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Ex-FBI official testifies

He says assault went beyond plan

06/23/2000

By Lee Hancock and Brenda Rodriguez / The Dallas Morning News

WACO – FBI commanders went beyond a Washington-approved plan for tear-gassing the Branch Davidian compound when they ordered tanks to drive deep into the building on April 19, 1993, at Mount Carmel, a former senior FBI official testified Thursday.

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"I don't recall that the plan contemplated this activity," former FBI deputy assistant director Danny O. Coulson testified when shown photographs of damage wreaked by FBI tanks. "You could use the term deviation. You could use the term inconsistent with what I understood the plan to be."

But other FBI officials insisted in video depositions played for jurors Thursday that FBI commanders in Waco had broad authority in their execution of the Waco tear-gas assault.

The testimony was presented only after a protracted legal skirmish in which U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith initially told lawyers that he wasn't going to allow any evidence about how the FBI drafted its gassing plan and finally excluded early proposals to begin dismantling the building within an hour to force sect members out.

The judge stopped the hearing and went back to his chambers. He was pursued by attorneys on both sides, who emerged to tell colleagues that the judge had recessed the court proceeding to prepare an order dismissing the entire demolition issue but was persuaded by plaintiffs' arguments that the jury should be allowed to hear it.

The lawsuit charges that the FBI's two commanders in Waco violated the gas plan approved by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno when they decided to order tanks to begin tearing down the rear area of the compound on April 19. The operation plan called for gassing the building for at least 48 hours before starting demolition.

A fire erupted within an hour after an FBI tank began smashing into the compound's rear gymnasium. More than 80 Davidians died in the blaze.

Government lawyers have said that the fires were deliberately set by sect members and the FBI's actions played no role in the tragedy. They also have argued that the commanders' decisions, even if negligent, are protected by broad federal laws shielding federal employees and agencies from private challenge in lawsuits.

They plan to present testimony in which Ms. Reno said the Waco commanders acted properly. Both now-retired agents in charge of the FBI's Waco operation, former Hostage Rescue Team leader Richard Rogers and former San Antonio FBI chief Jeffrey Jamar, are expected to be called to testify early next week by lawyers for the sect.

After emerging from the judge's chambers, Mr. Caddell spent much of the morning showing jurors three early drafts of the FBI's gas plan. In those documents, bureau officials proposed issuing a surrender ultimatum when they began injecting tear gas and then sending tanks to begin demolishing the building if all Davidians did not give up within an hour.

But the final plan presented to and ultimately approved by Ms. Reno repeatedly mandated gassing for 48 hours before using a specially outfitted tank to rip down the outer walls of the building.

Despite the removal of that provision from the final plan, Mr. Rogers later told interviewers that it was always contemplated as part of the FBI's Waco operation.

"We asked him why on April 19 the holes were opened up in the compound," interviewers preparing the 1993 Justice Review of FBI actions in Waco wrote in September 1993. "He said this was something they had intended to do all along."

In the segment of testimony presented from Mr. Coulson's deposition, the former official recounted watching the Waco gas operation at FBI headquarters with another senior official. When a tank smashed deep into the front side of the building, he said, his stunned colleague blurted, "Holy [expletive]!"

"I said 'I hope that's a bad camera angle,'" he recalled responding. "My first reaction was that the tank could be disabled and trapped inside the building, and I was surprised to see it exit."

In another deposition excerpt, former assistant FBI director Larry Potts was shown a memo prepared with the initials of Mr. Jamar and Mr. Rogers after the incident in which they described some of their agents being assigned to begin "systematic demolition" of the gymnasium.

"I believe that an intentional dismantling of the building at that stage would've required an exigent circumstance [or emergency]," Mr. Potts said, adding that he never heard of Mr. Jamar or Mr. Rogers seeking permission to take such action. Asked if he were aware of any emergency on April 19 that would've required early demolition, he said, "I'm not aware of any."

But government lawyers responded with deposition testimony in which former FBI deputy director Floyd Clark said that the agent in charge in Waco, Mr. Jamar, "had a tremendous amount of autonomy and authority. Asked if Mr. Jamar should have told Washington before sending tanks into the building, Mr. Clark said he would have expected such notification. "But would it require it? No. I don't think it would."

The lone witness to testify Thursday, an FBI agent who fired tear gas rounds into the back of the compound on April 19, sparred repeatedly with Mr. Caddell over whether the actions of FBI tanks in the rear of the compound amounted to demolishing or even dismantling the sect's building.

"I would characterize it as inserting gas. ...We called it penetrating," said the agent, FBI hostage rescue team member Joseph Servel Jr.

Reminded that a 1993 report of his FBI interview after the siege indicated he had described what he saw as a dismantling operation, he said, "I could've used the word dismantle, the word penetrate. I could've said a lot of things."

Mr. Servel said that the other agents assigned with him in a Bradley fighting vehicle fired only nonburning "ferret" tear gas rounds into the building. He said his armored vehicle didn't even carry any pyrotechnic tear-gas rounds. Internal FBI documents and statements from other FBI agents indicate that the armored vehicles sent to the rear of the compound were outfitted with some of the pyrotechnic gas, which is capable of sparking fires and were expressly banned by Ms. Reno in the gas operation.

The Waco tragedy began drawing renewed scrutiny last fall after Mr. Coulson told The Dallas Morning News that some pyrotechnic gas rounds were used at Waco, and the FBI was subsequently forced to acknowledge that at least two of the devices were fired on April 19.

Mr. Servel acknowledged that the heavier pyrotechnic gas rounds could penetrate wood and other building materials better than the ferrets he fired on April 19. He acknowledged that his team had difficulty penetrating the compound's kitchen area with his non-burning ferret rounds because its windows were covered with plywood.

Plaintiffs' lawyers ended the day by airing part of an FBI briefing on April 7, 1993, given to FBI agents assigned to help carry out the final tear gas assault. In the video, the head of a bureau SWAT team told other agents that FBI leaders in Washington had decided against trying to use tanks to bash holes into the compound.

"It would be conceived by the Davidians, the people inside as an act of aggression, an attack ...and they will retaliate, so headquarters rejected that," the agent said in the briefing.