Text Excerpt 5: Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum The Secret Raid that Lacked a Marching Band With the historical perspective of the phony Gulf of Tonkin incident, let's have another look at the inept, suicidal raid plan allegedly designed by the ATF and supported by the Special Forces with "training." According to the Treasury Report, the ATF had gathered evidence that: - The Mt. Carmel Center was a fortress-like compound. (pg. 9) - David Koresh had a formidable arsenal of firearms, including many illegal machine-guns and unlawful destructive devices. (pg. 8). - David Koresh posted guards at Mt. Carmel (pg. 8) - David Koresh trained his followers to fire weapons (pg. 8). - David Koresh believed he would have a violent confrontation with law enforcement (pg. 8) - David Koresh was prepared to use the arsenal he was amassing (pg. 8). - The people who lived at Mt. Carmel were "fiercely loyal" to Koresh (pg. 38). - Of these 75 "fiercely loyal" people, large numbers were women and children. (pg. 38.) In order for the raid to fail in a convincing manner, at least two sets of people had to be fooled in different ways. The Davidians had to be fooled into thinking they were fighting off a genuine attack, and the US public, in front of their televisions, had to be fooled into thinking the raid was planned with sincere intent. Therefore, the Davidians had to be covertly tipped off about the impending "raid," so they could make full preparations. Every effort, short of a certified letter, was made to alert the Davidians to the impending attack, and each tip was made to look like a little snafu that could happen by the operation of Murphy's law. - Several months before the raid, the ATF rented the house across the street from the Davidians and filled it with undercover agents posing as students. The "students" were old, and drove late model, mid-sized cars similar to those driven by undercover agents and plain clothes police. Predictably, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians had become suspicious of the occupants in the undercover house. - In fact, David Koresh told the ATF undercover agents that he had been watching the "undercover house" with binoculars (Treasury Report, pg. 54). David Koresh knew he was under suspicion and surveillance. - The ATF tipped off the local press to the raid. Such was the media furor that on the morning of the raid, five media vans were either stationed at or driving around the roads near Mt. Carmel (Treasury Report, pg. 84). - The ATF reserved 153 rooms at three local hotels for the evening of 28 February, an action that might cause public notice and comment (Treasury Report, pg. 79). - On the morning of February 28, the ATF traveled from the military encampment at Ft. Hood in a huge caravan. The Treasury Report says: " . . . at Ft. Hood, the 76 agents assigned to the cattle trailers assembled at 5:00 a.m. They traveled to the staging area, the Bellmead Civic Center, in an approximately 80-vehicle convoy with a cattle trailer at each end. Many of the vehicles bore the telltale signs of government vehicles--four-door, late-model, American-made vehicles with extra antennas. All the vehicles had their headlights on. Agents report that, once underway, the convoy stretched at least a mile." (Treasury Report, pg. 81.) - "An ATF agent wearing an ATF raid jacket and local police were in the street in front of the civic center directing the convoy into the parking lot. While waiting to be briefed, some of the agents went inside the center to have coffee and doughnuts; other milled about outside. A supervisor become concerned about the visibility of the agents, many of whom wore ATF insignia or were otherwise unmistakably law enforcement personnel. He ordered everyone to go inside and remain in the civic center. " (Treasury Report, pgs. 81-82). - The ATF planned to conduct the "secret" raid in broad daylight, at 10:00 am. - The ATF had to know that the Branch Davidians could see out for miles over the prairies, and given the Davidians' alleged proclivity for lookout towers and guards, had to be able to see them coming; - The almost treeless terrain of the Mt. Carmel Center provided the ATF with little cover. - The ATF arrived at the Mt. Carmel Center in noisy cattle cars. The noisy cattle cars had to go across a pothole-scarred gravel road outside the Center. The condition of the road would have amplified the noise of the cattle cars. - The ATF raiders drove canvas-topped cattle trailers containing their troops across the front driveway of the Mt. Carmel Center, and parked the trailers broadside to the windows and the doors of the building. Had the Davidians opened fire, this maneuver would have provided them with the best target and the highest possible number of ATF casualties. The Dallas Morning News diagram of March 1, 1993 shows how the cattle trailers were positioned (Waco Tribune-Herald, March 1, 1993). The newspaper drawing is confirmed by a Treasury Report aerial photograph (pg. 99), in which the trailers are clearly visible across the front of the Mt. Carmel Center (the top of this picture). - The ATF troops were ordered to take position in front of the house with no cover from possible return fire except the thin metal of car bodies that happened to be parked there. If the Davidians had opened fire when the trailers first arrived with the 50 caliber machine gun they were alleged to possess, many ATF agents would have died. Next: Excerpt 6, That's Not Murphy's Law --------------------------------------------------------------------- Entire set of text excerpts from the Museum available with anonymous ftp from ftp://ftp.public-action.com/wm2-0txt.zip Excerpted by Carol Valentine. Images omitted. Visit the Museum at http://www.holocausts.org/waco. 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