Tests to find the cause of flashes on FBI infrared videotape shot in the final hours of the Branch Davidian siege will probably be meaningless because the camera used at Waco no longer exists, federal officials said Wednesday.
Authorities have refused to release anything about the make or capabilities of the FBI's infrared camera used to record the fiery end of the 1993 Davidian standoff. They cited national security and law enforcement secrecy rules.
But an FBI official said Wednesday that the camera was a one-of-a-kind instrument extensively upgraded after the 1993 incident and had capabilities that probably couldn't be duplicated with any other camera.
"It does not exist in the form that it was. It has been upgraded from analog to digital recording," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's a significant change that is so fundamental to a re-creation, I don't know how we can ever say how experts will be able to agree to a test protocol."
U.S. District Judge Walter Smith on Monday ordered infrared field tests at the request of the office of Waco special Counsel John Danforth. Earlier, the FBI offered to conduct a private "accurate recreation" for the independent counsel while government lawyers rejected proposals for a joint public test with the Davidians' lawyers.
FBI and Justice Department officials said they will cooperate with the court-ordered test, despite their doubts about its ability to resolve anything.
Lawyers for the sect have alleged in a federal wrongful death lawsuit that repeated bursts of white light captured by an airborne FBI infrared camera were muzzle blasts from guns government agents fired at the Branch Davidian compound. Judge Smith has scheduled the case for trial in mid-May.
The FBI says that none of its agents fired a single shot during the 51-day Davidian standoff. Although they once theorized that the flashes on the Waco infrared video might have come from sunlight reflections, bureau officials recently began telling reporters that the white blips of light were inexplicable electronic "anomalies" whose source will probably never be identified.
The issue is a cornerstone of the Branch Davidians' lawsuit, which alleges the government's gunfire kept innocent women and children trapped in the compound as it burned to the ground.
The fire erupted six hours after FBI tanks began ramming the building and spraying in tear gas on April 19, 1993. Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers died. Officials say that the sect deliberately set the fire and that the government's actions did not contribute to the final tragedy.
Last month, lawyers for the Branch Davidians challenged the government to joint infrared field tests. Guns similar to those deployed with the FBI and the Branch Davidians would be test-fired, and shots would be recorded by an airborne infrared camera.
Attorneys for the government rejected that and warned that any test would be hopelessly flawed without key technical data that they intended to withhold as national security secrets.
That triggered Mr. Danforth's request for court supervision. The judge's order set a one-week deadline for filing objections to a proposed test plan.
Neither side has filed formal responses.
But government officials acknowledged that the judge's order has forced the Justice Department's hand.
"Nobody thinks you can recreate it," said a top Justice official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It doesn't matter. We're going to participate."
The officials noted that the testing will be hampered by not only the alteration of the FBI's camera but also by the difficulty in trying to duplicate environmental conditions from the spring of 1993.
Mike Caddell, lead attorney for the sect, disputed that and called the FBI's claim about its camera equipment "absurd."
"They're saying there's only one camera in the world like the one they used, and it doesn't exist anymore? What crock," Mr. Caddell said. "How did the FBI intend to do a valid test for Mr. Danforth? They told him they could do an accurate recreation."
He said he was also disturbed that the government's position had shifted since the court order. "Before that, there was no mention that there was one piece of equipment in the world that could perform the test and it no longer existed," he said.
He said he will ask the court to explore whether the FBI camera could be restored to its 1993 condition for the field tests.
Officials with Mr. Danforth's office declined to comment.
The special counsel has already sought custody of hundreds of firearms the FBI deployed in Waco. Tuesday, Mr. Danforth's office also asked Judge Smith for temporary custody of shell casings found in a house used by FBI snipers during the siege. The same house was used by snipers of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms during a failed gun raid that touched off the Davidian siege.
Four ATF agents died when the gunbattle broke out on Feb. 28, 1993, and ATF officials have said that the dozen .308 shell casings found in the house may have come from their agents.
But some gun experts warn that it may be impossible to match the shell casings to either ATF or FBI guns because the high-performance rifles used by police snipers are frequently retooled and rebuilt to ensure accuracy.
An FBI official confirmed Wednesday that some of the guns Mr. Danforth is seeking have had barrels changed and have undergone other alterations since the siege.
Also Wednesday, Texas Rangers and 10 investigators from Mr. Danforth's office began examining tons of debris, burned ammunition and other "junk" evidence retained in Waco since the standoff. The search is expected to last all week.
And in Washington, a special subcommittee led by Sen. Arlen Specter, R.-Pa, won the right to seek subpoenas if needed for a new investigation into troubled Justice Department cases, including the Branch Davidian siege. Committee Democrats had complained about the broad scope and potential expense of the committee inquiry and warned that it could impede Mr. Danforth's investigation.
House investigators have already issued broad subpoenas as part of their re-examination of the Waco incident.
Staff writer David Jackson in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate panel approved a plan on Wednesday for issuing dozens of subpoenas as part of a broad congressional inquiry of the Justice Department's handling of the Waco, campaign finance and China spying investigations.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, brushing aside Democratic objections, approved a procedure to be used for issuing up to 38 subpoenas for thousands of documents related to the investigations.
Democrats said the subcommittee probe and the possible subpoenas were too broad and already had been covered by multiple congressional and government investigations.
The subpoenas, to be aimed at officials including Attorney General Janet Reno, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen, would seek ``any and all'' documents related to all three probes.
The subcommittee's investigation, launched on a wave of Republican unhappiness with Reno, is looking into lingering questions about whether the Justice Department bungled aspects of the probes.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is heading the investigation, said the subpoenas would be needed only if the material was not turned over voluntarily.
They could be issued during the congressional recess only if approved by committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah at the request of Specter and the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, Robert Torricelli of New Jersey.
``This is not a fishing expedition,'' Specter said. ``Let's find out what the facts are.''
But Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, a Democrat, said the subcommittee was going over old ground.
``We're going to run this simultaneously after we've already done this in the House and the Senate?'' Biden said of the Waco probe, noting it would clash with an ongoing investigation by former Sen. John Danforth, who has complained about Specter's investigation.
The new Waco investigations were prompted by the FBI's recent admission, after six years of denials, that its agents fired potentially flammable tear gas canisters at a concrete bunker hours before the Texas compound went up in flames, killing cult leader David Koresh and about 80 followers.
Specter said the probe's focus was expanded beyond the disastrous 1993 assault on the Branch Davidian compound because each of the other controversies raised questions about oversight of the Justice Department.
The department's handling of possible Chinese spying at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, nuclear lab, of questions surrounding possible high-technology transfers to Beijing by U.S. companies and of possible campaign finance irregularities during the 1996 election campaign also are being investigated.

Texas Rangers and investigators from the office of special counsel John Danforth will begin sifting through 12 tons of Branch Davidian evidence in Waco on Wednesday, searching for a missing tear-gas projectile and other items that may shed new light on the 1993 standoff.
Six Rangers will be joined by up to 10 members of Mr. Danforth's staff and congressional investigators for the examination of mounds of the burned remains of the Branch Davidian compound, officials said.
"This is evidence that frankly has never been intelligently looked at, so I'm sure we're going to find things that nobody knew were there," said James B.
Francis Jr., chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety Commission.
"Whatever we find, we intend to turn over to the court."
He said the search is expected to take at least three days.
The evidence, including hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition exploded by the fire, tools and machinery, has been stored for the last six years in a Waco warehouse. It fills 11 large storage boxes that have been moved to a neighboring maintenance shed north of downtown Waco for the search, officials said.
The collection represents the bulk of what was recovered after the Branch Davidian compound burned on April 19, 1993.
The fire erupted six hours after FBI agents began ramming the Branch Davidians' building with tanks and spraying in tear gas to try to force an end to a 51-day standoff.
The standoff began with a gunfight that erupted when agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to search the compound and arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh on weapons charges.
Mr. Koresh and more than 80 followers died in the fire, and arson investigators ruled that sect members deliberately set the fire.
But surviving Branch Davidians and families of the dead have alleged in a federal lawsuit that the government's actions were at least partially to blame for the tragedy.
They have alleged that the government's agents fired into the compound just before it burned, cutting off escape for women and children. They also say the tons of evidence collected from the compound rubble included pyrotechnic tear-gas grenades and incendiary devices the government used on April 19.
Federal attorneys have denied that they played any role in the blaze or that they fired gunshots during the siege. They have argued that the entire lawsuit, set for trial in May, is groundless.
But questions about what was in the evidence trove drew national attention last summer after U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. ruled that the case could go forward.
About the same time, Texas Rangers, who have been involved in the case since it began in 1993, approached the judge and asked him to take control of evidence that they were holding for federal authorities.
The Rangers were brought in to develop a murder case against Branch Davidians thought to have been involved in the Feb. 28, 1993, gunbattle that began the standoff. Four ATF agents were killed in the shootout.
Eight sect members were convicted of manslaughter and weapons charges and sentenced to up to 40 years in federal prison. Federal authorities then asked the Rangers to retain custody of the key pieces of evidence from theirinvestigation and the 1994 criminal trials.
Tons of evidence considered extraneous to the criminal case against the Branch Davidians has remained in storage in Waco for the past six years. It was never fully examined.
The Rangers asked the judge to take control of the Branch Davidian evidence stored in their Austin headquarters after DPS, their parent agency, became concerned that the evidence collection included items that might call into question the government's account of what happened in Waco. Mr. Francis and other DPS officials also expressed concern that their agency had become unwittingly entangled in a federal effort to block even the Branch Davidians' lawyers from gaining access to the evidence.
Judge Smith responded with an order in August demanding that everything even remotely connected with the siege should be turned over from every agency of the federal government. Government lawyers filed documents Monday indicating that the process has been completed with submission of more than 1 million pages of documents to the Waco court.
Late last summer, the Rangers worked to identify several mysterious projectiles and shell casings in their Branch Davidian evidence trove, and a former FBI official acknowledged that the agency had fired tear gas capable of sparking fires at the compound on the day it burned.
The former official insisted that the military tear gas grenade was fired hours before the fire and played no role in the blaze. But his admission shook six years of adamant government denials that anything pyrotechnic had been used that day.
After government officials acknowledged that pyrotechnic gas had been used, congressional leaders launched a new wave of Waco investigations. Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Mr. Danforth to re-examine the government's handling of the standoff.
In the aftermath, congressional investigators have complained that Justice Department and FBI officials knew for years about the use of the military pyrotechnic tear gas and failed to reveal it.
Since the Waco controversy reignited, the Rangers have continued trying to track down information about questioned items from the standoff.
Among the evidence they are trying to locate is a projectile from a military tear-gas round. It was photographed by DPS crime scene photographers but has since disappeared.
Rangers made a cursory examination of the Waco evidence trove in September, discovering a spent military parachute flare that had been misidentified as a nonpyrotechnic tear gas "ferret" round.
They then began planning a more intensive search, and officials with Mr. Danforth's office asked for the Rangers' help in inventorying the entire 26,000-pound collection.
"We're going to look for anything that may have evidentiary value to the court, and I expect we'll probably find some," Mr. Francis said.

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department and the FBI to engage in a reenactment of the final day of the Waco siege, using infrared cameras to help determine whether any federal agents shot at the Branch Davidians inside their compound.
In a ruling late Monday, U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith in Waco, Tex., agreed with attorneys for the surviving Davidians and special counsel John C. Danforth, both of whom had independently argued for the reenactment. The attorneys, as well as congressional investigators, have said that infrared tapes taken by the FBI during the assault show flashes suggestive of gunfire. The FBI has suggested the flashes were caused by sunlight reflecting off broken glass.
Citing concerns about the disclosure of classified law enforcement information, the Justice Department had rebuffed the Davidian requests for a reenactment to determine what may have caused the flashes. The FBI had offered to conduct a private demonstration, but for Danforth alone.
"The court is persuaded that one [infrared] test should be conducted, with participation and observation by the parties and the Office of Special Counsel," Smith wrote in his order.
Although FBI officials have voiced concern that duplicating the conditions of the siege would be difficult, if not impossible, FBI spokesman Bill Carter said, "We will make every effort to comply with the court order."
"The order is everything we had asked for," said Michael A. Caddell, a plaintiff's attorney for the Davidians.
In another signal that Danforth is aggressively pursing the question of possible government gunfire, his office asked the FBI late last week to turn over the more than 400 weapons used by federal agents during the April 19, 1993, assault that ended in a fire and left about 75 sect members dead. Carter said the bureau would comply with Danforth's request.
Danforth's office wants to conduct ballistics tests to see if bullets recovered from the scene match any of the guns' unique barrel rifling patterns. Spent shell casings will also be compared to FBI weapons' firing pins. Both tests could determine if any FBI agents' weapons were fired that day. However, gun barrels are often replaced and firing pins polished as part of regular annual maintenance, which might render the tests inconclusive.
The FBI and Justice Department have maintained that no government agents fired any shots that day, despite enduring gunfire from the Davidians. Plaintiffs attorneys in the wrongful-death suit filed by Davidian survivors contend that FBI agents fired at the Davidians during a blaze that broke out in the compound, preventing them from escaping.
Caddell has raised questions about why the FBI has never tested the guns. "We didn't have a reason to, because no one fired a shot," a senior FBI official said.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Over objections from Democrats, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved subpoenas Wednesday for dozens of officials and thousands of documents relating to the Waco siege and other Justice Department controversies.
Democratic senators complained particularly that the information and testimony regarding the fiery end of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993 would impede the separate investigation of the same matter by former Sen. John Danforth, who was appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno.
``Let him file his report first,'' Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., told the committee. ``We're going to run this simultaneously, after we did this in the House and in the Senate? They found nothing.''
``This is not a fishing expedition,'' said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the subcommittee overseeing the investigations. ``Let's just find out what the facts are.''
Earlier this fall, after new revelations about the FBI's use of force during the siege in Texas, Danforth complained twice to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the Judiciary Committee chairman, that Specter had sent aides to interview witnesses and secure evidence ahead of Danforth. Specter later said he would stay out of Danforth's way. As the independent investigator reviewed evidence in Waco on Wednesday, the committee granted Specter's request for subpoenas of documents from Reno and Defense Secretary William Cohen. Also subpoenaed were 12 officials, including Texas Rangers and federal agents involved in the siege and its aftermath.
Specter also won permission to issue subpoenas covering allegations of China's theft of U.S. nuclear technology from government research labs, the transfer of U.S. satellite technology to China, and Democratic campaign finance abuses.
On Waco, which Specter has deemed less a priority than the espionage question, the senator is seeking from Reno ``any and all documents relating to the actions of any department personnel, including the FBI, at the Branch Davidian compound'' during the 51-day siege, including forensic and ballistic tests.
Specter will issue the request to Cohen on the role played by military personnel on the scene, including a list of ``major items of equipment or other types of support to law enforcement.''
Also Wednesday, Danforth's investigators and the Texas Rangers began pouring over some 12 tons of evidence from the debris of the Davidians' compound.
The evidence, which fills 11 large storage boxes in a Waco maintenance shed, reportedly includes hundreds of thousands of rounds of spent ammunition, tools and other machinery.
Officials have said the evidence trove was never fully examined since much of was considered extraneous to the criminal case against surviving Branch Davidians.
In a motion filed in federal court Tuesday, Danforth said he wanted to perform independent tests on some remains - specifically a dozen shell casings found in a sniper outpost used by federal agents during the standoff.
The tests could help determine whether federal agents fired shots during the siege.
The government long has denied its agents fired shots during the seven-week standoff and has suggested the shell casings were fired by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms during the raid on Feb. 28, 1993, that triggered the lengthy standoff.

Turning aside prolonged federal objections, a U.S. district judge on Monday ordered independent field testing to help determine whether government agents fired at the Branch Davidian compound in the last hours of a 1993 siege.
U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. of Waco issued a three-page order late Monday saying that he was "persuaded" by arguments from Branch Davidian lawyers and the office of special counsel John Danforth that the tests are needed to resolve whether flashes of light recorded by FBI infrared cameras came from government gunfire.
FBI officials say none of their agents fired a gunshot during the 51-day standoff, and flashes recorded by an airborne FBI infrared camera just before the Branch Davidian compound burned were inexplicable electronic "anomalies."
But FBI officials secretly offered to conduct private tests for Mr. Danforth and his investigators, even as Justice Department lawyers last month rejected a proposal by the Branch Davidians' lawyers for a joint public test, according a Nov. 5 letter to the court from Mr. Danforth's office.
Those actions and a warning from Justice Department lawyers that they planned to use national security exemptions to withhold data needed to ensure accurate public tests prompted Mr. Danforth's office on Nov. 5 to seek a court-supervised test.
The special counsel's office also has asked the FBI to turn over its hundreds of guns deployed at Waco for ballistics comparisons and other testing. Officials said they are still working out the logistics to ensure that the "precise" weapons are surrendered but expect to comply. Those weapons could be used in the court-supervised infrared tests.
Testing FBI guns also could resolve the origin of a dozen .308-shell casings found in a house used by FBI snipers during the siege. Agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms also used the house during a gunfight, which broke out as the ATF tried to search the compound and arrest sect leader David Koresh on weapons violations. Four ATF agents died in the battle that began the 51-day standoff.
All of the ATF's guns used at Waco were sent in 1993 for testing by the FBI laboratory, but records indicate there was no effort to tie any of the guns to the shell casings.
In Monday's order, Judge Smith echoed the special counsel's concern that federal actions set the stage for dueling public and private infrared field tests.
"The court is persuaded that one FLIR [infrared] test should be conducted, with participation and observation by the parties and the OSC [office of special counsel]," he wrote.

Backing the judge

Mike Caddell, the Branch Davidians' lead lawyer, said the decision could prove key to the sect's efforts to prove the government should be held at least partially to blame for the tragedy.
"It again demonstrates that Judge Smith wants to get at the truth," he said. "If they really believe that's not gunfire on that video, then the government's lawyers should embrace this test with open arms."
A wrongful-death lawsuit scheduled for May trial in Judge Smith's court alleges that government agents fired into the Branch Davidian compound, cutting off escape for 17 children and other innocents as the compound caught fire. The fire erupted six hours after FBI agents began ramming the compound with tanks and spraying tear gas to force a surrender on April 19, 1993.
Justice Department lawyers have said the allegations are baseless. They have noted that arson investigators ruled that a fire that consumed the compound along with Mr. Koresh and more than 80 followers was deliberately set by the sect.
Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin said the order is under review. He declined to comment further . The special counsel's office could not be reached.
The ruling could help resolve a long public debate about the source of the dozens of blips of light captured on the FBI's April 19 infrared video - flashes that appear to emanate from both government and Branch Davidian positions.
Experts hired by the Branch Davidians' lawyers say the flashes came from gunfire. Some independent experts - including an analyst for the House Government Reform Committee - have echoed that conclusion.
But experts retained by the government say that the FBI infrared camera was too far away, and the flashes lasted too long to be gunfire.

Experts needed

Judge Smith's order gave both sides and Mr. Danforth 10 days to propose an expert to oversee the test. The judge set a Nov. 22 deadline for objections to a plan for experts from each side and one representing Mr. Danforth to help develop test protocols.
Also Monday, federal lawyers told the court that they have surrendered to the Waco court all government siege records.
More than a million pages of government materials have been turned over, including 7,000 pages of classified Defense Department documents, more than 3,000 pages of White House records and secret records from the CIA and the U.S. Commerce Department, government filings indicate.
Judge Smith ordered the action in August. But government lawyers spent months fighting it, prompting the judge to warn earlier this month that he would tolerate no more stalling and was "suspect of the government's desire to comply with [his] orders."
Previous government pleadings stated that the White House might try to withhold some records under executive privilege. Monday's filing said that the president's lawyers had sent all relevant records.
But Monday's pleading indicated that Justice Department lawyers still may try to invoke executive privilege or other legal exemptions to block Branch Davidian lawyers and even Judge Smith from examining some documents.
They may include records detailing the presence of secret military units and equipment and information about sensitive law enforcement equipment, including the FBI's infrared video cameras, earlier government filings indicated.
Monday's government pleading offered few new details concerning what has been surrendered to the court.

Classified document

It made no mention of a classified White House document described in earlier pleadings, which the president's lawyers had earlier suggested officials would withhold "until further notice."
The Clinton administration said that document detailed a secret foreign policy briefing that included a passing comparison of the Branch Davidian standoff to the rebellion in Chechnya.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the reference to Waco was declassified for submission to the court. The officials said the reference was "oblique" and did not come from a White House official.
The officials added that White House records relating to the siege were not controversial. The Administration has long maintained that President Clinton played a minimal role in the incident.
But records from other agencies hint of more White House involvement than previously acknowledged.
Notes from the FBI's hostage rescue team indicate that its commander went to Washington to brief the White House along with two senior Army special forces commanders during the final days of the standoff.
Justice and Defense Department officials have said the officers, veterans of the Army's secret anti-terrorist Delta Force unit, visited Waco and then briefed Attorney General Janet Reno about the FBI's plans for a tank-and-tear-gas assault on the compound.
But notes found this fall at the hostage rescue team's headquarters in Quantico, Va., offered a different account. The notes, dated April 13, 1993, stated that the FBI's chief tactical commander and the Army officers were summoned to Washington to "brief White House - liaison Mr. Hubble [sic]," adding "Hubble want [sic] military expert's opinion of the operation."
Webster Hubbell was then an assistant attorney general and chief liaison between the president and the attorney general's office.
Other notes found at Quantico indicate that a formal plan for a tear-gas assault on the Branch Davidian compound was sent by fax to the White House in early March as FBI commanders sought a "green light" to take action against the sect.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The special counsel re-investigating the 1993 Branch Davidian siege has asked the FBI to turn over the firearms carried by its on-scene personnel to determine whether federal agents fired shots during the standoff's final hours.
The FBI has long denied that its agents fired any shots during the seven-week standoff, which ended when the Davidians' compound was destroyed in a fiery inferno. Cult leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died during the blaze, some from the fire, others from gunshot wounds.
While the FBI and Justice Department have always maintained the Branch Davidians killed themselves, independent filmmakers, lawyers for survivors suing the government, and others skeptical of the claim contend government agents fired at the compound.
Special counsel John Danforth, appointed in September by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate the revived controversy, has said the issue of government gunfire will be among the ``dark questions'' he will seek to answer.
Two weeks ago, Danforth asked the federal judge presiding over the Davidians' wrongful-death lawsuit to order an impartial simulation of the FBI's infrared videotaping during the siege to determine whether bursts of light captured on the original tapes were made by gunfire from federal agents.
Now, he is asking the FBI to turn over hundreds of firearms for ballistics tests.
``Their request came in, and we are complying with the request,'' FBI spokesman Bill Carter said Monday, declining further comment.
Danforth's office refused to discuss the request, first reported by CBS News, or say who would conduct the tests.
Lawyers for the surviving Branch Davidians say shell casings found inside a sniper outpost were from FBI sharpshooters' weapons. Government officials say the shell casings were fired during the Feb. 28 botched raid that triggered the 51-day standoff, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents sought to serve weapons warrants on the Branch Davidians.
ATF spokesman Jeffrey Roehm said he was unaware of any request by Danforth's office for the ATF weapons used at Waco.

WACO, Texas (CNN) -- An independent, scientific test designed to help determine whether federal agents shot at Branch Davidians the day the Davidian compound burned in 1993 can now go forward.
Judge Walter Smith issued his decision late Monday in response to a request from Special Counsel John Danforth. The former U.S. senator from Missouri is heading an independent probe into the standoff and requested that the court supervise such a test.
The test is designed to simulate conditions on April 19, 1993 when an FBI infrared aerial surveillance camera taped the use of tear gas at the Branch Davidian compound, before it went up in flames. At least 80 people inside the compound were killed.
Attorneys in the wrongful death case brought by surviving Branch Davidians claim flashes seen on the infrared tape indicate guns were fired.
Federal officials say government agents did not fire a single shot throughout the 51-day siege of the compound. However authorities have been unable to explain the flashes on the tape.
After announcing his decision, Smith asked lawyers for both sides to suggest unbiased, potential experts for consultation on the infrared test.
The expert, along with representatives for the government and the Branch Davidians, will determine where and how the test will be conducted.
In a related development Monday, federal attorneys said they have turned over to the court all materials the federal government has compiled concerning the Branch Davidian raid and siege.
Monday was the deadline set by the court for the materials to be received.
On Wednesday, representatives for the federal government and the Branch Davidians are scheduled to look at some of the evidence collected from the Branch Davidian compound.
Correspondent Tony Clark contributed to this report.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation will turn over hundreds of guns carried by its agents at the Waco standoff to special counsel John Danforth, who is investigating the incident, the Associated Press said. FBI spokesman Bill Carter said the agency will honor the request but declined further comment, and Danforth's office refused to discuss it, AP said. Danforth, appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno in September to investigate the 1993 siege in which 80 cult members died, had said determining if shots were fired by the government into the Branch Davidian compound would be a focus of the investigation, AP said.
Reno sent U.S. marshals on Sept. 1 to retrieve FBI videotapes of the siege, saying she was disappointed that the agency waited five days after finding the them to notify the Justice Department.

>WASHINGTON (AP) - The special counsel re-investigating the 1993 Branch Davidian siege has asked the FBI to turn over the firearms carried by its on-scene personnel to determine whether federal agents fired shots during the deadly standoff's waning hours.
The FBI has long denied that its agents fired any shots during the seven-week standoff, which ended when the Davidians' compound was destroyed in a fiery inferno. Cult leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died during the blaze, some from the fire, others from gunshot wounds.
While the FBI and Justice Department have always maintained the Branch Davidians killed themselves, independent filmmakers, lawyers for survivors suing the government, and others skeptical of the claim contend government agents fired at the compound.
Special counsel John Danforth, appointed in September by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate the revived controversy, has said the issue of government gunfire will be among the ``dark questions'' he will seek to answer.
Two weeks ago, Danforth asked the federal judge presiding over the Davidians' wrongful-death lawsuit to order an impartial simulation of the FBI's infrared videotaping during the siege to determine whether bursts of light captured on the original tapes were made by gunfire from federal agents.
Now, he is asking the FBI to turn over hundreds of firearms for ballistics tests.
``Their request came in, and we are complying with the request,'' FBI spokesman Bill Carter said Monday, declining further comment.
Danforth's office refused to discuss the request, first reported by CBS News, or say who would conduct the tests.
Lawyers for the surviving Branch Davidians say shell casings found inside a sniper outpost were from FBI sharpshooters' weapons. Government officials say the shell casings were fired during the Feb. 28 botched raid that triggered the 51-day standoff, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents sought to serve weapons warrants on the Branch Davidians.
ATF spokesman Jeffrey Roehm said he was unaware of any request by Danforth's office for the ATF weapons used at Waco.
But spokesman Mark Corallo of the House Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the government's conduct during the siege, said aides were told that weapons used by ATF and Branch Davidians also figured in Danforth's request.
``The problem with the Davidian weapons is about 80 percent of them are severely damaged,'' Corallo said. ``They melted in the fire.''
Houston attorney James Brannon, representing the estates of three of Koresh's children in the lawsuit, questioned whether ballistics tests would turn up evidence that federal agents fired shots on April 19, 1993.
``If you've changed the barrel, if you've changed the firing mechanism, the firing pins and things ... then you look at the weapon, gosh, it's just not the same,'' Brannon said.
Separately Monday, the government complied with U.S. District Judge Walter Smith's demand that all Waco-related materials be turned over to his court for safekeeping. U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford, in a filing to the court, said the documents included 111 boxes of ATF materials and 41,000 pages, some classified, from the Defense Department.
The judge, who is presiding over the wrongful-death lawsuit, had threatened to hold Bradford in contempt of court if all of the evidence was not surrendered by Monday.
In an order Monday, the judge told Danforth, the plaintiffs and the government to recommend within 10 days a neutral expert for a court-supervised infrared videotape re-creation.
The plaintiffs' lead counsel, Houston lawyer Michael Caddell, welcomed the order.
``Anyone who is interested in the truth should embrace this order with open arms,'' said Caddell, whose offer last month that the government participate in a demonstration staged by the plaintiffs was summarily rejected by the Justice Department.
The FBI countered by proposing to stage a private test for Danforth. Saying duel tests would put the special counsel's office in an ``awkward position,'' Danforth proposed that the judge supervise an impartial demonstration.