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Hear what Congress says about Waco.
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September 6, 1999
The smoking gun
Waco revelations show true face of federal police
For years the Clinton Administration, with their willing allies in Congress and the mainstream press, have parroted the line that federal law enforcement officials did nothing wrong in the Branch Davidian stand-off at Waco. Anyone who questioned the government's official position was relegated to being either a far-right extremist, a militia kook, or a follower of the undeniably peculiar David Koresh.
It was just weeks after coming to Congress in 1997, while on a national television program, that I was asked about the then-four-year-old case. I responded with the position that the evidence was overwhelmingly strong that everything was not as bureaucrats in the Clinton Administration claimed. I cited recent polling data that indicated that most Americans simply did not trust the government, and that a goodly number feared the increasingly commonplace occurrence of federal agents taking violent action against American citizens.
Almost immediately the defenders of big government, the administration and the war on civil liberties launched into wild hysterics. I had committed the unpardonable sin of believing the facts rather than the government spin, which attempted to justify the murder of innocent children and untried, uncharged adults
The Attorney General and her minions in Congress maintained that the conflagration had been a rash act of mass suicide, ignoring that just hours before the raid those same people had requested their phone lines be reconnected. They also ignored the infrared evidence that government agents, as the fire was raging on one side of the house, were entering the home through the back, and that tanks were injecting gases banned under international treaties.
Now, though, even the most blind followers of the administration and its policies are left stunned with revelations that high-ranking FBI officials and others lied to Congress, hid evidence, broke the law and knowingly subverted justice.
According to press reports, the recently uncovered evidence has a clear recording of one FBI agent casually asking for permission to use highly flammable explosive devices against citizens of the United States just hours before the inferno began. The permission was, likewise, casually granted.
These people certainly held peculiar religious beliefs. They may have even been very odd in their habits and mores. But they were citizens of the United Sates. Not terrorists or child molesters -- despite early claims by the FBI, repudiated by the Waco child protective services offices. They were not drug dealers -- a lie told to justify the use of deadly military force; no drug manufacturing equipment was ever found or seriously believed to exist.
Worse still for defenders of statism is a growing recognition that our founding fathers were right when they prohibited the federal government from being involved in law enforcement. In Waco, America has seen the face of the growing federal police state, with its heavy emphasis on brute force, military machinery and deadly tactics.
With the veneer being stripped from the myth of federal law enforcement, Americans are beginning to realize that it is both unconstitutional and untenable. One cannot have a legion of heavily armed bureaucrats with unlimited jurisdiction, the might of the military at their call, and no accountability, yet expect they will respect civil liberties.
In Waco, we find the answer to a question that is far more troubling than as to why certain tactics were used, methods employed or even the sequence of events leading to all those deaths. The answer we find is to the question, "Why did this happen at all?"
"Because we could," we are told.
With that cavalier attitude so prevalent in federal law enforcement, it is hardly surprising that even greater numbers of Americans now do not trust their government.
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![[photo of Rep. Combest]](http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/tx19_combest/prpix.jpg) |
News From Congressman Larry Combest
Texas' 19th Congressional District |
September 2, 1999
Combest Demands Answers to Waco Tragedy
Previously undisclosed evidence in the FBIs 1993 tear-gas assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, has been seized by federal marshals at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Rep. Larry Combest (R-TX) demands to know the answers behind the number of questions still surrounding the Waco tragedy.
At least eighty people died in this raid, including twenty-four children. We must finally get to the bottom of what really happened in this tragedy. I am outraged that information has been withheld from Congress as well as the American public for years, and I think we have a right to know what really happened at that compound, Combest stated.
According to news reports released today, audio portions of infrared tapes taken at the stand-off include the voice of an agent seeking and receiving permission from a commander to fire incendiary tear-gas grenades at the bunker on the morning of April 13, 1993. During numerous congressional investigative hearings, Attorney General Janet Reno has maintained that there was no evidence to suggest any inflammable canisters were used. The Department of Justice and the FBI now admit this testimony was false.
Rep. Combest, former Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, notes that this latest development underscores the degree of mistrust that has been fostered between this Administration and the American public.
Trust is the foundation of our government. We trust that individual citizens rights are respected by the government. When government leaders knowingly withhold information from Congress or are so incompetent as to not know what is happening in their own agency, they threaten peoples faith in their own government.
I believe that the American people and several members of Congress have entirely lost faith in the Clinton-Gore Administration to carry out any investigation and that this new information about Waco completely tarnishes Ms. Renos credibility. Obviously, the FBI and the Justice Department are incapable of conducting an impartial probe of their actions. Only a non-partisan, independent investigation into the dispute at Waco will resolve the many doubts that have continued to linger for more than six years, Combest concluded.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 1999 |
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GIBBONS CALLS FOR CONGRESSIONAL
HEARINGS TO INVESTIGATE WACO INCIDENT |
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| Washington, D.C. Today, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-NV) joined a bi-partisan group of House and Senate colleagues in calling for Congressional hearings into the FBIs final assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Gibbons sent a letter today to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) urging his cooperation in holding Congressional hearings on the Waco matter.
These recent revelations are a great concern to the American people and their belief in government, wrote Gibbons, referring to the FBIs recent admission that incendiary tear gas canisters were used in the fiery 1993 standoff with the Branch Davidians. These revelations must be investigated by Congress so that the truth is provided to the public.
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno recently discovered that the FBI has admitted that at least two pyrotechnic canisters were fired at the compound before the complex became engulfed in flames, continued Gibbons, noting that for years Reno relied on FBI assurances in denying that any incendiary devices were fired into the compound.
Our government and this Administration needs to be truthful with the American people, Gibbons added in his letter to Hastert. They deserve answers and I would respectfully request that you hold Congressional hearings so that this issue can be settled in the open, before the American people.
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If you have a statement from Congress to add on this page, please email me at wacofacts@aol.com
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