Waco: The Rules of Engagement
Directed by William Gazecki
Fifth Estate Productions
Review by Arun Pradhan
"Do I really want to spend the next two hours watching a film about mad, Christian fundamentalist Americans?" was the question going through my head even as the lights dimmed for the screening of Waco: The Rules of Engagement. It was a question that I was soon to discover severely underestimated both the victims of Waco and what is a revealing and shocking documentary.
David B. Kopel and Paul Blackman's Academy Award-nominated film is a well-researched presentation of the 51-day stand-off at Waco. They weave together original footage of the siege, testimony to a Senate hearing, recordings of phone calls to 911 and continual negotiations, and interviews with survivors and several experts.
What they construct is a horrifying story and a damning case against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and the FBI.
The events in 1993 ended in the death of 76 women, men and children who were members of the Davidian Christian group and four BATF agents in the most deadly law enforcement operation in US history.
The initial raid by the BATF and then the continued siege of the Davidians by the FBI drew considerable media coverage. The Davidians were referred to as "cultists", David Koresh as the "brainwashing cult leader". Continual references were made to their "massive stockpile of weapons" and the Davidians' "Mount Carmel" became the militarised "compound" or "bunker".
After such hype, no-one was really surprised when the Davidians "committed suicide" to end the FBI siege.
In Waco: The Rules of Engagement, the Davidians themselves are almost secondary to the story. This was summarised by Alan Stone, the Harvard professor of psychiatry and law who reviewed the Justice Department's report on Waco. He tells an interviewer:
"When I was first asked to be involved as a member of the panel, I thought the main problem was going to be understanding the psychology of the people inside the compound. But as I got into it, I quickly became aware that the psychology of the people outside the compound was more important."
The documentary covers enough of the Davidians to show them to be quite intelligent people, no more rational or irrational than other followers of religion. A weapons stockpile was argued to be normal for small-scale arms traders (which they were), and there are even records of Koresh asking BATF investigators to examine it for themselves.
There is no attempt to answer the accusations of paedophilia, which was not the reason given for the initial raid.
Far from planning a raid on a dangerous group stockpiling weapons, the BATF is exposed as organising a public relations picture shoot. The press was informed two days before the raid.
When things did not go smoothly and people started to get shot, wounded BATF agents appealed to the media to call for ambulances. It seems that although they had set up a local office with fax machines and other equipment for media work, no-one had bothered to take a mobile phone.
This lack of communication did not help when desperate Davidians inside the buildings called 911 and pleaded for the shooting to end.
When the dust finally settled, the Davidians were holed up in their buildings and the FBI came in to take over what became a siege.
Loud music and noises were played all night to prevent sleep. Tanks rolled over graves and children's play equipment outside the Davidians' housing, and soldiers mooned and abused the occupants.
File footage of David Koresh in preaching mode was shot across the globe. Unrevealed until this documentary were conversations with Koresh and others filmed on an FBI-provided camera during the siege. The FBI decided not to release that film lest it increase sympathy for the seemingly sane "cult members".
The siege ended in an inferno on the 51st night. Tanks rolled in, helicopters flew overhead, and armed personnel filled the grounds.
As well as physically destroying much of the buildings, the tanks pumped in an aerosol consisting of CS powder, a chemical warfare agent that causes tearing, temporary blindness, nausea and vomiting, and methylene chloride, a toxic and volatile carrier that forms flammable mixtures when exposed to the air.
A bureau spokesperson explained that the idea behind filling the buildings with CS was to torture the children (who had no gas masks) until their parents surrendered. "We thought that their instincts, their motherly instincts, would take place and that they would want their children out of that environment", he said. "It appears that they don't care that much about their children, which is unfortunate."
According to experts quoted in the movie, the CS powder probably incapacitated or killed the Davidians who otherwise might have fled. The powder can be fatal in high doses, and it turns into cyanide when burned.
The FBI also claim that it fired no shots. However, some of the startling evidence delivered in detail through the documentary is an analysis of government infra-red video footage. This footage seems to show that there was continuous ground fire in addition to the tank attacks that would have prevented people from escaping the fire.
The real horror of the deaths was put down to suicide despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Local police even commented on the speed with which the FBI dismantled what should have been an untouched "crime scene".
A local doctor had his video footage of the charred buildings and bodies confiscated and then "lost". It no doubt ended up in the same place as the front doors to the Davidian home, which witnesses say proved that the BATF fired the initial shots at the beginning of the raid, but which are now also "lost".
Even those who are cynical about so-called "freedom" in the United States will be shocked by this movie; it is a must-see exposé of what really happened at Waco and what the US government is capable of.
Viewers are left with an uncomfortable paranoia that the US can launch a small-scale Gulf War anywhere, anytime and have the media manipulation and clout to pull it off.