"...during the first week of the standoff … It was generally agreed that … the FBI would use armored vehicles to punch holes and insert gas into the building" (Source: Dept. of Justice Report, pg. 122). Bashing holes in the Mt. Carmel Center vented the building—the vents then served to support a roaring, hot fire. The Report indicates the fire was planned from the beginning, not "predicted." (Image: KVUE, April 19, 1993, "Waco Mount Carmel Center siege: 30 years later" @ 4:14/7:04 [color adjusted])

Some people had amazing prescience of the future horrific events.

Davidian Child Psychiatrist

Nineteen children left the Mt. Carmel Center in the early days of the siege and were put in the care of the Methodist Children's Home in Waco. Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist who worked with the children, claimed that the Davidian children knew ahead of time that the siege would end in fire.

Perry said he also observed startling behavior foreshadowing the events of April 19. He said the children sang apocalyptic songs and drew 'end of days'-type imagery. "Younger kids would draw a picture of the compound with fire coming out of it and I'd say, 'What's that?' And they'd say, 'That's none of your business. You'll find out,'" Perry said. (Source: ABC News, January 4, 2018, "Branch Davidian children's drawings foretold deadly Waco fire, psychiatrist says", Cache)

That information is surely not startling. The Davidians believed in the Apocalypse, a religious prediction that the world will end in fire.

FBI Relied on "Religious Researcher" with Criminal Record

Francis X. Leahy, whom The Dallas Morning News described as an "independent religious researcher," submitted a 40-page analysis on the Waco siege to the FBI on April 8, 1993 entitled The Mind of David Koresh, just eleven days before the inferno. On pg. 36, Leahy predicted:

1. The standoff, as it now exists, will end after Sunday, April 18th, which will complete the seven week cycle for tribulations. At the completion of that cycle an angel of the Lord is to give an analysis of the situation, and tell David what to do. It must be a fiery ending, and David and a number of his followers must die.
2. Whether it be on the Sunday marking the beginning of the eighth week, or a day or two later, there will be some aggressive action by the Federal law enforcement officials. Suicide is not written in the book. David and his followers must be slain. That means something must be set up, even if the final conflagration is caused internally, it must be because of some act of the law enforcement officials. (Source: Materials Relating to the Investigation Into the Activities of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Toward the Branch Davidians, pg. 758, 14th U.S. Congress)

Elements of that prediction had earlier been published several newspapers. (Source: The Dallas Morning News, April 22, 1993: "Report given to FBI predicted 'fiery ending' to cult standoff"; Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1993, "Waco Man Foretold How and When it Would End", cached)

Leahy predicted a fire on April 18, 19, or 20, and he was right. He predicted a fire after some "aggressive action" by the US, and he was right about that, too. (Source: The Dallas Morning News, April 22, 1993, "A Prediction of the End").

The next day, we learned that Leahy had a long criminal record stretching back to 1962 for crimes that included passing bad checks, drunk driving, armed robbery, and stealing $100,000 from an Alzheimer's patient in his care. He spent at least 11 years in prison (Source: The Dallas Morning News, April 23, 1993, "Author of report on cult has long criminal record; Man had predicted fiery end to standoff").

Given such propensity for getting crosswise of the law, he could easily be coerced into saying anything at all. All things considered, he was a poor choice as a scholarly consultant to the FBI in this most critical circumstance.

Coincidentally, Francis X. Leahy was married to Joyce Sparks, the Child Protective Services social worker who investigated the child abuse charges against David Koresh (Source: The Dallas Morning News, April 22, 1993, "A prediction of the end").

The allegations of "child abuse" were never substantiated. (Source: TheWashington Post, April 25, 1993, "Abuse allegations unproven", cached; The Dallas Morning News May 5, 1993, "4 bodies found in tunnels; Officials think they were killed in raid").

FBI Commanders

If foreknowledge of the fire by the Davidian children is evidence of Davidian planning and intent, foreknowledge of the fire by FBI commanders must also be evidence of planning and intent. For example:

April 5 [1993] … In a phone message to FBI headquarters, Waco tactical commanders say they won't try to fight fires that break out if there is a gas assault. (Source: The Dallas Morning News, Feb 27, 2018, "51 days under siege: A timeline of the Branch Davidian standoff", cached)

"If" there is a gas assault, the FBI won't try to fight the resulting fires??

It is pretty clear: The FBI commanders knew about plans for the gas attack, and knew that it might (or would) cause a fire—or provide cover for a fire. Imagine public servants planning a strategy that might set fire to a building full of mothers and children. And imagine those same commanders declaring two weeks in advance that when a fire started, they would not even try to put out the fire to save those lives.

That statement could be presented in a criminal trial as evidence of premeditated murder.

Public Relations at Work

Let's look at the Joint Special Operations manual. It says that because of "political sensitivities," many special operations, "especially in peacetime, … thorough and accurate" public affairs programs must be developed and undertaken before the operations are effected. The purpose is to "integrate accurate representation of the mission to domestic audiences …" (Source: Doctrine for Joint Special Operations, October 28, 1992, Chapter V, paragraph 8). "Domestic audiences" is us, folks. The figure in the cross-hairs of psychological operations is the American citizen.

So here, in Leahy's "prediction," we see the public relations arm of Special Operations at work. They prepared a "thorough and accurate" public affairs program (prediction of fire) in advance of the operation (the fire), to "integrate accurate representation of the mission to domestic audiences …"

Long before the Waco Holocaust, the term "doomsday cult" had been carefully sewn into the culture. It was first coined by John Lofland in his 1964 doctoral thesis entitled The World Savers: A Field Study of Cult Processes, published in book form in 1966 by Prentice-Hall. The book introduced the expression "doomsday cult" to the English language, and since then, the expression is in common use (Source: Wikipedia: "Doomsday cult"). Various incidents through the years since then have cast the trope in concrete, including the Jonestown Massacre of 1978 in Guyana.

David Koresh often talked and preached about the end-of-the-world prophesies in the Biblical Books of Daniel and Revelation—as do half the Protestant preachers in America. The big media called the Branch Davidians a "doomsday cult" and an "apocalyptic cult" over and over, and repeatedly suggested they were a "mass suicide cult." See The Dallas Morning News, for example:

This coverage by The Dallas Morning News is only a sampling of the nation's coverage, but the tone was universally the same for all papers and broadcasters. The prediction of mass suicide throughout the airwaves was almost a chant, like a mob in the street yelling "Jump! Jump! Jump!" at a distraught waif standing on the rail of a 9th floor balcony.

Notice the March 7 mention of "what lay beyond the high walls of the Branch Davidian compound." The claim of "high walls" is easily debunked by photographs published in newspapers, magazines, and government reports. It stands as clear evidence of the manufactured lies about the incident and the Branch Davidians. In light of those inventions, we should be skeptical of the statements attributed to Koresh, and all else that cannot be independently verified.

The "negotiators" asked Koresh many times whether he intended to commit suicide. And each time, he denied it. Meanwhile, FBI snipers (such as Lon Horiuchi) were on the scene—for what purpose? To ensure that Koresh didn't miss?

The narrative resembles a psychological thriller in which the killer publicly and repeatedly begs the victim, "Please don't kill yourself!" The American public was perfectly set up to believe the Davidians would and did commit suicide. The timing of the lengthy siege might have been driven by opinion polls to determine when the public had accepted the hook.