
                          By WILLIAM P. CHESHIRE 
                        Senior Editorial Columnist
                         for THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC

                  FBI IGNORED ITS OWN RULES IN WACO RAID
                  ======================================
  A country and Western song inspired by last year's FBI assault  on the
  Branch Davidian compound  outside Waco, Texas - a gas-and-armor attack 
  that.. left some 86 civilians dead - ends on this critical note: 

                    "Yesterday I sold my TV set, 
                    Stopped my subscription to the Times.
                    To me it's plain to see the media
                    Was an accomplice to these crimes."  

  The lyrics are wrong. The media weren't accomplices.  To be an accomp-
  lice you have to have some idea of what's going on.    

  When the tanks rolled outside Waco, the media "watchdogs" were huddled 
  in a holding area two and a half miles from the action.  They couldn't  
  see anything then, and few have exhibited much curiosity since.    

  An exception is David Hall, who manages KPOC-TV in Ponca City, Okla.
  
  Dissatisfied  with  the government whitewash, Hall and his staff began 
  digging into the record.  In the process, they've amassed several vol-
  umes of chemical analysis, autopsy reports and other records.     

  The most damaging findings were drawn from the government's own files.  

  For example, the Justice Department admits that for six hours it hosed 
  down the Ranch Davidian compound with CS, a tear gas so toxic its bat-
  tlefield use is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention. 

  Even though the Davidians were using kerosene lamps, the CS appears to 
  have  been  mixed with acetone or ethanol, both highly inflammable and 
  both found in the lungs of Davidians killed in the raid.     

                          DANGER OF FIRE RAISED

  Hall and his team made an even more significant discovery.   

  The FBI's own S.W.A.T. Team Manual warns that "all personnel concerned 
  with the utilization of crowd-control-agent-dispersers" -the equipment 
  used in the Waco raid -should "be aware of the fact that some gas pro-
  jectiles will burn while others will explode." Agents are cautioned to 
  "be prepared for the eventuality of fire."  

  The manual goes on to warn against introducing tear gas "directly into 
  a closed structure except under extreme circumstances."  It also warns 
  against using tear gas "where innocent persons may be affected"  - the 
  compound  held  more  than two dozen Branch Davidian children, some of 
  them infants - or "where fires may start or asphyxiation may occur." 

  Disregarding  its  own written operating instructions, the FBI flooded 
  the  compound  with highly toxic and inflammable gas, using combat en-
  gineering vehicles and 40mm ferret rounds.    The gas attack continued
  for  six  hours, exhausting the stockpiled ferret rounds - some 400 in 
  all - and  sending  FBI agents scurrying around Texas trying to locate 
  additional canisters to lob.

  Just  as  the  government  manual  indicated, fire erupted and quickly 
  spread, assisted by heavy winds and the ventilation holes made by gov-
  ernment tanks.

  This had deadly consequences. 

                           CYANIDE GAS GENERATED

  "Cyanide radicals were generated as the CS burned, combining with nor-
  mal  fluids  in  the  lungs of the people to generate hydrogen cyanide 
  gas," according to a report prepared by Dr. George F. Uhlig, a chemist 
  at United Systems Corp. in Salt Lake City.   The combustion of ethanol 
  and  acetone  also formed water, generating additional cyanide, lethal 
  amounts  of which were found in the bodies of Branch Davidians trapped 
  by the fire and rubble.  

  "It was probably a good decision  on the part of federal agents on the
  scene  not  to attempt to put the fire out using water," Dr. Uhlig re-
  ported.     The steam would have generated even more hydrogen cyanide, 
  "and the resulting cloud of cyanide gas and steam could have been car-
  ried by the prevailing winds over populated areas." 

  This may have been the FBI's only good decision of the day.   Its pre-
  meditated assault left 86 people dead - 22  of  them infants and small 
  children whose deaths bear especially grisly witness to the atrocity.  

  David Hall  last  week traveled to Washington, lugging with him enough 
  copies of his findings for each member of the Senate Judiciary Commit-
  tee.  

  "I approved the plan," Attorney General Janet Reno said after the Waco 
  massacre, "and I'm responsible for it."  Hall hopes the Judiciary Com-
  mittee  will  rise from its slumbers and hold a post-mortem on the at-
  torney general's judgment and performance.            END OF EDITORIAL 

------------------------------------------------
(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of
Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)

