~UNDER CONSTRUCTION~
Watch your step and excuse the mess

WHITE HOUSE, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AND FBI CHAINS OF COMMAND
FEBRUARY 28 - APRIL 19, 1993
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WHITE HOUSE
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Bill Clinton - President
Thomas McLarty - Chief of Staff
Bernard Nussbaum - White House Counsel
Vince Foster - Deputy White House Counsel
Bruce Lindsey - Presidential Advisor
George Stephanopolous - Communications Director
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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
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Stuart M. Gerson - Acting Attorney General (February 28-March 12)
Webster Hubbell - Assistant to Acting Attorney General Gerson, liaison between Clinton and Justice Department
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Janet Reno- Attorney General (From March 12)
Richard Scruggs - Assistant to the Attorney General
Webster Hubbell - Assistant to Attorney General (later confirmed as Associate Attorney General)
Carl Stern - Director of the Office of Public Affairs
Mark Richard - Deputy Assistant Attorney General
John C. Keeney - Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division
Ronald Ederer - U.S. Attorney
Bill Johnston - Assistant U.S. Attorney in Waco
John Phinizy - Assistant Untied States Attorney in Waco
LeRoy Jahn - Assistant United States Attorney in Waco, lead Prosecutor of Branch Davidians
*
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
*
Officials in Washington
William S. Sessions - Director
Floyd Clarke - Deputy Director
Doug Gow - Associate Deputy Director for Investigations
Larry Potts - Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division
Danny Coulson - Deputy Assistant Director of Criminal Investigative Division
E. Michael Kahoe - Section Chief of Criminal Investigative Division Violent Crimes
Agents in Waco
Jeff Jamar - Special Agent-in-Charge ("SAC") of the Waco Operation
SAC Robert Ricks, SAC Richard Schwein, SAC Richard Swensen, aides to Jamar
Richard M. Rogers - Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge and commander of Hostage Rescue Team
Byron Sage - Supervisory Special Resident Agent, Chief negotiator, in charge of 24 negotiators.

Byron Sage, FBI Chief negotiator?
Looks like the hunter/negotiator has bagged more than his limit.
Here he is posing next to his kill in a trophy shot from April 19, 1993.
I remember him best for saying to the Davidians while tanks ripped apart the home, and poisonous gas was shot inside,
"This is not an assault. This is not an assault. We will not be entering the building."
                                                                                                   This would probably be lie #649

"It shows the FBI's lack of concern for the compound's residents,
who might have been saved if Mr. Sage had continued broadcasting surrender pleas
instead of leaving his negotiation post to pose in front of the compound fire."
Attorney, Dick DeGeurin

---

Many of the Branch Davidians' burned and crushed bodies were found
in a concrete room that had been the target of the tank intrusions.
( "This is not an assault. We are not entering the building.")
The bodies of seven women were found piled
in a hallway beside a trap door, which was completely blocked by fallen debris.
It had led to the only means of escape, the underground bus.

---

Dick Rogers FBI's Hostage Rescue Team A hostage rescue team member who testified at the trial said the tanks' first assignment was gassing and cutting off access to the area around the trap door to prevent Branch Davidians from reaching the bus. Immediately after the fire, FBI officials gave an impassioned account of how Mr. Rogers and team members risked their lives to enter the underground bus, as the compound burned, in hopes of finding the sect's children still alive there. In the 1995 House Waco hearing, Mr. Rogers testified that he found nothing preventing the sect members from entering the bus. Mr. Rogers left the HRT in 1994 and retired from the FBI in 1997

HRT: Rescue Team or Death Squad?

"Training: Members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Ream detailed to Waco," reads the caption below this picture, as it appears in the US News and World Report, May 3, 1993 (pg. 37). In truth, at the time of the Waco siege, the FBI had 52 such critters in its death squad, divided between a sniper unit and an assault unit. All were present and deployed against the Branch Davidians. And as it happened, all their hostages died.

Dan Hartnett ATF's Associate Director for Law Enforcement He lied to the American people and the media about the element of surprise for the February 28th raid He was placed on administrative leave and resigned in October 0f 1993. Infamous Quote: "We're a law enforcement agency. We don't fire through walls indiscriminately at people. We have to have a target."

Jeff Jamar Special Agent in charge of FBI's efforts at Waco Mr. Jamar: ... "We did not expect a fire. Fire was a definite possibility. There was no question the place was a tinder box, but we did not expect a fire. Had we expected a fire, we would have had a whole another approach."

Clint VanZandt Special Operation and Research Unit as Chief Hostage Negotiator and overall Program Manager for Hostage Negotiations

FBI agents have never fully explained why the bureau, before the April 19 assault, called Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas to ask how many beds its burn unit had available, or why a HRT negotiator had told Steve Schneider that the Davidians had better buy fire insurance, after being told there was only one fire extinguisher in the home.

Attorney, Jack Zimmerman:
"As soon as they knew everybody was dead inside and the ATF had a chance to get close to it, they ran the ATF flag up on that flag pole after the Branch Davidian Star of David flag had fluttered to the ground. They ran that ATF flag up on that flag pole as a symbol of a military conquest . . . because the whole world saw this as a symbol that the battle was over between the ATF and the Branch Davidians and that they had conquered them militarily.
That's a sad state of affairs in United States Federal law enforcement."

Chuck Sarabyn-Deputy Chief of Houston's ATF office

Phil Chojnacki - Division Chief for the BATF in Houston, Texas The man responsible for the February 28th raid. Cojnacki made the decision to continue with the raid even after he was made aware that the element of surprise was lost. He is responsible for the loss of lives of the four agents killed during the raid. The BAT officials recommended that he be fired.

Dan Conroy - Deputy Associate Director of the BATF - A 26 year veteran of the BATF. Like Hartnet, Conroy repeatedly lied about the element of surprise concerning the raid on the Branch Davidians. When the truth finally surfaced he did the only thing he could do - he resigned.

David Troy - Director of Intelligence of the BATF -   Another liar about the element of surprise. He was eventually demoted and reassigned.

Davy Aguilera - BATF Case Agent - He was responsible for the investigation of David Koresh. Aguilera was the author of the of the arrest warrant that was to be served on February 28 1993.

Richard M. Rogers, Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Hostage Rescue Team Ordered the attack on the concrete room where the women and children were hiding.

A video recording from that day only recently disclosed by the FBI captured a radio transmission in which Mr. Jamar discussed how a device he called "the box" was picking up Davidians' voices near the interior "cooler."

"Within five minutes of the FBI's warning call, he said, he heard Davidians discussing
taking their children to a central, concrete-block room that the sect called "the cooler."
It had only one door and offered protection for children too small to wear gas masks.

Because the area was bugged, Col. Rawlings said,
Davidians who took shelter there could be heard crying, talking and praying.
"Koresh was doing a final sermon at one point."

"FBI officials ordered a combat engineering vehicle to drive deep
into the compound and to gas the concrete block room."
(this is the CEV that crushed the women and children with falling concrete)."

Stephen Higgins - Director of the BATF His arms length control of the law division of the BATF, coupled with his unwillingness or inability to ask tough questions of his subordinates concerning Waco, destroyed his career. Higgins resigned in October 1993. "...this plan was based on the element of surprise... We would not send out agents into a situation where we didnt think we had the element of surprise..."

Bob Ricks- FBI Spokesman- A man of many lies, disinformation and dangerous propaganda. Four months after the siege, on 4/08/93, Bob Ricks gave a Tulsa, Okla., civic group a detailed account of the sect's last moments. "Based on evidence we have now," said Bob Ricks, then head of the FBI in Oklahoma, investigators believed Mr. Schneider killed Mr. Koresh because he believed his leader was a fraud and was trying to escape the fire. Just before Mr. Koresh died, Mr. Ricks told listeners at the time, the sect leader first yelled orders to start the fires, then screamed for his followers not to light them when he realized FBI agents were not coming in. No tapes or transcripts reflecting such conversations between Mr. Koresh and his chief lieutenant have ever been divulged by the FBI. Mr. Ricks said in a recent interview that his account of the final moments was "my own interpretation of the thing." Mr. Ricks admitted that although he had heard some bug transmissions on April 19, he could not discern any of the sect's fire discussions.

Attorney General, Janet Reno After a cursory review of the raid plans, she gave final approval.

FBI Director, Louis Freeh On 10-13-93 FBI Director Louis Freeh , at a press conference at FBI headquarters, praised his agents Wednesday for demonstrating "great excellence" during the Branch Davidian cult crisis and said he anticipated taking no punitive measures. "I am quite satisfied with the operational aspects, planning aspects, chain-of-command aspects and leadership aspects of that operation," Mr. Freeh said at a news conference at FBI headquarters. He also expressed enthusiastic support for recommendations contained in a multi part Justice Department report, which credited the FBI for restraint and professionalism during the 51-day standoff near Waco. "I will take whatever actions - mostly positive actions - that are included in the recommendations," Mr. Freeh said. "I do not contemplate any disciplinary actions."

"Even after the standoff ended in mass death, the newly disclosed FBI documents indicate, FBI agents who led the bureau's efforts in Waco and Washington proposed rewarding members of the hostage rescue team with FBI medals.

One memo noted "there may be reluctance to award such a high number of shields of bravery, but the discipline and courage which was exhibited by the HRT for the seven-week siege . . . cannot be overstated."

The FBI Waco commanders also proposed cash awards for the hostage
rescue team, its intelligence analysts and its clerical staff."

While attending the wrongful death trial in Waco, the cash awards were confirmed by the tank driver who demolished the gymnasium. He said they were awarded the money for their outstanding bravery. Despite knowing better, before I realized what I was doing, I yelled; "BRAVERY?" Two seconds later I was joined by an officer of the court to whom I ignored and eventually he went away. ::Whew::

Chemical-use proposed

"The documents - many marked "secret" and "confidential" - indicate that FBI agents considered and rejected a number of even more intensive tactics.

One undated, handwritten document indicates that agents briefly considered introducing a foul-smelling, nausea-inducing chemical known as ethyl mercaptan or ethane thiol in the compound's water supply.

Vapors from the chemical irritate eyes and skin and can induce headaches, and they would spread each time someone turned on water taps, according to a report from the Texas Poison Control Center.

Center officials said the chemical has caused death in rare cases. It is sometimes used by law enforcement to incapacitate subjects.

Consulting military

Another undated document stated an Army general with an extensive special-operations background had been given special permission to go to Waco despite questions about the military's authority to send him.

U.S. military special-operations lawyers had previously ordered Special Forces soldiers not to go to Waco even to watch the botched Feb. 28, 1993, raid that began the standoff.

Among the thousand of pages of internal FBI tactical documents are notations indicating that tanks used by the hostage rescue team near Waco carried such military ordnance as high-explosive grenades, illumination rounds and pyrotechnic tear gas canisters.

The notes also indicate FBI tactical experts in Waco asked for permission to shoot any unarmed Branch Davidians who left the compound and approached their armored vehicles. That proposal was rejected by FBI officials in Washington, who ultimately imposed rules authorizing deadly force only if the Branch Davidians fired 50-caliber rifles capable of piercing the armor of tanks."
By Lee Hancock and David Jackson / The Dallas Morning News10/09/99

Waco Tragedy News was also told by Davidian lawyer David T. Hardy that military robots were deployed at Mt. Carmel. The high tech machines were ultimately defeated. Not by the Davidians, but by their owners themselves. It appears tanks kept running over the fiber optic cables used to control the machines, effectively disabling their own equipment. Military reports also state one helicopter was crashed at Waco.

Key Players in the Investigation

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