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The News & Observer April 6, 1998 Grim, Persuasive 'Waco' Embarrasses the Government Movie Review By TODD LOTHERY, Staff Writer     If the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival, held over the weekend at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, failed to satiate your appetite for documentaries, then I'd highly recommend returning to the Carolina for one more helping. "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," a grim, powerful and persuasive documentary, is showing for a limited engagement.      The Oscar-nominated "Waco" examines, in exhaustive detail, the 51-day standoff that led up to the fire at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, that killed 76 men, women and children in 1993. Through news footage, C-SPAN coverage of the Senate hearings after the tragedy, tapes of phone conversations and 911 calls, and interviews with several survivors and experts from various fields, "Waco" paints a disturbing portrait of the actions taken by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI in dealing with this crisis.      The official story was that the Branch Davidians were cult crackpots who stockpiled weapons (including weapons the cult used in the "self-defense" shootings of four ATF agents) and immolated themselves by setting fire to their own compound as government forces benignly waited outside in their tanks. "Waco" convincingly shows -- contrary to the findings of a Senate hearing -- that government military forces not only fired repeatedly into the compound but set the fire and then hid the evidence by destroying the crime scene.      The most damning evidence comes from heat-sensitive infrared videos, shot from above the compound by (ironically) the FBI, that show flashes of light which experts testify to be gunfire shot into the compound from outside, even though the FBI emphatically claimed that not a single shot was fired by government forces during the 51-day siege. The footage and interviews are so skillfully edited that, over and over, we hear government authorities deny any wrongdoings and then are shown the exact opposite to be the case.      In other words, the American public was lied to big time. But in a country founded on individual rights, "Waco" clearly shows that the Branch Davidians had no rights.      The filmmakers don't try to make David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, into a martyr. Nor do they deny that the Branch Davidians' beliefs were outside the mainstream. But until one has committed a crime -- and stockpiling weapons is not a crime, especially in Texas -- then one is privileged to all the rights granted by the Bill of Rights, even if one's religious beliefs are considered strange by the majority of the American people.      "Waco" is serious, evenhanded, meticulously researched investigative journalism that exposes the hubris of the U.S. government, a hubris that should alarm all of us. One survivor states in the film, "The FBI wasn't prepared to share David Koresh's contention that we should wait on God to resolve this. The FBI is God."      That's one statement in the film that I must vehemently disagree with.       Todd Lothery can be reached at 829-4783 or Copyright ©1998 The News & Observer

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