Waco

Auteur

Jeff Guinn

Texte du rabat

Investigative reporter and bestselling author Jeff Guinn draws on never-before-seen documents and interviews with participants who have not previously spoken to any writer to give us the definitive account of the disastrous siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, that has become a rallying cry for anti-government groups for thirty years.

Échantillon de lecture
Prologue PROLOGUE ATF, Morning, February 28, 1993
Just before dawn on Sunday, February 28, 1993, an eighty-vehicle caravan departed Fort Hood Army base outside Killeen, Texas, heading northeast toward Waco, sixty-five miles away. Cattle trailers pulled by pickup trucks took the lead and brought up the rear. In between was a hodgepodge of sports cars, station wagons, and nondescript government-issue sedans sporting telltale extended antennas. All had their headlights on—it was that early morning time when darkness and daylight weave together, and a brisk, chilly breeze blew about puffs of ground fog. Rain seemed certain sooner rather than later. The less-than-perfect weather was irritating, but the drivers in the mile-long procession had other things on their minds. They were all agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, better known as ATF and tasked with enforcing often unpopular federal laws. For the last two days, they’d been receiving special training at Fort Hood. In another few hours, they were scheduled to participate in the largest and, hopefully, best-publicized raid in agency history, one that might improve perception of their controversial organization.

Since late June 1992, ATF had investigated prophet David Koresh and his followers, collectively known as the Branch Davidians and living in a sprawling, makeshift building (ATF reports described it as a “compound”) called Mount Carmel on seventy-seven hardscrabble acres about eight miles outside Waco. ATF planners believed approximately seventy-five men, women, and children occupied the fire-ant-infested property; it was hard to get an accurate count because they milled in and around their building so incessantly. After eight months, accumulated evidence indicated that the group was illegally altering guns from semi- to fully automatic, with the intent of either selling them or else using the fearsome weapons as part of a plot to bring about the end of the world. This, ATF tactical planners speculated, might involve anything from an assault on outsiders to gory group suicide.

Though specifically what the Branch Davidians believed, and exactly what they intended, wasn’t clear to the ATF, it was still obvious that they at least had illegal guns in their possession, and illegal homemade “improvised explosive devices” (hand grenades), too. This made them lawbreakers, and appropriate targets of agency action. Two days earlier, on Friday, February 26, a U.S. district judge signed off on an ATF search warrant for Mount Carmel; a criminal complaint against, and an arrest warrant for, Vernon Wayne Howell (David Koresh’s given name); and, critically, an order to immediately seal the warrants from public view. ATF organizers feared above all else losing the element of surprise; every possible step to catch the suspects off guard was built into the raid plan.

Traditionally, ATF raids took one of two forms: “surround and call out,” giving suspects a chance to give up peacefully, and “dynamic entry,” bursting into the suspects’ lair before they had time to take up arms and resist. After many meetings and drawn-out discussions, dynamic entry became the plan for Mount Carmel, avoiding any potential for the Branch Davidians fighting back, destroying evidence, or committing mass suicide before arriving agents could stop them. The ATF’s intent was to swoop in, arrest Koresh, find and confiscate critical evidence, and close the raid without a shot fired by either side, with at least some of this efficient, bloodless action captured on film for the benefit of the media and members of Congress. ATF budgetary hearings were scheduled in March.

There were obvious impediments to the plan. The Branch Davidian property was located off a narrow country road, at the end of a long driveway winding up a barren slope with no cover for anyone approaching the front door. The suspects were up at dawn every day, and believed to be handy with their arsenal. But ATF officials based their plan on two factors vouched for by informants, former Branch Davidians who’d turned against Koresh. First, Koresh kept tight control on weapons; all guns were kept in a locked storage room and taken out only on the leader’s personal command. Second, Mount Carmel residents adhered to a rigid daily schedule. Each morning after breakfast there was “the daily,” a gathering for communion (grape juice and crackers rather than wine and wafers) and scripture-based discussion. After that, certainly by 10 a.m., all able-bodied men on the property came outside to continue excavation of a massive pit that surviving Branch Davidians later described as a tornado shelter. The ATF believed it was intended as a bunker to provide cover during firefights.

So, in just a few hours on this damp Sunday morning, the Branch Davidian men would be working outside, their guns would be locked away inside, and seventy-six ATF agents, concealed in two cattle trailers, a common sight on Central Texas country back roads, would rumble up the Mount Carmel driveway, emerge from the trailers on the double, get between the Branch Davidian men and their guns, and gain control of the property. From there, it would be easy. Everything hinged on taking the suspects by surprise. Raid planners were so confident of succeeding that there was not a fully formed Plan B if things didn’t go as anticipated. During their special training at Fort Hood, ATF agent Mike Duncan recalls, someone asked a supervisor, “What happens if things go to shit? There’s no place to take cover.” The response was vague—get out of the trailers, move away from the compound, return any fire. Agent Dave DiBetta remembers, “That sounded like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail; our [backup] plan is to get out of the trailers and run away, and then surround the place?” But the agents bought into the basic premise; the Branch Davidians would do as expected, and total surprise would be achieved.

The ATF caravan reached the Bellmead Civic Center around 7:45 a.m. (Six agents arrived several hours earlier, and had already departed to secure the muddy, wooded area behind Mount Carmel and prevent escape in that direction.) This collection of squat public buildings just off Texas State Highway 84 was chosen as the raid staging area for its convenient location—the tiny town of Bellmead was a few miles northeast of Waco and nine miles from Mount Carmel. Despite planners’ fixation on surprising the Branch Davidians, no thought was apparently given to concealing ATF’s presence from Bellmead locals—an ATF official, wearing a jacket emblazoned with the agency’s emblem, and several Bellmead cops stood in the street, directing caravan cars into the parking lot. Bill Buford, leader of an ATF Special Response Team (SRT) from the agency’s New Orleans division, was appalled when he went inside and found “some sweet ladies, ten or twelve of them,” serving coffee and doughnuts. The refreshments were welcome, but, at least to Buford, the civilians weren’t: “It was obvious we were about to do something. [The women] could have told people about it.”

The agents had about ninety minutes to go over raid plans with team leaders, change into combat gear, and prepare to board the cattle trailers for what would be another fifteen- or tw…