Date: 1993
Location: Waco, Texas
The Conspirators: US Attorney General Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton, FBI, ATF, and the Texas and Alabama National Guards
The Victims: Seventy-six Branch Davidian cult members
On April 19, 1993, troops assaulted the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas, that had been refusing to surrender to arrest warrants for two months. All inside died, mostly by fire. Conspiracy theorists claim that during the assault, the FBI intentionally started the fire in order to destroy the compound and kill everyone—including the children. Some other theories put forth in a series of low-budget documentary films and books include claims that the fire was started either by flame-throwing armored vehicles or by incendiary grenades fired into the flimsy wooden buildings. Many of those inside were found to have died by gunfire, so the conspiracy theory states that the FBI and National Guard fired into the burning buildings to make sure everyone died.
Evidence proves the Branch Davidians had rigged their entire complex with firebombs, which they set off themselves when the assault began, in the belief that purification by fire would transcend them to heaven.
The history of how the Branch Davidian complex came to be is an interesting and colorful one, but it ended with cult leader David Koresh barricaded inside the sprawling compound of wooden buildings with about a hundred followers, including men, women, and children. Some had lived at the compound for three generations. The men had all turned their wives and daughters over to Koresh, and he was “married” to many of them. His wives were as young as twelve.
Koresh and other cult members had a large arsenal and numerous firearms violations, so the ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) executed a search warrant in February of 1993 to seize illegal automatic weapons. A gunfight ensued in which four ATF agents and six Davidians died. The FBI took over and, together with the Texas and Alabama National Guards, surrounded the complex in a stalemate that was to last for two months.
US Attorney General Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton favored waiting out the Davidians, as they believed this was the best strategy to avoid loss of life. But upon receiving a report that children inside were being beaten, they ordered the compound assaulted with tear gas on April 19, in hopes of ending the siege with non-lethal weapons.
The combat engineer vehicles (CEVs) broke down the walls as soldiers fired tear gas. Simultaneously, fires broke out throughout the compound, and it quickly became an inferno. Automatic gunfire was heard from inside the compound. When all was said and done, some seventy-six people who remained inside were all dead, including Koresh and twenty-five children. Most of the children had been shot or stabbed to death, as had some of the other Davidians.
Many in the public were outraged, and the belief that the FBI had started the fire began to spread. Conspiracy theorist Linda Thompson made a video called Waco: The Big Lie, which made specific claims that the government started the fire using a combination of incendiary grenades and flamethrowers mounted to the CEVs. Other films followed. A few years after the assault, surveys found that 61 percent of Americans believed that the FBI started the fires, either accidentally or deliberately.
Under intense public pressure from a population who increasingly believed the FBI deliberately executed the Davidians, Janet Reno ordered a full investigation. The findings are known as the Danforth Report, and it was published in 2000.
A crucial finding of the report was that the Branch Davidians’ religious beliefs compelled them all to die. This information came from the cult members themselves, a few of whom ran from the fire and were captured or were arrested in town. The Davidians were going to kill themselves one way or another, preferably by fire, to purify themselves and transcend to heaven. They had even planned a mass murder at a local McDonald’s in order to all be killed by responding police officers. These people had violent death on their minds, and they were absolutely committed to it. There is virtually nothing that the government could have done differently that would have saved them; they never wanted to be saved.
Accordingly, the FBI found that the Davidians had rigged the entire complex with firebombs consisting of hay and camping fuel. When the FBI sent in food in the weeks before the assault, it included milk cartons that were bugged, so they had hours of tape recordings of the Davidians placing and charging the firebombs.
Thompson’s claims of a “flame-throwing tank” were also investigated. There was never any such thing. The only weapon used by the CEVs was a Mark V liquid insertion system, which is a CO2-powered squirt gun capable of shooting tear gas about 50 feet. No fire broke out in the areas where the CEVs were. But not only did the report prove that there weren’t flamethrowers attached to the CEVs, it also provided an explanation for why this was even claimed in the first place:
The FBI FLIR tapes showed rapid “flashes” on and around the complex and the vehicles. These flashes were solar reflections off of certain types of debris, including glass, that was strewn around the complex.
The report also found a total lack of evidence that incendiary grenades were used, or that any National Guardsmen or FBI agents fired any sort of weapons into the compound. The evidence was unanimous that the Davidians started all the fires and killed themselves and each other.
All of this said, the government is not blameless for the events at Waco. The report that said children inside the complex were being beaten was found to be false, as no evidence of beatings was ever discovered. No one was prosecuted for the false report, because no one was found who could be proven to be at fault.
The Danforth Report also found that for six years, the FBI failed to report that three XM651E1 pyrotechnic tear gas rounds had been fired. Although these rounds were fired at a concrete structure far removed from the wooden buildings, and despite the fact that these rounds have been proven to not start fires, the FBI probably covered up their use to avoid charges that they had started the fire. This cover-up can easily be considered criminal withholding of evidence.
Finally, the government unfairly pinned blame on two scapegoats, the ATF agents in charge of the initial raid in February. They were fired with the explanation that they should have been aware that the Davidians were prepared to violently repel the raid. The excuse is thin, because from everything that was learned about the Davidians, they all planned to die inside the complex no matter what. There is little the ATF agents could have done that would have saved the lives of the Davidians who died in the raid.
At its core, the government’s actions at Waco were an effort to rescue children whose lives were under immediate threat. The FBI had ample information that the Branch Davidians all intended to die for religious reasons, and that turned the siege into a rescue effort. In the weeks before the final assault on the compound, the FBI even went so far as to “purchase” children from Koresh by giving him time on the radio to preach. Ultimately, twenty-one children were saved in this manner. The only government conspiracy on that day was one of desperation to rescue children from the darkest depths of delusional extremism.