Did Hillary Clinton Order Waco Assault?

News Commentary – Winter/Spring 2001

According to Linda Tripp it was Hillary and not Bill Clinton who directed the final assault on Waco.

During an interview in early February 2001 the former White House aide alleged that Hillary Clinton pressured the late Vincent Foster to resolve the Waco standoff. As a result more than eighty men, women and children were killed. Appearing on CNN’s “Larry King Live” Tripp suggested that Foster, at Mrs Clinton’s direction, transmitted the order to move on the Branch Davidian’s Waco compound, which culminated in a military style attack on the wooden building.

Her accusations lend weight to charges made previously by Special Forces expert and Waco investigator, Steve Barry. According to the former Special Forces member, Hillary set up a special “crises centre” in the White House to deal with Waco. Serving with her in the centre was Vincent Foster who, according to his widow was subsequently: “fuelled by horror at the carnage at Waco for which the White House had ultimately been responsible.”

Foster himself was found dead, from a gun-shot wound to the head, in a Virginia park three months later. Could he have known too much about Waco?

Journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard maintains that Foster had been “drafting a letter involving Waco” on the very day of his death. Moreover Evans-Pritchard says that Foster kept a Waco file in a locked cabinet that was off limits to everyone, including his secretary.

Prior to Waco, Foster was “dignified, decent, caring, smart” says Linda Tripp; in its aftermath though, she said: “…Vince was falling apart.”

She was with the former White House deputy counsel when the news about Waco broke on television. “A special bulletin came on showing the atrocity at Waco and the children. And his face, his whole body slumped, and his face turned white, and he was absolutely crushed – knowing the part he had played.”

“And he had played the part at Mrs Clinton direction,” said Tripp.

Moreover there was a marked contrast between Foster’s heartfelt emotion at the Waco tragedy and Hillary Clinton’s, Tripp insists: “Her reaction was heartless”.

Her accusations give further weight to allegations first levelled in the 1999 documentary on the deadly confrontation, “Waco: A New Revelation.” The film featured the account of former House Waco investigator T. March Bell. “One of the interesting things that happens in an investigation is that you get anonymous phone calls,” Bell explained in the film. “And we in fact received anonymous phone calls from Justice Department managers and attorneys who believe that pressure was placed on Janet Reno by Webb Hubbel, pressure that came from the first lady of the United States.”

Mrs Clinton grew more and more impatient as the Waco stand-off came to dominate the headlines during the early months of the Clinton administration, said Bell. It was she, according to Bell’s sources, who pressured a reluctant Janet Reno to act.

“Give me a reason not to do this,” Reno is said to have begged aides shortly before orders were issued for the final assault.

Sources include: The SPOTLIGHT Oct 30 1999 and NewsMax.com, Tripp: Hillary Directed Waco. Saturday, Feb. 10, 2001

Also see:
Waco: The Untold Story
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=37