[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20940]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            THE WACO TRAGEDY, WILL THE TRUTH EVER BE KNOWN?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to briefly discuss the Waco 
tragedy that has been so much in the news over the past few days.
  Before coming to Congress, I spent 7\1/2\ years as a criminal court 
judge trying felony criminal cases. I tried the attempted murder of 
James Earl Ray, several death penalties cases, and many high profile 
cases of all types. I believe in the death penalty as it is now used, 
meaning on our most horrible cases, and I believe in very long 
sentences for violent, hardened criminals. I am very strongly 
anticrime; but I must say tonight that I think this Waco tragedy was 
one of the most tragic episodes in our Nation's history and one of the 
most despicable things the Federal Government has ever done.
  Eighty-six people, including 24 children, were put to death simply 
for attempting to be left alone, so they could practice what I and most 
other people felt were kooky religious beliefs. But in a free country, 
people are supposed to have the right to have kooky, weird or unusual 
beliefs as long as they are not hurting anyone else.
  The Waco victims were killed apparently because federal law 
enforcement officials were bound and determined to conduct a raid that 
would make the national news. This was not about law enforcement; this 
was about publicity.
  Now, after 6 years, we discover, as many people suspected all along, 
that the FBI has been lying about this sordid affair. We heard a few 
days ago that contrary to previous Justice Department statements, 
incendiary devices were placed by the Government into the Branch 
Davidians' home.
  Today, we are told even more incendiary devices were put in there, 
something called military star flares, highly flammable. The federal 
law enforcement people bombarded this home for many weeks, hour after 
hour, minute after minute, with extremely loud noises, extremely bright 
lights throughout the night. Then they moved in the tanks.
  Hundreds of officers, thousands and thousands of highly paid man-
hours, hundred of millions of taxpayer dollars wasted in a massive 
overkill of people who were of no threat to anyone.
  Then the Government attempted to do a false public relations campaign 
about child abuse, of which there was no proof, and illegal weapons, 
also not proved.
  What makes all of this even worse is that the kooky leader, David 
Koresh, was frequently out of the Davidians' home alone and could have 
easily been arrested on many occasions if the ATF and others were not 
primarily interested in publicity in the first place.
  Eighty-six people killed, 24 children dead, in what many people now 
say was a raid done in an attempt to justify increased appropriations.
  Five or 6 years ago, Forbes Magazine had a lengthy cover story about 
the Justice Department. The story said that we had quadrupled the 
Justice Department funding since 1980 and that prosecutors and federal 
law enforcement people were falling all over themselves trying to find 
cases to prosecute.
  The article said they were resorting to going after honest business 
people who had unintentionally violated laws they did not even know 
were in existence, shades of the IRS.
  Several months ago, Newsweek Magazine had a cover story which said on 
its cover, ``The IRS, Lawless, Abusive, Out of Control.''
  Well, the same thing could be said today of the Justice Department 
under Attorney General Reno and our federal law enforcement agencies. 
Today, our law enforcement dollar is out of whack. The highest paid law 
enforcement people are federal bureaucrats who sit here in Washington 
and never see a real criminal unless they are mugged on the way to 
their cars after work.
  The lowest paid law officers are the local police and sheriffs 
deputies, the people who are fighting the real crime, the street crime, 
the violent crime that people want fought.
  The tragedy at Waco, the deaths of the children, the lies about it 
since it happened, are all the outgrowth of a Federal Government that 
has grown too big for its own good, and certainly too powerful and too 
arrogant for the good of the people for whom these Government officials 
are supposed to be working.
  While I am discussing this, I should also mention the cold-blooded 
killing by the FBI of 13-year-old Sammy Weaver and his mother at Ruby 
Ridge, Idaho.
  This small boy was cowardly shot in the back and his mother was shot 
as she held her small baby in the doorway of her house.
  And no one is ever held accountable for all of these deaths and all 
of these lies, because today we do not have a Government of, by and for 
the people but instead have one that is of, by and for the bureaucrats, 
the unelected elite of this Nation.
  The only thing these people really care about is their money. What we 
should do, but will not, is to drastically cut the money for these 
agencies and give it instead to local law enforcement agencies or back 
to the hard-working citizens we took it from in the first place.
  It certainly, Mr. Speaker, will not satisfy anyone to have a 
whitewash investigation by establishment types handpicked by the 
Justice Department and approved by our very biased national media.

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