Mormon's film 're-ignites' Waco (Waco reignited)
St Petersburg FL Times Floridian 28Nov99 N2
By Susan Aschoff

Michael McNulty, a church member, former insurance agent, and a professional constitutional crusader/filmaker went to the remains of the fires at Waco, Texas soon after it happened. Still for him, the fire still smoldered. He questioned, how could his government wage war on men, women and children who wanted only to be left alone to await the prophecies of the Bible?

On a lovely spring morning in 1993, the U.S. government ended a 51-day standoff between federal agents and an armed religious community holed up inside its rural compound in Mount Carmel. For hours, armored vehicles punched holes through the walls and sprayed tear gas inside to force them to come out. No one did. A fire, fanned by the gusting Texas winds, raced through the wooden structure. Some 58 adults and 21 children died.

A five-plus-year obsession led Michael McNulty to believe that the U.S. government murdered the people of Mount Carmel because they defied federal government authority, and because the government felt it could get away with it.

What Bro. McNulty found became a grim accusation in a documentary, Waco: A New Revelation, to be released this week. It will also be used as evidence in a wrongful-death suit against the government slated for trial next year.

His finding have rattled Capitol Hill and the leaders who thought the chapter on Waco was closed, re-igniting the investigation on one of the biggest law enforcement debacles in U.S. history.

Waco: A New Revelation also alleges that:

1. Soldiers of the Army's super-secret Delta Force participated in the attack and may have fired dozens of machine-gun rounds into the building from behind armored vehicles out of sight of the press. Federal law bars military action against U.S. citizens without a special presidential order.

2. The FLIR tape shows gunfire aimed at one of the building's last available exits, blocking the church memberís escape from the flames.

3. A demolition charge was placed on the roof of the bunker and detonated by remote, its blast aimed inward despite agents' knowledge that women and children had taken refuge inside.

4. Munitions were fired from hand-held grenade launchers at the kitchen and another corner of the building and could have ignited the fire.

Michael McNulty is not supporting the radical religious ideas of the martyred people. The government action against them came as the result of their radical cult-like beliefs, the church's storing illegal weapons and because its leader was accused of having sex with children.

The bombastic Michael McNulty, called a right-wing conspiracy nut by some, feels that the aggressive action was inspired all the way from the Clinton White House who was spoiling for a fight of this kind to prove their dominance and boost their public image. He also contends that White House counsel Vince Foster committed suicide because he felt a great degree of personal responsibility over this debacle and couldn't live with the realities any longer. The White House covered the suicide up to disguise their significant involvement.

Not only does McNulty blame the Clinton administration for Waco but a larger disintegration of order: "Can you remember a (school) shooting at the end of the Bush administration?" Liberals and minorities, in their push for civil rights, escalate urban violence, he says. "I have nothing against them," says McNulty. "It's when being Jewish, being black, being gay, being a woman gets you something you don't deserve."

Continuing, "If people insist on politicizing (Waco), they will be condemned to things like Oklahoma City," McNulty says.

McNulty says that according to testimony at the trial, what happened in Waco, Texas so enraged Timothy McVeigh, a former soldier, that he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people two years to the day after the Waco fire.

"Mr. McVeigh and I both saw what happened on April 19, 1993," says McNulty. "I chose to make some films. Mr. McVeigh chose to blow up a building full of innocent men, women and children."