fexu- News Digest jhs&s.
Clinton: Koresh ‘killed those he controlled’
Attorney General
comes under fire
after FBI effort
i
WACO, Texas — Some dooms
day cultists may have been shot trying
to flee “Ranch Apocalypse” before
others started the inferno that left
scores dead, investigators searching
the still-smoldering ruins said Tues
day.
Whatever happened in the final
hours at the Branch Davidian com
pound Monday, federal agents said
“ responsibility few the carnage rests
solely with the group’s leader, David
Koresh.
“He killed those he controlled,”
President Clinton said at the White
Mouse.
Koresh and 85 others were be
lieved to have died in the fire that
ended the cult’s 51 -day standoff with
federal agents; there were nine survi
vors, four of whom remained hospi
talized Tuesday.
Investigators began pulling bodies
out of the nibble, but were slowed
because "ammunition was still cook
ing and exploding” in the wreckage,
said FBI agent Jeff Jamar. Officials
said it could take two weeks to gather
all the evidence.
Among developments Tuesday:
• The Clinton adminstration's
handling of dbe case was sharply ques
tioned by victims' relatives and attor
neys, politicians and observers world
wide. CliMon defended Attorney Gen
eral Janet Reno, who approved the
FBI effort louse a tank to knock holes
in the compound walls and tear-gas
the cult members out, but said, “I
signed off on this.”
Clinton ordered federal agencies
to investigate events that led to the
fiery end erf the standoff. Two con
gressional investigations also were
announced.
• Five cull members who sur
vived the blaze appeared in federal
court, wearing orange jail suits and
shackled by the ankles. One of them,
Remos Avrram, told reporters that an
FBI tank spraying tear gas into the
compound had knocked over a lan
tern and started the fire, and that the
cult had “no plan for suicide."
The FBI said its supers saw cull
ists setting blazes and that a survivor
told investigators that lantern fluid
had been poured throughout the
wooden complex.
• Texas Rangers at thecompound
began investigating the deadly
shootouts that erupted at the begin
ning of the siege, during raids Feb. 28
by federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire
arms agents. Four agents were killed
and 16 were wounded while trying to
execute search warrants for alleged
firearms violations. Korcsh had said
six cullisls also were killed in the
shootouts.
• Gov. Ann Richards joined Waco
residents at a memorial service in a
small downtown church. “Now I think
it’s time for us to heal,” she said.
Waco Habitat for Humanity direc
tor Jo Pendleton told the mourners:
“The 10 billion words that have been
written, the speculations that have
been made, the fingers of blame that
have been pointed, all make no differ
ence here.’*
• State officials were trying to
determine the best future for surviv
ing children who were made orphans
by the fire. Thirty-six people had left
the compound after the siege began.
The state's Child Protective Services
division has custody of 11 of them; 10
others were released to relatives.
“Most of the 21 have lost at least
erne parent, and some have lost both
parents in the Ore," said Stewart Davis,
a spokesman for the Department of
Protective and Regulatory Services.
“We are working to place these
children on a temporary and eventu
ally a permanent basis that will be in
their own best interests.”
Th a A Ao+h The search continues for bodies of the 86 Branch Davidians believed dead. As
I ne aeain many as 24 of me 95 lnside the compound at the time of the fire may have been
of a cult Children. Only nine cultists are believed to have survived the fire.
[Tower base with concrete bunker. mus^c^infrom!0
Possible location of bodies of -- -1 Suspected cult weapons i
mam# of tha Aft halievad dead Two bodies found cache. Possible point of
many of tne w> oeiievea aeaa. bunker expi08ions seen during
The concrete bunker is aN that survived in an L_ rT——-- Mondav's fire
earty 1980’s electrical fire, which destroyed \ \ Monoay^rire.
mother large Branch Davidian building at the (JFIrst FIooT)
Young victims had no choice, no voice in their deaths
WACO, Texas — They were the
innocents. Trapped inside the prairie
compound's pink walls, they' had no
voices, no recourse, no protector.
Seventeen young children had the
boor of their deaths dictated by David
Korcsh. the religious zealot who was
father to many of them and who con
trolled every aspect of their brief ex
istence.
These children "were absolutely
under his control." FBI special agent
Jeff Jamar told reporters Tuesday in
Waco. "Once he decided that this is
what be was going to do, he was not
going to let them go."
r
Jamar said the FBI had evidence
that some cult members may have
been killed inside the Branch Davidian
compound before the flames reached
them. More than 60 adult cult mem
bers, including Koresh, were believed
dead in Monday’s inferno, and seven
older youths are almost certainly
among the victims. Eight adults and a
17-year-okl girl survived.
From the start, the children were at
the center of the standofT. They were
the reason the FBI waited almosteight
weeks before moving on Koresh, a
33-year-old high school dropout who
fathered several infants with women
---1
Businesses may have new
way to seek tax deductions
WASHINGTON — The Su
preme Court said Tuesday that
newspaper subscribers and other
businesses' no-contract custom
ers may be depreciable assets, a
ruling that could cost the federal
. government billions in lost tax
dollars.
The court, by a 5-4 vote, said
new owners may depreciate and
seek tax deductions for such “in
tangible assets," just like machin
ery or inventory, if their value and
duration can be determined accu
rately.
In other decisions, the court:
• Ruled unanimously that a
federal ban on age discrimination
does not necessarily bar employ
ers from firing older workers to
avoid paying them pensions. The
court said m a case from Massa
chusetts that such f trod employees
may sue under a federal pension
protecting law.
• Resolved pan of an old dis
pute over apportioning the North
Platte River's water by ruling that
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
may continue diverting some for
irrigation use by Nebraska resi
dents.
In the tax case, government law
yers had argued that newspaper
subscribers and business custom
os not undo contract arc part of a
company's “good will” and cannot
be depreciated under federal tax
law.
But writing for the high court.
Justice Harry A. Blackmun said
that's a matter best decided on a
case-by-casc basis.
Blackmun said the Newark
Morning Ledger Co. “has home
successfully its substantial burden
of proving that 'paid' subscribers’
constitutes an intangible asset with
an ascertainable value and a lim
ited useful life, the duration of
which can he ascertained with rea
sonable accuracy.**
Kim GolightJy, an accounting
firm tax expert, praised the deci
sion, declaring. “We’re talking
about tensofbillions in deductions.”
he claimed as his “wives.”
“We thought that their instincts,
the motherly instincts would take place
and that they would want their chil
dren out of that environment,” FBI
special agent Bob Ricks said Mon
day.
“Thatdidnotoccur,” he said. “Un
fortunately they bunkered down the
children the best we can tell, and they
allowed those children to go up in
flames with than ”
Bob Boyd of Child Protective Ser
vices inWaco said all the kids brought
up by Koresh were “innocent vic
tims."
— II
They didn’t choose to be there like many of the
adults did. It’s a horrible tragedy.
—Boyd
Child Protective Services agent
- 91 "
“They didn’t choose to be there
like many of the adults did. It’s a
horrible tragedy,*’ he said.
Also victims were the 21 children
who left the compound in the course
of the standoff. Many lost their par
ents in the flames.
“Anytime that you have to talk to
children about the death of theirpar
cnts, it’s difficult,” Boyd said. “Chil
dren shouldn't have to go through
that."
U.S., German troops to swap
soldiers under NATO orders
BRUSSELS. Belgium — The
Umacd States and Germany are trails
ferring NATO wartime command of
thousands of each other’s soldiers in
an unprecedented move that will put
GIs under German officers and Ger
mans under U.S. orders.
The exchange reflects NATO’s
need to combine forces into multina
tional corps given national troop cut
backs. It is also a departure from
Washington’s traditional reluctance
to allow foreign generals to supervise
its troops.
~The United States has not in the
past designated any of its forces for
operations directly under the com
mand of others," said U.S. Army Gen.
John Galvin, former chief of Euro
pean forces for the 16-nation North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.
‘‘If the balloon goes up, the plan
would be for that division to chop
(pass) to the German corps.” said
Galvin, now at West Point Military
Academy in New York. ___
Ai Thursday’s ceremony in
Giebelstadt airfield, about 50 miles
southeast of Frankfurt, Germany, the
U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division,
based at Bad Kreuznach, will be at
tached to the German army's 2nd
Corps. Germany’s Slh Panzer Divi
sion will go to the U.S. 5th Corps,
based in Frankfurt.
The 16,000 to 20,000 troops in
each division will not move from their
bases. Each multinational corps will
total 50,000 to 75,000 soldiers.
Each nation will also assign six
bilingual officers to the other’s corps
headquarters of several hundred per
sonnel. The specialists will take part
in training, intelligence, communica
tions and logistics.
"The German division is an equal
partner in the planning processor the
5th Corps, which has never been done
before,’' said Lt. Col. Dick Bridges,
the cops spokesman. The com
mand arrangement would come into
play during a crisis, when control of
national troops is transferred to
NATO’s chain of command of U.S.
and European officers. At the top is
U.S. Gen. John Shalikashvili.
In peacetime, the troops remain
under national control.
Two other multinational corps arc
also planned — one German-Dutch
and another Danish-German. The
command structure of the four multi
national units will be in place by
199 V
Mixing units is intended to lessen
the burden on NATO nations that
can’t afford to<Tield as many soldiers
as they once did. The multinational
units will also be smaller and more
flexible.
Mingling U.S. and other allied sol
diers with German troops cases the
impression that a united Germany,
the front-line nation in the Cold War.
remains occupied by foreigners. It
also continues to link the UnitedStatcs
Jto Europe's security.
