Waco producer challenges government analysis

The producer of a series of video documentaries on the Waco tragedy is challenging the Waco Office of Special Counsel's assertion that flashes of light seen on FBI infrared film were caused by sunlight reflections off ground debris, and not by automatic weapons fire of government agents shooting at fleeing Davidians.

Mike McNulty, an Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist and producer, told WND that the flashes depicted in his latest video, entitled The F.L.I.R. Project, could not be sunlight "glint" because -- among other reasons -- the "cyclic rate" of reflection is too rapid.

Glint evidence 'absolutely conclusive'

John Danforth, former Waco special counsel and Republican senator from Missouri, concluded last year after a lengthy investigation of all evidence related to the FBI's April 19, 1993, raid on the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, that flashes of light seen on FBI infrared video shot by an aircraft overhead were caused by sunlight.

Tom Schweich, former chief of staff for Danforth while he headed up the office of special counsel, told WND last week that tests conducted at Fort Hood, Texas March 19, 2000, "left no doubt" that FBI agents did not fire at Davidians who fled the complex as it burned to the ground shortly after the FBI began its final assault.

In his report, released Nov. 8, 2000, Danforth concluded that the flashes seen on infrared amounted to "glint" caused by sunlight reflecting off debris on the ground, including metal, glass shards and other objects.

"That was something that all of the Davidian experts and Mr. McNulty were saying was physically impossible," Schweich said.

"Particularly the glass" created the glint, he said, "but metal did too in some circumstances. Glass was the principal cause of the reflections of the same shape and duration that you found at Waco."

Schweich said personnel from the government's expert, Vector Data Systems, "sat down with thousands of photographs … and they matched the piece of debris that was causing each reflection."

One of the analysts, he said, even performed a mathematical study that could predict precisely where and when the flash would occur, "based on the angle of the sun, the angle of the helicopter and the location of the debris." "That evidence is absolutely conclusive," Schweich said. "They identified which piece of debris caused which flash. They completely disproved the notion that debris could not cause flashes, which was the position that Mr. McNulty and others were taking."

In his latest video, McNulty relied upon Ed Allard, an infrared expert who helped develop the technology. Allard is quoted as saying the flashes of light are gunfire.

Schweich, in statements last week, said Danforth had also met with Allard early during the OSC's investigation.

"The first week that we were appointed [by the Justice Department], I arranged for Sen. Danforth and others to go down to" Davidian attorney Mike Caddell's office "to view that FLIR [forward-looking infrared] tape with" infrared expert Ed Allard, "and to tell us what was causing it."

"We sat there and we listened to Ed explain to us that it was gunfire, and we took it very seriously," Schweich said. "He was the first expert we talked to, and we sat there for hours watching him point out which flashes were gunfire, and how debris cannot physically cause a flash on a FLIR tape."

But after the tests, Schweich said, Danforth and the 74-member special counsel team were convinced Allard was mistaken and that the glints seen on the FBI video were not caused by gunfire.

Light plus speed equals gunfire

"We did include, in the film, Ed Allard's statement that the camera, in his opinion, would not pick up reflections or emissions off of the debris in the rubble," McNulty told WND on Friday. "The reason he said that was because the camera was supposed to be tuned to the 8-12 micron range, which technically meant it would filter out that kind of reflectivity because it was a nuisance and distraction when you're using the device for surveillance."

Also, McNulty said, "it appears that Edward may have overstated his position and that indeed, these cameras -- depending on how they're tuned -- can pick up glint, which we obviously show a great deal of glint in our film, off of different kinds of objects.

"The one object we could not generate glint off of was glass," he said -- the very material Danforth's office concluded caused the most glint at Waco.

"So we noted [that] we could not generate glint off the glass," McNulty said. "That doesn't mean that glass cannot generate glint -- it simply meant that we could not generate it" in the independent tests McNulty held during the making of his film.

McNulty also questioned Schweich's assertion that the OSC looked at "thousands" of photographs during the Danforth investigation to "find the objects doing the reflections or 'glints.'"

"He uses the word 'thousands,' but there weren't 'thousands' of photographs taken from the air," McNulty said. "There was something less than two hundred, and not all of them were taken during the time the building was being demolished," shortly after the raid began.

"Our photo analysts have looked at these [photographs] and not found objects that could generate what these guys are talking about," he said.

Also, McNulty added that the gym structure closest to the rear of the complex -- where he asserts weapons fire from agents came from -- "contained no glass in them. If you look at closeups of those windows, you'll find they're covered with black … plastic," which, he said, "is seen blowing around in the rubble" in later, post-assault photos.

"So where did all this glass come from?" he asked. "And if it was glass, why didn't we see similar 'glint' at other locations around the building, where the tanks had destroyed windows and walls during the course of the morning?"

He said there was some glint seen at the front of the building, "on the second story … but the point is, you don't see it out on the ground out in front of the building where all the rubble from the torn-up center of the building and the front door section was dragged out."

McNulty added that there were other "questions" surrounding technical aspects "relative to the pulsating effect of these flashes."

"The reality is, that if the airplane's rotation -- as Mr. Schweich has inferred -- is responsible for" the pulsating effect of the alleged glint seen on the infrared tape, "the flashes would be pulsating at a much slower rate because the forward movement of aircraft would be the controlling factor of the pulsations."

"The aircraft was moving at something less than 100 miles per hour," McNulty said. "But the pulsations indicate something like a frequency of 600 times per minute, which is much more consistent with the cyclic rate of a weapon. So there's a number of technical things that Mr. Schweich can't explain."

Infrared used to spot gunfire?

Other experts have suggested that the type of infrared camera used by the FBI that day -- a British-made GEC-Marconi system -- may have been employed by the agency specifically to spot gunfire, but from the Davidians.

Since the incident that started the Waco siege began with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents exchanging gunfire with Davidians, it could be that the FBI -- which first insisted that its infrared camera was one-of-a-kind, but was later revealed to have been mass-produced -- was concerned about its agents on the ground receiving more fire.

Paul Beaver, a former military pilot who is now an analyst and spokesman for Jane's Information Group, told the Dallas Morning News in January of last year that he has participated in British military operations in which such airborne forward looking infrared or FLIR cameras detected and recorded distinctive flashes or thermal signatures of gunfire.

"We were doing similar operations in Northern Ireland. You're looking for just that," Beaver told the paper.

Beaver has worked extensively with infrared technology during a 10-year military career and two decades as a defense analyst and writer for Jane's, which is among the world's leading authorities on military technology, the paper said.

"I have personally been in a situation where I've seen gunfire, using the GEC-Marconi system," Beaver said. "In a firefight situation, it's very, very useful to detect where the enemy is."

Besides Allard, another FLIR expert, Fred Zegel, also believes the flashes on the FBI's infrared tapes are indeed gunfire.

Zegel, who may have examined more battlefield FLIR tapes than anyone, had his doubts about Allard's analysis at first.

"But he now agrees that gunfire is the most likely explanation of flashes," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said in an Oct. 17, 1999 article.

Both Allard and Zegel are former infrared experts at Fort Belvoir, Va., home of the Pentagon's night-vision laboratory. They are among the nation's experts on the FLIR technology used on the tape, the Post-Dispatch said.

Also, the paper reported Feb. 13, 2000 that an Air Force expert told the Justice Department in 1997 that he could not rule out the possibility that the FBI's infrared camera had recorded flashes of gunfire during the 1993 siege.

"At the Justice Department's request, the expert, Capt. John Perry, used an infrared camera like the one used by the FBI at Waco, to see if it would record M-16 rifle fire as flashes," the paper reported.

"Sources said he concluded that he could not rule out the possibility that flashes on the tape were from gunfire without performing field tests. But the Justice Department did not ask him to go forward with those tests," said the Post-Dispatch.

McNulty has also questioned the OSC's selection of weapons for the Fort Hood test.

In earlier interviews, the Waco producer said the OSC used infrared cameras to film the firing of M-16 A2 rifles during its test, rather than CAR-15 or M-4 carbines, which FBI agents at Waco were carrying, according to Texas Department of Public Safety video and photographic evidence.

Two versions of standard M-16 type weapons. Top: Full size M-16A2; Bottom: M-4 Carbine, similar to CAR-15 carbine.

That's important, McNulty said, because the barrel length of a carbine version of the standard-sized M-16 A2 rifle is much shorter and, hence, would produce a larger muzzle flash when fired.

McNulty, who is also a small-arms expert, told WND that even though the OSC's weapons expert -- Vector Data Systems -- claimed it tested carbines as well as standard M-16 rifles at Fort Hood, photographs accompanying those tests clearly indicate that weapons marked as "CAR-15s" are instead full-sized M-16 rifles, which have 20-inch barrels instead of the 14-inch barrel on the carbine model.

And, McNulty said, the OSC used military-grade .223 caliber ammunition for its test, which contains flash-suppression ingredients. The FBI at Waco, meanwhile, was using commercial .223 ammunition, which does not contain flash suppression ingredients.

Mike McNulty's video documentary