approach was tested three years later in Montana with a small,
heavily armed anti-government group called the Freemen. Members had
filed bogus multimillion-dollar liens against public officials and
others who crossed them, then issued checks against the liens.
On March 25, 1996, federal undercover agents lured the two top Freemen
leaders into the open on a ruse and captured them. A standoff lasted 81
days until a Montana lawmaker persuaded the rest of the group to
surrender. No shots were fired.
Ricks, now the Oklahoma commissioner of public safety, said agents can
wait "forever" if a barricaded suspect or group has no hostages. But
officers must consider raids and use of tear gas if innocent lives are
at stake, he said.
"There's a role for lawmen with tactical intervention," Ricks said. "The
greatest lesson is you don't initiate a process without anticipating
what the result is going to be."
Regarding the "wakeup call" that was mentioned in the article, looking
at the way that The Congress "shucked and jived", as well as complied
with the obvious desire of ATF for a cover-up, the wakeup call mentioned
sure in hell didn't come from that body. I wonder if one is to allow
that it was "internally generated", something that is, I suppose, a
possibility, but one that, looking at the record, is an extremely
unlikely one. By the bye, what ever became of poor Kenyon Ballew???
Assuming that this fioasco was quietly bough off by the government, how
many thousands of taxpayer dollars were pissed away covering up the
misdeeds of government goons, who should have been drawn and quartered,
which sir is likely an unwarrantedly polite way of putting it.
Would you care to comment?