Bill Clinton: “Yes. I was told by the Attorney General that the FBI strongly felt that the time had come to take another step in trying…”

“Yes. I was told by the Attorney General that the FBI strongly felt that the time had come to take another step in trying to dislodge the people in the compound. And she described generally what the operation would be, that they wanted to go in and use tear gas which had been tested not to cause permanent damage to adults or to children but which would make it very difficult for people to stay inside the building. And it was hoped that the tear gas would permit them to come outside. I was further told that under no circumstances would our people fire any shots at them, even if fired upon. They were going to shoot the tear gas from armored vehicles which would protect them, and there would be no exchange of fire. In fact, as you know, an awful lot of shots were fired by the cult members at the Federal officials. There were no shots coming back from the Government side. I asked a number of questions. The first question I asked is, why now? We have waited 7 weeks; why now? The reasons I was given were the following: Number one, that there was a limit to how long the Federal authorities could maintain with their limited resources the quality and intensity of coverage by experts there. They might be needed in other parts of the country. Number two, that the people who had reviewed this had never seen a case quite like this one before, and they were convinced that no progress had been made recently and no progress was going to be made through the normal means of getting Koresh and the other cult members to come out. Number three, that the danger of their doing something to themselves or to others was likely to increase, not decrease, with the passage of time. And number four, that they had reason to believe that the children who were still inside the compound were being abused significantly, as well as being forced to live in unsanitary and unsafe conditions. So for those reasons, they wanted to move at that time. The second question I asked the Attorney General is whether they had given consideration to all of the things that could go wrong and evaluated them against what might happen that was good. She said that the FBI personnel on the scene and those working with them were convinced that the chances of bad things happening would only increase with the passage of time. The third question I asked was, has the military been consulted? As soon as the initial tragedy came to light in Waco, that's the first thing I asked to be done, because it was obvious that this was not a typical law enforcement situation. Military people were then brought in, helped to analyze the situation and some of the problems that were presented by it. And so I asked if the military had been consulted. The Attorney General said that they had and that they were in basic agreement, that there was only one minor tactical difference of opinion between the FBI and the military, something that both sides thought was not of overwhelming significance. Having asked those questions and gotten those answers, I said that if she thought it was the right thing to do, that she should proceed and that I would support it. And I stand by that today.”