"I find it hard to accept a deliberate plan to insert CS gas for 48 hours in a building with so many children. It certainly makes it more difficult to believe that the health and safety of the children was our primary concern. Based on my own medical knowledge and review of the scientific literature, the information supplied to [Reno] seems to minimize the potential harmful consequences for infants and children."
	"If you keep laboratory animals in that atmosphere long enough--40 minutes to an hour--then _all_ will develop pulmonary edema and die.... When you get it in your lungs, it inflames it, fluid gets into your lungs and you develop pneumonia... the [one recorded case of this kind of exposure] was saved by intensive care, positive pressure and all the rest, for 28 days. If all these babies _had_ come out, where was the equipment to put them into intensive care?
	-- Dr. Alan Stone, outside reviewer for the Justice Department.

After questioning Salem, Reno was persuaded that CS was non-lethal and would not permanently harm the children or pregnant women. When she asked why the standoff had to be resolved soon, Rogers and others fed her four lies:

* Koresh had broken every promise he had made;
* negotiations had broken down;
* no one had been released since March 23rd; and
* it appeared no one else would surrender.

Reno said she was not yet ready to make the decision.

Unbeknownst to Reno, on April 15, several individual church members attempted to leave the compound and were "flash-banged" back by the FBI. On April 16, Koresh advised Jamar that he had completed interpreting the first of the Seven Seals, and he would surrender when he had finished interpreting the remaining Seals. Jamar asked Koresh to put it in writing, then checked with Koresh's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, about how long it might take Koresh to complete the Seven Seals. "A week or two" was DeGuerin's estimate, adding that the tapes he had been allowed to send in from religious scholars had persuaded Koresh to come out and survive as a messenger instead of dying as a martyr. Jamar assured DeGuerin that the negotiations had "all the time in the world."

Jamar knew the church members had only 16 ounces of water per person per day, and that could be stopped at any time if HRT snipers were told to put holes in the one remaining water tank.

Jamar gave the surrender letter to Larry Potts. Potts passed Koresh's offer to surrender up the chain of command to Janet Reno.

The Pizza Meeting

On April 16, Special Assistant Hubbell met with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard and Public Affairs Director Carl Stern. Hubbell told Richard, who was serving as FBI-liaison, that Reno had disapproved the attack plan. Richard didn't like it.

Stern commented that the plan might be viewed by the public as something akin to Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds. This infuriated Richard, who said the FBI would not be pleased, but it would accept Reno's decision, and would be asking for permission to withdraw its HRT.

After Richard crossed the street to the Hoover Building, Director Sessions called Reno and asked her to reconsider.

On April 17th, Louis Alaniz, who had snuck into the church after the raid, managed to sneak back out. He got past the FBI inner perimeter and was taken into custody at the outer perimeter, a mixed force of FBI, ATF, National Guard, Sheriff's deputies, and Texas Rangers. He was the first church member to successfully surrender since Jesse Amen managed to get out on April 4th.

Later, church member Graham Craddock would comment, "These are people who lowered their trousers and bent over, exposing their backsides to us. Do you think we wanted to send our children to these people?"

That night, Janet Reno met in her office with her closest aides over pizza. It was Saturday night and Washington was growing quiet. Her lights burned late because now Waco had her full attention.

William Sessions crossed the street from his office in the inner sanctum of the gargantuan J. Edgar Hoover Building and took the back elevator to Reno's cramped corner office.

Reno leaned over her desk and asked him what the FBI would do if children were endangered, such as being held up to windows or threatened to be shot. He said the FBI would "back off" in such an event, but that once the action was underway, tactical decisions would be in the hands of the site commander.

Reno knew the site commander would be the same man who commanded the Randy Weaver standoff at Ruby Ridge. Whether or not she had learned that a homicide indictment against her site commander was being considered by an Idaho Grand Jury, she didn't like the idea of giving him tactical control.

"Not good enough. I want you to get the hell out of there. Don't take any risks with the children." Reno said.

Reno still hadn't approved the raid. Sessions leaned a little harder. He would not leave his people there indefinitely. Reno didn't budge.

Someone made a comment that Koresh was beating babies. Reno's face flushed and she demanded to know what that meant. She was told that the FBI had learned through its listening devices that the church members were "beating babies."

	"Only when there is clear evidence of criminal wrongdoing can authorities intervene in the free exercise of religion, and only then with appropriately low levels of intrusiveness."
	-- Nancy T. Ammerman, an outside reviewer for the Justice Dept.
	Her analysis was not published in the official report.

Reno had been previously informed that Koresh had sexually abused minors, and that he continued to have sex while recovering from his wounds. She knew that sanitary conditions had deteriorated, something that would cause the health of the infants to suffer. Maybe all the pressure had pushed him over the edge?

No one told Reno that child psychiatrists and social workers had extensively interviewed and "de-programmed" all of the dozens of children who had left during the two-month siege and had produced not a shred of evidence of any abuse, sexual or otherwise. Given crayons and asked to draw what they remembered of the February 28th attack, the children drew pictures of helicopters shooting from the sky. Rapid taps of the crayon tips drew holes in the roof of their house.

Abruptly, Reno changed her mind and approved the FBI attack plan. The execution was set for Monday morning. Some of those present were able to finish their pizza. Janet Reno could not.


Marching Orders

The limited plan approved by Reno was to send two Combat Engineering Vehicles (CEVs) inside the HRT's concertina wire just before sunrise. A CEV is an M60 tank which has been modified with a boom to assist in knocking down walls and delivering CS gas. Each CEV would be equipped to project CS using the Mark 5 delivery system -- 15 one second bursts per charge, 6 charges per vehicle, each burst propelled 55 feet by a specially-modified flame thrower. There were enough backup materials at the site for 1800 bursts per vehicle. After the CEVs delivered aerosol CS, a Bradley vehicle near the building would deliver ferret liquid CS rounds into an unfinished construction area near the main structure, to deny access to this zone by church members.

It was hoped that by introducing CS at opposite ends of the compound, church members would be forced out the front door and surrender. If firing commenced from the compound, the Bradleys would deliver liquid ferret rounds into all windows and openings in the church. These were 40 mm shells delivered by grenade launchers that can penetrate a wall or hollow door from 20 yards away.

The vehicles would then stand down and wait. If all church members failed to exit the church after 48 hours, the CEVs would begin disassembling the church and continue until all occupants were located.

Church members who exited the compound and surrendered would be moved in an orderly fashion to a designated area behind the vehicles where they would be searched and turned over to waiting ATF personnel for handcuffing and transport.

Children would be escorted to representatives of the Texas Child Welfare Protective Services who would be manning portable shower stalls to wash away the CS residues. The children would be given fresh clothing and escorted to a waiting shelter.

An orbiting helicopter with SWAT personnel aboard would apprehend and arrest subjects attempting to flee from the site. The plan called for controlled arrests over a two day period. There was no urgency.

"This is not an Attack"

At dawn on Monday, HRT Commander Rogers ordered the plan into action. As the two CEVs moved inside the wire, Rogers moved his command tank to a position approximately 240 yards directly in front of the church. FBI negotiator Byron Sage phoned the compound at 05:59 am. "We're in the process of putting tear gas into the building. This is not an assault. We will not enter the building." The person on the other end threw the phone out the window.

FBI recordings later showed that at about this time, Koresh and others inside began assembling molotov cocktails to throw at the tanks. From a conversation with Steve Schneider the day before, negotiators knew there was no fire protection within the building. Had the senior commanders known of the incendiary devices, they might have called off the tank assault. Unfortunately, no one was monitoring the tape devices at 6 am.

Sage began reading a prepared script over the loudspeakers: "We are in the process of placing tear gas into the building. This is not an assault. We are not entering the building. This is not an assault ... you are under arrest. The standoff is over. We do not want anyone hurt. Follow all instructions. This is not an assault. Do not fire any weapons. We do not want anyone hurt."

What the FBI was saying and what the combined force was doing were two distinctly different things.

Later, under cross-examination at the murder trial, FBI agent Tom Rowan said he saw a "man with a shoulder weapon" firing out of a window at the CEVs. He said that he "kept firing gas canisters at the window until the man stopped shooting."

Rowan testified he used his launcher to fire a flash-bang at "an area where someone in aerial surveillance had seen a person coming out of a door or window." Rowan said that everyone's orders were to keep the church members inside the church.

By 06:31, the HRT reported that the entire building had been gassed. By 07:09, "the HRT reported that the Ferret rounds had been delivered through all the windows ... where movements or gunfire were detected."

That should have ended it, but HRT members used their 400 ferret rounds so quickly that the FBI's command center in Washington sent out a bulletin at 07:45, "canvass[ing] all FBI field offices to locate more Ferret rounds." By 09:20, the FBI's Houston field office had delivered an additional 48 Ferret rounds to the scene.

The FBI attack plan had called for the Texas Child Welfare Protective Services to be present. At 9:30 am, Joyce Sparks received a call at home from the governor's office, asking why she was not out at the compound. She said she had not heard the attack was underway. She immediately placed a call to the FBI office but was told she didn't need to come, that there would be no one coming out. She hung up the phone and turned to her husband. "They intend to kill them all," she told him. There would be no showers or change of clothes waiting for the children.

At 10:00, Reno left her command post in Washington for a scheduled luncheon appearance in Baltimore. Her departure could not have come at a worse time. Almost as soon as she was out of the situation room, violence against the church by the armored vehicles escalated dramatically.

Instead of standing down for 48 hours and letting the gas do its work, the two vehicles moved in aggressively to attack any location where the infrared cameras or television bugging devices indicated that church members were hiding. One tank took up a position blocking the trap door to a root cellar, which would have provided safety for church members if they could have reached it.

At 11:30, on Rogers' orders, CEV-2 breached the back side of the compound, concentrating on the corner of the building above the cellar where the FBI knew that the women and children had gathered to escape the CS gas. It was standing room only for the cellar's occupants, wet blankets over their heads, infants cradled in their arms, coughing and wheezing from hours of intense gassing. As the smoke, toxic gases and heat began to increase, some of those standing in the cellar began to collapse. Those still able began to recite the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..."

Ordered to clear a path to the cellar, the tank plunged into the gymnasium and bulldozed its way through the two-story-high structure as the roof and walls caved in. The tank operators felt the floor give way, showering those inside with large chunks of jagged concrete. They backed CEV-2 out before it could plunge through the floor into the writhing mass of bodies below. As they backed, the tank knocked over lanterns and cans of fuel, and crushed a pressurized tank filled with liquid propane.

In the cellar were Audrey Martinez, 13, and three other girls ranging in ages from 2 to 14, a 7-year-old boy, a l-year-old too badly burned to determine its sex, and Rosemary Morrison, 29--all buried alive before any fire reached them.

Two sisters, Jennifer and Katherine Andrade, aged 19 and 24 years respectively, died from inhaling toxic fumes, as did 17 others found later. Four others nearby died from blunt trauma. Rebecca Saipaia, 24, and a young man were burned to death. An unidentified 2-year-old boy, specified in the Justice report as "Doe 33," reportedly died of a stab wound to the left chest, although the principal pathologist suggested the cause was a puncture wound from falling debris.

Nine died from gunshot wounds, including 9-year-old Abigail Martinez and two unidentified children, a 6-year-old girl and an infant. It is an open question whether these bodies were shot where they were found or were pushed into their final position by the CEVs which systematically bulldozed the burning church complex into a central pyre.

Instants after their mothers, Aisha Gyarfas and Nicole Gent, expired, two infants were born through the process of a primordial biological survival reflex. Both lived only moments before succumbing to gas, falling concrete, and fire.

FBI line agents admitted later they had orders to return fire if fired upon and that once the CEVs began disassembling the building, the attack force had come under fire. Videotape footage shows 21 adults attempting to exit from the building at one time or another. James Riddle, Stephen Henry, Neal Vaega, Lisa Marie Farris, and Abigail Martinez died of gunshot wounds to the forehead. Phillip Henry and Novellette Hipsman, both British citizens, died of gunshot wounds to their foreheads and chests. Mary Jean Borst died of a gunshot wound to the back. Five unidentified church members, aged 30, 25, 15, 12, and 6, died of gunshot wounds to the head and chest. A 30 to 50 year old female died of multiple gunshot wounds to the left back and thorax. An infant died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Audiotape recordings made by the FBI but excluded from the trial jury as prejudicial provide a poignant tableau: the sounds of grumbling tank engines and clanking tracks, followed by the sound of splintering wood, crashing walls and roaring gas. Then the sounds of men and women praying fervently, and little children--all of them now dead--crying out in terror for mom and dad. Then the loud-speaker voice of FBI Special Agent Byron Sage, repeating over and over, "This is not an attack. This is not an attack."

Showdown in San Antonio

Nine church members escaped the burning building. Within a few days, a 10-count indictment charged 12 church members with federal firearms violations, murder, and conspiracy. The conspiracy charge allowed the government to hold 3 defendants who were not even present at the raid.

Judge Walter Smith, a close personal friend of the FBI Director, ruled out use of the 911 tape; challenges to the legality of the warrants; the requirement and service and execution of a warrant; the use of the words "assault" or "attack" in reference to ATF actions; discussion of the church members killed by the ATF agents; or any use of the Treasury or FBI reports analyzing the mistakes made in the raid. These pre-trial rulings would lead to sustained objections whenever defense questions could be interpreted as suggesting governmental misconduct.

Nonetheless, Texas Ranger Captain David Byrne testified that his crime scene processing team was kept at bay after the fire while the ATF was "obviously altering outside evidence. I disagreed with that." On the witness stand, Byrne expressed his concern that ATF agents had salted the scene with bogus evidence.

At later Congressional hearings, it would be revealed that the Department of Justice had halted the Treasury Department after-action shooting investigation of the February 28 raid when it became apparent that the ATF agents' stories didn't jibe with the facts. The U.S. Attorney also forbade Texas Rangers from interviewing anyone in command of the initial assault.

Texas Ranger Sergeant Fred Cummings revealed that half of Mount Carmel's metal double front-door was missing--the half publicly identified as key evidence because the "spray pattern" of entry holes confirmed that ATF fired a burst of machine gun fire at Koresh as he tried to surrender. He also acknowledged that he observed "trash" being loaded into a dumpster by FBI agents before the scene was processed for evidence.

Koresh's handiwork for Hewitt Handguns, 48 fully automatic rifles, were paraded before the jury, but despite all the talk of .50 caliber machineguns--ostensibly the reason for keeping 1000 reporters at a barricade 2 miles from Mt. Carmel--none were in evidence.

Denied nearly all subpoenas, defense attorneys called only 11 witnesses. In his summation, defense attorney Dan Cogdell said: "Ninety people lost their lives in the name of gun parts. Make no mistake, [government officials] want us to pay for their mistakes."

Doug Tinker, the soft-spoken senior attorney, concluded, "The government showed that they have gas masks. And they did. The adults had gas masks. The children didn't. They don't fit children, folks. They don't fit children and the evidence will show that CS gas kills children. The government used CS gas. I'm proud of our country, but I'm not proud of what they did here. They killed children."

After just 3 days of deliberation, all 11 defendants were acquitted of murder and conspiracy. Seven were found guilty on lesser charges (possessing a firearm during the commission of a violent crime) and the others were cleared completely. Smith said the jury had misunderstood his instructions. He dismissed the lesser verdicts on count three because they were predicated on the murder and conspiracy charges, of which all defendants were acquitted. Jurors later said their finding of guilt on the lesser charge reflected their conclusion that neither side was blameless.

A week later, in a bizarre ruling, Smith reversed the jury and his own ruling and entered guilty verdicts against 7 defendants. The group as a whole received 240 years, 170 on charges of which the jury had found them innocent. Fines and restitution totaled $9,675,500. Jury foreman Sarah Bain was weeping outside the courtroom as she told reporters, "I'm extremely upset, and at least two thirds of the jury will be as upset as I am." Another juror told the N.Y. Times, "The judge ignored the jury's conclusions."

The 51-day siege had cost federal taxpayers an estimated $13 million, not including state costs, or costs for the use of military equipment and personnel. The trial cost another $1.3 million, and the CS gas an estimated $20 million.

The Legacy

On April 22nd, Bill Clinton responded to criticism for the deaths at Waco, saying, "I do not think the United States government is responsible for the fact that a bunch of fanatics decided to kill themselves," he growled. "The bureau's efforts were ultimately unavailing because the individual with whom they were dealing, David Koresh, was dangerous, irrational and probably insane... Mr. Koresh's response to the demands for his surrender by Federal agents was to destroy himself and murder the children who were his captives as well as all the other people there who did not survive.

"I hope... that others who will be tempted to join cults and become involved with people like Koresh will be deterred by the horrible scenes they have seen...There is, unfortunately, a rise in this sort of fanaticism all over the world. And we may have to confront it again."

When asked by Congressman William Hughes why the FBI would consult groups like CAN, Janet Reno replied that she was concerned about the negative affect of cults on children, that "if a child is in a cult situation for any length of time," he or she might experience "permanent damage."

This statement caused Methodist Minister Joseph Bettis to write the Attorney General, "[F]rom the beginning, members of the Cult Awareness Network have been involved in this tragedy. This organization is widely known for its use of fear to foster religious bigotry. The reliance of federal agents on information supplied by these people, as well as the whole record of federal activity deserves your careful investigation and public disclosure... Cult bashing must end, and you must take the lead."

In early May, a coalition of 16 religious and civil liberties organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Conference on Religious Movements, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Episcopal Church, the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Council of Churches of Christ and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations issued a statement which read in part, "We are shocked and saddened by the recent events in Waco... Under the religious liberty provision of the First Amendment, the government has no business declaring what is orthodox or heretical, or what is a true or false religion. It should steer clear of inflammatory and misleading labels. History teaches that today's 'cults' may be tomorrow's mainstream religions."

While there are many lessons to be learned from Waco, and few have yet to penetrate the corridors of the Justice and Treasury Departments, perhaps the most salient concern is the erosion of separation between the military and the police forces in America today. The use of psychological warfare, poison gas and pyrotechnic devices, helicopters, tanks and assault vehicles, and special operations involving the intelligence assets of other nations being deployed within the United States are ominous forewarnings of a KGB-zation of domestic police forces.

To Americans fed up with crime in the inner cities and frustrated with a punishment system that serves to create more criminals and increase their effectiveness, the escalation to military levels seems a justifiable progression. But to those of us for whom the Constitution still holds the promise of a free society, where innocence is presumed and the government is one of strictly limited powers, the leap is too far, too brutal, and too difficult to rescind. David Koresh may have been deluded, or he may have been a prophet. He, and those with him, didn't deserve what America dished up.

At his worst, David Koresh was a pedophile and a petty tyrant who held his followers and his children too closely to him after he had been marked for death. At his best, David Koresh was a modern-day martyr in the mold of John Brown, calling upon the federal government to face up to its secret sins or plunge into civil rebellion. If the latter interpretation is justified, we ignore what happened in Waco at our peril.

As hearings on Waco resumed in Congress, the convicted church members were being shuttled between separate federal prisons. Some remain defiant of authority and are tormented by their captors, who mock their religion, refuse them showers and yard privileges and harass them mercilessly. Thirty-six-year-old Livingston Fagan, who has a masters degree in Theology, describes his experience in Terre Haute: "I had my feet kicked from under me. On one occasion, I was thrown to the floor. I had my clothes stripped from off me. I was chained hands and feet and then on my back, I was in a crouching position and this guy went on to point out to me that if I did not obey him, I would be treated like a bitch. It was very clear that this individual was going beyond the call of duty." Refusing work, refusing strip searches, refusing to speak when spoken to, Fagan and others are made to go naked, left in isolation cells, and refused outside communications.

But as Paul Fatta told a reporter recently, "I'm suffering. I don't like it. I want to be outside. But there are promises in scripture... that's what I'm waiting for. Whether I'm out there in the so-called free world, it really doesn't matter. I'm beyond that. The issue to us is relative to what God is doing, not what man is doing. Man has already demonstrated his willing incompetence."