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Oct. 19, 1999 - Bill Cooper
59:32
Rules of Engagement #2
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Time Text
Lights follow the hour.
Leads the hour as the time.
Lights act for the good things.
The good and bad.
The system and the mind.
Thank you.
You're listening to the Hour of the Time.
Good evening.
You're listening to the Hour of the Time.
I'm William Cooper.
Folks, last night, the beginning of the broadcast was lost to most of you due to a fire in the
transmitter at WBCQ.
At least that's what I'm told, that there was a fire in the main transmitter.
After about 10 minutes, they went to the backup transmitter, and they're still on the backup transmitter.
Apparently, there was quite a bit of damage to the main transmitter, and they're now broadcasting with around 20,000 watts, which should be plenty, unless the propagation is bad.
That's where we're at.
We will rerun this eventually, so if you don't get to hear it all, you will sometime.
So, just bear with it, folks.
Please pay very close attention to what you're going to hear.
Please pay very close attention to what you're going to hear.
This is a video of a man who was in a car accident.
So as I was approaching Winston's room, I could hear water running and I couldn't figure it out.
What would that be?
As I turned into his doorway, Winston's lying on the floor beside his bed, in a pool of blood and water.
And there's water pouring into the room from just dozens of bullet holes in the water tank that was right outside his window.
And the window was all shattered and everything.
I figured that, judging from the angle of the bullets, coming down from the outside and into the room that it had to be from helicopter.
There's no buildings, tall buildings out the back.
Anybody on the ground couldn't have shot at that angle into the water tanks.
The Davidians shot back.
The helicopter landing in the foreground has been forced down by multiple hits.
17-year-old Peter Gent was inside the silo scraping rust when the raid began.
Gent is barely visible in this news video as he climbed to the top to see what was going on.
The video apparently shows him being shot from his Cassie helicopter.
Jeff falters and then drops back onto the silo's roof.
Federal officials didn't let the Davidians remove his body for five days.
He was shot in the head, and he was taken to the hospital.
He was taken to the hospital.
It's frightening.
We have people out here, we have all these people, women, children, tiny babies.
These men came in here and they started firing on us.
The bullets came through the walls and people were killed, people were injured.
And... This... This is America?
Uh, what happened there with your finger?
You were just sitting there?
I was told you were nursing the baby?
I was sitting here kind of like... I don't... I'm not exactly sure this happened so fast, but... At any rate, it... It went up this finger into my hand and out my shoulder.
Hey, what the heck is this?
Give it back!
Give it!
Give him a name!
Give him a name!
Ambulance!
Ambulance, go!
We're sitting there and the ATF agent says, Newsman, newsman, call an ambulance.
We need an ambulance.
John got back into the car, and just as he was reaching the car, he opened the door and a bullet went through the door jamb, and he dove into the car.
And we had to physically make the phone call.
And this was, from my understanding, the first time that an ambulance had been called.
This was well into the gun battle.
For some reason, They didn't have any communications.
Why would we have to call for an ambulance?
Nobody was going to get us out.
The McLennan County Sheriff's Office, who always did a good job in this case, could not get us out of this.
We couldn't call 9-1-1.
I mean, we couldn't call anybody.
Well, it just seems interesting to me that they didn't even have telephones or communications to get that 9-1-1 communication back and forth that Wayne Martin had from inside the compound for 20 minutes trying to stop the shooting.
But at the same time, they had fax machines, telephones, and computers, and were ready for whatever PR they had.
That was a mighty, mighty strange operation, to say the least, and certainly a fatal flaw, not to punt a word.
Mr. Hottnett, was there a raid plan?
We had pieces of it, if you know what I mean.
That they hadn't brought it together was right in the middle of an order going out to the field, giving them specific instructions on how to Written raid plan, how to bring it together and forward and forward.
It was out for coordination at the time.
What I received was written, but very, very abbreviated.
In your review, did ATF, and they're participating in this close combat support, did they have go, no-go procedures?
Yes, sir, but of a very, I'm looking for the appropriate words, I'll just call them Unsophisticated variety.
An unsophisticated variety.
That's very tactful.
You're being very tactful today.
In your report, you didn't, you weren't as tactful because you said their lack of contingency plan basically was, quote, an oh shit plan.
Isn't that basically what you?
That, those were the words.
That was like they were running from a building, take cover, oh shit, it's coming.
They were throwing everything at us.
Their gun felt like cannons and our gun felt like shotguns.
We had 9mm, they were hitting us with .223, AK-47, 50-caliber, but it was more than you
can imagine.
We are the fire!
Okay, and then...
I'm the fire! Okay, and then...
Well, I'll make contact with the forces, okay?
We need to get 10-5 here.
Uh, we'll be back in a little bit.
I think you're gonna be busy.
Hold on just a minute, wait.
No, I'm not.
And, uh, everybody, everybody to the damn radio.
I want everybody to back off and talk.
Come on, again.
After about approximately two hours, we heard that there was a truce.
I can't believe this.
After about approximately two hours
we heard that there was a truce.
We heard ATF agents say, don't shoot, don't shoot.
The agents were out of ammunition.
you you
They could have killed nearly every ATF agent out there the day of the raid had they kept shooting.
But when they said they would leave their property, they quit shooting.
You got to argue with me, you come to argue with me.
If you come point guns in the direction of my wives and my kids, dammit, I'll meet you at the door any time.
And I'm sorry some of you guys got shot.
But, uh, hey.
God, we got to sort that out, don't we?
I recognize Mrs. Taylor from Mississippi.
Do you have any combat experience?
26 months, sir.
Commanded two artillery batteries in Vietnam.
In Vietnam?
Yes, sir.
Have you seen anything or heard anything that would lead you to believe or read anything that justifies the murder of those four ATF agents and the 20 more who were wounded by the branch civilians by David Koresh and his followers on the morning of February 28th?
The jury in San Antonio found that the killings of the four agents were in self-defense.
They were acquitted of murder, sir.
Did you know that?
They were acquitted of murder and acquitted of conspiracy to commit murder.
Every single defendant, all 11, were acquitted of murder.
Are you going to tell me that every murderer in this country who's walked was really innocent?
Well, you ask me, did we know of anything that would say that they weren't guilty of murder?
And the answer is yes.
If the ATF accidentally or however opened fire on people in their home and all they did was defend themselves in their home, Then under the law, that's justifiable homicide.
It's not murder.
Is there any way that somebody could believe that justifiable homicide could be used as a defense here?
No, Mr. Schumer.
They shot through the doors.
They shot through the ceilings.
Assertions that we had helicopters or men from Mars shooting at them is nonsense.
Our agents were laying on the ground, shooting at a tower three stories high.
Should we be surprised there's bullets in the roof?
Of course, I agree with you, Mr. O'Sullivan.
Thank you.
You must understand that not one agent who was at the raid, on the scene, on the 28th, made a written report of it.
That's highly irregular.
On March the 1st, the ATF initiated a shooting review.
Johnston, the Assistant United States Attorney, advised Hartnett to stop the ATF shooting review because ATF was creating Brady material.
Brady material, ladies and gentlemen, is information that might tend to show that someone accused is innocent.
They try to explain this to say, well, that just meant, you know, we don't want to, what, compromise the prosecution.
You don't want to compromise the prosecution by revealing evidence that might tend to show that somebody is not guilty of the charges?
Well, that's not where we are in this country, I hope.
That's just one agency.
All the other agencies back there are going to back them up.
That's including our federal government.
We, the people, don't run this government anymore.
They do.
and they tell all the lies they want.
🎵Music🎵 Those that are trying to do their best,
are trying to do their job.
They have a family back home, too.
But they don't understand what we're going to do.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Shortly after the wounded arrived, armed guards stood sentry at hospital entrances.
ATF agents comforted each other as they found out the toll taken in this raid.
Fifteen agents were brought to the Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center.
Three of them died, including one agent who was shot in the head.
Oh, God. Are you okay?
Oh...
I'm bleeding again.
It's soft.
Wait a minute.
Do you want to see one of the holes here?
There's one of them.
Another knife.
One up higher.
There he goes.
Get the one out right here.
Is it leaking?
Can you see it Steve?
He's dead. He got his hand in the wagon.
Oh.
If you die, what do you tell me?
If you die from that roof, I want you to tell me what's going to happen.
I'm not going to be around anymore, am I?
So I'm cool with anybody, right?
David, listen.
This has been painful for us.
Come on.
Listen, Jim.
There's nothing that hurts me more than being called a co-leader, all right?
I'm wrong.
People like me don't deserve to live, okay?
All right, listen.
Listen to me, man.
If you let the people think You know, they're all staring around now.
You know, don't burn our building down.
No, we won't do that.
Don't shoot at all.
They've got to have that time.
The day that you die, you're going to hear people helpless.
Look, they're God's people.
I'm just an instrument, okay?
I showed them out of a book what God teaches.
But it's for them to decide.
You can see it anyway.
It's kind of painful.
You can see it anyway.
It's kind of painful.
Oh, it ain't nothing for some guy like me.
It's just lash, it heals.
Some Davidian mothers sent their children out of Mount Carmel.
As they were delivered to a rendezvous point, news reports said three Davidians tried to escape by shooting their way past ATF agents.
The story was false.
One day, my husband was killed by ATF agents.
I want everyone to know.
That that was totally against him coming home to his family.
He didn't kill anybody.
Investigators in a military helicopter discovered the body approximately 350 yards from the cult compound.
He was the victim of gunshot wounds on it and basically that's all I can say about that right now.
On the phone fronts, Jim Cavanaugh was trying to get David Koresh to trust him.
Well, I think we need to, uh, you know, set the record straight, and that is that there was no guns on those helicopters.
There was National Guard officers on those helicopters.
He says there was no guns on those helicopters.
That's a lie!
That is a lie!
He's a damn liar!
Did you hear that?
I don't know what he said, but it's just not true.
Listen, he wants to talk to you now.
Okay.
Now, Jim, you're a damn liar now.
Let's get real.
You used to go, you listen to me.
You're sittin' there and tellin' me that there were no guns on that helicopter?
I said they didn't shoot.
There's no guns on it.
You are a damn liar!
Oh, you're wrong, Tim.
You are a liar!
Okay.
Well, there's guns there.
Hey, you know, let me tell you something.
That may be what you might want the media to believe.
But there's other people involved, too.
Now tell me, Jim, again.
You're honestly gonna say those helicopters didn't fire?
On any of us?
David?
I'm here.
Yeah, what I'm saying is that those helicopters did not have mounted guns, okay?
I'm not disputing the fact that there might have been fire from the helicopter.
What I'm telling you is there were no mounted guns.
You know, outside, mounted guns on those helicopters.
I agree with you on that.
All right, now that's the only thing I'm saying.
Now, the agents on the helicopters had guns.
I agree with you on that.
Okay?
You understand what I'm saying?
Well, no, what the dispute was over, I believe, Jim, is that you said that they didn't fire on us from the helicopters.
Well, I mean, it's a mounted gun.
Yeah, but besides the point, what they did have was machine guns.
Okay, I don't know what they had.
They were armed.
The people inside had pistols.
We agree.
Okay, alright.
That's good.
That's good.
We agree.
Okay.
Let's just leave it at that.
Okay.
I have to break in here for a moment, folks, because this is where I get so angry.
I mean, I get enraged when I hear this.
These lies.
I was down there reporting from Waco.
I was broadcasting worldwide.
They were firing from the helicopters.
They were firing from the helicopters.
We have film taken by the ATF on that day showing men with machine guns getting in the helicopters and bragging about how they're going to go off and kill.
We have it on videotape.
Taken by them.
We didn't make it up.
They're liars.
They're scum.
They are not Americans.
I can't stand it that this is taking place here in this country.
And I can't stand it that the American people allow it to happen.
You heard this stupid lying clown just now trying to mince words with David Koresh.
Well, David was telling the truth.
The agent was a liar.
Still is a liar.
Will always be a scum-sucking, puke-faced liar.
During the Congressional hearings, one of the agents was asked, did you find any automatic weapons in the wreckage of the building after the fire?
The agent stood up and held up a rifle and said, this is a fully automatic AK-47.
He never did answer the question.
The question was asked, did you find any automatic weapons in the wreckage after the fire?
The truthful answer to that is no.
There never was any automatic weapons.
Never.
Not once.
But you see, the American people are so stupid, so brain-dead, so dumbed down, that he couldn't even see what this agent was doing.
He stood up and said, this is a fully automatic AK-47.
Anybody with any brains could see that that was a brand new AK-47, and you couldn't even tell if it was really an AK-47.
It could have been a Mac-90, or any other variation of that weapon.
And you can see that there wasn't a scratch on it.
It had never been in a fire and probably had never even been fired.
That agent was also lying.
They never conducted an investigation of the raid on Mount Carmel and what they did.
The report that they hold up says an investigation of Vernon Wayne Howell and the American people can't even read!
None of the agents who participated in the raid ever wrote a report they weren't allowed to because it would have exonerated the Branch Davidians because many of them would have told the truth.
And you wonder why.
I won't play their stupid games.
Why I won't bow to their tyranny.
Why I won't pay their tribute, called the income tax, when there is no law requiring me to file or pay it.
Like the rest of you miserable little cowards do every April the 15th.
I'm sick of it.
I can't stand this stuff.
Now I can't see how you can stand it either, but you do.
Music On March 1st, the BACF handed control to the FBI.
you My name is Dan Hartnett.
I'm the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
I'm going to make a brief statement.
They're going to make a brief statement, and then we'll open it up to questions.
My name is Jeff Jamara.
I'm the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in the San Antonio Division, and I'm the Special Agent in Charge of FBI Operations here in Waco.
It's J-A-M-A-R.
First name's Jeff.
We're here because David Koresh and his followers killed four ATF agents.
We've responded with necessary personnel and equipment.
The area is a crime scene.
The goal is to resolve the situation, ultimately in federal court, with no further bloodshed.
The FBI is getting involved now, but it's kind of like getting into a fight with a couple of next-door neighbors, where the little brother comes over and whips you, and then the big brother comes over to investigate.
You know?
Anyway, we'll try to work things out.
We're prepared to do whatever it takes.
Stay here as long as it takes to settle this matter without any further bloodshed.
FBI snipers were placed in sandbag positions here and here.
Their clear field of fire meant anyone trying to leave would easily be gunned down.
Sierra One was the code name for the front half of Mount Carmel Center.
It was the side news cameras saw through telescopic lenses a mile or two away.
Sierra Two was the back half of Mount Carmel.
It was completely hidden from public view.
It was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that caused this first disaster.
Okay, so the FBI takes over.
They're very sensible, reasonable.
They decide we'll negotiate.
They quickly realize that the negotiators were not in charge and Flores at one point says, look, all you guys are anyway are waitresses.
You carry my request back to the kitchen where the boss is.
They say, look, I can't make the decisions.
If I could, things would go better, but the decisions are being made 1,500 miles away in Washington, D.C.
We made an agreement with the ATF agents that they would allow me to have national coverage with this tape that I might give to the world a small, minor, small, minor bit of information that I have Can you say what God said to him?
Give me a little more details of that.
After 1.30, you're waiting for him.
You finally make contact.
What did he say?
The question was, what did God say to Koresh?
He says that he did not fulfill his promise to leave immediately with his followers because God told him to wait.
And Schneider says, and Koresh afterwards later says, look, we didn't lie.
This is like you guys telling us you're not going to turn off the lights, or one thing or another, and getting overruled from above.
We have our chain of command.
You have your chain of command.
He gave us his word, and after the message was delivered... Yes, but what if there is a higher power than you and I that speaks to an individual?
If there's a God in this universe, and there's the laws of man, and there's the laws of God, and this God that has led him all his life says to him to wait, what do you do?
When the FBI said that five times Koresh promised to come out and didn't, Dr. Arnold, Dr. Tabor, and I sent a message to them.
We said, show us the five times.
We can't find them in the negotiation transcripts.
We think they're making that up.
We find no instance, those of us who've listened to the negotiation tapes and saved the transcripts, of Koresh lying.
On March 2nd, he said he was coming out, Then said God told him not to.
If any lies were told, it was that.
And we would have to know what God said to Koresh in order to call that a lie.
Do you people believe that Koresh is actually talking to God?
Koresh believes he's talking to God.
The FBI wasn't prepared to share David Koresh's conviction that we should wait on God to do all things.
The FBI is God.
It's fun to decide how this is going to result.
the dog.
Bringing these tanks and stuff around here I tell you what being an American first
I'm the kind of guy that I'll stand in front of a tank you can run over me or I'll be biting one of the tracks.
No one's gonna hurt me or my family.
That's American policy here.
Agent Pete Smarrick, who was in charge of drawing up the psychological profile of Quarish, counseled a cautious, non-confrontational approach with Quarish in four memos written to senior FBI officials between March 3rd and March 8th.
According to Mr. Smarrick, FBI superiors pressured him to change his assessment to justify A more confrontational approach.
They would do things like play tapes of rabbits being slaughtered, or Nancy Sinatra singing songs, and then they would bring out lights at night, and not that Nancy Sinatra always was that bad, but the ones that she had kept.
The point was this, they were trying to have sleep disturbance, and they were trying to take somebody that they viewed to be unstable to start with, And then they were trying to drive him crazy.
and then they get mad because he does something that they think is irrational.
And you keep thinking that you'll never get birthed.
Ha!
I just found me a brand new bundle of magic, yeah.
It wasn't long you ain't had time for it.
You just keep thinking that you'll never get birthed.
And you keep thinkin' that ain't never been burned.
I just found these lands once in my day.
What's shown to me ain't that kind of land.
I'll show you in that time.
He's in the middle of it.
And that's just what they say.
And he's in the middle of it.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
We have a couple of Kansas City Spanish members in the squad.
team.
This one here is quite a specimen.
I tell ya, in all my years involved with S.W.A.T., I've never seen a gentleman like this that I've learned so much from in just the short time I've been around him.
He's just awesome is about the only word to describe him.
Honed!
Honed to a fine edge, honed to kill.
That's right.
He's just like Rambo out here himself.
Yes, right here.
Mr. Vick, is there a consideration to use psychological warfare?
Have you discussed it at all?
I don't know what psychological warfare is.
It was reported in a paper that you play loud music, keep bright lights on the compound all night to try to agitate the entire group.
Is that a possibility?
We will not discuss tactics of that sort, but I would say the chances are minimal of doing that type of activity.
it yet, Matt.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
Reporters respond with a statement of their own.
God help us, we want the press!
Hey Juan, is there any way of getting some Latham's down to the media?
Bill Latham drove from Dallas Fort Worth to volunteer the services of the Ku Klux Klan.
We're just tired.
I mean, we've been working in Dallas.
We're just tired of what to drag on like this.
Give them an ultimatum.
Give them a deadline.
When I first was asked to be involved as a member of the panel, I thought the main problem was going to be understanding the psychology of the people inside the compound.
But as I got into it, I quickly became aware that the psychology of the people outside the compound was More important to an understanding of Hopkins.
They were mooning the women, for instance.
They would drop their pants and bend over and bury their rear end to people that were looking out the windows, which was, you know, not a situation that Some of the women, or even some of the men, took to it lightly in the sense of, well, do we want to send our children out to these kind of people?
See, and every time we're aware of movement, we told you that.
We're controlling these guys.
I mean, if you got guys out there right now pulling their pants down in an area that are mature, that are sticking their butts out in the air and flipping the finger... Give me a moment.
See, the guys that gravitate towards You know, riding in tanks, jumping out of airplanes, stuff
like that.
A little different mindset.
I agree with you.
So when they get a chance to use a Bradley, probably half of them have never been in a
Bradley before.
Might be a lot of kids in there.
Absolutely.
Opportunity to try this maybe a single hour.
Well sure, but somebody's got to be above these guys.
Those vehicles and what they're doing do not show what is coming out of the mullets of
some of you guys.
Let me give you an example. Now that we brought this up.
We had a burial for one of the people out front.
Peter Gent is buried out front.
And the tanks ran over his grave.
Over and over and over again.
Just totally like it wasn't even there and they knew that's where we buried him.
They just kept running over it and over it.
And we were disgusted with that.
We talked about that quite a bit.
I mean, I thought this was the country of, you know, freedom, the speech, the revolution, whatever.
And just human dignity, it just doesn't exist.
They saw all this as working from a military point of view because the people inside the
compound, the French civilians, weren't shooting back.
So they saw themselves as winning the battle as they tightened the noose.
What they didn't realize was We're driving them to the point of desperation.
To my family and friends, I'd just like to say I'm fine.
I know that you're all worried about us.
I'd just like to know that we're fine right now, and everything in the hands of God right now, and the inspiration of God, whatever happens, you know, it's the way that God wants it to be.
If they thought that we were all brainwashed and such a bunch of crazies, why would the FBI push David or the rest of us to the limit?
Did they want to create an incident?
Did they want us to come out, you know, crazy and start shooting so that they'd have an excuse to gun us down?
We didn't know.
We realize that you have the ability and it's not below you people to do something like that, erase all evidences.
Why do you have the press so far back?
You can give me any kind of crap you want.
I know you know the reason we're not talking to the press is you people have got to cover your butts from what you did and that's what's going on here.
And at one point the FBI asks them do they have fire extinguishers and Schneider sends Someone to check and comes back with a report that there's only one fire extinguisher in the building.
The FBI negotiator's response is, somebody ought to buy us some fire insurance.
The question, will we permit a pool camera up close?
Any closer than you are.
We did.
We went down the road.
We stopped at a place where you could still see the compound.
That was not accidental.
We made sure that you could still see the compound.
We could have mentioned we don't have any sight.
We didn't do that.
The reason we don't want a camera there is they watch television, and they watch us approach if we do anything.
We're not going to assault the place.
But anything we do around there to get control, that is precisely why you can't have a camera there.
Okay?
In Waco, where they're weary of the standoff, DJ JR is giving residents a lift by actually doing what the FBI only joked about.
One person was recommending we play Achy Breaky Hearts in 10 earthquake.
It's such a big carnival.
We're all laying down here with all the T-shirts and stuff.
You see that house over there?
Do you?
Allegations are flying that all of this may have been avoided two years ago.
The FBI received complaints about the compound and did not pursue them aggressively.
It's that matter and others that have caused civil near fights, pushing and shoving, that sort of thing.
The source says the FBI has isolated ATF.
We're taking a backseat.
Everyone in Mount Carmel was free to leave.
Though theologically the situation is complex.
Yes, you're free to jump out of Noah's Ark and into the On to the land that's fixing to be flooded.
But everyone was free to leave.
Some did.
Anyone could have left.
But theologically, it was not a good idea.
You were risking your soul if you left.
What we saw of those that did come out, was they were being sent to jail, the adults.
Even elderly women and their servants were being actually indicted for murder or charges.
You told us that's what happened when people came out.
We saw it and heard it on the news.
Thank you.
Dick, over the radio, there's been a number of people that have wanted to come in and
be a negotiator between ourselves and you.
I do believe it would be in the best interest of all if there was a news person in between yourselves and ourselves.
We don't want to take anybody.
Okay.
But right now it seems like we're coming to a stalemate, you know, and we're not getting anywhere.
Who would you like to have here when you guys come out?
Who would you like to invite?
Oh, no, no, no.
Boy, you've got a lot here, Dick.
Okay, explain to me.
I'm sorry.
You'll hear a thing when we come out.
I'm talking about right now.
Let's get somebody in between us right now to do some negotiating.
We have a woman who believes in her heart and soul that she can get her grandson To lay down his arms and come out.
Well, I'm his grandmother and he's my grandson.
And all my grandchildren are good kids because I've taught them well.
And so I told him that I was there and I'd like to speak to anybody in charge.
And I was a lawyer and I had David Kress's grandmother with me and I wanted to see about talking to you.
After a few minutes, another one came up to me, who was obviously the guy in charge, and was very surly, and, uh, declined to give me any information at all.
So, I started to leave, and just as I left, he turned my back and started walking toward my van.
I heard a voice say, coming from one of those people.
I don't know which one, but one of them said, I hope she has told him goodbye.
That was the mentality of the people who were guarding the gates.
Those were federal law enforcement guards, and their attitude was, we are going to get revenge against David Koresh, and if that means we have to eliminate all of the men there, that's just fine, too.
That was the attitude that they had.
What could have been done to get the Davidians out of that compound without bloodshed?
on how they think this tragedy should now be handled.
A majority seem to want law enforcement to end it all quickly.
If not, I want the 100.
I vote for going and just taking out.
All right.
Well, I do believe, and I think they ought to go in there to get it over with, because I think it's costing us a lot.
What could have been done to get the Davidians out of that compound without bloodshed?
We were on the way to doing that.
On April the 14th, there was a major breakthrough.
And that breakthrough was David Korsh's letter to me, which I promptly gave to the FBI, that
said that he'd received his mission, that he was working on writing his interpretation of the
Seven Seals, and that everyone inside was relieved that they didn't
have to die now, that the prophecies were not be fulfilled now and that this will be resolved.
People don't understand how important that was.
David Koresh and his people believed that God's message for our generation could not be written and should not be written.
And David Koresh had never before written down his ideas.
He believed that he had received a message from God saying, Now David, write.
Before I told you not to, now I'm telling you you can.
He waited 51 days and then he said, The word came to him and said, write, and he wrote.
This was brought out the day of the fire by one of the survivors.
He was keeping his promise of April 14th.
We believe they would have all come out safely.
This was pulled out of the fire, the tapes were, and then this then was written up.
As Evan said, he was working on that message on the seven seals.
All they had to do was say, we've got a disk, we're going to be sending it out.
When the FBI advised me of their plan and the possibility of the insertion of gas, I did notify the White House Counsel.
And I kept in contact through the White House Counsel.
I am sure the White House Counsel advised the President.
We're missing some of your telephone lines, particularly April 17th, 18th, and 19th.
And our problem is that they've all been redacted.
Is there any chance that we could get those?
I can't be helpful.
Nobody's ever asked me, but I have a copy of these same logs, and you're welcome to them as far as I'm concerned.
Except, I have to tell you, the 17th and 18th were Saturday and Sunday, and so therefore there wouldn't be any... These are basically logs of people who called and left a message for me to call them back.
Not necessarily everybody on top.
What I was faced with was a situation where the negotiators said, we think we have reached an impasse.
Nobody else is coming out voluntarily.
We looked at the entire situation and we made the best judgment we could.
I'm very satisfied that in the information furnished to me by the FBI, I was informed.
Do you know if Attorney General Reno was ever advised that there was this new development before she made her decision?
I don't know, because I doubt it, because it was not, from our understanding of it, and the judgment was, looking at what they were doing, maybe the issue was not.
I don't know, but there wasn't any reason to, because it was not a serious plan.
It was just another delaying tactic.
The FBI testified before the House hearings that their negotiations had reached an impasse.
They told the Attorney General they weren't coming out, and that there was a stalling tactic, and they weren't working on the seven sales.
Their own negotiators had reached an agreement knowing that the first deal was finished.
And in order to get proof of it, had sent in typewriter ribbons so that they could
get that proof in their hands and yet the very next morning they launched the gas and tank attack.
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T-Mobile, again today at 4-2-5.
branch of the stadium, outbound now.
We are in a process of breaking tear gas, building carbon monoxide, carbon monoxide.
Fire, fire.
Everybody grab your masks.
Everybody grab your masks.
The gas supplies a number of Americans.
to the eye for the skin just touching for the skin can be extremely painful.
You can have certain symptoms of nausea.
You can have certain symptoms of inflammation with regard to the membrane.
So it is extremely uncomfortable.
Once again, I can break in here, folks.
This is another.
Well, the whole thing angers me deeply, but this is another one of those unbelievable
lies.
.
Take some tanks down to the local federal judge's house.
Have one of your guys get a loudspeaker and say, hey judge, hey judge, judge's wife, judge's children.
We don't want you to be worried now.
We're just inserting CS gas into your house.
This is not an assault.
This is not an assault!
And meanwhile, tanks are busting holes in the house.
Tanks!
Tanks in the United States of America, busting holes in the house.
Spraying CS gas into the house.
With women and children and their little children, babies even.
A gas that is so bad, that is so bad, that you're not even supposed to use it in war.
Hey, Judge!
Hey, Mrs. Judge.
Hey, Judge's children.
We don't want you to be worried now.
We're just putting gas in your house.
This is not an assault, you stinky liars!
How long do you think you would stay out of jail not committing that assault?
.
How long do you think that federal judge would stick you away in some hole for the rest of your life?
Because that's not only assault, it's assault and battery with deadly force.
Using a weapon that is prohibited for soldiers to use at war.
You call yourself Americans?
.
Boot camp trainees are briefly exposed to a mild amount of CS for a few seconds.
The Davidians received more than ten times that dosage for more than six hours.
CS isn't a gas.
It's a chemical powder.
At Hueco, the CS powder was dissolved in methylene chloride, a volatile chemical used for stripping paint.
Together, they formed an aerosol mist when sprayed through huge steel injectors fitted onto the tanks.
In closed spaces, CS alone can cause unconsciousness, death, and can be ignited by a spark into a fireball.
When CS burns it produces hydrogen cyanide, the same gas used in prison gas chambers.
Did you tell the attorney general that infants would not die or be harmed?
I told her there is no increased sensitivity to the effects of CS on infants, young adults,
and older people.
I believe that using CS gas against infants, against old people with respiratory problems, there were 67-year-old men in there, and there were young children.
That's torture.
And I can just see those kids barfing, vomiting, screaming, because you can't possibly have a gas mask that'll fit a little kid.
Didn't their report say that gas masks don't fit on these babies?
That's correct.
And didn't they know that?
They should have known that.
They explained to me that they were pouring fuel.
And that they were making Molotov cocktails to throw at the tanks.
And they never did throw Molotov cocktails at the tanks.
Some conversation about that takes place in the early morning hours, 6 and 7 o'clock in the morning.
The fire didn't start until right around noon.
If you come out now, you will not be harmed.
Somehow, there is no apprehension.
No terror.
You are welcome.
You're safe home.
Shortly after they started, they began also not only spraying it from the tree leaves off of the balloon,
but they started firing ferrograms on the excuse, of course, we learned later, that we would go through firing at them.
error.
What did you feel?
What were your emotions?
Well, we definitely weren't believing what we were hearing over the loudspeakers that they were not entering the building or this was not an attack.
You know, we were told they weren't going to be shooting, and yet they're firing what amounted to mortars or rockets at us, these ferret rounds, which sounded like a mortar.
Were you afraid?
Yes.
Experts say the ferrets, or barricade-penetrating cartridges, that were used are non-pyrotechnic, or non-intendio.
They introduce CS gas in a vapor form as the tip disintegrates.
But experts also say the ferrets pack enough force to kill someone with a direct hit.
50 ferret boxes found on the compound grounds warn against firing the rounds at people.
Despite that warning, agents fired ferrets into every window of the compound and, according to the review, any movement inside was targeted.
With respect to the use of military weapons, these pieces of equipment were unarmed, as I understand it, and were contracted.
I mean, it was like a good rent-a-car.
A good rent-a-car?
A tank going into a building.
At 9 o'clock, Attorney General Reno left the command center at FDIH.
headquarters to give a speech in nearby Baltimore.
From then on, Waco decisions were made by top officials of the F.B.I.
and the Clinton administration.
Four minutes into the raid, it escalates.
The 48-hour plan, according to testimony, is gone.
We're now going to do a massive insertion of gas into every window.
Did you consider staying in Washington, D.C., given that escalation four minutes into the plan?
During the course of the morning, the question arose whether I should cancel the speech, and the FBI did not want me to do so because they thought it would attract attention.
If I suddenly canceled the speech, it looked like there would be an emergency.
One of the most inadequate or of the Justice Department's report, is their failure to describe the decision-making process at the command post.
I think that is unfortunate.
There is nothing in the investigation of what was going on in the Washington command post, where they had a Situation Room, And we probably never will.
Don't forget to tune in tomorrow night for part three of this series.
I don't know about you folks, but this gets deep inside of me.
that they have never heard.
Oh my god.
So-called Christians and other so-called good men and women.
Where I live, there's an awful lot of people who belong to the Mormon Church.
David Kresh never taught anything in his life.
Even half as weird as what Joseph Smith taught.
And, boy, you ought to hear him talk about how many wives he had.
Hypocrites, liars, stupid sheeple.
The world is so full of them.
And this country, I've got to tell you, I've been to other countries all over the world.
This country has them all beat for stupidity, ignorance, apathy, and hypocrisy.
Without a doubt.
Without any doubt whatsoever.
Good night.
God bless you.
Good night, Annie, Pooh, and Allison.
I'm going to get off this radio before I say something Maybe I shouldn't be saying it.
Or maybe I should say it.
but i'm not going to do it uh...
the the
now for my neighbors living around valley
When I make statements like that, that I never pick on just one church.
I've made these kinds of statements about every existing, organized, large church and religion that there is in the world because they're all equally as guilty.
I'm not trying to insult your religion.
I'm trying to wake you up.
If it can happen to David Koresh, it can sure as hell happen to you.
None of us are safe.
Not any of us.
And if you blink your eyes while they do it to your neighbor,
you can bet your butt that somebody's going to blink their eyes when they do it to you.
So long, baby.
Goodbye, baby.
Bye, bye, honey.
Bye, baby.
Yes, I'm leaving you, baby.
I'm going away from you.
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