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July 27, 1993 - Bill Cooper
58:18
Anatomy of a murder
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Time Text
Why is the power of the power?
Use the power of the spirit.
Why is the power of the power?
Use the power of the spirit.
at the same time.
Lights out on the roof of the house.
The door is locked.
The ceiling is in fire.
The house is on fire.
At home and around the world, you're listening to the Hour of the Time.
I'm William Cooper.
Tonight, the anatomy of a murder.
you How the President of the United States lied to the American people about the Waco Massacre.
The means by which the followers of the Church Branch Davidian were convicted in the minds of the sheeple of the crime of being politically incorrect.
This led to the murder of approximately 100 innocent American citizens.
On February the 28th, 1993, the World Watch stunned as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
literally raided in military fashion a church in Waco, Texas known as Branch Davidian.
Thanks.
No one understood why this raid was being conducted until after the ATF had suffered considerable casualties 4 dead, 16 wounded, and retreated to a position and then held a press conference.
In this press conference, the world was told that the church Branch Davidian was raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms because an informant had passed information through the State Department that the entire congregation of the church known as Branch Davidian was preparing to commit mass suicide.
This, ladies and gentlemen, was the first in a long succession of lies, a succession of lies that have not ended to this very day.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is supposed to be a federal agency.
In fact, it comes under The Treasury Department, a department which is headed up by the Secretary of the Treasury, who at the current time is a Mr. Lloyd Benson.
Lloyd Benson, by the Bretton Woods Treaty Agreement, cannot receive a salary from the United States government, but instead, under this treaty, must be paid by the International Monetary Fund.
A fund answerable only to the World Bank and the United Nations.
Ladies and gentlemen, because of this, and because of restrictions placed in the Constitution, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms cannot in any way be considered to be an agency of the United States government, but instead, instead is an enforcement arm of a foreign power.
What happened at Waco, Texas, ladies and gentlemen, was treason.
Treason at the highest levels, perpetrated by men who worship their god, known as Lucifer, who are in fact members of the mystery religion of ancient Babylon, which has been practiced in secret for thousands of years, and is still being practiced today.
To Christians, this philosophy is known as Satanism.
If you've wondered what happened to this country, stay tuned to this broadcast.
What you're going to learn here is going to convince you that the America that we knew and loved as children and during our younger years, those of us who are my age, is no more.
That the Constitution and the Bill of Rights exist in name only and are no longer being are no longer in effect, and in fact have been superseded and subverted by many different treaties with international bodies, organizations, foreign countries, and in particular, the United Nations Treaty and the United Nations Participation Act.
Ladies and gentlemen, the correct terminology For anything having to do with our money or the Treasury of the United States is the United States Treasury.
The United States Treasury Department is not, I repeat, not an agency of our constitutionally legal federal government.
What happened in Waco, Texas?
On February the 28th, and for fifty-one days thereafter, was in fact an act of war against the American people, and there were in fact approximately one hundred casualties resulting from that battle.
The travesty of the death of those innocent Americans must be redressed.
Those responsible must answer.
And it is the purpose of this broadcast to bring you some of the facts of what happened in Waco, Texas, how the American people were coerced, ladies and gentlemen, by a series of lies into believing that these people deserved to die.
Without due process, without the protection of their Creator-endowed rights, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, without care, without compassion, without understanding.
And this goes to the very heart of the survival of this nation, of our Constitution, of the Bill of Rights, of freedom for all men.
For unless this is understood And unless there is cause that it will never happen again, then freedom is dead for all peoples everywhere.
You had better pay attention to this broadcast.
I hope you are taping it.
If not, you had better send for a studio copy of the tape.
Make copies and pass it to all Americans and around the world.
For if you live in another country other than the United States of America, you must understand That your future, your freedoms, whether or not you ever have any in the future, hinge upon our success at preserving our Constitution and Bill of Rights, our Creator-endowed rights.
If you do not understand this, then you should turn off your radio now, for none of what I am going to reveal here will make sense to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the series of lies perpetrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Justice Department in the personification of Janet Reno, the representative in this country of an international police organization known as Interpol, and the President of the United States, a Rhodes Scholar A member of the subversive organizations known as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, William Clinton, are despicable.
These lies were perpetrated intentionally as a psychological propaganda operation against the American people to enable them to carry out their mission Which was the murder of all of those people belonging to the Church Branch Davidian.
We have yet to discover the true reason why this was done.
You have to understand that throughout history there has been a blood lineage which has made the claim of divine right to rule.
We have reason that when the New World Order comes into being, comes into its own, that one of the members of this family will be established upon the throne of the world as the public head of the New World Order.
In reality, this person will just be a puppet and will be ruled by a council of wise men or elders from behind the scenes.
This bloodline is known as the Davidian Now, during the Waco Massacre, there were several newspaper articles, and it was announced worldwide on the Six O'Clock News and on all of the news broadcasts, that David Koresh, the leader of the Church Branch Davidian, had made the claim that he is God and that he is Jesus Christ.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, don't believe for one minute That I think that David Koresh was God or was Jesus Christ, because I certainly do not.
But I base that upon investigation, and not upon what most of you did, which was condemn him for those statements made by the press, which were, in fact, false.
David Koresh never claimed to be God, and he never claimed to be Jesus Christ.
He did claim to be able to open the seven seals Discussed in the book of Revelations, which would be opened during the last days of the old age.
And yes, that interpretation is correct.
Those of you who read your Bibles and it says, end of the world, or last days of the world, are incorrect.
When you go back to the original Greek and the original Hebrew, the correct word was aeon.
The correct translation is age, not world, and so the Bible is talking about the end of an age, not the end of the world.
And this is only one of the many ways in which the Bible has been corrupted through the translation and the mistranslation of the meanings of certain words and the complete changing of some words to other words.
Now, if you doubt that, stop listening blindly to your preachers and your ministers.
Go learn something about the Greek and Hebrew language, and look it up yourself, and stop being a stupid puppet sheeple, and stop it now, because all of you who are falling for these deceptions are condemning us to slavery by your actions.
Now, if you understand this, and if you understand that David Koresh flew on his flag, what is known as the Star of David, and that he is of Jewish ancestry, and when you learn that his followers, not himself, but his followers, called him the Lamb of God because they believed that he could translate and open The Seven Seals, which they and he, David Koresh, believed were the Bible itself.
Then you can begin to understand how David Koresh may have threatened the heart and soul of the leadership of the New World Order.
Now, we don't know that any of this is true.
This is speculation.
But we do know that all the reasons that we have been given for the raid upon the Church Branch Davidian were false.
We know that the instigation for this raid came from the Cult Awareness Network and a spy organization, a spy organization A spy organization that has been spying upon the United States of America, organizations within the United States of America, and individuals within the United States of America, and transferring this information to foreign powers.
This organization known as the ADL, or Anti-Defamation League, when you discover all of these things, And when you understand that the majority of the members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are made up of people who subscribe to political Zionism, are members of the church known as the Mormon Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, and when you understand
That most of them are also members of the secret societies known as Mystery Babylon, Freemasonry, the Knights of Malta, the Order of St.
John of Jerusalem, and many more.
I could go on.
The Knights Templar, the Knights of the Red Cross, the Knights of the Red Cross of Constantine, the military and sovereign Order of Malta, or the Sovereign and Military Order of the Knights of Malta is the correct name for it.
Then you begin to understand that these godless men, who truly worship Lucifer and believe that man himself will become God, committed these despicable, traitorous acts You see, because when you watch the videotape that was produced by Linda Thompson, it's hard to believe that anyone, any sane human being, any American could have done to these people, these innocent American citizens, the congregation of Branch Davidian, what these ATF and FBI and the military and the British SAS
And Delta Force and Interpol and many other organizations who were on scene, including the Texas Rangers who have always professed profound patriotism and unblemished honesty and the love of law and order.
And I tell you now, you're full of bull.
The Texas Rangers was an accomplice in all of this.
Now, everybody watched their television set and they knew that there were loudspeakers set up and loud noises were being directed at the congregation of Branch Davidian.
What they weren't told is this was a military psychological operations warfare team.
a military psychological operations warfare team.
And what they were directing at those people in that church was the most cruel, cruel psychological
operations.
Thank you.
Loudspeakers broadcasting the screams of rabbits as they are being butchered Now, you might ask yourself, who would even go and make such a recording?
Well, these people would.
Tanks being used against American citizens in a church.
Tanks.
Armored personnel carriers.
Assassination teams.
foreign military personnel flying reconnaissance aircraft with down-looking, heat-seeking
capabilities.
Other equipment borrowed from the British Special Air Services, which was ground-located,
which could peer through the walls and locate, through infrared heat-seeking devices, every
single member of the Branch Davidians.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Small, pin-sized cameras placed through the walls.
They knew where every one of these people were at all times.
The video that Linda Thompson made shows clearly that in the initial assault, the ATF agents were not being fired upon by the members of Branch Division.
It clearly shows that at least one of the agents wounded himself when his gun, his pistol, his 9mm pistol discharged as he was attempting to withdraw it from his holster while he was climbing a ladder and shot himself We were told that these people were terrorists.
However, they had no history of terrorism.
entered by one of their own people after they entered a window into which the fourth agent
threw a grenade and then fired two bursts of machine gun fire.
We were told that these people were terrorists.
However, they had no history of terrorism.
We were told that David Koresh was insane, although he had no history of being treated
for mental illness, nor had that claim ever been made against him by anyone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
He was said to have a propensity for violence, yet he had never committed a violent act in his life except once when he went to take photographs of a coffin containing a dead body in a To deliver to the local sheriff who demanded proof before he would do anything about this dead body in a coffin being stored in a shed.
David Koresh was fired upon, was fired upon, and returned fire.
And this is the only violence that he has ever committed to anyone's knowledge And this, clearly, was self-defense.
It is in the court records, ladies and gentlemen.
He was accused of assault with a deadly weapon.
He was tried and acquitted of all of the charges by a jury of his peers.
And therefore, under our system, he is innocent.
But you were never told that, were you?
Ladies and gentlemen, you see, it's on the public record.
You can obtain those records from the courts in the state of Texas, and you can verify this for yourself.
We were told that David Koresh was a child molester, that he slept with underage girls.
We were told that he was a child abuser, that he spanked children and beat children.
And since when did a deserved spanking ever become child abuse?
If that were the case, folks, about 95% of all Americans, citizens would be guilty at one time or another of child abuse, because 95% of all Americans at one time or another have spanked a child.
And usually when those spankings are administered, they are administered on the derriere to a child who is guilty of some despicable behavior and deserve that spanking.
And I might add that the lack, the lack of discipline and spanking, a child who needs a spanking in this country, has led to an unbelievable, unbelievable, unforeseen by any of us who grew up in the days when none of this occurred, unbelievable epidemic of juvenile delinquency, children roaming the streets at all hours of the day and night, uncontrolled, unaccounted
And in the most part, no one cares what they are doing anyway.
And the blame for that lies in the lap of the parents.
The parents.
You won't get away from me, folks.
I put the responsibility where it belongs.
The chaos in the schools belongs with the parents who go to the school and complain and cry and threaten when a teacher disciplines their child.
for the terrible behavior in the classroom that they exhibit.
Or when a teacher or a principal or a coach administers a couple of licks again to the derriere of some deserving preteen or teenager.
And so the discipline in the schools has disappeared.
The truth about David Koresh, ladies and gentlemen, is that the Cult Awareness Network and David Brough had
been making these accusations for at least a couple of years prior to what happened beginning
on February the 28th, 1993.
The local officials in Waco, Texas had investigated all of these allegations and found that there
was no substantiation for any of them.
No substantiation for any of them.
No substantiation for any of them.
I personally talked to the child welfare people in Waco, Texas, and they told me that there had been several investigations, all resulting All resulting in the findings that there was no substantiation and no evidence to support any of these allegations whatsoever.
And that includes both child abuse and child molestation.
No one that we can find, no one that we can find will tell us that David Koresh had any more than one wife, ever slept with anyone other than his had any more than the two children that he had.
In fact, everyone who knew David Koresh, respected him, liked him, knew him to be a tremendously moral and deeply religious individual who would not have gone against the commandment of God, Thou shalt not commit adultery.
You have to remember, this man was the head of a Christian church.
A Christian church that believed that the scriptures written in the Holy Bible were the law.
The law.
In fact, they believed that they were the law of all laws, and adhered to them faithfully, religiously.
For that is what they were, a religious group of people.
We were told Ultimately, that the purpose of the raid was for illegal weapons, machine guns, .50 caliber machine guns, hand grenade rockets, rockets which could blow up a tank.
None of these allegations were true.
None of them were true.
The local sheriff had thoroughly investigated charges that the Branch Davidians were hoarding illegal weapons and at one time had confiscated every weapon That they possessed and returned all of them because they were found to be perfectly, 100% legal.
All of them were purchased legally.
All of the paperwork on all of these weapons were filled out.
Nothing, nothing that these people did had ever been found to be illegal.
After the fire, when the nation screamed For the VATF and the FBI to prove the allegations that these people had machine guns and illegal weapons.
They laid out a room full of weapons, and this was filmed by the television cameras and put on the television across the nation.
And what all you sheeple didn't understand out there was these weapons were not burned.
The wood of these stocks were not singed or burned.
None of the metal portions of the weapons showed warping or any of the discoloration that would be caused in metal by extreme exposure to heat.
This was a lie also.
But most Americans bought it, fell for it, took the hook, swallowed the line, ate the sinker, chewed up the pole, And now you're all sitting there with the reel in your mouth and you're trying to figure out how to get that down your throat, too.
And you deserve to have it shoved down your throat, I can tell you that right now.
For you, as well as the BATF and the FBI, the judicial branch and the executive branch of this government, you as well as them are accomplices to the murder of these people.
And you are equally guilty and equally, in my eyes, despicable.
Despicable, stupid, sheeple, most of you.
Some of you, we know, are not.
Some of you saw through this scam from the beginning.
Some of you have learned to think on your own.
Others of you are beginning to wake up and beginning to do that.
And I congratulate those of you who fit those categories.
The rest of you, you have no excuse.
You will not be excused, and you should pay an equal penalty for anyone else who's convicted of this crime.
For you know, you know that every citizen in this great nation of ours, or what used to be a great nation of ours, is entitled to equal protection under the law.
Yet you convicted these people of being politically incorrect, sentenced them to death, watched while they were murdered without due process or equal protection under the law or the right to a trial to be judged by a jury of their peers.
You will carry that shame until your dying day.
Don't go away, folks.
It's time for our break.
I'll be right back after this very short pause.
This is William Cooper, and I understand that You're coming under some heavy propaganda from those who would try to stop you from investing in gold or silver in order to protect your assets in the future.
Well, let me just give you a few little clarifications.
The people who have investment firms who specialize in gold and silver in any form, folks, are not what you call money changers.
Money changers can be found at international airports, and they make money changing one currency into another currency so that you will have money of the country that you are visiting.
Those are money changers.
Swiss America Training is an investment firm, ladies and gentlemen.
They have many different hard asset investments for you to make.
Now, I understand that someone has been putting out on these airwaves that it is just terrible that they bought some gold coins at one price, and then all of a sudden, just within about a two-month period, they needed a whole bunch of money and tried to sell those gold coins back at the same price they paid for them.
Ladies and gentlemen, that cannot be done.
You see, gold and silver investments are not investments that you make in order to make money.
You don't make money on gold and silver investments.
What you do is protect the value of the assets that you already have.
The assets that you invest are trade for the gold and silver.
Now, many people don't understand You see, gold and silver never amounts to a profit in an inflated currency.
You can't buy more with that gold and silver, but you can buy the same.
You see, you can buy the same number of loaves of bread with one ounce of gold right now as you could in 1855.
The value of that one ounce of gold has never changed over that period of time in what you can purchase with it.
Whoever has owned gold has protected the value of what they had.
It could not go down.
In any economy or any country which uses paper currency, such as Federal Reserve notes which are backed by nothing and are in fact fiat or counterfeit money, as inflation occurs, the value of what you have, what you own, the value of that paper currency decreases.
Decreases.
Now, it appears that someone who invested in gold will make a profit because as the value of the paper currency decreases, the value of the gold in that same currency increases.
However, the fact remains that before the inflation, the one ounce of gold that could buy 100 loaves of bread can still buy 100 loaves of bread after the inflation.
Yet, the people who have not invested in gold or silver, holding paper currency will no longer be able to buy 100 loaves of bread with the money that they could have purchased one ounce of gold with prior to the inflationary period.
If the inflation were 50%, then in fact the person who had invested their paper currency
into one ounce of gold, which would have bought 100 loaves of bread before the inflationary
period, could still buy those same 100 loaves of bread with that one ounce of gold after
the inflationary period.
The person, however, who kept their paper money, who could have bought 100 loaves of
bread with the same money that they could have purchased one ounce of gold with before
the inflationary period, and if the inflation was 50%, then, ladies and gentlemen, that
same person would only be able to buy or purchase 50 loaves of bread after the inflationary
period with the same amount of money.
Bye.
That is what gold and silver, our precious metals, do for you.
It's not like stock, where you're betting that the stock is going to take off and you're going to make a ton of money.
That is not why you invest in gold and silver, and anybody who believes that is a turkey waiting for Thanksgiving.
I can guarantee you, folks.
Now, for the same reason, this, the United States of America, believes in individual initiative.
We believe that people should be able to create a product or deal in a product and sell it and make some money so that they can live.
The gold and silver is based upon, upon, folks, The value of the currency in the country where the gold or silver is being sold, it is also based upon a New York or London what they call spot price.
Now, spot is what the gold is bought or sold for, and these two prices vary depending on whether it's being bought or being sold.
Ladies and gentlemen, the buy price is always lower than the sell price.
So when you buy gold from someone, you're going to pay the sell spot, or the sell spot, that's correct.
And when you try to sell it back, you're going to sell it at the buy spot, and that's for the dealers in gold.
That's so that they can make a living in what they do, ladies and gentlemen.
It's like a car.
If you go to a used car dealer to sell your car, he's going to give you X number of dollars.
Let's say he gives you $200.
He's then going to mark up the price of that automobile to probably about $300 and put it on his lot for sale, where he will make a deal with a customer for more than the $200 that he paid for it.
If the customer comes back and wants to sell the car back to the dealer the next day, He may be able to sell it back to the dealer for, again, $200, but he will not get back the price that he paid for it.
Folks, this is business.
If you don't understand business, you have no business doing business.
Now, for those of you who understand what gold and silver is all about, for those of you who understand what's coming and what we're facing with this economy, if something isn't done soon, we all know what has to be done.
If you understand that, then call Swiss America Trading right now, 1-800-289-2646.
That's 1-800-289-2646.
Do it now, folks, and remember, if two weeks from the time you purchase gold or silver you want to sell it back, you're not going to get the same price you paid for it, unless the price of gold and silver has gone up due to inflation of the paper currency.
Then you will either get the price you paid for it, or some price above what you paid for it.
You may even get paid a lot more than what you paid for it.
But just remember this, that gold will never purchase any more than it would have purchased a hundred or a thousand years ago.
It is to protect what you have.
Not to make a killing.
No one makes a killing on gold and silver.
People can make money on gold and silver if you go into the business of buying and selling gold and silver, just as a car dealer can make money on cars if he goes into the business of buying and selling cars.
There is no difference.
No difference whatsoever.
Gold and silver are commodities.
Call Swiss America Trading now 1-800-289-2646.
That's 1-800-289-2646.
Talk to the experts at Swiss America Trading, the ones who have supported this program the hour of the time.
Don't listen to half-baked, half-baked people who don't even know what they're talking about.
Ladies and gentlemen, call now 1-800-289-2646.
Tell them you listen to this show the hour of the time, you support the hour of the time, and you want to do some business with Swiss America Trading.
For the first 200 callers, you'll get Harry Figge's report entitled, Tackle the Debt.
Do it now.
1-800-289-2646.
That's 1-800-289-2646.
That's 1-800-289-2646. You'll be glad that you did.
Hold me now, come hold me now. It'll be dark at sunrise. I'll be gone before you know it.
Hold me now, come hold me now. It'll be dark at sunrise.
And I'm gone before you know it.
Hold me now, come hold me now. It'll be dark at sunrise.
And I'm gone on the rising tide.
For today, let me in and let it land. It's the state of things. I swallow the fear.
To be ready, and sunrise to see. We've fought for justice.
And God forgave us a magistrate.
Then we shall wait.
Darkness will roll.
Dark days will roll and the storm will come And they will hear and they shall fly
And they will shine in the dark days When I am there in the darkness days
Holy night, holy night Ladies and gentlemen, on April the 20th, 1993,
President William Clinton made this speech.
On February the 28th, four federal agents were killed in the line of duty trying to enforce the law against the Branch Davidian compound, which had illegally stockpiled weaponry and ammunition and placed innocent children at risk.
Because the BATF operation had failed to meet its objective, a 51-day standoff ensued.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation then made every reasonable effort to bring this perilous situation to an end without bloodshed and further loss of life.
The Bureau's efforts were ultimately unavailing because the individual with whom they were dealing, David Koresh, was dangerous, irrational, and probably insane.
He engaged in numerous activities which violated both federal law and common standards of decency.
He was, moreover, responsible for the deaths and injuries which occurred during the action against the compound in February.
Given his inclination towards violence and in an effort to protect his young hostages, no provocative actions were taken for more than seven weeks by federal agents against the compound.
This weekend I was briefed by Attorney General Reno on an operation prepared by the FBI designed to increase pressure on Koresh and persuade those in the compound to surrender peacefully.
The plan included a decision to withhold the use of ammunition, even in the face of fire, and instead to use tear gas that would not cause permanent harm to health, but would, it was hoped, force the people in the compound to come outside and to surrender.
I was informed of the plan to end the siege.
I discussed it with Attorney General Reno.
I asked the questions I thought it was appropriate for me to ask.
I then told her to do what she thought was right, and I take full responsibility for the implementation of the decision.
Yesterday's action ended in a horrible human tragedy.
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 who were there who did not survive.
He killed those he controlled, and he bears ultimate responsibility for the carnage that ensued.
Now we must review the past with an eye toward the future.
I have directed the United States Departments of Justice and Treasury to undertake a vigorous and thorough investigation to uncover what happened and why, and whether anything could have been done differently.
I have told the departments to involve independent professional law enforcement officials in the investigation.
I expect to receive analysis and answers in whatever time is required to complete the review.
Finally, I have directed the departments to cooperate fully with all congressional inquiries so that we can continue to be fully accountable to the American people.
I want to express my appreciation to the Attorney General, to the Justice Department, and to the federal agents on the front lines who did the best job they could under deeply difficult circumstances.
Again, I want to say, as I did yesterday, I am very sorry for the loss of life which occurred at the beginning and at the end of this tragedy in Waco.
I hope very much that others who will be tempted to join cults and to become involved with people like David Koresh will be deterred by the horrible scenes they have seen over the last seven weeks.
And I hope very much that the difficult situations which Federal agents confronted there, and which they will be doubtless required to confront in other contexts in the future, will be somewhat better handled and better understood because of what has been learned now.
That was the end of the President's talk, ladies and gentlemen, and then he went on into questions and answers.
Question.
Mr. President, can you, first of all, tell us why, after fifty-one days, you decided Another reporter broke in.
Question, Mr. President, can you describe for us what it is that Janet Reno outlined to you in your 15-minute phone conversation with?
And the President says he'll answer both of the questions, but he can't do it at once.
Question, can you describe what she told you on Sunday about the nature of the operation and how much detail you knew about it?
Yes, I was told by the Attorney General that the FBI strongly felt that the time had come
to take another step in trying to dislodge the people in the compound, and she described
generally what the operation would be, that they wanted to go in and use tear gas which
had been tested not to cause permanent damage to adults or to children, but which would
make it very difficult for people to stay inside the building, and it was hoped that
the tear gas would permit them to come outside.
I was further told that under no circumstances would our people fire any shots at them, even
if fired upon.
They were going to shoot the tear gas from armored vehicles which would protect them,
and there would be no exchange of fire.
In fact, as you know, an awful lot of shots were fired by the cult members at the federal
officials.
There were no shots coming back from the government side.
I asked a number of questions.
The first question I asked is, why now?
We had waited seven weeks.
Why now?
The reasons I was given were the following.
That there was a limit to how long the federal authorities could maintain, with their limited resources, the quality and intensity of coverage by experts there.
They might be needed in other parts of the country.
2.
That the people who had reviewed this had never seen a case quite like this one before, and they were convinced that no progress had been made recently and no progress was going to be made through the normal means of getting Koresh and the other cult members to come out.
3.
That the danger of their doing something to themselves or to others was likely to increase, not decrease, with the passage of time.
4.
That they had reason to believe that the children who were still inside the compound were being abused significantly, as well as being forced to live in unsanitary and unsafe conditions.
So, for those reasons, they wanted to move at that time.
The second question I asked the Attorney General is whether they had given consideration to all of the things that could go wrong and evaluated them against what might happen that was good.
She said that the FBI personnel on the scene and those working with them were convinced that the chances of bad things happening would only increase with the passage of time.
The third question I asked was, has the military been consulted?
As soon as the initial tragedy came to light in Waco, that's the first thing I asked to
be done, because it was obvious that this was not a typical law enforcement situation.
Military people were then brought in, helped to analyze the situation and some of the problems
that were presented by it, and so I asked if the military had been consulted.
The Attorney General said that they had and that they were in basic agreement, and there
was only one minor tactical difference of opinion between the FBI and the military,
and that both sides thought was not of overwhelming significance.
Having asked those questions and gotten those answers, I said that if she thought it was
the right thing to do, that she should proceed and that I would support it, and I stand by
that today.
Thank you.
Someone asked if the President was trying to distance himself from this disaster, and he said, No, I'm bewildered by it.
The only reason I made no public statement yesterday, let me say, the only reason I made no public statement yesterday is that I had nothing to add to what was being said, and I literally did not know until rather late in the day whether anybody was still alive other than those who had been actually seen and taken to the hospital or taken into custody.
It was purely and simply a question of waiting for events to unfold.
I can't account for why people speculated one way or the other, but I talked to the Attorney General on the day before the action took place.
I talked to her yesterday.
I called her again late last night after she appeared on the Larry King show, and I talked to her again this morning.
It is not possible for a President to distance himself from things that happen when the federal government is in control.
I will say this, however, I was frankly surprised, would be a mild word, to say that anyone that would suggest that the Attorney General should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves.
I regret what happened, but it is not possible in this life to control the behavior of others in every circumstance.
These people killed four federal officials in the line of duty.
They were heavily armed.
They fired on federal officials yesterday repeatedly, and they were never fired back on.
We did everything we could to avoid the loss of life.
They made the decision to immolate themselves, and I regret it terribly, and I feel awful about the children.
But in the end, the last comment I had from Janet, we know, is when, and I talked to her on Sunday, I said, Now I want you to tell me once more why you believe, not why they believe, why you believe we should move now rather than wait some more.
And she said, It's because of the children.
They have evidence that those children are still being abused, and that they're in increasingly unsafe conditions, and that they don't think it will get any easier with the passage of time.
I have to take their word for that, so that is where I think things stand."
Question.
Can we assume, then, that you don't think this was mishandled in view of the outcome, that you didn't run out of patience, and if you had it to do over again, would you Decide that way?
No?
Well, I think what you can assume is just exactly what I announced today.
The FBI has done a lot of things right for this country over a long period of time, and this is the President speaking, ladies and gentlemen.
This is the same FBI that found the people that bombed the World Trade Center in lickety-split record time.
We want an inquiry to analyze the steps along the way.
Is there something else we should have known?
Is there some other question they should have asked?
Is there some other question I should have asked?
Can I say for sure that we could have done nothing else to make the outcome different?
I don't know that.
That's why I want the inquiry, and that's why I would like to make sure that we have some independent law enforcement people, not political people, but totally non-political outside experts who can bring to bear the best evidence we have.
There is, unfortunately, a rise in this sort of fanaticism all across the world, and we may have to confront it again, and I want to know whether there is anything we can do, particularly when there are children involved.
But I do think it is important to recognize that the wrongdoers in this case were the people who killed others and then killed themselves.
There are two questions I want to ask you.
The first is, I think that they knew very well that the children did not have gas masks while the adults did, so the children had no chance because this gas was very, she said it was not lethal, but it was very dangerous to the children, and they could not have survived without gas masks.
and on February 28th, let's go back, didn't those people have a right to practice their
religion?
Folks, that question was asked by Sarah McClendon of the McClendon News Service, the only pertaining
question, the only question that was legitimate that was asked during the whole thing.
The President, they were not just practicing their religion.
The Treasury Department believed that they had violated federal laws, any number of them.
Question by Sarah McLinton.
What federal laws?
The President.
Let me go back and answer that.
I can't answer the question about the gas mask, except to tell you that the whole purpose of using the tear gas was that it had been tested.
They were convinced that it wouldn't kill either a child or an adult, but it would force anybody that breathed it to run outside, and one of the things that I've heard I don't want to get into the details of this because I don't know, but one of the things that they were speculating about today was that the wind was blowing so fast that the windows might have been opened and some of the gas might have escaped, and that may be why it didn't have the desired effect.
They also knew, Sarah, that there was an underground compound, a bus buried underground where the children could be sent.
I think they were hoping very much that if the children were not released immediately outside, that the humane thing would be done and that the children would be sent someplace where they could be protected.
In terms of the gas masks themselves, I learned yesterday—I did not ask this question before—that
the gas was supposed to stay active in the compound longer than the gas masks themselves
were to work, so that it was thought that even if they all had gas masks, that eventually
the gas would force them out in a nonviolent, non-shooting circumstance.
Question.
Could you tell us whether or not you ever asked Janet Reno about the possibility of
a mass suicide, and when you learned about the actual fire and explosion, what went through
your mind during those horrendous moments?
And before I give you the President's answer, remember that the news conference on February the 28th stated that the reason for the raid was that they had heard from a foreign source through the State Department that the Branch Davidians were going to commit suicide.
Now listen to the President lie.
The President.
What I asked Janet Reno is if they had considered all the worst things that could happen, and of course the whole issue of suicide had been raised in the public, he had, that had been debated anyway, and she said that the people who were most knowledgeable about these kinds of issues concluded that there was no greater risk of that now than there would be tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, or at any time in the future.
That was the judgment they made.
Whether they were right or wrong, of course, we will never know.
What happened when I saw the fire?
When I saw the building burning?
I was sick.
I felt terrible, and my immediate concern was whether the children had gotten out, and whether they were escaping, or whether they were inside trying to burn themselves up.
That's the first thing I wanted to know.
Thank you.
Folks, get Linda Thompson's tape.
Write to William Cooper, P.O.
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That's P.O.
Box 1420, Sholo, AZ 85901.
This address will be repeated at the end of the program.
Write it down.
Send $25 for this video.
President Clinton, you are a despicable liar.
This land is your land.
This land is my land.
From California to the New York islands.
From the Redwood Forest to the Gold Stream waters.
Say this land was made for me.
As I was walking.
That feeling of high hopes I saw above me That in the skyway I saw below me That golden valley of dreams This land would make you and me I'd hold the bamboo and follow my foot Melinda Thompson Tate, send $25 to William Cooper, Post Office Box 1420, Show Low, spelled S-H-O-W-L-O-W, Arizona, 85901.
That's William Cooper, Post Office Box 1420, Show Low, spelled S-H-O-W-L-O-W, Arizona, 85901.
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