FBI official: Davidians could have been coaxed out of compound
06/22/2000
By Lee Hancock
The Dallas Morning News
© 2000, The Dallas Morning News
WACO – FBI tactical commander Richard Rogers told investigators
soon after the 1993 Branch Davidian siege that negotiators could
have coaxed sect members from their barricaded compound if given
enough time.
"I have never commented to any investigators concerning
negotiations because I don't view it as having a lot to do with
[the] outcome at Waco," Mr. Rogers, former head of the FBI's
Hostage Rescue team, told Justice Department interviewers in a
confidential September 1993 interview. "I think given enough
time, any negotiator could get them out if [there was] no
suicide, but what is enough time?"
Attorney General Janet Reno told the same investigators preparing
the Justice Department's 1993 review of the Waco tragedy that
senior FBI leaders told her to "butt out" after she agreed to let
them tear-gas the compound.
The records of those interviews have never been made public, and
Mr. Rogers' statement represents his first known acknowledgment
that more Branch Davidians might have eventually been talked into
surrendering.
Congressional investigators were only told early this year that
the documents existed despite exhaustive previous requests for
internal government records from the 1993 tragedy. Government
lawyers also did not disclose the records to attorneys for the
Branch Davidians until this month – less than two weeks before
the start of the trial in their wrongful-death lawsuit against
the federal government.
Their case, which completes its first week of testimony Friday,
alleges that FBI negligence and violations of a
Washington-approved tear-gas plan contributed to the start of a
fire that consumed the compound April 19, 1993. Mr. Rogers is
expected to testify early next week, and both sides expect his
testimony to be pivotal in the $675 million negligence lawsuit.
More than 80 Davidians died amid the fire, which erupted six
hours after the FBI began ramming the compound with tanks and
spraying in tear gas. Government lawyers have maintained that the
Davidians set the fire, and that FBI actions played no role in
the outcome of the deadliest law enforcement incident in U.S.
history.
Lawyers for the sect say they are particularly angry that they
were not told that the detailed statements by Ms. Reno and Mr.
Rogers existed before they questioned the two officials in
separate March depositions. The lawyers noted that the documents
came to them not only on the eve of trial but also more than
three months after the court's deadline for producing documents
in the case.
Michael Caddell, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he will
introduce the records to jurors Friday. He said he believes that
the account of Ms. Reno's 1993 interview statements will damage
her recent deposition testimony, which he also plans to present
Friday.
Ms. Reno said in her March 23 deposition that she believed Mr.
Rogers and the FBI's Waco supervisors acted properly on April 19,
1993.
"The contents are amazing. ... There are direct contradictions
to the FBI's version of events that they have been spouting for
seven years," Mr. Caddell said. "These interviews were
conducted in August and September of 1993 – seven years ago.
It's inexcusable that we didn't have them."
He added that the 1993 statements show that FBI leaders, not Ms.
Reno, were making the key decisions on the final day of the
siege.
"Janet Reno has nothing to do with what actually happened on
April 19," he said. "The truth is, she was out of the loop."
But lawyers for the government say they acted properly in turning
over all relevant government documents to their opponents. They
add that the government has made "a good faith effort" to produce
all documents required by court discovery rules while struggling
to keep track of the millions of government records relating to
Waco as they prepared their defense.
"There wasn't any effort to hold those back," U.S. Attorney Mike
Bradford said. He said the Justice Department did not obtain
them until late February, after congressional investigators
learned from Philadelphia lawyer Edward S. Dennis, who
supervised the 1993 Justice Review, that he had some internal
memos from his Waco inquiry in his private files. He added that
Justice officials in Washington did not submit them to the Waco
trial team until April 20, and the government's lawyers then had
to review them before turning them over to lawyers for the sect.
Mr. Bradford added that he found little "significant" in them.
The documents included Ms. Reno's statement that the FBI had
been fair and forthcoming in trying to persuade her to use tear
gas in April 1993 but told her in plain terms that they would be
in charge once she approved.
"They told me I should butt out after giving okay. Can't call
back. Not law enforcement official. Not on scene," stated
hand-written notes of her interview with FBI agents and lawyers
asked by the Justice Department to oversee their 1993 Waco
review.
"Didn't find FBI to be know it all, we know bests. Felt they
kept an open mind," she later added. "[The] only thing was:
[they said that] when we get in, we're in charge of tactics."
The attorney general also told investigators that she would not
have approved the gas plan if she detected even a 40 percent
chance that it might lead to Davidian suicides.
"If they had told me there was a very high – 40% – chance of mass
suicide, [I] wouldn't have done it. If food supply would run out
in three months or if we could cut off water, would wait. Went
though [the] variables. Better to let him abuse children if
there was high chance he'd take them all with him. I was told
[the] outside limit was one year to wait them out."
But many of the FBI's top negotiators and behavioral experts had
warned their superiors repeatedly that the Davidians might engage
the FBI to force a mass "suicide by cop" if they kept ratcheting
up pressure. They also complained that Mr. Rogers' aggressive
tactics in Waco killed negotiations and kept many Davidians from
leaving. The top negotiators also warned weeks before the gas
assault that tear gas alone might lead to panic and violence in
the compound and that moving tanks close to the building
guaranteed it.
In his September 1993 interview, obtained by The Dallas Morning
News, Mr. Rogers admitted that tactical actions during the
51-day siege drove Davidians closer to their leader, David
Koresh, just as negotiators were trying to persuade them to break
away and leave their compound.
But Mr. Rogers also said the FBI's negotiators "wanted to curry
favor with these people" just as he and others in the FBI wanted
to "up the ante."
"Being nice to him was playing right into his hands," Mr.
Rogers said. "He was buying time, keeping his lifestyle [and
the] media circus.
"When we started depriving them, [we were] really driving people
closer to him because of their devotion to him. Deprivation was
a lifestyle to them."
Another FBI record turned over to lawyers for the Davidians in
mid-May shows that their most seasoned tactical expert was
adamantly opposed to assaulting the compound with tear gas. The
memo is undated and unsigned but bears the handwriting of former
FBI deputy assistant director Danny O. Coulson, founder of the
FBI's hostage rescue team. Mr. Coulson's Feb. 22 deposition
testimony was played during Thursday's court proceedings.
His internal FBI memo, retained in bureau records after his 1997
retirement, was written in response to a proposal from Waco to
use tear gas, a request sent to FBI headquarters in late March.
Despite insistence from Mr. Rogers and overall FBI Waco
commander Jeffrey Jamar that negotiations were futile, Mr.
Coulson noted in his memo that negotiators believed the sect
would "ultimately" come out.
The critique also contended that the plan proposed by Waco
commanders – gassing all of the compound simultaneously – sounded
too much like "a quick fix." The revised gas assault plan
approved several weeks later by Ms. Reno called for a gradual
insertion of gas, but FBI commanders immediately began gassing
the entire building after sect members began firing on the first
tank sent to spray it in.
The memo also ridiculed the Waco commanders' arguments that
spraying gas would confuse Davidians and prompt women to rush out
of the building with their children. Noting that the Waco FBI
officials also predicted an immediate barrage of Davidian gunfire
in response to any gas, Mr. Coulson added, "How would the others
act to save their children if a massive gunfight began? Surely
they would not go outside to save their children in the middle of
a gunfight."
"I am pretty disappointed with this approach. Everything is
moving toward a gas attack ... I have stated that I believe it
is unwise. We have more to negotiate," Mr. Coulson wrote.
"I think that Waco should be told in no uncertain terms that we
are here to negotiate, that we should defend our positions to the
fullest if the subjects decide to come out and commit 'suicide by
cop' ... and that we should explore other possibilities for a
negotiated surrender. HRT [commander Richard Rogers] needs to be
told that we are not going to assault that compound in any
fashion, including gas. If he can't accommodate this objective,
he should be brought back to D.C."
Mr. Coulson's warnings about the Davidians' reactions to gas and
gunfire proved an accurate forecast of what ultimately happened
April 19. After the tanks moved in, gunshots rang out from the
compound. Only nine adults emerged from the building after it
was engulfed in flames.
In her September 1993 interview, Ms. Reno recalled that the
first reports of Davidian gunshots "reminded me I couldn't
control the situation."
Asked if she had authority to stop the plan, notes from that
interview indicated, Ms. Reno responded: "I think I could have
stopped it at any point if there was danger."
She noted that she worried about high winds that day that seemed
to be blowing gas out of the compound. She said she also told the
FBI to send the Davidians a cellular phone when the FBI's tanks
cut their phone line early in the gas assault. No phone was sent
in.
Ms. Reno also said she felt at times like she was learning more
from watching live news reports of the ongoing assault from CNN
than from the open phone line set up between the FBI's
headquarters and Waco.
"I didn't consider myself in command of operation," she said.
"[I was] too far away. [I had] no sense of what [was] really
going on to suggest tactics at the scene."
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~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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