Waco Siege: What Really Happened?

WASHINGTON - Ever since at least 80 people died at the Branch Davidian compound, Waco has been a symbol of wanton federal tyranny to many Americans.

But what really happened there?

Congressional hearings had been set to begin Thursday aimed at dispelling wild public suspicions with fact. But Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has postponed his hearing indefinitely. House inquiries remain promised but unscheduled as well, leaving a vacuum of silence on Capitol Hill in which conspiracy theories continue to fester.

The most extreme critics, spurred on by underground video documentaries such as "Waco, the Big Lie," say federal agents murdered cult leader David Koresh and his followers and deliberately set their compound on fire.

The government denies it. Official investigations concluded in 1993 that the federal cause at Waco was just. Mistakes were made, the Justice and Treasury departments' reports said, but they concluded Koresh led his followers into mass suicide by a fire they set themselves.

Here is a summary of what is known so far.

Why target the cult?

In May 1992, the sheriff's department in McLennan County, Texas, became alarmed about deliveries of firearms worth more than $100,000 to the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco. The sheriff notified the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) of his concerns.

Preliminary ATF investigation of shipping records found the cult had acquired M-16 machine gun-conversion kits, commonly used to turn legal semiautomatic weapons into illegal fully automatic ones.

The sect also had received inert hand-grenade casings and black powder capable of charging them. Koresh also had two .50-caliber rifles capable of piercing armor, former cult members reported.

Koresh had gained leadership of the cult via a 1987 gun battle. He preached imminent apocalypse heralded by a violent clash with the federal government. And he put his followers through daily weapons training and taught that one day they would use it.

That was more than enough evidence to give ATF "probable cause" to believe the cult might be violating federal gun laws and presenting a potential public danger.

In the end, the Branch Davidian compound was found to hold more than 300 firearms, including dozens of illegal machine guns and equipment to make more, grenades and almost 2 million rounds of spent ammunition.

The ATF raid

Although ATF thus appears justified in pursuing warrants against Koresh, a Treasury Department review panel harshly criticized the way it chose to execute them.

Not enough effort was made to arrest Koresh away from the compound or to ask him to honor the warrants voluntarily, the panel said.

Instead, ATF, on Feb. 28, 1993, decided to make an armed raid. Pre-raid intelligence monitoring of the compound was slipshod, the review panel said. A conspicuous raid convoy of 80 vehicles rolled 100 miles in daylight. Local news media flocked about. And Koresh was tipped off.

Just before the raid, ATF commanders learned they had lost the element of surprise, but they did not call off the raid. No plans existed in case things went wrong. Many things did.

Two cattle cars unloaded 76 ATF armed agents dressed as commandos. Koresh, unarmed, opened the door and yelled, "What's going on?" Agents said they identified themselves, announced they had a warrant and yelled "freeze," but Koresh slammed the door.

It is unclear who fired first; each side blamed the other. Four ATF agents were killed, 20 wounded. Six Davidians were killed. A cease-fire was negotiated after 90 minutes.

FBI tactics

The FBI took direction of the siege the next day, March 1. It lasted 51 days, the longest in U.S. law-enforcement history, before ending in the fatal fire.

FBI negotiators were conciliatory at first, and initially Koresh released a steady trickle of children.

But on March 9, the FBI began a controversial two-pronged approach, balancing negotiations with ever stronger tactical pressures aimed at tightening the noose.

The intent was to make the Davidians realize the FBI, not Koresh, controlled their environment, but reputable critics, including some inside the FBI, say it backfired.

The FBI shut off electricity in the compound. At night it bathed the compound in floodlights and blared Tibetan chants and cries of rabbits being slaughtered over loudspeakers. Eventually the FBI bulldozed all objects, including cars, away from the compound and surrounded it with concertina wire and armored vehicles.

Such tactics angered Koresh - along with the FBI's own negotiators, who were trying to cultivate trust to persuade Koresh to surrender. FBI negotiators thought such "intimidation and harassment" contradicted their efforts, but they often were shut out of tactical planning.

FBI behavioral scientists Peter Smerick and Mark Young had warned that such pressure tactics could steel the Davidians' will to fight to the death. Independent experts in religion offered similar advice, but their warnings were overruled by site commander Jeffrey Jamar, who ran the FBI's office in San Antonio.

Many critics say the FBI should have simply waited Koresh out. But FBI tactical leaders began pushing to end the siege in mid-April. They argued they could not secure the area indefinitely, that negotiations had proved fruitless for weeks, that Koresh had broken promises consistently, that the Davidians had enough food and water to stay inside up to one year, that conditions inside the compound were unsanitary and unsafe for children, and that law-enforcement agents were exhausted, according to the Justice Department report.

Tear gas

At 5:59 a.m. April 19, the FBI telephoned the compound to announce it was inserting tear gas - called CS gas - but not invading and to demand surrender.

The FBI used nine armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles, two Abrams tanks and five tank-like Combat Engineer Vehicles (CEVs) to insert the gas. The armor was used to protect agents from bullets.

CEVs punched holes in the walls and sprayed gas while agents in Bradleys fired hundreds of smaller gas rounds through windows with M-79 grenade launchers.

Davidians shot back within minutes. The FBI never fired a bullet, the Justice Department said.

CS gas is not flammable.

The fire

The Davidians' final moments were apocalyptic.

Tank-like CEVs rammed bigger holes in the building shortly before noon. That was "to provide a larger opening from which the Davidians could leave the compound," the Justice Department report said.

At 11:45 a.m. a wall collapsed. At 12:01 p.m., FBI loudspeakers told Koresh: "David, you have had your 15 minutes of fame. . . . Vernon is no longer the Messiah. Leave the building now." (Koresh's birth name was Vernon Howell.)

Flames first broke out at 12:07:41 on the building's second floor, according to an infrared film shot by an FBI plane overhead. Flames broke out at two other sites within two minutes, the film showed. Flames engulfed the building by 12:11. The FBI called fire trucks at 12:15. They reached the building at 12:41.

Too late

Conspiracy theorists say flame-throwing tanks started the fire. One anti-government video seems to show that. Others say tanks knocked over fuel cans and sparked the fire. But independent arson investigators from fire departments in Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Pittsburgh insist all evidence is conclusive: The Davidians started the fire, using fuel at three sites.

Infrared aerial film, physical evidence and propellant-sniffing dogs leave no doubt of that, the investigators concluded. Separately, two experts from the University of Maryland reached the same conclusions. And three surviving Davidians reported hearing shouts from their colleagues to "start the fire" amid the chaos.

Seventy-five people perished in the inferno, including 25 children. Koresh died of a gunshot wound to the forehead. In all 17 people died of gunshot wounds, one boy aged 2 or 3 was stabbed to death, and the rest were killed by fire or the falling building, autopsy reports said.