Jerry Boykin & Lynn Vincent (29 page)
Koresh and his followers then settled into a weird blend of apocalyptic theology and survivalism, stockpiling food and weapons in preparation for their fiery last stand. Cult members lived a spartan, military lifestyle that included physical training, strict food rationing, and monklike conditions in which men and women—even married ones—lived separately and pledged themselves to celibacy. Except for Koresh, who had sexual access to all the women, designating numerous “wives” among them, including girls as young as twelve. Koresh dealt out harsh discipline to the children and preached long, scary sermons that lasted late into the night.
Eventually, ATF acquired a house near the Waco compound; an agent even infiltrated the Davidians’ worship services. By late February, based on intel and shipments to the compound, the bureau was convinced the cult was preparing to build an arsenal of automatic weapons. Also, former cult members alleged child abuse and molestation, and there was growing concern about whether Koresh would initiate a mass suicide, taking the children with him. It had happened before. In 1978, People’s Temple leader Jim Jones had induced 913 of his followers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid.
On the night of Sunday, February 28, I heard on the news that a hundred ATF agents launched a surprise raid on the compound. What was supposed to be a simple infiltration action to subdue the cult and take Koresh and his leadership into custody erupted into a firefight that lasted nearly an hour. The instant ATF agents entered the compound, the Branch Davidians attacked with a hail of small-arms fire, shooting through doors, walls and windows. After a 45-minute firefight, four ATF agents and six cult members lay dead.
The raid touched off the longest law enforcement standoff in American history. The FBI joined ATF, and the siege on the compound spun out for weeks.
Delta was directed to send technical support to help the FBI. I sent three Delta operators to the scene, where their role was to provide cameras and audio devices and advice on how to use them. The U.S. Constitution prohibited them from getting involved in the actual operation. Then, after about six weeks, the Justice Department decided that America’s standoff with David Koresh had gone on long enough.
I HAD WORKED A LOT with the FBI’s hostage rescue team, and particularly with an HRT commander, Dick Rogers, a man I considered to be one of the finest FBI agents I’d ever met. He was serious and technically proficient, going through all the same training and exercises his guys did. And unlike some federal agents, Dick was very supportive of the military.
He called me one day in April. “You up to speed on Waco?”
I said that I was. “Our guys are still down there in a support role.”
“I’ve got to go up to Justice for a meeting with Janet Reno and William Sessions over this thing,” he said. “We’ve put together a plan on how to take down Koresh’s compound and they want a briefing. I want to swing by Fort Hood first and pick up Pete Schoomaker, then come up to Bragg and get you.”
William Sessions was the FBI director. Janet Reno was the brand new American president’s brand new attorney general: Both she and Bill Clinton had been in office less than four months. Dick’s idea was that Pete, as the former Delta commander, and I, as the current commander, could certify to Reno and Sessions the soundness of any hostage rescue plan. We trained with the FBI, knew their capabilities. Dick wanted credible, outside voices who could speak to the merits of the operation.
“I’ve got to get clearance to do this,” I told him. “Let me call you back.”
I called Garrison and told him what the FBI wanted. A few hours and several Pentagon generals later, the request came back approved. The next morning, I drove to Pope AFB, hopped on a King Air with Dick and Pete, and headed for D.C.
On the way up, Dick laid out the FBI’s assault plan. “We’re going to use CEVs to drop CS into the main building.” Agents would drive up next to the building in Combat Engineering Vehicles, a configuration of an M-60 tank, punch holes in the roof and begin injecting CS, a form of tear gas.
“If Koresh and his people don’t start surrendering after that,” Dick went on, “we’re going to use a bulldozer to take off the front of the building, then go in and get them.”
Dick told us he was very concerned with the possible effects of the CS tear gas on the Branch Davidian children. There would be an expert at Justice who would address that issue during the meeting with Sessions and Reno.
Although Pete and I agreed to help, we wanted firm limits on our involvement. “We need to be sure it’s understood that Pete and I are here in an advisory capacity only,” I said. I was concerned that any whiff of military entanglement in this operation could be perceived by the press and public as a violation of
posse comitatus
, the constitutional prohibition on using U.S. troops for any kind of domestic law enforcement.
“Absolutely,” Dick said. “Also, your involvement will be kept strictly confidential. Sessions and Reno have already agreed to that.”
We flew into Davidson Army Airfield at Fort Belvoire, were picked up by the FBI, and driven into D.C. to the Department of Justice. Sessions’s office was on an upper floor, his name engraved on a large bronze plaque on the door. The office was large with a row of windows overlooking Constitution Avenue.
Dick Rogers introduced us to Reno, Sessions, and Sessions’s deputy, a man who was starched, pressed, and pomaded to within an inch of his life.
Bureaucrat
, I thought.
Capital B
.
Reno had invited Web Hubbell, Clinton’s large and jowly deputy attorney general. He sat off a bit from the group, looking on from under the windows.
Along with Pete and me and the tear gas expert, Dick Rogers had also invited Danny Colson, the first commander of the FBI’s hostage rescue team, who was known as a big SWAT guy.
The tear gas expert went first, explaining that the deployment of CS causes some people to panic—the children likely would, he noted—but that others would take measures to try to cope with the discomfort. The CS would induce a burning sensation in the eyes, tearing, and severe irritation of the skin and mucous membranes. Recovery would be fairly rapid, though, and the agent didn’t cause permanent injury.
Janet Reno turned to me. “Have you had any experience with CS?”
“Yes, quite a bit,” I said. “The fact is, CS is pretty bad, but people can usually find ways to work through it.”
Next, Dick and Danny laid out their plan—the CEV, the CS insertion, the plan to arrest the Branch Davidians as they surrendered. The plan was to pump the tear gas into the far left and far right sides of the building in hopes of forcing people to exit near the center-front. Reno took it all in, friendly and clearly in the listening mode. She did ask a couple of tactical questions, such as how the FBI was organized to receive those who gave themselves up. As she spoke, I thought I detected a tremor in one of her hands.
Sessions, on the other hand, was very formal with all of us, even with Rogers and Colson, his own men. He didn’t ask too many questions, but he asked good ones. Why, for example, did the FBI feel compelled to launch this assault now? Why not wait the Branch Davidians out?
Dick Rogers gave three good answers. “First, we have evidence that the children are being abused. Second, the people in there can hold out indefinitely, which exacerbates the problems with child abuse.” Finally, he noted that his agents had been deployed at Waco for nearly two months. “They have perishable skills they have to maintain. If we don’t go now, we’ll need to withdraw and go into a period of retraining.”
Reno turned to Pete and me. “What do you guys think of this plan?”
Pete’s answer was very direct: “Listen, this is a law enforcement operation, not a military operation. We can’t grade your paper.”
Delta was confident in the HRT, Pete went on. “But we don’t do law enforcement, and we are not able to give you a judgment.”
Reno looked at me. “Would you like to add anything, Colonel?”
“Well, I can tell you that if this was a military operation, we would hit the place from every side, all at once, and it would all be over in seconds,” I said. “Our tactics would be very different. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to evaluate a law enforcement concept.”
From beneath the window, Web Hubbell swiveled his huge, round head in my direction. It reminded me of the turret on a tank.
“I’ve only got one question,” he said. “Is this legal?”
I thought,
This guy’s the deputy attorney general and
he’s
asking
me
if this is legal?
“Sir,” I said, “that’s a determination you’re going to have to make.”
Of course, the following year, Hubbell, a Clinton buddy from Arkansas, would plead guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion and admit to stealing almost $400,000 from his clients and partners in Little Rock’s Rose Law Firm. So I guess the question of whether something was legal was a relative thing for him.
Reno stood, indicating that she’d heard all she needed to. “Okay, thank you very much for coming up. I need to talk to the president, and we’ll let you know what decision he makes.”
BACK AT BRAGG, I typed up a memo documenting the details of the meeting. Classifying it
Secret
, I sent it to Bill Garrison and Carl Stiner. Then on April 19, I was in my office preparing to depart for training in Kuwait when CNN broke the news that the FBI raid on the Branch Davidian compound had begun. Some of what I was seeing was replays and some was live footage. The FBI deployed one hundred-seventy men, plus the CEVs, each equipped with a long boom for punching through the building roof and inserting the CS. As news cameras panned back and forth across the scene, I could see four Bradley APCs and an M1A1 Abrams tank. I later found out that Dick Rogers directed the operation from inside the tank.
At first, the operation unfolded just as Dick had laid it out. But at around 2 p.m. Texas time, the wheels started to come off. On the television screen, I could see smoke, and listened as reporters noted multiple fires breaking out on the Branch Davidian property. As I watched, flames engulfed the compound and eighty people burned up inside.
The outcome shocked me. I knew there were risks, but I didn’t think the FBI’s op would go that poorly. I knew instantly that the incident would erupt into a huge scandal with Dick and his men directly in the crosshairs of Congress.
I did not realize, however, that I would wind up there, too.
It only took three or four days before Congress called Janet Reno on the carpet. I knew she was going to testify, so I turned on C-SPAN to watch. Reno told the panel that before authorizing FBI’s assault, she consulted with both the current and former commanders of Delta Force, Colonel Jerry Boykin and Colonel Pete Schoomaker.
And she left it at that. She did not go on to say that Pete and I declined to give our opinion on the plan she authorized, nor that we stated we would have conducted a very different operation. And so her testimony left the impression that we concurred with the plan.
Some folks call that a “lie of omission.” Where I come from, they just call it a lie.
The next year, 1994, Congress hauled me in to testify. I gave them the details of our meeting with Reno and Sessions, and they had my memo on the meeting. My testimony brushed away any doubts in Congress: Delta had not rendered a judgment on the FBI’s plan.
Still, the conspiracy mongers crawled out of the woodwork, concocting nutball theories: Delta murdered the Branch Davidians . . . Ten Delta operators were driving Bradleys at Waco . . . President Clinton ordered a Delta attack on Waco then covered it up. Even reputable news organizations repeated a CIA agent’s false story that Delta deployed to Waco “ready for war.”
Then some media took the
partial
story of our meeting with Reno, the CIA agent’s bogus story, and the truth that we did have three observers there, and cobbled together more crap about government conspiracies.
Because Delta is a secretive organization, some people assume it also considers itself above the law. Not true. Delta’s stealth nature is by design. It enables it to perform its mission, not violate the Constitution. Before Congress and the Branch Davidians’ families, Pete and I told the truth about Delta’s involvement at Waco. Conspiracy theories may sell newspapers and magazines, but they also ruin the reputations of good men trying to do good work.
Secret
doesn’t always mean
dark
.
Mogadishu, Somalia 1993
FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE BRANCH DAVIDIAN compound went up in flames, a Boeing 737 spit me out at a rundown airport on the ragged edge of Mogadishu, Somalia. After months of watching Mohamed Farrah Aidid starve and murder his own people, President Clinton finally ordered in Task Force Ranger to capture the warlord and bring him to justice. Now, I stood on the smoldering tarmac near a shark-laced slice of the Indian Ocean, part of an advance team that included General Bill Garrison; Lieutenant Colonel Dave McKnight, commander of the 3rd Ranger Battalion; Delta surgeon Rob Marsh, and a team of communicators and logisticians.
A blanket overcast imprisoned the white Somali sun, holding the wet East African heat to the ground like the lid on a cauldron. A stench, something between rotting fish and burning trash, assaulted my senses.
The UN had taken over Mogadishu’s commercial airport, but warring clans had long before reduced it nearly to rubble. Decrepit Russian transport aircraft leftover from the 1960s sat rusting on the tarmac. Jeeps buzzed across the airfield, darting between the relic planes. Their drivers laid on their horns, shouting in Arabic and broken English.
I looked toward what had once been the control tower and terminal and saw that part of the roof was missing. The hangar next to it was shot full of holes, and even from a distance I could see junk piled high and pigeons roosting in the rafters. That’s where we would be setting up the JOC.
Tent cities stretched away from the tarmac down to a crushed shale beach, and nearly to the water’s edge. These were support elements for UN participants who brought military forces to Mogadishu. I could see the flags of twenty nations, hanging limp on poles poking up into the humid air. Beyond the tents and a whole village of portable toilets, a fence and guarded gate separated the airfield from a street. On the other side lay Mogadishu proper, where, I knew, thousands of living skeletons came from all over Somalia in search of food.