From: Ian Goddard (Ian@goddard.net)
Date: Wed Nov 10 1999 - 18:16:55 MST
The AP reported the premier showing of Michael McNulty's
new video "Waco: A New Revelation," which is a follow-up
to his Emmy-Award winning documentary "Waco: The Rules
of Engagement." This new documentary, narrated by former
FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst, alleges that the
government placed a shaped-charge bomb on top of the
concrete room, which blasted a hole through its roof,
killing the woman and children inside. The bomb theory
was first proposed by Gordon Novel and evidence for it
is reviewed at IAN GODDARD'S ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN JOURNAL:
http://users.erols.com/igoddard/wacorom2.htm
======================================================
ASSOCIATED PRESS - November 3, 1999
======================================================
Waco Movie Puts Blame on Feds
By Michelle Mittelstadt
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Nov. 3, 1999; 6:39 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON -- A new film on the 1993 Waco siege
suggests federal agents used an explosive charge
to blast into the steel-reinforced concrete bunker
where Branch Davidian women and children died.
As evidence, the makers of "Waco: A New Revelation"
present video footage shot after the violent end of
the siege showing a gaping hole in the bunker's roof.
The steel rods used to reinforce the concrete were
bent inward -- apparently, the film's analysts say,
by a blast that would have been devastating to
people inside.
The movie also contends that cult members were
pinned down by automatic gunfire as the compound
was consumed by flames, cutting off their only
route to safety.
The film, produced by Colorado-based MGA Entertainment,
was previewed Wednesday for reporters and others.
The FBI said, as it has for six years, that agents
fired no shots.
"We are aware of no incidents where gunfire emanated
from any law enforcement source," bureau spokesman
Bill Carter said. "Our position has not changed."
Carter said he was unfamiliar with the allegation
that a "shape charge" explosive device was detonated
on the roof of the concrete bunker. He also declined
comment about the documentary.
Fresh controversy over Waco began earlier this year
after the documentary's main researcher, Michael
McNulty, discovered a potentially incendiary tear
gas canister amid the thousands of pounds of evidence
held in storage lockers. That discovery led FBI and
Justice Department officials to recant their
longstanding contention that only non-incendiary
tear gas was used.
The government says its agents played no role in the
fire or Davidians' death. Cult leader David Koresh
and some 80 followers perished during the blaze,
some from the flames, others from gunshot wounds.
The documentary, which includes interviews with
former FBI, CIA and military personnel as well as
surviving Branch Davidians, also asserts:
-- Because of bugging devices in the compound, the
FBI was aware of the Davidians' talk of setting the
place aflame. Bureau officials have long denied that
they had advance knowledge of the cult members'
intent, saying the transmissions were too garbled
to understand.
-- Federal agents fired from a helicopter at a Branch
Davidian who ventured outside the compound three hours
before the blaze began, according to a videotape
analyzed by Edward Allard, a former Army night vision
lab supervisor hired as an expert in the Davidian
survivors' wrongful-death lawsuit against the
government. "In our opinion, it's clearly machine
gun fire from the helicopter," Allard says on the film.
-- Infrared surveillance videotape shot by an FBI
plane shows two people rolling out from under a tank
and firing dozens of rounds from a machine gun at the
compound, Allard says. "I stopped counting after 62
individual shots," he says.
Rep. Clifford Stearns, R-Fla., who attended one of
two film screenings Wednesday, said the documentary
should be seen by members of Congress and the public
alike.
As to those who might dismiss the film as biased,
Stearns said: "I don't visualize it as propaganda.
I visualize it as an attempt to bring questions to
the American people."
The documentary is narrated by Frederic Whitehurst,
a former FBI scientist whose complaints about shoddy
practices in the bureau's crime lab led to a scathing
inspector general review.
================== END AP REPORT ====================
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GODDARD'S JOURNAL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/journal.htm
____________________________________________________________
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