[URL]www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23115[/URL]

Expert supports Waco-video
                 conclusions
                 Says charge that FBI fired on fleeing
                 Davidians 'well-justified'


                 By Jon Dougherty
                 © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

                 An independent imagery expert has confirmed the
                 findings contained in a video documentary that
                 government agents fired weapons into the Branch
                 Davidian complex as it burned in Waco, Texas,
                 April 19, 1993.

                 Also, he says his analysis of the film has turned up
                 even more personnel – and gunfire – than
                 previously discovered by the producer of a series of
                 Waco documentaries.

                 Michael A. Weatherford, a Colorado-based analyst
                 and former Air Force master sergeant with
                 extensive imagery intelligence experience, found
                 that "the conclusions of the producers" of "The
                 F.L.I.R. Project," a documentary charging that
                 flashes of light contained in FBI infrared footage
                 shot during the raid were gunfire from federal
                 agents, "appear to be well-justified by both their
                 methodology and their results. …"

                 The documentary is the third in a series of
                 Waco-related films co-produced by Mike McNulty,
                 who has said his latest project effectively debunks
                 government denials that its agents fired their
                 weapons during the final stages of the Mount
                 Carmel raid.

                 Last year, former Missouri Republican Sen. John
                 Danforth released an extensive report supporting
                 the government's claim. Danforth, who was
                 appointed as special counsel by former Clinton
                 administration Attorney General Janet Reno to
                 examine all Waco-related evidence one final time,
                 has said his investigation "conclusively" proved that
                 FBI agents did not fire on Branch Davidians fleeing
                 their burning complex.

                 Tom Schweich, a lawyer who was Danforth's chief
                 of staff during the review, told WND in an
                 exclusive interview May 14 that his boss'
                 investigation "left no doubt" that the FBI did not
                 fire on church members.

(continued)
                 "The idea that that is gunfire [on the infrared video]
                 is preposterous. Preposterous," he said, noting that
                 during the final investigation, Danforth's team
                 consulted their own imagery experts to refute the
                 claims of gunfire.

                 But Weatherford, who spent 21 of his 26 years in
                 the Air Force analyzing imagery for some of the
                 military's most prestigious intelligence units, said in
                 a report issued after studying the F.L.I.R. video:
                 "The imagery provided and the methodology of
                 'The F.L.I.R. Project' indicate that the Danforth
                 report [is] excessively flawed in its methodology,
                 and therefore, questionable in its conclusions."

                 In his analysis, Weatherford admitted that since
                 McNulty's film was "a commercial project and not
                 raw imagery," it would be "impossible to make a
                 complete and thorough evaluation" of the entire
                 video.

                 "Without access to all the data available and a
                 considerable amount of time for evaluation, a
                 complete assessment of the results is not possible,"
                 he wrote. "Materials such as the raw imagery taken
                 by the FBI, a detailed map of the compound, copies
                 of the color 35mm film shot by the FBI and other
                 imagery from various sources would be needed to
                 evaluate completely what took place at that time."

                 However, Weatherford – who said he was rated
                 one of the Air Force's top 10 imagery analysts on
                 three separate occasions during his career – also
                 found that "there is significantly more activity on
                 the imagery than that documented by" McNulty
                 and his production crew.

                 For example, the career Air Force imagery analyst
                 found "at least three to four times the number of
                 people identified by the producers being visible on
                 the imagery."

                 "Most of these people are not visible on the imagery
                 when it is run at a 1:1 speed," Weatherford said,
                 "but become discernable when the imagery is
                 evaluated on a frame-by-frame basis. The major
                 characteristic of these people is that they are
                 virtually invisible on the infrared imagery, but their
                 presence can be detected by their blocking out the
                 rough background they are crossing."

(continued)
                 In his evaluation, Weatherford said the figures
                 appeared to be "soft fuzzy blotches" that "often
                 obscure the rough, uneven background they are
                 displayed against."

                 That finding was important, Weatherford said,
                 because he found that more "muzzle flashes" were
                 "visible from more than a dozen persons not
                 identified by the producers" of "The F.L.I.R.
                 Project," "including three to four gunmen
                 advancing on the compound with weapons firing
                 while the fire is blazing. …"

                 "These, too, are most discernable when the film is
                 viewed in a frame-by-frame evaluation," he
                 continued. "The duration of the muzzle blasts are
                 fewer and appear to be either single shots or
                 short-duration (2-5 round) bursts."

                 In his final report, released Nov. 8, 2000, Danforth
                 said his team of 74 personnel concluded that
                 flashes, or "glint," seen in some frames taken by an
                 infrared camera aboard an FBI-sponsored aircraft
                 the day of the Waco raid were reflections of
                 sunlight off glass and other debris.

                 In a separate interview last month, McNulty told
                 WND that the "glint" appearing during his video
                 and the FBI's infrared film could not have been
                 flashes of sunlight because the camera used by the
                 agency was set to filter out such environmental
                 anomalies.

                 Also, he said, timed measurements of the duration
                 and speed of the so-called glint were much slower
                 than, and more indicative of, the cyclic rate of fire
                 for an automatic weapon.

                 Finally, McNulty said, the Danforth investigation
                 failed to test-fire the correct type of rifle carried by
                 FBI agents the day of the Waco raid.

                 McNulty has said photographic evidence obtained
                 by the Texas Department of Public Safety during
                 the raid shows FBI agents carrying shortened
                 carbine variants of the standard military M-16 rifle.

                 The carbines, which, McNulty says, were either
                 CAR-15s or then-experimental M-4s, are several
                 inches shorter than standard 20-inch barrel M-16s.
                 Hence, he said, the characteristics of the muzzle
                 flash would be different as well. He noted that the
                 longer a rifle's barrel, the less muzzle flash it would
                 normally produce.

(continued)
                 Had actual carbines been tested by the Danforth
                 team, he said, rather than standard M-16 rifles, the
                 special counsel's expert, Vector Data Systems, may
                 have been able to reproduce the kind of flashes seen
                 on the FBI's infrared video.

                 The Danforth team conducted the test-firings at
                 Fort Hood, Texas, March 19, 2000.

                 Weatherford's analysis comes on the heels of other
                 criticism of the Danforth investigation's conclusions
                 regarding possible gunfire by federal agents.

                 Robert Stewart, a U.S. Postal Service inspector who
                 helped coordinate last year's Fort Hood weapons
                 tests, also said last week that Danforth's team failed
                 to test the proper weapon.

                 He noted that the FBI does not use standard M-16s,
                 and members of its Hostage Rescue Team who
                 were at Waco carried a version with just a 14-inch
                 barrel – information WND reported last month.

                 Lawyers for the Branch Davidians who survived
                 the fiery end of the siege in April 1993 are now
                 questioning whether the test really proved that FBI
                 agents never fired their guns at the Davidian
                 compound, Reuters reported June 1.

                 "I think it completely undermines the test results,"
                 Mike Caddell, an attorney for surviving Davidians,
                 told the newswire service.

                 Caddell also said he plans to use the test as
                 evidence if a lawsuit against the federal
                 government his clients are involved in is revived on
                 appeal.

                 Danforth, like his chief of staff, Tom Schweich, said
                 he personally did not know which type of weapons
                 were actually tested.

                 "But all of this was part of the agreement, and all of
                 it was pronounced fair at the end of the test,"
                 Danforth told Reuters.

                 Schweich told WND exactly that last month.

                 "When we got ready to write the final report, we
                 pulled all 74 people involved in the investigation
                 into a room and went through the evidence with
                 them," Schweich said. "We asked them, 'Do any of
                 you 74 people have any doubt as to whether the
                 FBI fired or didn't fire at those people in that
                 complex?' And every single one said, 'There is no
                 doubt that the FBI did not fire at Davidians.'"

                 When asked if Danforth's office did or did not
                 examine Texas Department of Public Safety photos
                 allegedly showing FBI agents carrying carbines
                 instead of full-size M-16s, Schweich said he
                 couldn't address the specifics of the weapons
                 themselves.

(continued)
                 "We had dozens of people working on this, and I
                 can't answer a question that is that specific," he
                 said. "What I can answer is that we had everybody
                 from both sides making inputs as to what should be
                 fired and what shouldn't be fired."

                 Weatherford's final conclusions were unflattering.

                 He said he believes "the FBI used excessive force,
                 including significant unreported activity, to brutally
                 suppress the Branch Davidians and destroy their
                 compound."

                 "Such activity is inconsistent with a republican
                 form of government in response to a free people,"
                 Weatherford said.

How long before this guy comitts "suicide" or has a fatal "accident" like the other guy?

Love your Country but Distrust your Government?

There's NO WAY that Janet Reno would do anything unethical.... Really !

We need to start a new pool... How long before this guy mysteriously dies?

i thaught everyone knew that the feds commited murder that day.

There were children in the compound, just like there were children in the cabin at Rudy Ridge (remember Vicki Weaver). And the Government is worried about citizens possessing automatic weapons.... seems like maybe it should be the other way around?