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The Daily Iowan February 19, 1998 Waco Wacko? By Greg Kirschling The federal government hasn't told the whole story about the infamous 1993 siege in on the Branch Davidians in Waco, says Dan Gifford, executive producer of the Academy Award-nominated "Waco: The Rules of the Engagement." Dan Gifford needed to catch a plane in Washington D.C. Then somebody jumped out of a black sedan with tinted windows and offered the former journalist a ride to the airport. Thanks but no, said Gifford. Most people, naturally suspicious, would probably turn down an offer like that, but when you're the executive producer of an explosive documentary criticizing the Justice Department, and when you've noticed shady men following you around before, you definitely turn it down. Especially if you suspect someone might be tapping your phones and monitoring your e-mail. Yes, of the current crop of new Oscar nominees, good money says that Gifford is the only one who might be getting stalked by the federal government. Nominated for Best Documentary, his "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" suggests it was the feds, and not the Branch Davidian religion sect led by David Koresh, who were the bad guys during the 51-day standoff in Waco. On February 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided the Branch Davidian compound, intending to seize illegal weapons and grab Koresh for child molestation, even though, according to the film, they had no jurisdiction over or proof of the latter. The ATF failed. Four agents died, and the Branch Davidians refused to come out. More than a month later, 76 of them died in a fire. Federal agents said the fire was a means of mass suicide, and two years later a Joint House-Senate committee reached the same conclusion. "Waco" contests that conclusion, suggesting the Davidians were only defending themselves in February, the government was too gung ho to avenge its lost men, and the "mass suicide" theory is deeply flawed. And while it may not be PC to doubt the official story on Waco or to believe the fringe-dwellers who suspected an abusive government, Gifford says, in this case those "right-wing crazies turned out to be right." "People who detest this element of society for whatever reason can't make themselves admit that (this element) is correct, that there were horrible human rights violations going on (at Waco)," he says. "They can't bear to agree with these people they can't stand." That's News The film came about a few years ago, when Gifford was still a reporter for PBS' "McNeil/Lehrer News Hour." Somebody approached him with a copy of radar images of the final April 19, 1993, siege, shot from a helicopter circling above the compound. The radar, used like a nail in a coffin in the last parts of the film, was compelling evidence. Expert analysis of its thermal readouts indicated that federal officers probably did shoot into the compound during the April 19 fire, thus contradicting the FBI, which maintained that not a single shot was fired by federal forces throughout the final hours. "That's news," thought Gifford back then. But with a crew that included his wife, Amy Sommers Gifford, an hourlong PBS special spread over two years into a full-length documentary film. The finished product gives new information that few will have heard before, even though Gifford insists that almost no "skullduggery" was required in the researching process. That none of the film's evidence was brought out by the media back in 1993 is a "testament to how vilified the Davidians are," he says. "Waco" doesn't seek to disprove that Koresh had sex with minors or collected illegal weapons, but it points out that, due to the nature of their religion, the minors' parents knew of the sex and approved, since Koresh was seen as the prophet who needed to sire 24 children. And it asserts that the ATF still needed to prove the Davidians had the "intent to kill" with the guns. From videos taken during the standoff, "Waco" shows that -- surely to the surprise of many -- the Branch Davidians were a multi-racial bunch, drawn in from all over the world. One of them, Wayne Martin, was one of the earliest African-American graduates of Harvard. The film also suggests the Davidians were on the verge of coming out peacefully just before their compound turned into an inferno. Carefully, experts explain how the FBI's CS gas, tankholes in the compound and Texas winds could combine to produce that inferno without any help from a Davidian. Gifford maintains that Waco was a "premeditated act" to kill innocents. Since the movie has been completed, he says he's found more evidence to show that tanks were bulldozing people back inside the burning complex and that the government planted guns on the dead Davidians. Oscars, McCarthyism and More Wackos "Waco" is even wrapped in smaller, internal controversy. It was a half-hour longer when it played at Sundance Film Festival last year. When Gifford cut it down by a half hour, director William Gazecki walked away from the project. He and a co-producer tried to circulate a third cut of the film, but Gifford stopped them in the courts. He says everybody on the film is "tickled" to have the film up for an Oscar. Yet the smart bet is on Spike Lee's "4 Little Girls," says Glifford, who appeared as a prison guard in Lee's "Malcolm X." (Other acting credits of his include "Contact" and "Mad City.") "I thought the subject matter alone would not get it nominated," he said. "We've gotten ourselves into this sort of McCarthyism where to even suggest that the official story might not be true ... would just freak people out and maybe make (Oscar voters) think we are members of that ('right wing crazy') element." Actually, Gifford calls himself a Democrat and a liberal, and he's been besieged himself by "wackos" who say he's part of the government conspiracy himself, which he doesn't understand. "If you read all the Internet stuff, there's some pieces that have been written that claim I'm a FBI mole in Hollywood and a military disinformation person," he says. It's hard to say who's worse, he says, these people or the government. According to Gifford, the official reaction from those implicated by the film has been "nothing." His repeated requests for sit-down interviews were denied, and he's heard that the FBI was "not happy" with the FBI forensic photographer who speaks damningly of the government near the end of the film. The only real reaction he's received is from the people who seem to be watching him. They aren't talking. But Gifford's not worried. "If they're gonna waste their time watching me, I'm pretty boring," he says. "What I do is an open book. They can tap my telephone lines; I'm not collecting money from foreign governments or anything." Copyright ©1998 The Daily Iowan

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