Bill Clinton: “Well, yes, I got regular reports all along the way. There were lots of other options pursued. If you go back--you all…”

“Well, yes, I got regular reports all along the way. There were lots of other options pursued. If you go back--you all covered it very well. You did a very good job of it. I mean, the FBI and the other authorities there pursued any number of other options all along the way, and a lot of them early on seemed to be working. Some of the children got out. Some of the other people left. At one point, there seemed to be some lines of communication opening up between Koresh and the authorities. And then he would say things and not do them, and things just began to spin downward. In terms of what happened yesterday, the conversation I had with the Attorney General did not involve other options except whether we should take more time with the present strategy we were pursuing because they said they wanted to do this, because they thought this was the best way to get people out of the compound quickly before they could kill themselves. That's what they thought.”