From: [s--k] at [i-link.net] (Sam A. Kersh)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 21:34:45 GMT
Subject: Waco Hearings, NYT articles

New York Times - July 27, 1995

Koresh Surrender Plan Viewed as Ploy

WASHINGTON - F.B.I. officials testified Wednesday at Congressional
hearings on the siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco,
Tex., that because they viewed the sect leader's final proposal for
surrender as an empty delaying tactic, they rejected it without
consulting with the Justice Department. 

The officials, testifying on the sixth day of hearings on the
disastrous siege, said that they went forward with plans for the
tear-gas operation that ended the 51-day standoff with-out warning
the Davidians that Federal agents had given up on negotiations. The
first warning came as tanks carrying the gas began rumbling toward
the compound. 

The officials - Jeffrey Jamar, the on-scene commander, who has
since retired, and Brian sage, the principal negotiator at Waco -
testified that they gave no weight to the final surrender proposal
under which Mr. Koresh was to leave the compound after he completed
writing a biblical tract. Mr. Jamar proposed the gas plan, fearing
that Mr. Koresh would attempt to "break out" or precipitate a
violent end to the siege.

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NYT article  7-28-95

F.B.I. Official Recalls Doubts on Waco Tactics

WASHINGTON - A top F.B.I. official testified Thursday at
Congressional hearings on the raid on a sect's compound outside
Waco, Tex., that he did not realize that the on-scene commander had
concluded that a tear-gas operation proposed for gradually ending
the siege was almost certain to escalate quickly into a massive gas
assault.

Larry A. Potts, who at the time was the head of criminal division
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the official in
Washington with overall responsibility for the siege of the Branch
Davidian compound, also testified for the first time Thursday that
he had doubts from the start about the plan to use gas. "When I
first heard about the plan I was very much opposed to it," he said.
Later he added that there were too many "unknowns." Mr. Potts said
he became a convert to a modified version of the plan after a trip
to the Davidian compound. Even so, he said, he never realized that
Jeffrey Jamar, the F.B.I. commander at the siege, had determined
that it was "99 percent" certain that the Branch Davidians would
shoot at F.B.I. agents when they used tanks to spray tear gas into
the compound. 

By DAVID JOHNSTON