Both sides claim victory in Waco camera testing

Lawyers for the government and the sect each declared victory after the landmark Sunday field test designed to help a federal court sort out whether flashes on an infrared video at the end of the Branch Davidian siege came from government gunfire or ground debris.

Each side offered equally detailed but starkly different interpretations of what the test showed. They argued in back-to-back news conferences that the test clearly proved that government agents shot repeatedly at the sect's embattled home near Waco on April 19, 1993, or that agents were never anywhere near areas where the tiny blips of light appeared.

"It clearly demonstrates that there was government gunfire," lead Branch Davidian lawyer Mike Caddell told reporters in Houston after a quick, pre-dawn study of data from the test.

Countered lead government attorney Mike Bradford in Killeen: "The preliminary review that we saw, we think, does substantiate our position that there was not gunfire out there that day."

But each conceded that it may be weeks or longer before their experts complete detailed analyses of the data obtained Sunday at a closed Fort Hood firing range.

The federal judge in the case, Walter S. Smith Jr. of Waco, weighed in with an order Monday reminding each side not to show results from the test or make copies of the test data available to anyone who is not a lawyer or an expert in the case. Even congressional investigators who were allowed to watch the three-hour test were excluded when copies of test data were distributed late Sunday to Mr. Caddell, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the office of Waco special counsel John C. Danforth.

"The tapes are not part of the public domain," the judge wrote in a two-page order. "At an appropriate time, and after all the designated experts have had an adequate opportunity to examine the tapes, the information will be released to the public."

To permit study

Both sides conceded that the judge's order appeared aimed at allowing a careful evaluation by their experts and by the court's own scientists before the test results become part of an already intense public debate over the government's actions in Waco.

Judge Smith has ordered the British firm he appointed to supervise Sunday's test to prepare a full written analysis, and lawyers for the government and the sect said it was expected to be completed within 30 days.

"I know that people are basically left with hearing our explanation of the tape without actually being able to look at it," said Mr. Bradford, the U.S. attorney from Beaumont. "Obviously this is a test where there is a lot of public interest. We felt an obligation to get a lot of information out as quickly as possible."

He and lawyers for the sect feverishly scanned the data late Sunday and early Monday morning so they could offer the news media an immediate post-test analysis.

At stake is a key issue in a pending wrongful-death lawsuit brought by survivors of the Branch Davidians in Judge Smith's court.

It alleges that repeated rhythmic flashes recorded by an airborne FBI infrared camera on April 19 were caused by government gunfire. Some independent experts have echoed that analysis, but experts for the government have said that the flashes on the tape lasted too long to be muzzle flashes.

Stark difference

FBI officials said no shots were fired that day as their agents bashed the sect's home and injected tear gas to force an end to a 51-day standoff. But lawyers for the sect say that repeated government gunshots in the last hour of the assault kept innocent women and children from fleeing when a fire engulfed their building. More than 80 people died amid the blaze.

Mr. Bradford huddled until after midnight Sunday with a government infrared expert and a team of more than a dozen senior FBI lawyers and public affairs officials from Washington to review one copy of the test data. He then emerged for a 1:30 a.m. news conference at a Killeen hotel and told reporters that the test vindicated the government's agents in Waco.

"We are very pleased," Mr. Bradford said. "We believe that it confirms our position and hopefully . . . will put an end to this claim that the FBI was shooting behind the compound that day."

What the test did show, he said, was that flashes could be produced on video from infrared cameras like those used at Waco by sunlight reflecting off ground debris such as aluminum, glass and other reflective materials.

Mr. Caddell disputed that, arguing that he saw no such flashes from debris in his initial examination of the recordings. He told reporters that he believed flashes that did appear were caused by at least four different types of weapons, including short-barreled CAR-15 assault rifles used by the FBI's hostage rescue team.

Overstated?

But one independent federal investigator who watched the field test said there were already significant indications that Mr. Caddell might have promised too much in predicting what the recordings show.

The investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he based his conclusions on discussions with officials involved in conducting the test and reviewing its data.

Mr. Caddell said Monday that he remains confident that gunfire from assault rifles and other weapons carried by the FBI in the standoff will be shown to cause flashes like those on the April 19 forward-looking-infrared video.

"It was not a goal of the test to duplicate what we see on the April 19 FLIR," he said. "The goal was to gather data for a comparative analysis. The best, I think, that we'll be able to do is to reach a comparative analysis and say that this looks more like gunfire than like anything," Mr. Caddell said.

Other issues

Mr. Caddell emphasized, however, in his two-hour Houston news conference, that the gunfire question is only one of four key issues in the wrongful-death lawsuit.

The other issues include the questions: Did the FBI's use of tanks or other actions contribute to the fire that consumed the compound and ended the siege? Were FBI leaders at the compound negligent in their decision not to bring in adequate firefighting equipment before launching the tear-gas assault? And did those FBI leaders violate the express orders of Attorney General Janet Reno when they decided to send tanks deep into the sect's building in the hour before it burned?

Mr. Caddell said he would begin a new round of depositions on Wednesday with senior FBI and Justice Department officials that would focus on those issues.

He will spend the next week questioning the three men who headed the FBI during the Waco siege, including former Director William Sessions. And on March 28, he and other lawyers representing sect members and their families will go to the Justice Department to depose Ms. Reno.

Officials with the FBI said they also expected that those three other allegations, which they also dispute, would soon eclipse the charges of government gunfire in the case that Mr. Caddell and others are preparing for a May trial.