News/Current Events Front Page News

Source: The Washington Times

Published: Saturday, October 9, 1999 Author: Audrey Hudson

Top White House officials endangered the lives of law enforcement officers by intervening and leaking information to environmental terrorists who destroyed federal property while illegally encamped for a year in an Oregon forest to block a timber sale, according to a congressional report.

Documents subpoenaed by the House Resources Committee also indicate that four months before the 1996 presidential election, former Chief of Staff Leon Panetta gave the order to "stand down" and not arrest the radical environmentalists.

The committee created a task force, which held hearings in executive session for the last two years investigating how the Forest Service handled the eventual arrest of the eco-terrorists.

Their final report and recommendations, obtained by The Washington Times, are under review by committee members and may warrant further hearings, a committee spokesman said.

The report concludes that, "The Clinton/Gore administration unwisely and inappropriately interfered with the law enforcement decisions being made by professionals on the ground at Warner Creek. This kind of micro-management by Washington, D.C., political leaders can be devastating to any government endeavor--it can be deadly when the issue is law enforcement."

Forest Service and local law enforcement officials planned to arrest the 35 protesters, who had caused $20,000 worth of damage to a forest road and surrounding area during their protest beginning in September 1995, and ending in August 1996.

To prevent logging, the protesters erected barricades and other structures made out of timber to block the road. They dug trenches--some of them 6 feet deep--in the road, making travel impossible for loggers and Forest Service personnel.

They shot squirt guns filled with urine at officers, built "booby-traps" of trenches and "sharpened metal spikes designed to maim intruders or damage vehicles. They chained and locked themselves to buried cement structures in the road and at least one protester was heavily armed," the report states.

Additionally, a ranger station had been recently firebombed, a Forest service truck was set on fire and an incendiary device was found on the roof of another Forest building.

One day before Forest Service and local law enforcement officials planned to arrest the protesters, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman ordered the arrest put on hold.

"To my dismay, the Secretary ordered the operation put on hold until he checked things out with 'people above his pay grade,' " Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas stated in his journal obtained by the task force.

"I tried again to convince him that such delay imperiled the element of surprise and would, likely, compromise the operation, and this delay would increase the danger to the officers involved. He repeated his order," Mr. Thomas stated.

"There is only one level higher than a cabinet secretary in the United States government: the White House," the report states. "The next conversation between Glickman and Thomas was a permanent stand-down order, issued after Glickman had checked with 'people above his pay grade.' "

Also, administration documents gathered by the task force "indicate that Leon Panetta himself gave the stand-down order, and asked to be personally kept informed about the matter."

"It was never clearly explained to me why we did not move in. It was a political decision basically," Forest Service Supervisor Darrell Kenops told the task force.

The report stated several people interviewed by the task force said "political pressure from within the Clinton/Gore administration was used to protect the protesters, prolonging the occupation and endangering both government property and law enforcement personnel."

Also, the organization behind the protest was in contact with the White House Council on Environmental Equality (CEQ) during the protest, "airing their complaints and threatening political consequences if the White House failed to act."

A back channel of information from CEQ to the protesters about the law enforcement operation also may have jeopardized the operation and lives and safety of law enforcement officers, the report states.

"The suspicion of illegal leaks to the protesters was corroborated by telephone notes of a senior Justice Department, which were obtained under subpoena, noting that a senior CEQ official was suspected of being the source of the law enforcement information leaked to the protesters."

A call to the White House for comment was referred to CEQ. When told the report also implicated Mr. Panetta, an aide said, "he no longer works for us." The spokesman for CEQ did not return a call.

"It seemed as though they knew a lot about what we were doing. That, of course, was of great concern to me," said Mark Tarantino, the Forest Service special agent in charge of the operation.

A month and a half after the administration ordered the arrest on hold, Forest service officials on the ground at Warner Creek, led by Mr. Tarantino, moved forward with the arrest and ejection of the protesters in spite of the back-down order and without notifying anyone in Washington.

"This decision was made at least in part out of fear that notification of his superiors in the Clinton/Gore administration would again result in a leak to the protesters," the report stated.

Only five protesters who refused to vacate the area were arrested. When three were convicted, fellow eco-terrorists staged a "riot" at the county jail, resulting in injuries and 39 additional arrests.

The timber sale at Warner creek was an effort to salvage usable timber from trees that were killed in a forest fire and to prevent insect infestation and prevent more forest fires.

The end result was the timber company harvested none of the timber and was eventually paid $450,000 in a settlement with the government.