Soldier passes test after disputing testimony concerning whereabouts
01/31/2000
By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News
The former commando passed the lie-detector test after disputing another Delta Force soldier's sworn testimony. That soldier said the commando wasn't seen during the entire six-hour tank-and-tear-gas operation on April 19, 1993, and showed up hours after it ended, red-faced, tired and disheveled, officials said.
Determining the military's involvement in Waco has been a major focus of special counsel John Danforth and committees in both houses of Congress. The issue has been sensitive because of the nature of Delta Force, a unit so secretive that its existence is not officially acknowledged, and because of constitutional restrictions on the use of the military in civilian U.S. police actions.
Mike Caddell, lead lawyer for the Branch Davidians, said he was troubled by the commando's testimony - particularly its conflict with the sworn accounts of two other Delta Force soldiers.
"This guy is there longer than anyone else from Delta, and he remembers nothing? He can't remember anyone he talked to, hung out with, saw," Mr. Caddell said. "The contradiction between his testimony and that of the previous two soldiers is striking and incredible."
The retired sergeant, a sniper in the secret U.S. Army unit at the time of the Branch Davidian siege, insisted that he watched part of the FBI operation in Waco but did not participate, officials said. The soldier also testified that he never carried a gun and never got within a kilometer of the building, officials said.
The former commando drew intense interest last week not only from the Waco special counsel but from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill. Defense Department officials have said he was one of only three special forces soldiers - and the lone combat specialist - in Waco in the final days of the standoff.
A former CIA employee went public last August with claims that several Delta Force acquaintances confirmed taking part in the April 19 operation. Pentagon officials denied that, and CIA officials later tried to discount the former employee's veracity. But the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety Commission said the issue needed full investigation because his agency had unspecified evidence suggesting that Delta troops might have taken an active role in ending the siege.
Lawyers for the sect contend in a pending federal wrongful death suit that someone from the government shot at the sect's embattled home before it burned on April 19 with leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers inside. They also allege that some of the shooters could have been military personnel.
The government has denied that and has argued that the Branch Davidians bear sole responsibility for the tragedy because of evidence that the members set the compound on fire.
But the government's efforts to refute the gunfire charge have raised eyebrows. It took months of requests and finally, a formal complaint to the judge in the wrongful death case before Justice Department lawyers produced sworn answers to the plaintiffs' questions about shooting by federal authorities on April 19.
When the responses were filed last week, the Defense Department's statement that no military personnel fired on that day included a notable caveat: The Pentagon's lawyers wrote that their sworn denial of military gunfire was "based on currently available information." No other agency used similar language in their sworn statements.
So the commando questioned last week was subjected to particularly intense scrutiny. He was questioned closely about the testimony of a Delta colleague, an electronics specialist who said the commando showed up hours after the Waco fire, looked hungover, and announced he had gotten so drunk the night before that he overslept and missed everything.
The remaining Delta Force soldier known to have been in Waco on April 19, also an electronics technician, said in a separate December deposition that he did not recall whether he saw the commando on that day.
The former commando, now working in Europe, was brought back to the United States by the Defense Department for three days of formal questioning in Washington.
The soldier told interviewers that he drank a few beers on the night of April 18, and then went to bed early. The next morning, he recalled, he went out about 8 a.m. to the FBI forward command post.
He said he did not have a gun, never got closer than the command post and did not recall seeing the other Delta soldiers on the 19th, officials said. Those two men testified earlier that they were in the same area but never saw the commando. The commando recalled that he went to lunch and returned to see the compound in flames, said officials present at his interviews.
The commando said he could not remember names of anyone he met and never advised the FBI's hostage rescue team during his three weeks in Waco.
The soldier and his two colleagues each said they filed no written report to document what they saw at the end of the siege, officials said. In contrast, Defense Department records indicate that earlier teams of Delta soldiers had filed detailed reports.
After his first day with investigators from Mr. Danforth's office, the former commando was asked to submit to a lie-detector test. Officials said the test focused on several key questions: Did he shoot at the compound or get anywhere near the building?
Neither of the other soldiers questioned late last year and none of the more than 25 FBI agents interviewed so far by Congress, the sect's lawyers and the Waco special counsel is known to have been subjected to a polygraph, said those familiar with the inquiries. The former commando was deposed Thursday by the sect's lawyers. As in earlier depositions with Delta soldiers, the commando was hidden behind a screen, and the lawyers could ask nothing that might identify him.
The former commando was questioned Friday by House investigators and by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, whose investigative staff brought a court reporter to record the Senate interview, officials said. The Pennsylvania Republican is leading the Senate's ongoing review of the 1993 siege and other Justice Department controversies.
With the soldier were more than a half dozen Pentagon lawyers and officers.
"What particularly perturbs the Department of Defense is the fact that the men and women of these units have been vilified and depicted as murderers when they carried out their duties as observers in Waco," one participant said. "And now, because of the classified nature of their positions, they are unable to respond."
Several officials said they remain concerned about unresolved conflicts between his account and those of his Delta colleagues.
"It appeared that the guy's holding back on something," one official said. "There's definitely a discrepancy. Somebody's lying."
But others said his story sounded largely plausible.
"The idea that the FBI's [Hostage Rescue Team] would ask a lone enlisted man to do their alleged dirty work staggers the imagination," another official said. "He may well have been less than forthcoming concerning the allegations that he was hung over on the morning of the 19th of April, but in light of the fact that he passed a polygraph on the key questions, there's little investigative interest in this guy."
Mr. Caddell, the Branch Davidians' lawyer, said he doubts that the discrepancies in Delta Force testimony can be resolved. "But as we have said all along, to a small child trapped inside that building, whether it was Delta Force or the FBI pulling the triggers was irrelevant."
The appearance of repeated rhythmic flashes on a government infrared tape recorded above the compound on April 19, and some experts' assessments that they could only have come from government gunfire is the cornerstone of the sect's charges on the issue.
Suspicions about the role of military commandos in Waco also have been fed by various differing Pentagon statements about the total number of Delta Force soldiers who were sent. In October 1993, Congress was told that a total of three were sent "during the 51 day siege."
A General Accounting Office investigator said last August that a lengthy GAO audit of military assistance in Waco could not determine the number of special forces soldiers. The investigator was told five by Pentagon officials but later found records showing eight were there.
Justice Department lawyers filed court statements last year swearing that 10 special forces soldiers were sent. But Defense Department records include classified rosters of 14 special forces personnel assigned to Waco duties, and investigators are still trying to resolve the discrepancies.