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OCTOBER 08, 19:08 EDT

FBI Wanted To Reward Waco Agents

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP)  FBI supervisors sought to reward agents running its deadly 1993 Waco siege, proposing medals and ``substantial cash incentive awards'' for members of the bureau's elite Hostage Rescue Team, newly released internal documents show.

The documents are silent on the outcome of the request to reward agents who fired tear gas into the Branch Davidians' home, manned sniper positions and drove tanks; and an FBI spokesman said Friday he was unaware whether awards were granted.

But former FBI deputy assistant director Danny Coulson, the founding commander of the HRT and one of the top officials overseeing the Waco operation, said neither medals nor bonuses were handed out.

``It wasn't approved and they received nothing,'' Coulson said Friday.

The FBI documents were recently turned over to investigators probing the bureau's conduct during the 51-day Waco standoff. They show that an extensive effort was made to honor the agents' ``brave and selfless actions.''

One 13-page memo recommended the entire Hostage Rescue Team for the FBI Shield of Bravery, with individual commendations for agents who left their tank during the siege's fiery end to save a Davidian woman caught in the burning building.

Another memo proposed financial rewards for the HRT agents to recognize ``their exceptional and exemplary individual efforts.''

Said Coulson: ``We tend to want to demonize every FBI agent who was there ... (but) the American public needs to remember that agents did risk their lives.''

The government's conduct at Waco has come under renewed scrutiny from Congress and a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno in recent weeks with the FBI's belated admission that its agents fired potentially incendiary tear-gas canisters in the hours before flames consumed the Davidians' retreat.

Sect leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died April 19, 1993 in the final hours of the FBI siege.

The thousands of pages of internal documents already turned over to investigators offer the most detailed glimpse yet of the FBI's inner workings at Waco.

The documents are a mix of the serious and the mundane, covering the FBI's evolving final-day tactical plan and daily intelligence reports to a local hotel's invitation to federal agents for a free Easter Sunday brunch.

The records outline the evolution of the FBI's rules of engagement for the final assault, dictating under what conditions agents could use deadly force. Several proposals were drafted, three of which would have permitted agents to use deadly force against unarmed Branch Davidians if they approached ``friendly'' positions and failed to respond to agents' commands.

The FBI has long denied that its agents fired any shots during the siege, and bureau officials stressed Friday that the final rules of engagement did not permit deadly force against unarmed Davidians. The bureau's long-standing policy, which permits agents to use deadly force in self-defense or defense of another, applied on April 19, said FBI spokesman Tron Brekke.

``It would not be unusual, during the deliberation process, to consider various options,'' Brekke said of the earlier drafts. On-scene commanders had been worried by reports that Davidians might come out with explosives strapped to their bodies, he noted.

Other findings in the documents:

On seven occasions, agents threw flash-bang devices at Davidians who were outdoors to force them back inside the building. Koresh lieutenant Steve Schneider was ``absolutely distraught over being flash-banged,'' one FBI negotiator wrote April 9.

The FBI tallied the number of phone conversations negotiators had with each Davidian, the average length of each call and total time spent on the phone. The most prolific talker was Schneider, who had 459 conversations with FBI agents lasting nearly 96 hours. Second was Koresh, with 117 conversations spanning nearly 61 hours.

The FBI considered, at least briefly, abandoning the site. Under the ``retrogress from Waco'' plan, the proposed manpower requirements to provide cover as the forces retreated included four helicopters, four fixed-wing aircraft and 106 SWAT agents.

Westinghouse Corp. offered, at no cost, the use of an aircraft and crew with ``state-of-the-art'' radar and infrared technology that not even the military possessed, one handwritten note stated.

The FBI kept tabs on ``right-wing'' sympathizers who flocked to Waco during the siege and monitored Internet traffic.

-- Lynn Ratcliffe (mcgrew@ntr.net), October 09, 1999