The WACO Massacre Revisited & The Disgrace Of The FBI & Its Pathological & Treasonous Hierarchy

"Further exposure and investigation of Waco threaten to undermine not only FBI Director Freeh, but his Republican allies. Moreover, the exposure of FBI officials as brazen liars, and the spectacle of federal marshals raiding the J. Edgar Hoover Building as though it were the headquarters of a criminal conspiracy—as it most assuredly is!—have the effect of discrediting the state, and especially its police agencies, among broad layers of the population, and increasing public distrust of the whole big business-controlled political system."

--Martin McLaughlin

Cover-up of Waco massacre unravels as new evidence exposes FBI lies
By Martin McLaughlin
4 September 1999

Attorney General Janet Reno confirmed Friday that she would seek the appointment of an independent investigator to probe charges of an FBI cover-up of the Waco massacre. Reno made the announcement at her weekly press conference, following the uncovering of further evidence that government officials systematically lied about the circumstances surrounding the 1993 FBI assault on the Branch Davidian compound in which nearly 80 people were killed.

A raging fire erupted after a US army tank breached the walls of the compound on the morning of April 19, 1993 and began pumping CS tear gas into the structure. Only a handful of those inside escaped alive. Twenty-four of the victims were children. The bloodbath was the culmination of a two-month siege which began when agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms staged a provocative—and ill-planned—raid on the Branch Davidian property outside of the central Texas city, allegedly to serve a warrant on the group's leader, David Koresh, for possession of illegal weapons.

The Waco massacre was a defining moment for the Clinton administration, only three months after Clinton entered the White House. Justice Department officials pressed for a showdown with Koresh and his followers, to assert the authority of the state and to avenge the killing of four BATF agents in the original botched raid (six Davidians were killed in the same gun-battle). As one FBI spokesman declared, before the final confrontation began, "We are going to show them that we control the compound and they are impotent."

Attorney General Reno approved the attack plans and defended the conduct of the FBI attackers in media interviews and appearances before multiple congressional inquiries. An official Justice Department investigation—now revealed to be a whitewash—claimed that the fire which destroyed the Branch Davidian compound was an act of mass suicide, ordered by Koresh.

Last week press accounts revealed that FBI agents fired pyrotechnic tear gas grenades at a storm shelter about 25 yards from the main building several hours before the fire broke out on April 19, 1993. These reports directly contradicted repeated statements by Reno, then FBI Director William Sessions and lower-ranking officials, who all declared that the FBI had used no incendiary weapons in the course of the assault.


Source: World Socialist Web

See the rest of this article here:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/sep1999/waco-s04.shtml