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Can more of the "truth" still be out there? The range of truthmongers is broad. Thibodeau, for example, is one of nine people who emerged from the compound alive on April 19 and is an unnamed litigant in a class action, an excessive-force lawsuit in Texas by survivors and victims' families. His memory of the rocket in the chapel wall is part of his forthcoming book, A Place Called Waco. Others argue that the tear gas, at the very least, set the stage for an inadvertent inferno--a claim long since dismissed as bad science by an independent investigation. Meanwhile, Michael McNulty, a dogged FBI critic whose Waco documentary was nominated for an Oscar in 1998, has teamed up with Frederic Whitehurst, an FBI whistle blower, and is reportedly working on a second film, Waco: A New Revelation. It purportedly includes footage of an FBI helicopter opening fire on the Davidians on April 19. The FBI has always claimed that its agents never shot at the cultists and that it fielded additional tear-gas-bearing Bradley tanks only when fired upon.
The trouble for Reno and the FBI is not so much with what's out there as with the facts that may still be undetected and undigested in their files. James B. Francis, civilian overseer of the Texas department of public safety and thus head of the elite Texas Rangers (regional rivals of the FBI), told TIME, "I have known for some time that certain pieces of evidence may be problematic to what the FBI public position has been." He has had his department petition federal court to determine custody of the tons of documentary and physical evidence gathered at the Branch Davidian site, seeking to take it out of the unplumbable depths of FBI bureaucracy and make it available to outside experts. Francis was involved in another controversy last week when he told the Dallas Morning News that Delta Force units--whose existence the Pentagon is loath to confirm--may have taken part in the siege, a violation of the law. The Pentagon conceded that three Army personnel were in Waco on April 19 but only as observers and technical advisers.
It was the Morning News' questions about persistent rumors of pyrotechnic devices that led to a re-examination of the record and Reno's admission. Until then, she and the FBI had said only "cold" means had been used to disperse tear gas, and dismissed the notion that heat-producing devices had been deployed. Among those who made the denials was Danny Coulson, a senior official at the operations center in Washington at the time and founder of the FBI's hostage-rescue team (HRT). But shortly after once again denying the story to the Dallas paper, he heard that the Texas Rangers had taken a statement from an FBI employee saying that military rounds had indeed been deployed. Now retired, Coulson (whose book No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter-Terror Force was co-authored by TIME's Elaine Shannon) made inquiries through his network of contacts. Says he: "I was made aware of one photograph that depicted one of these devices in a puddle of water" after it had been used. "I also learned that a news crew had videotaped the incident and that it had occurred in the early morning." Coulson, who says he was "gravely disappointed" by the discovery, confirmed it to the Morning News last week.