DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: REMEMBERING THE DEAD
SUBSECTION: ON DUTY
Revised 8/8/99
LINE OF DUTY
SOMALIA
EMBASSY BOMBINGS
RON BROWN PLANE CRASH
DEATHS - LINE OF DUTY
Clinton Bodyguards/ATF Agents in Waco
WorldNetDaily 9/24/98 ".Steve Willis Clinton bodyguard Died Feb. 28, 1993 Robert Williams Clinton bodyguard Died Feb. 28, 1993 Conway LeBleu Clinton bodyguard Died Feb. 28, 1993 Todd McKeehan Clinton bodyguard Died Feb. 28, 1993 Killed by gunfire in the Waco, Texas, assault on the Branch Davidians. All four were examined by a "private doctor" and died from nearly identical wounds to the left temple, so-called execution style….
"…In his address to employees of the Treasury Department in the Cash Room on March 18, 1993, Clinton said: "My prayers and I'm sure yours are still with the families of all four of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who were killed in Waco -- Todd McKeehan and Conway Le Bleu of New Orleans; Steve Willis of Houston, and Robert Williams from my hometown of Little Rock. Three of those four were assigned to my security during the course of the primary or general election." …"
"…However, the Little Rock, Arkansas, office of the ATF confirmed that all four had at one point been bodyguards for Bill Clinton, three while he was campaigning for president, and one while he had been governor of Arkansas. In the autopsies of these agents, three had virtually identical wounds to the left temple that exited through the rear of the head, execution-style. All four were treated by a "private physician." .."
www.dabney.com/wacomuseum/ ".Conrad LeBlue's head bore two gunshot wounds. Todd McKeehan was killed by a single shot to the left upper chest which ruptured the aorta.. Robert Williams' head bore two gunshot wounds..Steven Willis's head bore at least two gunshot wounds. This was remarkable shooting for Bible students.."
Apache Helicopter in Kosovo Conflict
Defending America 5/18/99 David Hackworth "...David Gibbs and Kevin Reichert are dead. Their helicopter crashed on May 5 while on a training flight in the rugged mountains of northeast Albania. Both pilots were highly motivated and loved to fly the Army's most lethal killing machine, the Apache. One of the most dangerous soldiering jobs going....... So far, two birds have been lost to accidents. Aviation insiders say the mishaps might have been prevented had the crews been trained up to snuff at their home, base in Germany. But insufficient training funds cut back flying hours, and complaints of local civilians reduced night-flying exercises....."
"…As seen on a small scale with the Apache pilots, the Army's slogan, WE FIGHT AS WE TRAIN is more spin than fact. Throughout today's military, few units are up to strength or have sufficient money to train. All are doing too much with too little because of Clinton's seven-year misuse and abuse of our forces..... An aviation battalion commander told me last week, "I have no faith in the uniformed senior leaders protecting us from the idiots in the White House." I do. The Pentagon "Four Stars" running things today were the lieutenants and captains in Vietnam. No way they've forgotten the mistakes the top brass made back then and how no one stood tall. They'll stand tall and keep asking: How can a few Army choppers make a difference when more than a thousand NATO aircraft haven't done the job in two months of bombing? ..."
Military Incidents
Air Force Times 3/29/99 Bryant Jordan "…The two HH-60 Pave Hawks from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., were still burning when would-be rescuers arrived at the scene just after 2 a.m. Sept. 4, more than four hours after the helicopters had collided and crashed. The wreckage was scattered over a 1,200-square-foot swath of desert. The 12 crewmen were dead….. Now, a different kind of heat is being generated by an exhaustive five-volume report on the disaster that Air Force officials released March 15. Pilot error is the report's conclusion, but it also makes clear there is plenty of blame to go around -- and that the accident had been at least five years in the making. The overwhelming contributing factors leading up to the disaster, wrote lead investigator Col. Denver Pletcher, was "a high ops/pers tempo coupled with leadership problems, internal and external training deficiencies, broken squadron processes, low aircrew experience level, and midlevel supervisory breakdown." In Pletcher's opinion, "this squadron was on a path to disaster." Like so many other units throughout the Air Force, the 66th was working lean. As a combat search-and-rescue squadron it was a "low density/high demand" outfit, meaning its assets were limited and its capabilities specialized, but demand for its services was high…."
Air Force Times 3/29/99 Jennifer Palmer "…The problems at the 66th Rescue Squadron were among the most serious in the Air Force, but the unit was by no means the only one in Air Combat Command severely stressed by trying to do so much. Command officials have been tracking each of its squadrons to see which are most stressed, said Gen. Richard Hawley, who runs Air Combat Command. As of February, the command had one unit considered "red hot," or severely stressed, he said. That was the 38th and 343rd reconnaissance squadrons at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. The squadrons count as one unit in the command's comparison system because they both fly the RC-135 Rivet Joint. The primary reason for the "red hot" categorization is their deployment schedule, which exceeds the goal of no more than 120 days per airman per year…..Eleven units are considered "hot," stressed to the point where command officials are concerned. One is the 66th Rescue Squadron, which remains seriously stressed in spite of changes put into place before and after the September 1998 crash. The 71st and 41st rescue squadrons at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., also made the list…."
USA Today 4/28/99 Duncan Hunter "...The Air Force alone reports shortages of $18 billion; the Navy, $3.8 billion; the Army, $3.7 billion; and Marines, $3.2 billion. Against this $28.7 billion need, the administration offers a mere $5.5 billion, one-fifth of what it will take to outfit our services properly. The Clinton-Gore treatment of our men and women in uniform is clear: They are inadequately paid (about 11,000 military personnel are now on food stamps); they are short on ammunition; and mission capability rates have fallen below 70% across the board. Many of our aircraft are considered dangerous to fly. All while the president continues to deploy our troops at a feverish pace....."
AP/FoxNewswire 4/23/99 "...Officials on Friday released the names of the seven soldiers killed when their helicopter crashed during a training mission in a remote, wooded area of Fort Campbell. All 11 soldiers on the Black Hawk helicopter belonged to the 101st Aviation Regiment, including seven soldiers from the 6th Battalion and the four-member flight crew from the 5th Battalion....."
8/7/98 AP "The FBI has joined a Defense Department investigation into a 1996 Sikorsky military helicopter crash that killed four crew members. The transport helicopter, a CH-53E Super Stallion, crashed at Sikorsky Aircraft's private airfield May 9, 1996, before it could be turned over to the Marine Corps. It was intended to become part of the White House fleet.."
Pilot and 8 Department of Interior Employees
AP 8/7/98 Glen Johnson "A hasty departure by a nervous pilot, as well as the failure to use oxygen at the required altitudes, were elements of a 1997 Colorado plane crash that killed the pilot and eight Department of Interior employees, according to a government report released Friday. The National Transportation Safety Board, finishing the fact-finding phase of its investigation, stressed that it still had not determined what caused the Oct. 8, 1997, crash near Montrose, Colo..."
Curiosity from Freeper Big Otto 8/31/98 "Just last week, the Air Force issued a statement on the King-56 crash of 11/22/96. In it they blamed the crewmen for the crash stating that they "accidently" shut down all four engines and forgot how to re-start them. A little history... The AF Reserve flight from Wash to Calif carried ten crewmen and un-named passengers as well as classified information. All four engines mysteriously quit running at the same time out over the pacific and all on board died except for radio operator Robert Vogel. Apparently the black box disappeared, the cockpit tapes were partially erased, and the AF conducted a "secret" investigation. Over a year ago I was told a rumor by a girl who handled flight manifests that there was something "fishy" about the flight and the administration had something to do with it. That's all I know except that the sole survivor happens to have the same name as an Arkansas real estate magnate named Robert Vogel. Probably just a coincidence.."
Chicago SUN-TIMES 8/5/99 "…At 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, the remains of 29-year-old Capt. Jennifer J. Odom, U.S. Army, arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The television cameras, usually present at such events, were nowhere to be seen. Indeed, the news media were totally absent, and the event went unrecorded. Nor was President Clinton there to feel her family's pain. Odom, along with her co-pilot and three other crew members, died July 23 when the DeHavilland RC7 reconnaissance plane she was piloting crashed into a mountain in southern Colombia. The Pentagon says there is "no evidence" that narco-guerrillas shot down the plane, but adds that the investigation is continuing…... In addition to Odom, they include her co-pilot, Capt. Jose A. Santiago, as well as Chief Warrant Officer Thomas G. Moore, Specialist T. Bruce Cluff and Specialist Ray E. Krueger. Typically, when Republican Rep. Constance Morella took the House floor Tuesday morning to praise astronaut Collins, there was no mention of her fellow Marylander whose remains had arrived at Dover only hours before. …"
SOMALIA HEROS US Army Rangers and Delta Commandos
From the Senate Report 9/30/95
"…The Clinton administration failed to see the risks of the U.S. effort to capture a Somali warlord, a shortcoming that contributed to a disastrous 1993 raid that left 18 U.S. soldiers dead, a Senate review concludes. The report, released late Friday, went to lengths to avoid placing specific blame on President Clinton. But it made clear that Clinton and his top advisers supported the United Nations' request to capture Mohammed Farrah Aidid, the Somali faction leader, despite the reservations of U.S. military commanders. When difficulties emerged, it said, these officials failed to change course. "It is clear that both civilian officials and military leaders should have been carefully and continually re-evaluating the Task Force Ranger mission and tactics after each raid, with an eye toward recommending that the operation be terminated if the risks were deemed to have risen too high," the report concluded. Written by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., two senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the report focuses on the fatal Oct. 3, 1993, firefight in Mogadishu that precipitated a hasty American withdrawal from what began as a famine-relief effort. "U.S. foreign policy was and will be affected for years as a result of the raid," according to the report…… "
"…The report makes clear that Army Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, then the U.S. commander overseeing Somalia, voiced reservations about the Ranger mission to "get Aidid." It quoted Hoar as saying: "I told the policy guys that it was a bad thing to do. I thought there was a 50 percent chance of getting the required intelligence, and, once gotten, only a 50 percent chance that we would get Aidid. So it was a 25 percent chance of success" Powell was similarly dubious. "We sent Task Force Ranger with the greatest reluctance," he was quoted in the report. But because the top officers in Mogadishu supported the mission, he said, "I will go along since as a general principle I believe in supporting the commander in the field."…"
"…The aggressive pursuit of Aidid amid a broader policy of U.S. force reductions in Somalia reflected the "uncoordinated and unclear" U.S. policies, according to the report. "It was a mistake to seek to marginalize the (Somali) warlords," it contended. "More emphasis should have been placed on political negotiations prior to deciding to use military force." The military did not escape criticism in the report. It said the Army Ranger unit that conducted the Oct. 3 raid was hampered by an overzealous, "can-do" attitude typical of special forces. Moreover, it said, Gen. Garrison established a predictable pattern in the Rangers' pursuit of Aidid that "served to announce the presence and mission of his task force, if they were not already known, and to reveal some of the tactics that the task force would use." …."
DEATHS - TRAGEDY - EMBASSY BOMBINGS
DEATHS - TRAGEDY - RON BROWN PLANE CRASH
Judicial Watch 11/30/98 Larry Klayman
". Complimentary to our 5 pending lawsuits against the Clinton -Gore Commerce Dept, are our efforts to further a government investigation of former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's death in a plane crash over Crotia. At the time of Ron Brown's death, he was scheduled to be deposed by Judicial Watch. He was also a target of an independent counsel's investigation where an indictment was expected. Brown's former business partner, Nolanda Hill, told Judicial Watch that days before Brown died, Brown went to see Clinton and told him that he intended to enter a plea agreement with the federal prosecutor and testify against the Administration…"
"…Clinton responded, according to Hill's sworn testimony, with a terse "that's nice" and Brown told Hill that Clinton left the room in icy silence. Judicial Watch is now representing several of the pathologists and a photographer of the Armed Forces Pathology Institute who examined Brown's body and observed a .45 caliber bullet hole in Ron Brown's head. Judicial Watch has filed Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain all the data on the Brown place crash from the military, the Clinton-Gore Commerce Dept, as well as the Justice and Transportation Departments. The responses to our requests are overdue, and we are now filing suit. Our clients are also considering filing whistleblower suits for Pentagon retaliation against them. That would give us the ability to investigate the apparent cover-up in Ron Brown's death.."
Other Sources
A news report was that the weather was "the worst storm in ten years" at the time of Ron Brown's plane crash - but actually visibility was 5 miles in light rain. - Drudge
Pittsburg Tribune-Review 11/24/97 Christopher Ruddy Hugh Sprunt ". *Navigation aids. Brown's plane was probably relying on Croatian ground beacons for navigation. In the minutes before Brown's plane crashed, five other planes landed at Dubrovnik without difficulty, and none experienced problems with the beacons. But additional questions about the beacons and the crash will remain unanswered because, as the Air Force acknowledges, airport maintenance chief Niko Junic died by gunshot just three days after the crash and before he could be interviewed by investigators. Within a day of his death, officials determined the death was a suicide. The New York Times reported the 46-year-old Junic was "despondent over a failed romance."."
5/27/98 AP Zurich The Guardian (London) pg 19 Freepers Wallaby & icwhatudo ".POLICE are investigating the possibility that insurance fraud by a Swiss resident listed among the 230 people killed in the TWA Flight 800 explosion might have been behind the disaster, Swiss television reported last night. Swiss authorities have been investigating Algerian-born Mohammmed Samir Ferrat, for 18 months, the report said. ..A Geneva lawyer, Gerald Page, alleged in an interview for the Swiss television report that Ferrat took out life insurance policies worth several million Swiss francs in the weeks before the plane crashed in July 1996, half an hour after taking off from New York…. On August 19, a month after the crash, the local medical examiner in Suffolk County - in whose jurisdiction the disaster occurred - declared that Mohammed Ferrat had been positively identified as a dead passenger from TWA Flight 800. US investigators counted him out as a suspect early.. The report showed footage of the late US commerce secretary, Ron Brown, at the Washington signing with Ferrat of a pounds 62.5 million contract between Sofin and the US construction firm Chatwick Inc, which was to build residences in the Ivory Coast. Chatwick spent pounds 2.5 million on the project before halting it, the television said.." Background from icwhatudo ".According to a CNN international report, Mohamed Samir Ferrat, an Algerian business associate of Secretary Brown, who was scheduled to accompany Brown on the Bosnian trip but withdrew at the last moment for reasons still unclear, died July 17, on the ill fated TWA Flight 800. Ferrat was initially treated by the FBI as a suspected terrorist in the TWA Flight 800 explosion because he was the sole passenger on the flight roster listed only by last name. The FBI, within hours of beginning their investigation of Ferrat, oddly withdrew, telling the New York Times that "Ferrat was not at all the kind of person to take a bomb on a plane. Nor was he a likely target of a bomb plot."
NewsMax.com 7/16/99 Carl Limbacher "…Ron Brown's death might not have been accidental. That's the conclusion Chinagate witness Johnny Chung has recently come to after he himself experienced death threats from Chinese agents. Chung was deposed on Monday by Judicial Watch, which debuted the videotaped testimony on Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes" Thursday night…. Chung's startling comments on Brown's death were made under direct questioning by Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman: KLAYMAN: The question was, when you learned of the death of Ron Brown, did you think that maybe China would send somebody to kill him, too? CHUNG: No. No. Not in my mind that week [when Brown died]. KLAYMAN: Have you since changed your view of that -- that perhaps that was a possibility? CHUNG: I sense there's a possibility he know too many things. And so, something happened to him. But I don't know what it is. What happened to me -- it changed me…."
Ron Brown