From: [s--k] at [i-link.net] (Sam A. Kersh) Newsgroups: alt.politics.org.batf,alt.politics.org.fbi,talk.politics.guns,tx.guns Subject: Waco Hearings, NYT articles Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 21:34:45 GMT 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. ************************************************************************** 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