C.; It seems the fact that explosive grenades were used may not have been recognized by those lawyers because they were unfamiliar with ordnance, unnamed federal officials told the newspaper.
Even the people who reporting to Reno may not have realized what
they were seeing , the ATF/FBI were not going to point
out the fukk nature of the "ferret" rounds, and played down
or mislead the justice department as to their nature.
--------------------
This is Drawn from a report( OCT. 8, 1993) issued by the Justice
Department: "Report to the Deputy Attorney General on the Events at
Waco, Texas, February 28 to April 19,1993," (hereinafter designated as
"Scruggs"), compiled by Richard Scruggs, who is an assistant to the
attorney general, and five other officials in the Justice Department.
( in short this is what they got out of the FBI logs )
MONDAY, APRIL 19:
At 5:59 a.m. SAGE telephones the Davidians, notifying them of an
imminent tear-gas assault. SAGE reads a message over the
loudspeaker, advising the Davidians that they are under arrest and
should come out. At 6:02 a.m. two FBI combat engineering
vehicles, or CEVs, begin inserting gas into the compound through
spray nozzles attached to a boom. At 6:04 a.m. the Davidians start
shooting, and the FBI begin deploying Bradley vehicles to insert
ferret rounds through the windows. At 6:31 the HRT reports that
the entire building is being gassed. At about 7 a.m. RENO and
senior advisors go to the FBI situation room. At 7:30 a CEV
breaches the front side of the building on the first floor as it injects gas, and at 7:58 a.m., gas is inserted in the second floor of the back-right corner of the building.
The FBI calls for more gas from outside Waco, and at 9:20 a.m.,
48 more "ferret rounds" arrive from Houston. At about 9:30 a.m., with the supply of ferret rounds dwindling, one CEV is having mechanical troubles, and high winds are blowing the gas away. Another CEV begins enlarging the opening in the middle-front of the building "from which the Davidians could escape" and a third CEV with a boom but lacking
a gas delivery system breaches the rear side of the building "to
create openings near the gymnasium." At about 11 a.m.,
(Washington time) RENO talks to CLINTON, saying everything
seems to be going well, and she leaves for a judicial conference in
Baltimore at 11:30 a.m. The CEV without a gas delivery system
breaches the back side of the compound, concentrating on the back
right corner near the warehouse-gymnasium. At 11:40 a.m. the last
"ferret rounds" are delivered.
At 11:45 a.m. a wall on the right-rear
side of the building collapses.
---------------------------------------
The above is an offical justice department report.
What it don't say, and what even "Scruggs" may not be
aware of is the nature of the "ferret rounds"
It omits that over 400 of these were on hand before they
started and were fired into the building.
The "ferret rounds" were fired for the most part from BVs,
" TANKS "
---------
A clause in the written plan that the Bureau had presented to
Reno called for an escalation if the tanks drew fire. The Justice
report notes: "Under the operations plan, as approved by the
attorney General, 'If during any tear gas operations, subjects open fire with a weapon, then....tear gas will immediately be
inserted into all windows of the compound utilizing the four
BV's...'"--the latter, a reference to Bradley armored vehicles,
ordinary combat tanks. natually they said they drew fire,
what's one more lie to add to the long list of lies they had
already told
Reno, watching the assault by television and special wire
hookups in Washington, was apparently taken by surprise. The
nation's Attorney General, the Justice Department report
indicates, "did not read the prepared statement carefully, nor did
she read the supporting documentation...She read only a
chronology." Like a naive used-car buyer, she hadn't checked the
fine print on the contract that the Bureau's salesmen placed
before her.
The significance of the Bradley escalation turned on the kind of
esoteric detail that only chemists and Bureau veterans--not
newly-minted Attorney Generals--could have known. The
Bradleys were not equipped with hydraulic booms, as the CEVs
were. They could not deliver gas as the CEVs did, from cylinders
containing a mixture carbon dioxide and CS powder, mounted
near the tips of their 30-foot booms. Bradley drivers were able to
deliver tear gas only by shooting football-sized metal or plastic
canisters, called "ferret rounds" out of a small port in their front
sides. CS powder was suspended in the ferret rounds, not in
carbon dioxide, but in a different chemical, methylene chloride,
a petroleum derivative.
-----------------------------------
Early on the "ferret rounds" are not called what they really are
A M-651 tactical CS: a pyrotechnic gas shell with a small
explosive charge that burns 20-30 seconds to expend a
tear-gas charge. It can spark fires.
FBI officials now only acknowledge that two M-651s were fired at an
underground bunker April 19, 1993.
But that's horsecrap..
---------------
Jim |
