Word: reno
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That was the plan FBI Director William Sessions and his top deputies put together for Reno on Monday morning. She wanted to see everything, asked hundreds of questions: Why go now? What is he likely to do? Is this the best way to go? On Wednesday night she called in members of the Army's elite Delta Force to ask their opinions. Her questions always came back to the children. FBI officials explained that the longer the siege lasted, the more the children would suffer. "Children are like hostages," Koresh had told one negotiator, "because they're too young...
...Reno continued to press about the dangers of exposing people to gas. Anesthetic gases might knock people out, but there was no guarantee that they would wake up, ever, especially the small children. Strong men would be knocked out last, or not at all. The FBI brought in a leading specialist on the toxicology of tear gas, whom Reno debriefed for hours. She approved the use of tear gas only after being assured that the form the FBI was using was not permanently harmful, carcinogenic or a possible cause of birth defects...
Above all Reno needed to know how Koresh would react to being pushed and whether the others inside would follow him, even unto death. Koresh held over them all the power of the Apocalypse; he was the Lamb of Revelation, who alone could open the seven seals and foresee the end of the world. FBI agents made some effort to get a handle on the theology at work, but scholars have been trying to explain these passages for centuries with little success. Among those they consulted was Phillip Arnold, a specialist in apocalyptic faiths whom Koresh respected. He was happy...
Indeed, the desire to spread the message was so strong that it helped persuade agents that Koresh did not mean to end his life. Reno had to balance conflicting reports about whether the Davidians were prepared for a mass suicide, the one finale she hoped to avoid at all costs. Four times negotiators asked if Koresh planned to kill himself, and four times he denied them. "If I wanted to commit suicide," he told them, "I would have done that a long time ago." Agents pointed out that Koresh had backed away from the brink before. On March 2, when...
...Reno finally reached her decision on Saturday night. The Attorney General convened top aides in her fifth-floor conference room and demanded that the FBI once again justify its operation. "Is this the best way," she asked, to prod Koresh without aggravating the situation? "What would happen if we don't do it?" What was the risk of losing more lives both inside and outside the compound? She shook her head in horror as an FBI official offered a graphic description of human waste being thrown outside in pails. There was some discussion of child abuse, at which point Reno...