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1993-03-02
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Part 1 of 2 parts
03/02/1993 By JAMES ROWLEY Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI used both of its war rooms Tuesday to
juggle management of two crises: the armed standoff with a Texas
religious cult and the bombing of the World Trade Center.
Round-the-clock command posts were manned at the FBI's J. Edgar
Hoover Building here and several blocks away at headquarters of the
far smaller Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
The FBI's command center is equipped with two rooms to enable
officials to manage more than one crisis at a time, such as the
simultaneous riots in 1987 by Cuban inmates at federal prisons in
Atlanta and Oakdale, La.
On Tuesday, officials continued to monitor the standoff outside
Waco, Texas, that began after a Sunday shootout killed four ATF
agents and two members of the Branch Davidian religious sect.
From an adjoining room, senior FBI officials also directed the
bureau's investigation of last Friday's blast that killed four
people in New York's financial district.
"Things are going on down there, things are cooking," said FBI
spokesman Bill Carter.
The FBI is no stranger to multiple crises, such as the 1980
manhunts for a child killer in Atlanta and the simultaneous
investigation of a gunman who shot at black people in several
states.
But ATF, an arm of the Treasury Department that enforces federal
gun statutes, found itself involved this week in the most violent
episode of its 21 years and one of the worst in all federal law
enforcement history.
"I don't think I have ever heard of a law enforcement killing
field that lasted 45 minutes," ATF spokesman Jack Killoran said of
Sunday's shootout with ATF agents who tried to arrest cult leader
David Koresh on weapons charges. Besides the four agents who died,
16 others were wounded.
Members of the cult "were willing and ready and ripped us with
their firepower" as soon as agents arrived to arrest Koresh and
search the compound where authorities believed the cult had
stockpiled large numbers of weapons, Killoran said.
The carefully planned raid by 100 agents went awry because
members of the cult were tipped off to the imminent arrival of BATF
agents, Killoran said.
By Tuesday, both ATF and FBI negotiators were in contact by
telephone with members of the cult.
The apparent wounding and partial disabling of Koresh weakened
his control over the cult, allowing negotiators to talk with others
inside the compound, said an ATF official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
ATF agents in New York City, meanwhile, assisted the FBI's
investigation of the bombing beneath the World Trade Center. ATF
bomb specialists helped gather shards of physical evidence in what
Killoran likened to an archaeological dig.