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for those interested in responding to the following, the address is:
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Times
3600 New York Ave., N.E.
Washington D.C. 20002
The Washington Times
October 9, 1993
page A9
FBI still probing video of tank at Waco
By Jerry Seper
A Justice Department official who helped write a report on the
role of the department and the FBI in the Branch Davidian raid
says a video purporting to show a tank shooting flames into the
compound is under review.
Richard Scruggs, an assistant to Attorney General Janet Reno,
said the video by Indianapolis lawyer Linda Thompson
"raised our eyebrows and caused the same concern" others have
expressed.
Distributed to news organizations around the country, the video
purports to show one of the FBI tanks at the Waco compound firing
flames into the building before the start of the fire.
Miss Thompson has claimed it proves the FBI started the blaze
that killed 85 persons, including 24 children.
Mr. Scruggs said that Justice officials submitted the video to
the University of Maryland for expert analysis and that
preliminary results have not been conclusive.
He said that the armored vehicle used by federal authorities,
on loan from the military, was not equipped with any type of
flame-throwing capability and that the only way a flame could
have come from it would have been through some type of "busted
hydraulic line or something like that."
He said Justice officials had examined the vehicle and found no
evidence of broken parts. Another analysis of the tape has been
ordered, he said.
Mr. Scruggs noted that a preliminary assessment of the video is
that what appears to be a flame shooting out of the vehicle was a
flash from the dispersant carbon monoxixde used to propel
the chemical agent CS into the compound.
A second possibility, he said, was a defect in the way the
video was shot.
"I don't know what it is," he said. "I'll have to be honest
with you."
He noted that the fire at the compound did not erupt for at
least 35 to 40 minutes after the light flash is observed in the
video.
An inquiry into the video was continuing, Mr. Scruggs said.
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