Delta Force had active role in raid, ex-CIA officer told

Delta Force had active role in raid, ex-CIA officer told

Pentagon won't discuss Army commando unit

08/27/99

By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News

A former CIA officer said Thursday that he learned from Delta Force commandos that members of the secret Army unit were "present, up front and close" in helping the FBI in the final tear-gas assault on the Branch Davidian compound.

The former officer, Gene Cullen, told The Dallas Morning News that he heard the detailed accounts of the military's active involvement from "three or four" anti-terrorist Delta commandos as he worked with them on an overseas assignment in 1993.

"Whether it's the macho-bravo-type talk of guys in the field, I don't know," he said, declining to identify the individuals involved. "I have no reason to suspect that they lied. And it didn't just come from one of them. There were three or four guys that confirmed that, who were from Delta."

In the months after the Waco tragedy, Mr. Cullen said, he heard from associates in Delta Force that the secret unit's involvement there amounted to far more than observation or tactical discussions.

While he was deployed overseas on an assignment, Mr. Cullen said, Delta operators told him that the unit "had 10 operators down there, that they were involved in the advanced forward stages of [the FBI's April 19] operations."

"When they explained to me the depth to which they were involved down in Waco, I was quite surprised. They said basically they were out there in the vehicles, the Bradley [fighting vehicles], the CEV [tanks]," he said. "They were active."

The chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety told The News on Thursday that evidence in the hands of Texas law enforcement personnel may support the account given to Mr. Cullen.

"I'm advised there is some evidence that may corroborate" the allegation that Delta Force participated in the assault, said James B. Francis Jr., the DPS official.

A Pentagon spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity denied Thursday that any U.S. military units were involved in the assault, "as far as I know."

Use of active-duty military personnel against civilians without a specific presidential decree is a violation of federal law.

The spokesman confirmed that three Defense Department "observers" whom he declined to identify were in the Waco area on April 19, 1993, the day that an FBI tear-gas assault ended in a fire that consumed the compound. Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers died in the fire, which arson investigators ruled was deliberately set by sect members.

The spokesman said Pentagon policy barred him from any public discussion of Delta Force, even the possibility of its existence.

A once-classified memo written to the military's Special Forces Command, which includes Delta Force, indicated that three of its members watched the final tragedy unfold. The May 1993 memo stated that the observers did not participate and were warned not to videotape anything that happened.

Mr. Francis said evidence in the hands of Texas law enforcement suggests that more than three Delta Force members were at the compound on April 19 and involved in the assault.

"I have been advised that there are some police officers who have developed some evidence that needs looking into with regard to what the role of Delta Force was at the Branch Davidian compound," he said, declining to elaborate.

"I think it's a subject that the FBI director and the attorney general need to look into," Mr. Francis said. "The $64 question is whether they were advisory or operational, and I think some of the evidence is problematical."

An FBI spokesman in Washington said he had been instructed by the Department of Justice to refer all questions on the presence of Delta Force to the Pentagon.

The spokesman, Tron Brekke, added that he could not say whether Delta Force might have actively assisted the FBI in any way in Waco "because I don't think anybody knows."

"That's part of the reason that the attorney general and the director are, in a very expeditious manner, going to have 40 assistant inspectors and whoever is chosen to lead them come down and find out definitively what did happen," he said. "I don't know what was done or wasn't done down there."

On Wednesday, the FBI announced that a full inquiry was being launched to explain the possible use of pyrotechnic tear-gas canisters by the FBI hostage rescue team during the final assault.

The bureau's admission that such devices "may have been used" marked an abrupt reversal of a long-standing denial that its agents used anything capable of sparking a fire at the compound.

Bureau and Justice Department officials have maintained that the devices could not have played a role in the fire because they were used hours before the blaze and were fired at an underground bunker adjacent to the wooden compound.

A pending wrongful-death suit filed by surviving Branch Davidians and families of the dead has alleged that agents launched pyrotechnic devices into the compound and fired into the building. The government vehemently denies those charges.

Federal officials from President Clinton down have staunchly maintained in the six years since the tragedy that FBI agents did not fire a single shot during the entire 51-day siege.

Mr. Cullen, who said he worked as a CIA case officer from the 1980s to 1995, said Special Forces experts watched events near Waco with interest immediately after four federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents died trying to serve search warrants at the Branch Davidian compound.

At the time, he said, he was a supervisor in the CIA's special operations group and had frequent contact with members of Delta Force, Navy Seals and civilian tactical experts such as the FBI's hostage rescue team.

Before joining the CIA, he said, he worked as a deputy U.S. marshal, so he was particularly interested in exploring the problems faced by civilian law enforcement near Waco.

A CIA spokesman on Thursday refused to confirm or deny whether Mr. Cullen ever worked for the agency, in accordance with policy. The U.S. Marshals Service confirmed that he worked for that agency in the early 1980s. Mr. Cullen said he left the CIA to take over his family's construction firm.

Since he resigned, Mr. Cullen has appeared on the PBS documentary program Frontline to discuss his involvement in the Special Forces' operations in Somalia, a deployment that ended in tragedy when U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters were downed and Special Forces soldiers died in a Mogadishu gunbattle.

Immediately after the Branch Davidian standoff began, Mr. Cullen said, he learned from associates within the CIA and Special Forces that the FBI had called in Delta Force personnel "as observers."

"The bureau was very concerned. They weren't quite sure what David Koresh had inside that building anyway," Mr. Cullen said. "They were leaning on Delta. If there was something that blew up in their faces, they were interested in having Delta on the scene to respond and be fully equipped, operational and ready to go on a moment's notice."

In mid-March 1993, Mr. Cullen said, officials with his group called a meeting of about 20 special operations experts, including FBI and Delta personnel, to discuss Waco because it represented a useful case study on how tactical experts might respond to hostage situations.

He said he proposed using chemical agents to render the Branch Davidians unconscious so the compound could be taken without violence.

"If you pump tear gas into the building, everybody's going to get their gas masks," he said. "You're giving them time to prepare for something."

FBI officials have testified before Congress that some form of anesthetic gas was briefly discussed but was ruled out near Waco because of the potential threat to children and weak adults.

Mr. Cullen said that he attended no other formal meetings on Waco but that he later learned in conversations with special operations colleagues that authorities had ruled out any operation that involved sending personnel into the compound.

"It was more 'contain 'em. We're going to get em out.' There wasn't any type of talk about trying any type of rescue," he said.

Documents released under the federal Freedom of Information Act to a Tuscon, Ariz., lawyer indicate that the military's Special Forces Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida was heavily involved in helping the FBI in Waco. Military personnel provided technical and equipment support, the defense records indicate.

The command oversees Delta Force, Navy Seals and other units.

A May 1993 Special Forces memo stressed that the military in Waco played only "a supporting role." It was written by an officer who helped the FBI persuade the attorney general to approve the tear-gas assault.

The officer, whose name was blacked out, stated that the discussions with Ms. Reno before the assault did not include any mention of "the use of the military."

The memo stated that Special Forces observers who stayed in Waco through April 19 understood the legal restrictions on their activities.

Other defense documents indicate that some Special Forces officials feared that even watching law enforcement activities in Waco might violate federal prohibitions on domestic military activity.

Special Forces soldiers who trained ATF agents before they raided the compound Feb. 28, 1993, were specifically barred from watching the raid or offering medical support, the documents indicate.

"I felt as if my hands were tied," one Special Forces soldier wrote.