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USA ConfidentialBy Ellis Henican For more than six years the FBI. played dumb. We know nothing, the bureau's top officials swore—nothing about any pyrotechnic tear-gas canisters at Waco. In fact nobody in Washington seemed to know any thing. Not the F.B.I. Not the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Not Attorney General Janet Reno. Certainly not the White House. Year after year, high-ranking government officials all agreed: Our people bear no responsibility for that deadly fire at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, where cult leader David Koresh and some 80 of his followers died on April 19, 1993, after a frustrating 51-day federal siege. Enter Michael McNulty. If it weren't for him and a few close associates, millions of Americans might still believe that baloney. McNulty is a documentary-film maker who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. Until recently, most Americans had never heard his name. He'd helped to make a controversial documentary two years ago, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement", that was nominated for an Oscar and won an Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism. But it turns out that McNulty was just revving up. He didn't stop his digging with the movie's release. Like any good investigator, he lust dug some more. He talked his way into the Department of Public Safety evidence locker in Austin, Texas. He found photos of the tear-gas canisters the F.B.I. swore did not exist. He tracked down photos and grainy video and crackling audio tapes, each calling into question some aspect of the official account. He got reluctant witnesses to talk. The political fallout came swiftly. Soon, F.B.I. Director Louis Freeh was admitting the bureau had indeed misled the public. Calls for Reno's resignation were growing louder by the day. The Justice Department was forced to appoint a former Republican senator, John Danforth, to probe the catastrophe at Waco. Danforth vowed to answer Waco "dark questions" once and for all. As McNulty puts it, "They don't get any darker than mass homicide." A good deal of McNulty's recent effort has found its way into a second film, Waco: A New Revelation, which is now available on videotape (MGA Films; 877-GET-WACO; Rick Van Vleet and Stephen Novak, executive producers: Jason Van Vleet, director; McNulty, producer and chief investigator). And McNulty promises he's not through digging yet. Some highlights from Penthouse's exclusive interview: Why We Should All Care About Waco I'm not any great legal scholar or constitutional scholar. But I am a citizen who's tried to pay attention over the years to how this thing works, this grand thing we call America. And my bottom line is very simple. It irks me to no end to hear comments from anonymous G.O.P. staffers Like, "We have to keep a lid on this. We can't let it get out of hand. We can't raise expectations because the right-wing crazies will go out and raise hell with it." Excuse me?! What will happen is that unless all the truth is laid on the table and it's all revealed and dealt with, the right-wing crazies will have a right to go out and do something— within the limits of the law, certainly. Not what Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh did. If those people in Congress want to have themselves another Timothy McVeigh, the best thing they can do is go forward and try to suppress, corral, and control. I hope that all the institutions of the federal government are successful in exercising appropriate credibility and integrity to get to the bottom of this, because if they don't we're all in trouble. It's not going to be just some building with federal employees in it. Seeing the Light, Gradually At the beginning I started this process debunking patriot right-wing mythology. It was, "Let's take a look at Linda Thompson and her film, Waco: The Big Lie. Lets see what she's talking about. Is there a flame thrower tank here or riot?" As it turned out, there wasn't. But in the process of examining that, I found other evidence that said, "Wait a minute. The government demolished the building? Could that demolition have had something to do with the fire?" And then we went from there. So it was an evolving process of literally years before I came to the conclusion. The key turning point? Finding an infrared aerial video that gave a clear rear view of Mount Carmel during the assault. Them and Us It's not just this one little incident in Waco. It's the betrayal of the national trust—that we can trust our federal law-enforcement officers who represent us. That's the issue. The FBI, and the A.T.F. agents weren't representing themselves as individuals. They were representing all of us as citizens. They weren't saying, "Wait a minute, Mr. Koresh. You seem to be breaking the law here. We need to take you into court and put you through the process and determine if you have broken the law and if so mete out punishment." Instead, a bunch of people got killed. Did Koresh have culpability in some of this? Certainly. Did some of the Davidians? Certainly. But the government was responsible for escalating these events to the level that almost 100 men, women, and children died. What Washington Is Still Trying to Hide, Part I The use of other types of ordnance— both 40-millimeter and hand-placed devices that are suspect as the points of origin of the fire. The government is very fond of pointing to the two 40-millimeter projectiles and saying, "Well, these didn't start the fire." We never said they started the fire. They are just simply the evidence, the proof of the pudding that the government did tell a lie. Now we would like for them to address the real issues, which have to do with the other 40-millimeter ordnance and the flash-bang grenades that were found at the points of origin of the fire. Let me be more specific. The 40-millimeter ordnance we are examining right now were not found at the points of origin of the fire. They had passed through the building, according to the evidence that we've associated with those projectiles at this time. Their actual function and design is still under investigation by a renowned committee or group of scientists who are looking at the scientific-analysis results from the residues, et cetera. But the evidence indicates [the ordnance] passed through the building. These experts will draw the final conclusion. What Washington Is Still Trying to Hide, Part II We also have evidence that is very compelling that flash-bang grenades that were used at Mount Carmel—a number of them were also found at the points of origin of the fires. And the mystery of it is that, in the evidence chain, they were mismarked. The plastic bags they were in were mismarked. They were identified as silencers. Or gun parts. Not flash-bang devices. And thereby they somehow managed to be missed in the arson investigation that followed the fire. Because everybody knows a silencer can't start a fire. What Washington Is Still Trying to Hide, Part III The evidence of the hole in the roof of the bunker and the effects that the shape-charge detonated on the roof of that bunker in the early stages of the fire had on the interior of the bunker and the human beings inside. That shape-charge device is a signature of a particular military unit that's known for its ability to breach such locations as bunkers. There is evidence—there is compelling evidence—that shows [people from this unit were] there. And in action. In forward-looking infrared videotape. In real-time video. In still photos and documents. And testimony from individuals. This is all in the new film. The American public should look at this. All we're asking them to do is look and decide. And then go and take the actions they deem responsible and appropriate to get to the bottom of this. And that does not include blowing up buildings, by the way, boys and girls. David Koresh's Prophet Motive? Theologically, I couldn't disagree more with Koresh. But be it known that God Himself has had this propensity to use the strangest individuals to be the instruments of His work. I would point you to Jonah, who told God to take a flying leap: "I am not going to Nineveh. Don't give me that stuff. They'll kill me if I go there." You get the impression these [Old Testament prophets] were not nice men. They were a little crafty and weird and just not within the norms of society. So for me to sit in judgment of David Koresh and say, "Oh, you know, he was a child molester, he collected guns, he was violent." Well, you know, all that may be true. But the point is, that doesn't change the fact that God may have used Koresh to tell the rest of us something He wanted us to understand. I can't deny it. Okay, I'm not going to say that Koresh was a sanctified prophet. He's not. He broke the law. That's why he was being arrested. To stand trial. He broke man's law and God's law. The issue is not whether or not that was the case. Certainly, it probably was the case. Right. The issue was, was Koresh adhering to a higher principle here and doing what he thought God told him to do? I mean, can you imagine what people thought of Jonah? Was Koresh being—and I'm really reluctant to use the word—a prophet? I don't think so. But was he being used by God to tell the rest of us, "Hey, pay attention"? That's a distinct possibility It's eerie. Catching Up With Clinton There is no comparison between sexual dalliances in the hallways of the White House and the death of almost 100 men, women, and children in a church-home-residence in the middle of the Texas plains. I mean, how do you compare [those]? But there's a heck of a political story. The question is, How did Delta Force arrive at Mount Carmel and become operative without the president's authority? And that is the story at this point. "Well, I didn't sign a waiver for these guys. They must be rogues." Uhh-uh, no. There's evidence that says, "No, Mr. Clinton, the fact is it appears that you did sign a waiver." However, I think it is conceivable that the waiver was on his desk and he was about to sign it and he did a Clintonesque machination and didn't sign it but told them to go anyway. That wouldn't surprise me. The truth of it still remains to be dealt with and uncovered. I don't know. A Question for Hillary If I could ask anyone in the government one question, I would ask Hillary, "Where are the Vince Foster files and what do they say?" I have to be careful here. But the reason I say this is that a series of documents that come out of F.B.I.- and Senate-investigation reports say the chain of command goes from Waco to the Justice Department to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The parties involved are very familiar, and some are dead. The most surprising twist of all is where we find the chain of evidence residing in the hands of the First Lady. There is a series of documents pertinent to the subject of Waco and White House involvement that, according to the trail of evidence, now reside in the hands of Hillary Rodham Clinton. These are documents that would tell us what the White House involvement was. That's all I can say about that. But Where's the Proof the FBI. Started the Fire? That is the refrain of the machine that was part of the perpetration of this deed in the first place. It's simply the repeating of the same phrases by the same people: The F.B.I. didn't fire a single shot at the Branch Davidians." Bull-puckies. That's true only in the context of semantic wordsmanship. It is true they never fired a single shot at the Branch Davidians because all the shots they fired at the Branch Davidians were part of automatic weapons fired first. Thank you very much. Didn't Koresh Himself Force the Deadly Raid? David Koresh certainly has a responsibility here. Lion's share? Not even. It wasn't David Koresh who made the government decide to do what it did. They did that independently of David Koresh. David Koresh, however, has responsibility. But at least he knew where he was going. He knew what the end game was going to be. Did the FBI Really Mean to Kill Those People? I don't think that the 51 days started out with that intent. I think that it became increasingly clear over the 51 days that this was not going to end in a normal fashion. I think there's a great number of subset stories, some of which I'm aware of at this time, that are not in the film, that say that there were manipulations by people inside the system in order to have things go a certain way, and that that began the process. It was lesser-evil choices that got them to the point where April 19th began. In the end, when you get to the point where you've eliminated all the lesser-evil choices, the last lesser evil is really horrendous. And that's what we're dealing with, the choices made. Does that mean that we can excuse it as incompetence or an accident? No. No. No. They made choices. The Filmmaker and His Subject The first thing I'd have to say is this story is not about Mike McNulty. That's not humility, it's the truth. The truth is the story about what our friendly neighborhood local government did to a group of our fellow citizens, whether they were alleged to be criminals or not. I don't care. Look, we stopped burning social heretics at the stake with their children in the twelfth century. Now, am I to believe that we're going to [resume] that practice? I hope not. The American public was invited to embrace it over the past six years. The rationale was they [the Branch Davidians] got what they deserved. Oh, really? I'd like people to think about that. There's been some complaint from people who have seen the rough cut of the new film, about the issue of there are too many crispy critters. Too many burned human beings. Excuse me. I think everyone should be made to look at this until they understand the serious significance of that act, because if they don't, then we're operating in denial still, aren't we? The Woodward-and-Bernstein--ing of McNulty A Hollywood movie? They won't make one. Well, sure it's a great story. Mr. Spielberg, if you're reading this article, I want you to know I have a screenplay all ready. It's a fictional screenplay. It's not about actual events, It's called Executive Orders." Give me a call, Steve. Do I have somebody in mind for McNulty? Well, the character is sort of McNultyesque. Just remember, this is fictional. Harrison Ford. Yeah. Harrison Ford. I admire him greatly. He's about my age—53—and he's got a little paunch, you know. And I like the roles he plays. The Long View I'm not sure what the significance of all this is yet. A thousand years from now, what will all this mean? I don't know. I don't think any of us knows. But I think we all better pay attention to what we're doing here. We better pay attention. There's accountability required here. It's not accountability in man's hands, it's accountability in God's hands. Could Waco Happen Again? Oh, gee, what week? When? Take your pick. Could it happen again? Yes. Clive Doyle, one of the surviving Branch Davidians, says people ask him all the time, Could it happen again? His answer is, "What happened to us was only the beginning." Stand by. Film at 11.
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