Memo reveals FBI's debate on Waco plan

Monday, February 28th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A key FBI decision-maker wrote in late March 1993 that he feared bureau officials in Waco were lobbying to gas the Branch Davidians because the officials were tired, frustrated and under pressure from the FBI's hostage rescue team commander, documents show.
Congressional officials said that memo is particularly disturbing because they have never seen it or other internal FBI records detailing the contentious decision-making process that lead to the tear-gassing of the Branch Davidian compound. Some of those documents, which The Dallas Morning News recently obtained, show that senior FBI officials were initially deeply skeptical of their on-scene commander's insistence that tear gas was the only safe way to end the Waco standoff.
The memo, by the bureau's most experienced tactical expert, said that hostage rescue team commander Richard Rogers had been the cause of similar concerns in the deadly 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. In that incident, the wife of white supremacist Randy Weaver was killed by an FBI sniper under Mr. Rogers' command after he relaxed bureau rules of engagement and pushed for an all-out tank and tear-gas assault on the Weavers' cabin.
"A lot of pressure is coming from Rogers," deputy assistant FBI director Danny O. Coulson wrote in an internal FBI memo during the Waco siege on March 23, 1993. "We had similar problems in Idaho with him and he argued and convinced the SACs [local FBI special agents in charge of the incident] that Weaver would not come out. That proved to be wrong. I believe he is a significant part of the problem here."
Mr. Coulson declined to comment, and both Mr. Rogers and Jeffrey Jamar, the FBI's special agent in charge of the Waco operation, have declined interview requests.
Seeking records
Tens of thousands of pages of documents on Waco have been turned over to U.S. House and Senate investigating committees. But investigators say they've received far less than half of the records requested. Senate staffers said last week that their efforts to obtain what may be key FBI records from the Branch Davidian siege, including files of the bureau's senior leaders, have been stymied.
House officials say that even their sweeping subpoena for Waco records in September has failed to force full cooperation by the FBI and the Department of Justice. More than five months after the subpoena was issued, House officials say, they have also been told that thousands of pages of records have been withheld because they are still under review.
"We've had a subpoena out there for all relevant documents - all documents - since Sept. 7, 1999," said Mark Corallo, spokesman for the House Government Reform Committee. "Is the Department of Justice withholding only embarrassing documents from us? It makes you wonder."
Justice Department officials could not be reached for comment, but have previously said they are cooperating as fully as possible with congressional inquiries.
New details
The Coulson memo and other records obtained by The News give new details of the FBI's internal struggles as Waco commanders pushed to use gas against the embattled sect.
Attorney General Janet Reno approved a plan to gas the compound on April 19, 1993. They began with a gradual tear-gas insertion but escalated immediately to an all-out tear gas assault after the sect began shooting at FBI tanks.
Six hours later, after agents increased pressure by sending tanks deep into the building, the compound burned with sect leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers inside.
Government officials have said the sect was solely responsible, noting that government investigators found that Branch Davidians set the fire. But lawyers for the sect have blamed FBI missteps in a federal wrongful-death lawsuit.
The suit, set for trial in Waco in May, also alleges that government gunfire kept women and children from escaping the blaze. The government says none of its agents fired a shot on April 19.
Internal conflict
FBI officials in Waco started pushing to use tear gas to end the standoff soon after it began, records indicate. And on March 22, three weeks into the siege, FBI negotiators recommended that in writing.
Senior FBI negotiators told Justice Department investigators after the standoff that they endorsed gas because their efforts to talk the sect out were hamstrung by the aggressive tactics of Mr. Rogers and his hostage rescue team, Justice Department records show.
The day after the negotiators' recommendation went to Washington, Mr. Coulson wrote superiors saying that he believed the request was driven by fatigue and frustration of Waco personnel and by pressure from Mr. Rogers.
"All of their intelligence indicates that [sect leader] David [Koresh] does not intend suicide and that he will come out eventually," stated Mr. Coulson's memo, which congressional investigators said they have never been given by Justice or FBI officials.
Strategy complaint
Mr. Coulson, founder of the FBI's hostage rescue team, wrote that negotiations were being hurt by an inconsistent tactical strategy, including repeated punishment of the sect just when they appeared to be cooperating.
Mr. Coulson wrote that the bureau's lead negotiators had told him personally that "in the short term we will continue to get out very small numbers, [but] in the long term we will get them all out.
"Bottom line, I suggest that it is not time to ask the AG or the president for permission to assault the compound with gas," he wrote. "Progress is still being made."
Three days later, Mr. Jamar told FBI headquarters that he wanted to bash the compound with 60-ton tanks. That operation and related efforts to bulldoze the sect's cars away from the area just outside the building would be part of an escalating effort to punish the Branch Davidians for not meeting surrender demands, a March 26 outline of Mr. Jamar's proposal indicated.
Mr. Coulson responded with another memo, addressed to deputy FBI director Larry Potts. "Jeff wasn't sure that we had to go outside the FBI to get approval to 'nick' the building. Ha, Ha," Mr. Coulson wrote.
Although the Branch Davidians' cars were moved by FBI tanks in late March, plans to cut away siding on the front and bash two feet into the compound's gym were not carried out.
Citing safety
Despite the statements in internal FBI memos that the cars were moved to punish the Branch Davidians, Mr. Jamar told the public, FBI negotiators and other law enforcement agencies that it was done for his agents' safety.
Texas Rangers investigating the shootout that began the standoff were irate. They believed that moving the cars ruined evidence that might prove who killed four agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms during their initial Feb. 28 raid on the compound.
"The Rangers thought. . . . that this had become a training exercise for the FBI and they would try almost anything that came to mind," Ranger Capt. David Byrnes said in a July 1993 FBI interview.
Justice Department records show that negotiators were also outraged. The bureau's lead negotiator later characterized it as "the worst decision he's seen in 21 years with the FBI."
FBI records show that on March 28, Mr. Jamar sent a more aggressive proposal to FBI Deputy Director Potts: He wanted full "discretion" to carry out a "mass" tear-gas assault any time in the next week because of the approach of Easter and Passover - key dates to Mr. Koresh's doomsday prophecies.
But Mr. Jamar included an explicit warning: Any effort to introduce tear gas would be met by the same kind of massive gunfire that started the standoff.
"It is almost certain that we will be met with violent retaliation," he wrote.
Mr. Jamar apparently expected controversy. When he faxed his proposal to Washington, he included a personal note to Mr. Potts stating that some of bureau officials already "had a problem with this total approach because it doesn't give much room for the bad guys to do anything else besides 'fight.' "
Plan questioned
Senior FBI officials responded with another critical memo. The unsigned memo, attached to the gas proposal faxed to Mr. Potts, questioned Mr. Jamar's assertion that further negotiations would be fruitless.
"Our experience with hostage situations will lead you to believe that after a significant time frame, with lack of sleep, water and food, Koresh and his followers will begin to change their stance," that memo stated.
It also challenged Mr. Jamar's argument that an all-out gassing was needed because of the danger of Branch Davidian gunfire. The memo noted that the tanks that would gas the compound could withstand even the sect's .50-caliber rifles.
FBI leaders said after the siege that they had to escalate the gas assault because of sect gunfire.
Other FBI records also show bureau leaders were skeptical of Mr. Jamar's gas plan. One set of unsigned notes from FBI headquarters stated, "We cannot go forward believing we will receive massive gunfire."
That "would play into . . . [Mr. Koresh's] hands," the notes stated, adding that many FBI officials believed the sect leader wanted a confrontation to end the standoff with a massive "suicide by cop."
In an apparent response to Mr. Jamar's request for full discretion on carrying out the plan, the notes stated that the FBI's Waco command had authority to launch an emergency operation - using gas and tanks - only if the FBI got wind that the sect was about to commit mass suicide.
"[The] only thing left to the discretion of on-scene commander is the emergency response," the notes stated.
Defending actions
FBI leaders, including Mr. Potts, told Congress in 1995 that Mr. Jamar acted properly when he ordered tanks to tear into the building on April 19 - even though the tear-gas plan approved by Ms. Reno called for starting the demolition of the compound only after 48 hours of gassing.
Mr. Potts, who could not be reached for comment, also told Congress that he had no idea that Mr. Jamar felt certain that any use of tear gas would provoke Branch Davidian gunfire. Under the operational plan, Waco FBI commanders were allowed to escalate from a gradual gassing to an all-out gas attack only if they detected compound gunfire.
Mr. Jamar testified in 1995 that he was always "99 percent certain" that any gassing would provoke gunfire, making escalation of the FBI's assault inevitable.
But Mr. Potts told Congress that he "certainly didn't understand" that.
"If you'd known Mr. Jamar felt that way, would you have had different advice for the attorney general?" one congressman demanded. The deputy FBI director responded: "I would've conveyed it up the line, and I think the decision-makers would have - would have had to significantly consider that."