The tanks tore big holes in the walls, drove into the house, and knocked down whole sections of the building. The government said they were only making holes in the building so they could get the gas in, and let the people out. But no Davidians came out.

A fire broke out as the tanks were driving about. The fire became an inferno, lasted 40 minutes and burned the house to the ground. As they watched the inferno on TV, many wondered why they could not see Davidians escaping the burning building. Seventy five people are said to have perished in the flames.

Much public concern was focused on the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the 33 women, children, and babies.  Their remains were found in a concrete room which served as a pantry and food storage area off the kitchen in the Mt. Carmel Center.  This was the room the US called "the bunker."

Circumstantial and physical evidence suggested to some Americans that the Branch Davidians were deliberately killed by the US government. A video was made by an attorney named Linda Thompson.  The video contained TV footage that showed what seemed to be a flame-throwing tank backing out of the smashed building, flame coming out of its muzzle. Other footage showed uniformed US military personnel at the scene, and tanks fitted with plow blades pushing debris into the flaming rubble. The video was circulated nation-wide and caused people to become outraged.

The US government repeated that the tanks made holes in the building so that the Branch Davidians could come out, but that the Davidians refused to do so, and then committed suicide by setting themselves on fire.

Others said that the TV footage of the flame throwing tank was misleading. They said the fire started when the tanks accidentally tipped over some lanterns, and was fed by hay and household fuels that happened to be in the building. A public outcry for full Congressional hearings ensued.

Two years to the day after the April 19 fire, the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, where many federal offices were housed, was bombed. The US news services immediately inferred the building was bombed by those who objected to the Waco Holocaust. Waco Holocaust protesters said that the bombing of the Murrah building was most likely the work of the US government, seeking an excuse to extinguish Constitutional liberties, as evidenced by events in Waco.

Finally, more than two years after the April 19, 1993 inferno in Waco, Congress held lengthy hearings. The hearings were held with the stated purpose of finding the truth, wherever it lay. It was promised that the hearings would put the Waco controversy to rest.

Any serious investigation of suspicious deaths begins by looking at the autopsy reports of the victims and physical evidence of the death scene; but Congress ignored the autopsy reports of the Davidians and most of the available physical evidence.   Instead, Congress began the hearings by questioning a journalist who had written a book about Waco.

Another Congressional witness was a teenage girl who made scandalous allegations of sexual misconduct against the late David Koresh.  Her charges were allowed to be aired without cross-examination.  It was later revealed that the witness never lived at the Mt. Carmel Center, and her testimony was prepared for her by a relative.

Congress was highly selective in whatever physical evidence it did examine.  When interpretations were sought, most came from interested parties. And finally, when penetrating questions were asked, government employees were permitted to avoid answering.

After the 1995 hearings, it seemed that the protest over the Waco Holocaust had been neutralized.

Then in the Fall of 1996, the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum was released on the World Wide Web.   It made the autopsy reports and other forensic evidence broadly available.  This evidence revealed a shocking truth:  Many of the Davidians were dead at the time of the April 19 tank attack and fire; some of the mothers and children had been dead for weeks.  The Davidian bodies had been selectively beheaded, mutilated and incinerated ("laundered") to disguise the time, cause, and circumstances of death.  The tank attack and fire were diversions to hide the truth and destroy the death scene.

Many hundreds of thousands of people all over the world are now studying the evidence of the atrocity committed by the US government.  The public conscience has been reawakened.  That reawakening is still occurring, and new attempts are being made to neutralize the rising voice of protest.

The Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum makes available some of evidence suppressed by Congress, and explains the on-going attempts to cover up the Waco Holocaust.

Many people who distrust the mainstream media have turned to alternate news sources, some of which are Internet based.  Unfortunately, many of these alternate sources of news simply promote an alternate series of lies.  These alternate lies are of course dressed up as "exposés."  But you can easily tell the phonies from the real thing.  The information in the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum is an acid test.

Does your news source promote Mike McNulty's video, Waco: The Rules of Engagement or wring its hands because the Davidian law suit against the government failed?  (See Waco Documentary Is A Hoax! and Waco Suits for Waco Suckers.) Does your alternate news source carry promotional pieces about rebuilding the Davidian church in Waco and mouth nice words about "healing"?  (See The Cover-up Church.)

Remember, since ancient times, inquiries into questionable deaths have started with the bodies of the victims.  If your news source won't give you an honest and full account of the forensic information on Waco, or if it does not have a link to the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum ... your alternate news has failed a fundamental acid test.   

Taken from http://www.public-action.com/SkyWriter/WacoMuseum/cover/c_page02.html and

reprinted in the public interest by the USAWeeklyNews.com

Published by Public Action, Inc., a news and news analysis service. http://www.Public-Action.com/SkyWriter/WacoMuseum  or http://206.55.8.10/SkyWriter/WacoMuseum 
Curator@Public-Action.com

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck." Operation Trojan Horse--the code name for the Waco operation--was planned and executed from the beginning to the end as a military action, not a civilian action.

That is, from February 28, 1993 to the final day on April 19, 1993, Operation Trojan Horse was a military action, and military equipment was on the scene.

The Waco Tribune-Herald, March 1, 1993 also published a photograph of a military combat vehicle moving into Mt. Carmel on the day of the raid.

On April 21, two days after the inferno at the Mt. Carmel Center, an Air Force cargo plane transported the ATF agents from Waco. Thus we see that the civilian law enforcement facade in the Waco action was thick in rhetoric but thin in fact; from beginning to end, the US military presence was the dominant theme.

Difference Between War and Law Enforcement

The purpose of war, on the other hand, is the domination of the target. It is the job of the war machine to kill, to maim, and to destroy. The war machine must also create terror to convince potential opponents to submit on command. Therefore, the war machine must not only inflict maximum death and suffering on its victims, but must also broadcast its achievements to convince others to submit on command.

This is the story of the attack on the Branch Davidians.

For reasons that are not clear at this time, a military and intelligence operation, with a civilian law enforcement facade, was planned against the Branch Davidians. The complex details of the Davidians' history and lives were woven into this facade. These details and their subplots serve to direct attention away from the essentially military attack and extermination of the Branch Davidians.

Next: The New Military and the New Paradigm 
Reference: Directory of Exhibits

Many people who distrust the mainstream media have turned to alternate news sources, some of which are Internet based.  Unfortunately, many of these alternate sources of news simply promote an alternate series of lies.  These alternate lies are of course dressed up as "exposés."  But you can easily tell the phonies from the real thing.  The information in the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum is an acid test.

Does your news source promote Mike McNulty's video, Waco: The Rules of Engagement or wring its hands because the Davidian law suit against the government failed?  (See Waco Documentary Is A Hoax! and Waco Suits for Waco Suckers.) Does your alternate news source carry promotional pieces about rebuilding the Davidian church in Waco and mouth nice words about "healing"?  (See The Cover-up Church.)

Remember, since ancient times, inquiries into questionable deaths have started with the bodies of the victims.  If your news source won't give you an honest and full account of the forensic information on Waco, or if it does not have a link to the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum ... your alternate news has failed a fundamental acid test.  

The spirit of the American military has changed since the days of the World War II movies. In those days the US military was a citizen army of draftees and volunteers protecting the shores of the US and its allies after a clear act of aggression by a foreign country.

These days the military has become a publicly funded career option for professional soldiers and soldier bureaucrats. The military no longer confines itself to the defense of the US. It has taken an active role in the internal struggles of other countries, often working closely with the Central Intelligence Agency to shore up military juntas and autocratic regimes against the citizens of those countries.

These actions are largely covert and illegal and often aimed at civilians. Killing Hope by William Blum documents 55 such military-CIA interventions in foreign countries since the Second World War.

So-called "surgical strike forces" are sent on hundreds of missions a week throughout the world, without declaration of war. According to The Tampa Tribune, March 1, 1996, the Special Operations Command, made up of covert operations units in the four services, works closely with the CIA and performs 280 missions a week. These are the "black bag" operations.

At home, the military is expanding its role in the post-Cold War era. "Much of the military's intrusion has been accomplished without public notice," says Sam Smith, writing in The Progressive Review On-Line Report, March, 1996, in an article entitled "Mission creep: militarizing America."

The Progressive Review cites the appointment of General Brian McCaffrey, former commander of the US Southern Command (Southcom), as drug czar. Southcom provided military backup for US Latin American policy--a policy long linked with support of dictatorships, suppression of dissidents, human rights abuses, and death squads.

Like all vested interest groups, the US military is seeking to expand its employment opportunities. The way to do this is to create new markets for services. One such suggested market for use of soldiers was social services work (The Washington Times, May 10, 1995).

A more likely avenue of employment for the US military, however, is warfare against civilians, in the manner of the Latin American juntas. Drug Czar McCaffrey's background in Latin America has doubtlessly prepared him well to play an important role in the war on civilians here in the US.

Commandos used in actions against civilians are recruited by the Special Operations Command. The United States Air Force Statistical Digest for fiscal year 1994 (extract below) shows that squadrons of aircraft devoted to Special Operations rose from 11 in FY 1991 to 16 in FY 1994, while conventional bomber squadrons shrank from 18 in FY 1991 to 12 in FY 1994.

Contemporary US soldiers train for civilian warfare on Military Operations Urban Training facilities (MOUT). A MOUT facility is a full scale mock-up of a modern small town, used to train soldiers to shoot and kill civilians. In one army base in Camp Lejeune, the Marines have constructed a 31-building town with a city hall, a church, a hotel, a business district, and condominiums. MOUT facilities sometimes have several hundred yards of built-in sewers to give the soldiers practice invading and occupying civilian areas.

According to Marines Get a Taste of Urban Warfare Against 'Enemies' at Home, which appeared in Los Angles Times, July 11, 1995, "what to do when guerrillas are hiding behind women and children" is one of the problems confronted during MOUT training. In these scenarios, "guerrillas" are the adult male civilians the soldiers are trying to kill.

Next: The Black Army

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Many people who distrust the mainstream media have turned to alternate news sources, some of which are Internet based.  Unfortunately, many of these alternate sources of news simply promote an alternate series of lies.  These alternate lies are of course dressed up as "exposés."  But you can easily tell the phonies from the real thing.  The information in the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum is an acid test.

Does your news source promote Mike McNulty's video, Waco: The Rules of Engagement or wring its hands because the Davidian law suit against the government failed?  (See Waco Documentary Is A Hoax! and Waco Suits for Waco Suckers.) Does your alternate news source carry promotional pieces about rebuilding the Davidian church in Waco and mouth nice words about "healing"?  (See The Cover-up Church.)

Remember, since ancient times, inquiries into questionable deaths have started with the bodies of the victims.  If your news source won't give you an honest and full account of the forensic information on Waco, or if it does not have a link to the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum ... your alternate news has failed a fundamental acid test.  

Perhaps we can put Waco in perspective by understanding the function of a select group of commandos within the US military. Some military observers say that the fingerprints of these commandos are all over the Waco Holocaust. Let's have a brief look that the history, philosophy, and operational basis of this group.

Each of the US military services has its own covert operations unit, sometimes called Special Operations, sometimes Special Operations Forces (SOF), and sometimes simply "Special Ops." Special Ops personnel are trained for making quick, destructive, secret, and illegal raids against selected targets. These are the people who perform the black bag jobs overseas for the CIA.

Performing secret acts of war was an integral part of the Reagan foreign policy, just as it was in previous administrations. But under the Reagan Administration, Special Operations became a separate command, reporting directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since that time, the use of Special Ops has continued. Headquartered in MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, the Special Operations Command employ 46,000 people and averaged 280 missions a week in 137 countries (Tampa Tribune, March 1, 1996). Special Ops. has its own helicopter unit: the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), formerly the 160th Task Force of the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.

Special Ops can create task forces as they wish, picking and choosing from those with special skills required for the mission. The Special Ops commandos can come from any branch of the military; they can be Special Forces, Green Berets or Navy SEALS; they can be on active duty or on "retired" status in the military.

"Least understood and appreciated of the Special Ops missions are those of the civil affairs and psychological operations units. These people, most of them National Guardsmen and Army Reservists . . ." says the Army Times of January 8, 1996. There we have it, from an impeccable source: Special Ops commandos can be members of the National Guard or Reserves.

Those chosen for Special Ops junkets can be flown in and out of the mission site by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) helicopter unit. That is, the 160th can fly ATF, FBI, or any other commandos at will. The Army Times, July 10, 1995 shows commandos being dropped at a site by means of a rope. Note that the helicopter shown in the picture is black.

Special Forces personnel trained the ATF for the Waco assault (Treasury Report, pg. 73). It is possible the trainers were on a Special Ops mission at the time the training was delivered. In the same way, some of the National Guard personnel who participated in the Waco assault or siege could have been Guardsmen who were knowingly part of a Special Ops mission.

Operational Philosophy

Training Ruse

Shortly after taking office in 1981, President Reagan used the "training" cover when he sent combat soldiers to El Salvador to shore up the military junta there. To allay fears about another Vietnam War, Reagan simply lied--he said that the soldiers were there to train the Salvadoran army, that he was limiting the number of Green Berets to 55, and that they were prohibited from entering a combat zone (see Robert Parry's article "Lost History: Death, Lies and Bodywashing," in The Consortium, May 27, 1996; visit the the Library for address).

In fact, thousands of soldiers took full part in combat there. Twenty-one were killed in action. The Pentagon admitted the truth in May, 1996, when it honored the dead soldiers and fifty others who took part in the illegal operation (Washington Post, May 6, 1996, Public Honors for Secret Combat).

Mindset of Secret Commandos

New York Times reporter Raymond Bonner was sent to El Salvador in the early 1980s to cover the civil war, in which the US intervened on the side of the junta. Bonner interviewed junta head Jose Napoleon Duarte and asked why he had to fight guerrillas in his country. Duarte said:

"Fifty years of lies, fifty years of injustice, fifty years of frustration. This is a history of people starving to death, living in misery. For fifty years the same people had all the power, all the money, all the jobs, all the education, all the opportunities." (quoted in Killing Hope, pg. 353.)

Despite this clear statement about the nature of the war, the Reagan Administration illegally and covertly sent troops to assist the junta, on the basis that the guerrillas were "leftists." It was to protect Duarte's regime that these soldiers risked, and gave, their lives. And in May, 1996, the Pentagon awarded medals and called it patriotism.

Murder and Torture of Civilians

The Salvadoran junta's death squads routinely tortured and murdered civilians. In December, 1981, in the town of El Mozote, 700 to 1,000 people-- mostly elderly, women and children, were massacred. Engaged in what the US military calls "Close Quarter Combat," the Salvadoran forces butchered their victims face to face. People were hacked to death by machetes or beheaded. A child was thrown in the air and caught on a bayonet. Young girls were raped in an orgy before they were killed (Killing Hope, pg. 359).

A few months later, the New York Times published an article written with the help of a with a deserter from the Salvadoran Army who described a class where severe methods of torture were demonstrated on teenage prisoners. He stated that eight US military advisers, apparently Green Berets, were present. "Watching will make you feel more like a man," the trainer told the recruits (Killing Hope, pg. 359).

In 1989 a former Salvadoran Army commando told CBS evening news that he had belonged to an intelligence unit which functioned as a death squad, and that two US military advisers attached to the unit were aware of the assassinations, and supplied money to the unit to help maintain vehicles used for death squad operations (Killing Hope, pg. 359).

In all of these cases, the US personnel and commanders had to know the nature of the Salvadoran forces on whose side they were fighting. After all, they were "training" the killers.

In Guatemala, the US has sent troops and money to squash resistance to the repressive ruling oligarchy. Several Americans were tortured at the hands of the Guatemalan military. One such person was Sister Dianna Ortiz, a nun. Sister Ortiz "related how, in 1989, she was kidnapped, burned with cigarettes, raped repeatedly, and lowered into a put full of corpses and rats. A fair-skinned man who spoke with an American accent seemed to be in charge, she said." (Killing Hope, pg. 239).

The Making of a Commando

In 1975 the public got a glimpse of the secret training delivered to commandos when a Navy psychologist, Lt. Comdr. Thomas Narut, spoke to the London Times during a NATO conference in Oslo on "Dimensions of Stress and Anxiety." The conversation took place just after the Senate Intelligence Committee had reprimanded the CIA for plotting a number of political assassinations around the world.

Narut said that Naval Intelligence had taken convicted murderers from military prisons and conditioned them as assassins, and then placed them in US embassies around the world. He also explained that he had worked with "combat readiness units" which included men being trained for commando-type operations. These, Narut said, were "hit men and assassins" (Narut's words) made ready to kill in selected countries should the need arise.

The potential assassins were identified by evidence of past violence or by psychological tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Once identified, training of the assassins was accomplished by audio-visual presentations. The prospective commandos were "desensitized " to mayhem by being shown films of people being killed or injured in a number of different ways. At first the films would show only mild forms of bloodshed. As the men became acclimated to the scene of carnage, they would see progressively more violent scenes. The assassin candidates, Narut explained, would eventually be able to disassociate even the goriest scenes from any feelings of repugnance they might have had at first.

At first the men might be shown a film of an African youth being crudely circumcised by tribe members with a blunt knife and no anesthetic. Afterwards the trainee would be asked about inconsequential details of the episode--such as the motif on the handle of the knife used to cut the foreskin.

Next the commando trainees were shown a film of a man in a sawmill, where planks were sliced from huge logs. In the operation of the saw the man slipped and cut off his fingers. As the films progressed in gruesomeness, the reactions of the trainees were measured by sensing devices: heartbeat, breathing rate, and brain waves were recorded. If the physiological responses, which might have been great in the beginning, slowed down and resumed normal patterns as the more bloodthirsty scenes were viewed, the candidates were judged to have completed this stage of conditioning.

The final stage of conditioning was the indoctrination of the future commandos to think of their potential enemies as inferior forms of life. By this stage the commandos would already have been selected for assignment to particular countries. They would be shown films and given lectures which portrayed the customs and culture of the people in a disparaging manner. The people of those countries were presented as enemies of the United States.

It took only a couple of weeks to program the susceptible candidates by this process. Those who did not do well in the conditioning were dropped out of the program and reassigned to other duties. Dr. Narut said he did not have the necessary "need to know" where his trainees were assigned, but did say that his busiest time was when a large group of men went through such training towards the end of 1973, at the time of the Yom Kippur War. (This account is based on Operation Mind Control, by Walter H. Bowart, pgs. 161-166.)

Lying and Secrecy--Standard Operating Procedure

The secrets are maintained by official lying. We have already seen that for years the Reagan Administration said the Green Berets were training the Salvadoran army, while in fact 5,000 combat troops has been committed to shore up the junta, and 21 died while doing so.

The Washington Post, May 6, 1996 described the lengths to which the US went to preserve the secret of its combat role in El Salvador: " . . . a US colonel, videotaped by a TV crew carrying an M-16 rifle in El Salvador in 1982, was whisked out of the country before too many questions could be asked."

When New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner spotted a US military advisor on patrol with a Salvadoran army unit, Green Berets quickly lined up the Salvadoran soldiers and gave them false affidavits to sign, declaring that no American was with them. (Robert Parry's article in the May 27, 1996 edition of The Consortium, cited above).

When an assistant secretary for defense was asked about the activities of the Special Operations helicopter unit in El Salvador (then the 160th Task Force of the 101st Airborne, out of Ft. Campbell, Kentucky), he said "to my knowledge the unit has never been deployed to Central America." At the time the troops were being secretly deployed, the Boland Amendment to the War Powers Act prohibited such intervention. On April 14, 1983, President Reagan on April 14, 1983: "Anything that we are doing in that area is simply trying to interdict the supply lines which are supplying the guerrillas in El Salvador." (Frank Greve & Ellen Warren: "Secret US Unit in War Zone, Next-of-kin Say," Philadelphia Inquirer, December 16-17, 1984)

Special Ops Commandos Wear Civilian Disguises

Lawrence "Larry" Freeman, a member of Army Special Ops on "retired" status, was killed in Somalia in 1992 while on assignment for the CIA. Freeman and three of his Army Special Ops companions were riding in his Isuzu Trooper when it ran over a land mine. His three companions were crippled in the explosion. Freeman is still identified by the Pentagon as a government civilian, and his three companions are identified as State Department security officers, according to Insight January 25, 1196. "Secrecy Shrouds Spy Deaths," Insight Magazine, January 25, 1996.)

"Retired" from the Military

Smear Jobs and Character Assassination

Parry says the strategy for discrediting honest journalists, such as Raymond Bonner of the New York Times who wrote about the El Mozote massacre, was always an important part of US strategy for keeping secret the reality on the battlefield. After Bonner exposed the El Mozote massacre in 1981, he was targeted by right-wing "watchdog" groups, such as Reed Irvine's Accuracy in Media and The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Assistant secretaries of state Thomas Enders and Elliott Abrams disputed Bonner's stories during Congressional testimony, saying the massacre never occurred.

The Reagan Administration then allegedly put pressure on Bonners' employer, Abe Rosenthal of the New York Times. Bonner was eventually recalled from El Salvador and assigned to the business desk at the New York Times. When Robert Parry was in El Salvador in the fall of 1982, two senior US officials boasted about the embassy's success in discrediting Bonner and orchestrating his departure, he said. Compare what happened to Bonner to the tactics used to discredit Linda Thompson (see Veracity of American Justice Federation Videos for description. )

Surprise--No Congressional Oversight

Next: A Death Cult Wears Black

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The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) is a helicopter unit whose sole purpose is to deliver and pick-up Special Operations commandos at the site of the intended hit. It is based in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, and Panama (Army Times, July 10, 1995). It was almost certainly this regiment that flew the black helicopters over Mt. Carmel on February 28, strafing the women's and children's quarters with machine gun fire.

The Night Stalkers Bring Death in the Dark

The emblem of the 1st battalion is a black robed warrior holding a scarlet saber over his shoulder, riding the winged horse of Greek mythology. These two are shown against a full moon in a dark sky; both warrior and winged horse have starburst eyes (shown above).

Also of interest in that story is the soldier in the Army Times, July 10, 1995 cover picture, particularly the emblem on his helmet, magnified here for visibility. It shows a cracked skull and crossbones with the words, "Ghostriders Aerial Gun Platoon--Social Misfits."

This is hardly the emblem of soldiers motivated by protection of their homeland, hearts afire with ideals of liberty, looking forward to peace bought by courage and victory. This emblem belongs to pirates, sociopathic bikers, and street gangs.

The US military for many years has positioned a life in the military as a "professional" choice, with medical and educational benefits, travel, and handsome retirement pay. In questionable honesty, the appeal is aimed at candidates' self-interest. In marked contrast to the age of World War II, the subject of worthy patriotic sacrifice is almost never mentioned.

After the failure of the Marine helicopters to perform in the Iranian hostage rescue fiasco, Delta force founder Col. Charlie Beckwith wanted to establish a helicopter unit dedicated solely to transporting the Delta force. He described the men he wanted: "Aces, daredevils, barnstormers, guys who flew by the seats of their pants, hot-rodders, pilots who could pick it up, turn it around on a dime and put it back down with a flair." That is, Beckwith was looking for thrill seekers who live on the edge. Thus the 160th Airborne was born.

Beckwith's words were quoted by writers Frank Greve & Ellen Warren in a series of articles they wrote for the Knight Ridder news service. The articles appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, December 16-17, 1984, under the title "Secret US Unit in War Zone." Warren and Greve also cites one of the nation's top military helicopter safety experts who examined partial reports of some of the 160th's fatal accidents. After his inspection, the expert called the 160th maintenance program "atrocious." Disregard for personal safety is of course part of the thrill seeker's mind set.

The same appeal to thrill seekers who live on the edge appears in an ad placed by the Army National Guard in the Non Commissioned Officers Association Journal of August/September, 1996. The ad offers potential guardsmen "action and adventure," but promises that they will "still make it home for dinner" after--killing people? The ad shows faceless commandos disembarking from a black helicopter, as flown by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne).

With the July 10, 1995 story in the Army Times, we can see the change of purpose has come full circle: Special Ops, with its death cult images and mottos, is presented in Madison Avenue hype as the creme de la creme of warfighter achievement. The members live in danger and adventure, they glory in a devil-may-care disregard for personal safety, and they see regular combat action. "Risk of death is a constant companion for 160th SOAR "Special Operations Aviation Regiment"," boasts the Army Times.

Body Mutilation and Drug Use

This information comes to the Museum from an unofficial source through the medical personnel of Special Ops. These medical personnel have special duties to administer drugs (uppers) to commandos to enhance their performance and depress the desire for sleep while on mission. When the mission is over, other drugs (downers) are administered to bring the commandos down.

Body Laundering

Journalists Frank Greve and Ellen Warren wrote of the practice in their series which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on December 16 & 17, 1984 (cited above). According to the article, during the Vietnam War, soldiers were killed while on CIA secret missions in Laos and Cambodia. "If a guy was killed on a mission, and if it was sensitive politically, we'd ship the body back home and have a jeep roll over on him at Fort Huachuca," one former officer told the two Knight-Ridder writers. Ft. Huachuca is a covert operations base in Arizona.

"Or," the former officer said, "we'd arrange a chopper crash, or wait until one happened and insert a body or two into the wreckage later. It's not that difficult."

And the secret Special Ops helicopter unit, the 160th Task Force, almost certainly laundered the bodies of its servicemen when they were killed in El Salvador. The widow of a 160th pilot who died in a crash reported that her husband told her just days before his death, "If I ever die in an accident and they tell you I was a spy, or if I crash somewhere that I'm not supposed to be, don't ever believe that I was spying or wasn't working for the Army," according to Greve and Warren (Philadelphia Inquirer, December 16, 1984).

A cousin of another deceased member of the 160th Task Force said that two weeks before his death, the man told her that whatever happened to him, "the Army could pull whatever they wanted to make it look other ways." (Philadelphia Inquirer, December 16, 1984).

According to the Greve and Warren article, fines, imprisonment, and loss of rank can result from breaches of security by military personnel. "That's in the top-secret category, so I'm not going to talk about that," said one Army airman familiar with the Central American missions. "I don't want to go to jail."

The Washington Post, May 6, 1996 (Public Honors for Secret Combat) described body laundering during the El Salvador operation. Many who knew the truth about the circumstances surrounding the soldiers deaths were troubled by the outright false official reports relatives received, says the Post.

Judy Lujan, wife of Army Lt. Col. Joseph H. Lujan, was told her husband died in 1987 when the helicopter carrying him crashed into a hillside during stormy weather. But the Army never produced her husband's personal effects or photographs of his corpse, despite her repeated requests, she said. "I can't get on with my life, I can't do anything, until I know for sure he's dead."

Relatives of Gregory A. Fronius, a 28-year-old Green Beret sergeant, know he was slain during a guerrilla attack on a Salvadoran brigade's headquarters at El Paraiso. But initially they were informed Fronius had died in his barracks when a mortar shell struck. In fact, Fronius had bolted from the barracks and was trying to rally Salvadoran soldiers for a counterattack when several guerrilla snipers shot him, then blew up his body with an explosive charge.

"First they told me one thing, then I found out something else," said Celinda Carney, who was married to Fronius. "I was upset."

Insight Magazine, January 29, 1996 reported that one of the magazine's Special Ops contacts was predicting bodies would be laundered as a result of the Bosnian "peacekeeping" mission. With many Special Ops personnel operating in Bosnia, some of their missions will likely be extremely sensitive and high risk, with plausible deniability built into them, said the source. "When their bodies come home, they will be identified not as soldiers, but as businessmen or members of nonmilitary government agencies. The truths about their deaths will be difficult to learn," says author Anthony Kinnery.

"If I'm on one of these missions that's deep, deep black, you can safely bet few, if any, in Congress--maybe not even the secretary of defense--knows about what the hell I'm doing," says a black operative. "And if I get killed and my body's fortunate enough to be recovered, you can also bet I'll turn up dead in a car wreck in some place like Munich or Berlin." (Insight Magazine, January 29, 1996, Secrecy Shrouds Spy Deaths.)

Next: HRT: Rescue Team or Death Squad

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It is time to take a look at another group of soldiers, many of whom are "retired" from the military and trained in Special Ops techniques. It was they who controlled the perimeter of the Mt. Carmel Center from March 2 up to the day of the inferno, April 19, 1993 (Treasury Report, pg. 118).

In keeping with the principles we will discuss in Verbiage of War and Psychological Operations, these commandos, trained to kill, are called "rescuers." This group is called the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). Let's go beyond labels and have a look at products, instead:

Melissa Morrison before the HRT "rescue" on April 19

Melissa Morrison after the HRT "rescue" on April 19. Only her lower legs were found. See Autopsy Report of Mt. Carmel Doe 74 in Death Gallery.

According to Ronald Kessler, author of The FBI, the HRT was not started for the purpose of rescuing hostages, but for the purpose of capturing suspects (pg. 340). The name "Hostage Rescue Team" was chosen because it sounded benign, says Kessler. (pg. 341).

According to Kessler, the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team was modeled on Special Operation's Delta force, after FBI agent Buck Ravell attended a Delta force demonstration (pg. 340). And at least some members of the HRT were trained by Col. Charlie Beckwith, the founder of the Delta force and Soldier of Fortune insider.

Peas in a Pod

Codgell: 
Did you receive any training from any military personnel?

Toulouse: 
Yes, sir.

Codgell: 
Did you receive any training from any individuals with the Army or the US Armed Forces associated with the Delta Force?

Toulouse: 
No, sir, I have not received training from--from that unit.

Codgell: 
Do you know a Col. Charlie Beckwith with Delta Force?

Government attorney Johnston: 
Your honor, -- I'm sorry-- may we approach the bench?

Mr. Cogdell: Sure.

Mr. Johnston: 
Your Honor, probably the only sensitive area concerning the Hostage Rescue Team is their training, from time to time, with certain special operations groups within the military. The--I don't want to be -- sound silly here, but the Delta -- the existence of the Delta Force and certain Navy Seal units are classified, their existence is classified. And the--I obviously have no objection to this agent discussing the fact that they do train with law enforcement and with military, but it is a -- it is a big deal to the United States Navy and the United States Army that they not be identified as existing in a courtroom and also having specific training with any other unit.

Mr. Cogdell: 
Let me help you out, "Bill."

Mr. Johnston: 
Okay.

Mr. Cogdell: 
Beckwith is a fellow that we may or may not call, he's a retired colonel that started Delta Force. In discussions with him, I may or may not call him. But if I do, he indicated that he had trained several of these folks and we were asking him who he trained and he couldn't remember names. And that's as far as I intend to go, if he was trained by him or if he knows him.

Johnston: 
He's not even going to admit the Delta Force exists. And I don't want to sound silly about that, but they are under some tight orders in terms of national security dealing with even acknowledging these units exist, and I don't think he would tell you if they were. 
(Transcript, pg. 5024, pg. 5025, and pg. 5026)

According to Texas Ranger Alan Byrnes, who headed the Ranger operation during the WAco Holocaust, the Branch Davidians who left during the siege were "interviewed" upon exit (without attorneys present) by HRT commandos (Transcript, pg. 636 and Transcript, pg. 637). According to the Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1993, "The hostage rescue team undergoes the same kind of rigorous training as military commandos, and the FBI believed the unit's complement of storm troopers and snipers stood the best chance of rescuing the children from the compound."

Former Special Operations personnel, on "retired" status from the military, sometimes find employment as HRT members.

The "can-do" mentality of the military imbues the HRT. "Our approach is there is no room for failure," said Richard M. Rogers, the commander of the team. "If you get the mission, you do it, and you succeed. To have that mind-set requires being on a sharp edge all the time." (quoted in The FBI, pg. 341-42.) It was a member of the HRT who killed Vickie Weaver as she stood holding her baby in the family home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

Dirty Harry with a Vengeance

All that is necessary for wholesale slaughter, then, is to define a situation as a "hostage" situation, say negotiations to free the hostages are "going nowhere," and move in for the kill. This surely was the situation in Waco, where the Branch Davidians had been living peacefully in their own home with the own children. When surrounded by the soldiers, those children were described as "hostages" of their parents. "Negotiations" to free the hostages predictably went nowhere, and, on April 19, the HRT and US military went in for the kill.

One FBI SWAT/HRT team member assigned to Waco made a home video. The home video was leaked, and distributed throughout the US (FBI SWAT Team Home Video. At one point in the video, the camera focuses on a man sitting in a car. The voice-over says:

"He's quite a specimen. I tell you, of all my years involved with SWAT, I've never seen a gentleman like this. I've learned so much from him in just the short time I've been around him. Awesome is about the only word to describe him." The man in the car, on whom the camera is focused, then says:

"Honed. Honed to a fine edge. Honed to kill."

The military-trained SWAT and HRT members don't sound like they are interested in rescuing anyone. They are trained, professional killers, imbued with the "take no prisoners, butcher and bolt" philosophy of commandos.

Let's put aside the Orwellian labels for a moment, and look at the products of the "Hostage Rescue" Team. When the HRT finally struck on April 19, all the hostages turned up dead, along with their mothers.

Is the HRT a rescue team or a death squad?

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Where the Branch Davidians Lived

The men, women and children that made up the group lived in a communal plywood house they had built themselves. The Branch Davidians called their rambling frame home the Mt. Carmel Center. It was situated on 77 acres of slightly elevated farmland, in a vast sea of flat prairie. There were few trees. From the windows of their home, the Branch Davidians could see out for miles, far out over the surrounding grasslands.

Aerial Photos of the Mt. Carmel Center

The first story at the base of the four story residential tower consisted of a room made of 6-inch steel-reinforced concrete. The room had originally been build as a storage vault as part of an earlier structure on the property. The concrete room measured 19 feet deep by 20 feet long (as described by Texas Ranger Sgt. Raymond Coffman in his testimony at the 1994 San Antonio trial of the Branch Davidians (Transcript pg. 957); it had no windows and one doorway. In recent years the door to the concrete room had been removed, so the area formed a cul-de-sac. As our story begins, the concrete room served as a food storage area, or pantry. A walk-in refrigerator had been installed at one end within that area, measuring 8 feet by 4 feet.

This concrete room can be clearly seen in an aerial photograph Treasury Report, pg. 41, taken of the property before the structure in Figure 17 was built. The concrete room appears just below and to the left of the water tower. The Figure 18 photograph appears in the Treasury Report on pg. 41, but the caption underneath does not tell when the photo was taken, by whom, for what purpose, or how it came into the hands of the US Treasury Department.

The Branch Davidians, like many Americans who live with the threat of tornadoes, buried an old school bus on their property to provide a makeshift shelter from the storms. The school bus was reached through an underground tunnel accessible through a trap door inside the building, on the first floor of a three story residential tower. In the upcoming exhibits, we will critically discuss a sketch of the Mt. Carmel Center US News and World Report, May 3, 1993; this figure shows the relationship of the concrete room (mislabeled "cinderblock room") to the other building elements.

In 1993 the Branch Davidians were constructing a more substantial underground tornado shelter. Part of it had been completed and roofed. Another section was still under construction. The underground tunnel from the house to the school bus continued on and connected to the new tornado shelter.

The importance of the concrete room and some of the other architectural elements in the Mt. Carmel Center will become clear as our story unfolds.

Dumb Diagrams of the Mt. Carmel Center

Smart Diagrams of the Mt. Carmel Center

We may know that the Smart Diagrams are authentic and were used by the DoD/FBI/ATF during the Waco operation because the left hand portion of Smart Diagram of Mt. Carmel, First Floor was used to record the locations of the body recoveries and forms a part of the official record of the office of the Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2, McLennan County, from which the official records were acquired.

The body recovery map may be seen at Remains Recovered from Mt. Carmel: Exterior Grounds. Note the shape of the buried school bus and the tunnels, and the positioning of the labels. The size of the type on the Smart Diagrams indicates that these diagrams must have been quite large in the original, and were reduced for the convenience of the agents who carried them.

Compare these two sets of diagrams: the Dumb and the Smart. Note that an entire section of the building is omitted from the Dumb Diagrams--the area behind the stage that apparently contained a photo lab, a lathe, and an area set aside for "chemical storage."

The Smart Diagrams show the relationship of the house, the tunnels, the buried school bus, the new tornado shelter, and the tornado shelter which was under construction. Names of various Davidians have been written on the diagram, apparently to indicate their bedrooms or working space. The men's quarters on the first floor are clearly marked, as are the second story living quarters of the women and children.

Quite obviously the Smart Diagrams, with their careful details, were sketched by professionals with deep and first-hand knowledge of the layout and the living arrangements of the Branch Davidians. Why were the Smart Diagrams left out of the Treasury Report, and why were the Dumb ones included? Quite possibly because the US government did not want the public to know the Waco operation was a set-up, an inside job.

Ham Radio Tower

The existence of the ham radio station was admitted by the FBI in an interview with Associated Press. The interview appeared in the Atlanta Journal, on March 5, 1993. A letter from the FBI to Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), April 5, 1994 (see page 1 and page 2 of that letter), reveals that "[t]he Branch Davidians had the means to send and receive communications, and the FBI took steps to deny those communications . . . " Mr. George Zimmerlee of Marietta, Georgia, himself an electronics engineer and ham radio operator, has made a study of photos of Mt. Carmel Center before the raid. "The tower was apparently pulled up by a government operative even before helicopter gunships began firing into Mt. Carmel. In the above-cited letter to Rep. Newt Gingrich on April 21, 1994, the FBI admitted that "The Branch Davidians had the means to send and receive communications, and the FBI took steps to deny those communications . . ." Mr. Zimmerlee says his conclusion is that the raid on Mt. Carmel was a military operation, not a search.

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The strategy called for the language of war and law enforcement to be collapsed, and then reversed. The language of war was ascribed to civilian activity, and the language of civilian law enforcement ascribed to military activity.

Redefinition of Words

And the Branch Davidians' children were no longer their children. The Branch Davidians' children became their "hostages."

Meanwhile, the US soldiers who strafed a building full of mothers and children with machine guns one Sunday morning were called "law enforcement officers" engaged in the execution of a "search warrant" (extended usage of term "law officer" also seen in Dallas Morning News, March 2, 1993). The black helicopters, surely belonging to the Special Operations covert 160th Task Force, were described as "National Guard" helicopters, even though, when used in federal service, the "National Guard" operates on federal (Pentagon) command lines. Even states' rights issues were used to divert attention from the military nature of the attack.

The military occupation of the US, achieved through the redefinition of words at Waco, can no longer be doubted. Witness the armored personnel carriers deployed to Jordan, Montana during the Freeman siege in June, 1996. The war vehicles have been painted over with the letters "FBI" (Washington Times, June 1, 1996). It seems as though someone forgot to take the masking tape from the hasty stenciling of the letters--it is visible in the photograph.

Everybody's Satan: How Political Opposition Was Neutralized

This marketing technology was used to neutralize political opposition to the annihilation of the Branch Davidians. David Koresh was marketed as everybody's Satan. To the atheist, he was presented as the religious fanatic; for law-and-order types, he was presented as the killer of four law enforcement officers. And to the fundamentalist, demonization was effected by juxtaposing two allegations anathema to their ears: Koresh claimed to be Jesus Christ, and he kept a harem of other men's wives. Koresh was also variously presented as a gun nut, a New Age adherent, and involved in the drug trade. Finally, the coup de grace: David Koresh was a child molester. Was there anyone in the US not offended by this picture?

Of course the Branch Davidians had been cut off from all contact with the outside world during the siege, and they could not respond to any of the charges. The news services conducted no critical investigation of the charges made by the government or disaffected Branch Davidians--they just repeated the allegations as fact. The media became full partners with US government officials in creating an orgy of hatred and contempt. See, for example, the Dallas Morning News, April 10, 1993, which describes a press conference at which reporters and FBI staff roared with laughter as each tried to outdo the other in ridiculing the Branch Davidians.

After the government/media hate campaign, the public was so taken up with derision that the words "due process" and "tolerance" was not even whispered by civil libertarians, civil rights leaders, or churchmen. As a result, the US was able to torture, gas, shoot, and burn to death 80 peaceful men, women, and children on daytime TV, to the virtual roar of public approval.

Rachel Koresh and her two babies were among them.

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As we have already indicated, the operation against the Branch Davidians was military/intelligence in nature. We will now have a closer look at some indications:

They Called It "Operation Trojan Horse"

Finally they built a huge, hollow wooden horse, hid soldiers within the horse, and left it outside the walls of Troy. The Trojans thought the huge wooden horse was something valuable and towed it into their walled city. That night, the Greeks crawled out of the horse, opened the city gates to the Greek army, raped and slaughtered the Trojans, and burned the city to the ground.

"Trojan" was also the name of an operation executed by Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad. A special communications device, the "Trojan," was planted by Israeli commandos into the upper floor of an apartment building near the headquarters of Moamer Quadhafi. An Israeli ship out at sea then transmitted the messages to the Trojan. In turn, the Trojan re-broadcasted the messages. These messages, prepared by Israeli disinformation specialists, made it appear that a series of terrorist orders were being transmitted to Libyan embassies throughout the world from Quadhafi's headquarters.

The Americans were allegedly tricked by the Israeli deception and bombed Quadhafi's headquarters, killing at least 40 civilians, including Quadhafi's adopted baby daughter. The details of this exploit can be found in The Other Side of Deception by Victor Ostrovsky, pg. 143-149.

"Trojan Horse," then, refers to any device of treachery whereby the target is destroyed or set up for destruction from the inside. The presence of undercover agents ("Trojan Horses,") posing as Branch Davidians and living inside the Mt. Carmel Center is a possible explanation of why exact numbers and identities of the players are hidden.

The Davidians--How Many and Who?

At least six people were out of the Mt. Carmel Center at the time of the raid (Mike Schroeder, Norman Allison aka Delroy Nash; Woodrow "Bob" Kendrick, Paul Fatta, Don Bunds, and Stan Sylvia.)

Thirty-five allegedly left during the siege and nine officially escaped the fire; a group of 20 also escaped the fire, according to CNN.

The FBI figures on those who died in the fire ranged from 95 to 86 in April 1993. By October 1993, when its report was published, the Department of Justice had adjusted its figures to 75 dead in the fire.

Davidian survivor Clive Doyle counts 82 dead all told (this number includes two fetuses found in the ruins). He says that six Davidians died on February 28. Excluding the fetuses from the computation, we arrive at a figure of 74 dead in the fire using Clive Doyle's list.

Adding the above numbers, the total number of residents of the Mt. Carmel Center might be closer to 130-150 than the 75-100 plus cited in the Treasury Report.

Who were these 75 to 150 residents of the Mt. Carmel Center? That is not so easy to ascertain either.

One of the first actions of public officials in a hostage or disaster situation is to get a list of the persons affected. Certainly we can expect the FBI had such a list, but the list has been a carefully guarded secret.

The reason for the secrecy is possibly that among the Branch Davidians there lived a number of government agents. Some of these people are described in the Treasury Report, pg. 92, "Activity In The Compound." These were "former cult members" who were "in the Compound" at the time of the raid. These apostate Davidians were apparently deployed throughout the building, studying and later reporting on the alleged reactions of the real Branch Davidians to the news of the impeding ATF raid.

These people (Trojan Horses?) are not identified by name in the Treasury Report. Nor does the Treasury Report indicate whether those people came out during the siege or survived the fire, and are still posing as Branch Davidians.

During the 1994 San Antonio trial of the Branch Davidians, Texas Ranger Capt. Alan Byrnes, who headed the Texas Ranger operation in Waco, alluded to "people inside that were giving some of the information" about the residents of Mt. Carmel Center during the siege, but successfully evaded answering questions about a list of names. He said "we had a rough count of about a hundred people in there, the best we could calculate," but at the same time said the ages and even the genders of the persons inside was in question. Transcript, pgs. 604, 637-38, 661, 667). Surely this is improbable.

There were also, possibly, deep cover professional intelligence agents living in the Mt. Carmel Center. These agents set up a virtual test laboratory of surveillance devices within the Center. According to the London Times, March 21, 1993, a month before the raid, agents replaced normal telephones with converted sets which doubled as microphones to relay all conversations to government listening posts. Fiber optic microphones and cameras were inserted into walls and air vents. These fiber optic devices relayed audio and visual images back to a control center.

Later on, during the siege, thermal imagers scanned outside walls, and tracked body heat to reveal the whereabouts of each of the residents at any given time; lasers were used to detect window vibrations to reveal conversations, and the British Special Air Service flew a multi-sensor surveillance aircraft with forward looking infra-red radar and a low-light television. The equipment on the aircraft could pinpoint the location of anyone throughout the center.

The Chicago Tribune of April 21, 1993 reported "Federal sources confirmed Tuesday that the FBI had placed numerous listening devices within the compound and had gotten a good picture of events inside early in the siege." This confirms the information in the London Sunday Times article, and suggests deep cover operatives who installed the devices were living among the Davidians.

It is possible that the Texas Rangers also had intelligence operatives living in the Mt. Carmel Center. Capt. Alan Byrnes, when asked about lists of persons at the Center during the siege, answered in part: " . . . I think the information was derived from information that the ATF had, information the FBI had and probably from information that our criminal intelligence people had . . . " (Transcript, pg. 676).

Will the real Branch Davidians please stand?

We will have another look at the identities of the Branch Davidians in the Death Gallery in "Who Were Those People Anyway?"

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A number of US military combat veterans were involved in planning the raid. Of these, we have a few names: William Buford, an Army Special Forces combat veteran, Jerry Petrilli, a Marine Corps combat veteran, and Kenny King, also a Marine Corps combat veteran Treasury Report, pg. 37).

As early as July, 1992 during the Republican Administration of George Bush, BATF agents were receiving secret training for the raid. "Dallas Morning News, March 1, 1993". The site of the training and the identity of the trainers is not revealed.

In mid-February, 1993, Special Forces personnel from Ft. Bragg in NC came to Ft. Hood Texas to train the BATF agents on the Military Operations Urban Training Facility (MOUT) at Ft. Hood (Treasury Report, pg. 73). (See the description of MOUT training in The Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1995).

Who were the soldiers who executed the raid? The organizational affiliation of at least some of these people has not been revealed. The Treasury Reports says 76 ATF agents took part in the February 28 raid (pg. 1), but contemporaneous news reports give the figure as 100. Who were the other 24 "agents?"

Waco researcher and satellite engineer Ken Fawcett captured TV raw footage showing what appeared to be a TV cameraman being physically assaulted by ATF agents on the day of the raid. After Mr. Fawcett circulated the footage, it was revealed that Dan Mulloney, a camera man KWTX, the CBS affiliate in Waco, had been at the scene filming activities that morning, and was assaulted by ATF agents.

When Mr. Mulloney gave his terse testimony at the 1994 San Antonio trial of the Branch Davidians, he revealed that he had been taping footage of agents injured during the raid when ATF agents "among others," set upon him. "Transcript, pg. 3325". Unfortunately, the Branch Davidian defense attorney questioning Mr. Mulloney did not ask which "others." Later, when Mr. Mulloney was asked if he was locating injured ATF agents, Mr. Mulloney replied, "We directed some ATF agents to where a wounded person was, yes." Note that he did used the word "person, " not ATF agent. "Transcript, pg. 3342."

Why would ATF agents "among others" physically attack a TV cameraman taking video pictures of injured ATF agents? Had Mr. Mulloney inadvertently taken footage of some Special Ops commandos at the scene? Recall from The Black Army that "Special Ops Commandos Wear Civilian Disguises" when on secret missions. Recall also from the same exhibit the level of secrecy surrounding Special Ops activities. When Green Beret combat forces were in el Salvador in 1982, a US colonel, videotaped by a TV crew carrying an M-16 rifle, was whisked out of the country before too many questions could be asked ("Lying and Secrecy--Standard Operating Procedure," in The Black Army).

Did Special Ops Take an Active Role in the February 28 Raid?

Recall that Special Operations (1) conduct illegal operations (2) conduct these illegal operations in secret (3) routinely lie about their activities, and deny involvement (4) conduct these illegal operations under the ruse of training (5) conduct these illegal missions while wearing civilian clothing, and (6) are not opposed to killing civilians.

The direct participation of Special Ops commandos in the February 28, 1993 raid should be considered an open question by all fair minded persons.

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Other residents of Mt. Carmel had regular jobs in the surrounding communities. Many people from all over the world came to Mt. Carmel to reside there temporarily while studying the Bible with David Koresh.

Some years before the raid, there had been a political power struggle between Koresh and a rival for the leadership of the Branch Davidians. When Koresh became victorious, members of the losing faction contacted the authorities with stories that Koresh hoarded illegal arms and engaged in unorthodox marital practices with women. Further allegations of child abuse arose against David Koresh from a custody dispute involving Branch Davidian Sherri Jewel and her ex-husband.

These complaints against David Koresh found their way to the US Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF orATF). The BATF has the statutory authority to collect taxes on firearms possessed, purchased, or traded. Hence, it was this gun business that provided the pretext for the action, and it was the BATF, or ATF as it is often called, that provided the front for the operation.

According the the Treasury Report, allegations were made that David Koresh was converting regular guns into machine guns, and that he possessed machine guns for which he did not have a license. Non-US visitors should know that it is legal to own a machine gun in the US provided one has paid the tax. The tax levied on machine gun ownership is US $200.

Despite the minor nature of the alleged offense, and despite the known presence of men, women and children who were not involved in the gun business, only two methods of serving a search warrant were considered: raid, and siege (Treasury Report, pg. 43).

It is of interest that at the time of the action against the Branch Davidians, there was no legal limit on the number of guns Texans could own. At the time of the raid, Texans owned an average of four guns each; and 16,600 Texans legally owned machine guns. In order to own a machine gun legally, the owner had only to pay a tax to the ATF. Kevin S. Van Horn, Assault on Waco (kevin@axon.cs.byu.edu).

It was on the basis of this relatively minor tax on guns that the assault, siege, and death of approximately 80 Americans, including many children, took place.

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