From csmkersh@flash.net Wed Jul 16 10:40:35 1997
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Very Special Agents Re-Visted - Part VIII
From: csmkersh@flash.net (Sam A. Kersh)
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:40:35 GMT

From jimmy boy's VSA, page 288:

	"ATF's special response teams (SRTs) - experienced agents, all
volunteers - underwent the training given all Treasury agents (the
"Malibu Maze" obstacle course with its pop-up targets, judgmental pistol
shooting, handgun stress and instinctive reaction), plus two weeks of
vigorous training under instructors with backgrounds in the army's
Special Forces or police SWAT teams.  Nationwide...

	"At Ft Hood, Texas, a mockup was constructed of the cult's
sprawling, square, two-story compound.... The SRTs drilled for four days
until they could - simultaneously and within thirty or forty seconds of
their arrival - get inside, sew up the arsenal, safeguard the cyanide
Koresh laid in for last year's mass suicide scheme, neutralize the
adults and protect the children."
>........................end of cite from VSA.........................

First, a question.  Has anyone anywhere other than our "esteemed" author
seen reference to Koresh having cyanide poison?  I've not found
reference in the House Report, and, so far, not in the Treasury
Departments report.

Now a cite from House Report 104-749, page 25:

"4. Tactical teams trained together for only 3 days before raid.

	Another fact which indicates a lack of skill on the part of both
senior ATF officials and the ATF on-site commanders, particularly
overall incident commander Chojnacki, is the fact that the Special
Response Teams (SRT's) involved in conducting the operation trained
together for only 3 days prior to the operation.(106)  The ATF does not
maintain a large standing force of specially trained agents which can be
dispatched, such as the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.  Instead, the ATF put
together its team for the operation against the Davidians by combining
special response teams from several of the ATF's regional offices.

	"while the subcommittee do not conclude that the ATF should have
created a special response team such as the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team in
advance of the raid (and does not conclude that it need do so now), it
appears that the reason why FBI maintains its HRT as a single unit is
because coordination of the agents involved is a tactical operation,
especially one involving great risk, is of the utmost importance.
Senior ATF officials and the ATF's on-site commanders either were
unaware of this fact or, more likely, simply ignored it for reasons
which are unknown to the subcommittees.  Regardless of the reason,
however, the fact that ATF officials believed that they could create a
force of over 70 agents, adequately trained to conduct an operation of
this complexity against a heavily armed opposing force, indicates a lack
of foresight on the part of these senior officials which is
unacceptable."

(106) Treasury Department Report, page 73 

>..........end of cite from House report...........................................

You can now expect jimmy boy's usual inane ad homines in rebuttal. 



Sam A. Kersh
NRA Life Member
TSRA, JPFO
http://www.flash.net/~csmkersh/csmkersh.htm
===============================================================
If you're too busy to hunt, you're too busy.

Note: in off-seasons, substitute "fishing" for "hunting"  

Read John Ross' "Unintended Consequencies" - available from TSRA @ $33, including tax & shipping.