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The Dallas Morning News
March 21, 1998
Film on Branch Davidian standoff
criticized
Makers of Oscar-nominated documentary deny that it's biased and inaccurate
By Lee Hancock
WACO - This is the Branch Davidian story according to Hollywood:
Federal police attacked a religious sect as a publicity stunt, tormented
members for 51 days after they fought back and finished them off with
tear gas, machine guns and fire.
The tale, told in Waco: The Rules of Engagement, will be among five
nominees contending for the 1998 Oscar for best documentary Monday.
But there's a problem. The film didn't get many facts right, according
to the massive public record on the incident and officials who investigated
it from Waco to Washington.
Information mischaracterized or ignored includes evidence and testimony
from congressional hearings, a 1994 criminal trial of Branch Davidians,
court opinions and U.S. Treasury and Justice Department reviews.
Dan Gifford, whose Los Angeles production company funded the film,
defends it as good journalism.
"What you see in that film is my best judgment based on 25 years in
news departments of what the public could handle, what they would be
willing to see," said Mr. Gifford, a former TV reporter.
The film's researcher, Michael McNulty, said he blamed the government
for the film's weaknesses because its agencies wouldn't cooperate.
"I don't claim that our film is the end-all, be-all truth about Waco,"
said Mr. McNulty, who also has been paid to investigate for the Branch
Davidians? pending wrongful-death lawsuit against the government. "I
do think it takes a very large step in the direction of telling the
truth."
Others say the film gives an inaccurate picture of the tragedy that
took the lives of more than 80 Branch Davidians and four federal agents.
A congressman who was chairman of the 1995 Waco hearings said he and
colleagues reviewed the film and found no merit to its most explosive
charge: that the FBI set the compound fire and shot Branch Davidians
to keep them in the inferno.
"Am I concerned that this encourages people to believe something that
I think is patently untrue? Yes, I am concerned," said U.S. Rep. Bill
McCollum, R-Fla.
Even one of the sect member's defense lawyers said he was disturbed
by the film's conclusions because they were unsupported.
"I think that everybody really wants to put this horrible story on
the government because they're dissatisfied with the government's performance
in this. But the truth was bad enough. Why not tell the truth?" said
Joe Turner of Austin.
Justice Department, FBI and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officials
said the film's charges were baseless.
"Based on what I know, if there were an Oscar for truth, it wouldn't
have been nominated," said Justice Department spokesman Bert Brandenberg.
Mr. Gifford said he decided to make the film after talks with Mr.
McNulty, a Colorado resident and former radio talk show host who began
researching the standoff in 1993. Mr. McNulty's Waco work first got
attention when he helped Soldier of Fortune magazine debunk a 1993 video
contending that flame-throwing FBI tanks started the fire.
The 1997 film begins by portraying the Branch Davidians as unorthodox
but unthreatening and contends that the ATF targeted them for publicity.
Not mentioned is the fact that the McLennan County Sheriff's Department
asked the ATF to investigate because of evidence that the sect was amassing
illegal weapons.
The film doesn't mention reports of automatic gunfire, shots fired
at passersby or trial testimony that sect leader David Koresh taught
followers that they must be willing to kill for God.
McLennan County Sheriff Jack Harwell, who appears in the film, said
it appeared "slanted to make the federal people look bad. They did enough
to hurt themselves without slanting it."
The movie condemns the affidavit that the ATF used to justify searching
the compound as sloppy and inflammatory. It doesn't say that sect defense
lawyers never challenged its legality or mention its documentation of
extensive purchases of guns, parts for making machine guns and explosives
ingredients. Investigators eventually traced more than $242,000 in ordnance
purchases. Grenades, silencers, more than 1 million bullets and 48 illegal
machine guns were found in the burned compound.
When the film explores the ATF's Feb. 28, 1993, raid, it embraces
Branch Davidian allegations that the ATF started the shootout that left
four agents and six sect members dead.
The film includes some agent's statements that the sect fired first.
But it doesn't mention that three journalists who watched the battle
testified in the Branch Davidian's trial that the first shots came from
the compound.
Mr. Gifford said those accounts and other trial information were excluded
because of time constraints.
Though acquitted of conspiring to kill agents, eight sect members
were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges. The film
doesn't mention the convictions.
The movie doesn't mention trial and congressional testimony and Treasury
Department review findings about what the sect did after being tipped
30 minutes before the raid.
"They didn't give themselves up. They got ready for battle," said
former Assistant Treasury Secretary Ronald Noble, who oversaw the treasury
inquiry. "Don't the filmmakers have an obligation to check the record?"
The film contends that three Texas National Guard helicopters strafed
the compound and fatally shot an unarmed Branch Davidian on its tower.
It doesn't mention ATF agent's trial testimony, confirmed by FBI ballistics
tests, that the tower man was armed and was killed by an agent on the
ground. It also doesn't mention three National Guard pilot's trial testimony
and sworn statements in the congressional record that no one fired from
the helicopters.
Mr. Gifford said he didn't trust the FBI lab and thinks the pilots
didn't see what happened or are lying. He said he believes allegations
by Mr. Koresh and his followers that the helicopters shot up the compound.
"They just don't have the ring of people who are making things up,"
he said.
The film dismisses the government's finding, endorsed by the House
inquiry, that sect members started the fire that destroyed the compound.
The fire erupted about noon on April 19, six hours after the FBI tanks
began bashing holes in the compound and inserting tear gas.
An FBI airplane using a heat-sensitive or infrared video camera captured
the fire starting in three places in three minutes. Investigators determined
that the blaze was fueled by flammable liquids found along with opened
fuel containers throughout the compound wreckage.
FBI transmitters picked up voices of compound occupants discussing
pouring fuel and setting fires throughout that morning. The last transmission,
recorded at 11:48 a.m. said, "Let's keep that fire going."
The film doesn't include that or two surviving Branch Davidians’ statements
about hearing voices yelling about lighting fires.
The film suggests that FBI tanks spread fuel by crushing fuel cans
in the building and added more flammable vapors with a component of
its tear gas. Not mentioned are testimony and letters to Congress from
chemical experts stating that the cited tear gas component is a fire
retardant.
The film says the FBI started the fire, probably with an incendiary
device. It states that the blaze jumped through the building in the
form of two fireballs that two surviving Davidians said they saw.
James Quintiere, a University of Maryland professor who led the arson
investigation, said the fireball stories are scientifically impossible.
The fireballs would have been detected by the FBI infrared camera, he
said.
Mr. Gifford said he thinks the fireballs moved too fast and failed
to generate enough heat to be captured on the infrared video.
The movie doesn't mention that 19 Branch Davidians had fatal gunshot
wounds, many from close range. Four of the 17 children who perished
died of gunshots, and a 3-year-old was stabbed, according to autopsy
reports.
The movie says someone outside the compound fired machine guns into
the building to keep sect members inside as the fire broke out. It offers
an analysis by a former Defense Department infrared expert who said
the infrared video includes flashes that can only be machine-gun fire.
The expert, physicist Edward Allard, said in an interview that he
had never viewed or analyzed gunfire on infrared film before Mr. McNulty
showed him the FBI's Waco video. But Mr. Allard said he was certain
that its flashes were from hundreds of rounds of automatic gunfire.
Government officials say the flashes were sunlight reflections.
The Waco movie bolsters Mr. Allard’s gunfire analysis by showing segments
of a similar assessment written by an infrared expert for CBS’ 60 Minutes.
The film says that "fear.., kept 60 Minutes from informing the American
people."
60 Minutes producer Rome Hartman said he didn't pursue the story because
other experts offered opposite opinions. He said the filmmakers never
contacted 60 Minutes. "That makes me think I can't put much stock in
their journalistic integrity," he said.
In response to queries from The Washington Post last spring about
the film's gunfire allegation, Justice Department conducted an inquiry
and concluded that there was no gunfire on the video or any government
gunfire April 19 said department spokesman Brandenberg.
The Post reported that other experts were divided on the issue.
Mr. McNulty and Mr. Gifford say they have information that the flashes
came from guns of secret military teams deployed at Waco. Neither would
elaborate, but Mr. McNulty said he would deal with that allegation in
a video sequel being financed by a Colorado entertainment company.
Mr. McNulty said he thinks the truth was covered up because "the White
House gave the order to eliminate the evidence and remove the witnesses,
so that's what happened."
© 1998 The Dallas Morning News All Rights Reserved
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