-Caveat Lector-
>From www.rouze.com
Political Outsider
Waco cover-up: Who’s watching the watchers?
By Robert White
All right class, let's review:
Q: What was the foremost political lesson of Watergate? (Aside from, Don't
try to steal an election you're destined to win in a landslide.)
A: It's not the initial crime, it's the cover-up that gets you.
Very good. Next question:
Q: What is the overriding political lesson from Whitewater?
A: It's not the initial crime, it's the cover-up that gets you... eventually,
thanks to a poorly written independent counsel law, a zealous prosecutor and
a complete lack of self-discipline on behalf of the president.
No need for sarcasm. But correct. Final question:
Q: Do you know where I'm going with this?
A: Of course. But I have no idea why Janet Reno, Louis Freeh and the FBI
didn't learn those lessons in Waco.
It is sort of hard to grasp, isn't it? More than six years after 80 cult
members died in a fiery blaze at the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco,
Texas, the FBI has finally acknowledged that, yes, we actually did fire a
potentially flammable tear gas into the house a few hours before it went up
in flames. Whoops!
It reminds me of a Doonesbury cartoon from the summer of 1995, in which a
White House aide is detailing to President Clinton (shown as a levitating
waffle, of course) all the "contradictions, denials and obfuscations" of the
Clintonites during the Whitewater hearings. The staff member then pauses. "In
that regard, the staff has pressed me to ask you something, sir...what
exactly are we covering up?"
"Depends," Clinton the pastry replies. "What are the options?"
This would be a lot funnier if it weren't so serious--so damn dangerous, in
fact. It is becoming easier and easier to come to the conclusion that the
Justice Department and/or the FBI felt the need to cover up the true events
of April 19, 1993.
I don't think any reasonable person believes--at least not yet, barring
further evidence that may be hidden elsewhere in the J. Edgar Hoover
Building--that the FBI or ATF agents were responsible for igniting the fire
that day. The tear gas was shot into the building about six hours before the
flames appeared. No one can doubt Koresh was on a suicide mission. He or his
henchmen started that fire. They killed the Davidians.
Then why the six years of denials that tear gas was used on the siege's last
day? Why not just get that minor point out of the way and clear the air?
I was one of several dozen reporters covering the House's Waco hearings four
years ago; we sat there day after day as top government officials, including
Reno, swore that no such gas was used. But someone had to know. A 49-page
memo on the siege was prepared within the Justice Department shortly after
the fire.
On page 49, it was revealed that one round of tear gas was shot into the
compound. Through a miraculous error, page 49 never made it to the
congressional investigators. That is not just a third-rate Xeroxing job.
That's a conspiracy.
Reno, and perhaps FBI Director Freeh, might lose their jobs over this one.
But the problem runs deeper. The Justice Department is effectively the
world's largest police-and-prosecution force, with more than 20,000
employees, a number that has grown in recent years despite cutbacks in other
federal agencies.
At the same time, Clinton and Congress have imbued the FBI with more
power--expanded wire tapping abilities, including on cell phones, and a
virtual gutting of the habeas corpus laws so crucial to death penalty
defendants, to name just two. A federal appeals court based in Richmond this
year struck down part of the Miranda rules ("You have the right to remain
silent...) on its continued assault on the 4th Amendment.
More power, less oversight.
If they are willing to lie about a small piece of the Waco puzzle, what other
rules are they willing to bend in the name of public safety? Who watches the
watchers? Who will protect us from our protectors?
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