U.S. Agents Blame Koresh for Prolonging Siege

Federal agents castigated cult leader David Koresh on Thursday as the sole cause of the continuing siege of his fortified compound, describing him as irrational and incapable of intelligent conversation.

Koresh has caused every opportunity of ending the standoff to “vaporize in front of us,” said FBI agent Bob Ricks.

The federal authorities said three buses had been driven to the Branch Davidian compound on Wednesday, when it was believed that as many as 30 people were about to come out. But the buses returned empty after another futile phone conversation with Koresh.

“As we pressed for a firm commitment, he gave a thinly veiled excuse and said he had to go to the restroom,” said Ricks. “He never came back to the phone.”

During a raid Feb. 28, four Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were killed and 16 others were injured trying to execute a search warrant for possible illegal weapons in the compound. Ricks said he had come to believe that Koresh not only wants to die, but also take a number of his followers with him.

“We believe Koresh would like to see a lot of people die, which would be justification of his (scriptural) pronouncements,” said Ricks. Koresh has in the past preached that he and a number of his followers would be killed in a major conflagration.

Ricks also said that neither Koresh nor any of his followers expressed any fear about another major gun battle. Rather, Koresh’s followers had fallen so much under his spell that religion was the only thing that mattered.

“Any fear they express is about losing their eternal souls,” he said.

Ricks said the negotiations were like a “dueling contest between various Bible scholars. The challenge is to prove that David is wrong, which of course is an impossible task.”

In another development Thursday, cult member Kathryn Schroeder won a pyrrhic victory when federal Magistrate Dennis Green ruled that she should be allowed to go free. But federal prosecutors immediately appealed the ruling, keeping Schroeder in jail at least until a hearing Wednesday.

Schroeder, the mother of four, is one of the four adult cult members who have left the compound since the siege began. Her husband was killed in the shootout.

Her lawyer, Scott Peterson, said the decision and appeal would send a “mixed message” to those still inside the compound.