AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Attorney General Janet Reno fought off angry questions Monday night from a small group of Branch Davidian supporters who labeled her the ``Butcher of Waco.''
Reno was visiting the University of Texas to lecture about community problem solving.
Led by Austin talk show host Alex Jones, fewer than a dozen protesters carried signs bashing Reno and the Clinton administration outside the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum before Reno's speech. Jones labeled Reno the ``Butcher of Waco'' and the ``Supreme Obstructer of Justice.''
Reno never mentioned the Waco raid during her 45-minute speech, which touched on topics ranging from crime and education to technology and volunteerism.
During the question and answer session, Jones and others were heckled by the audience of several hundred as they asked Reno about the April 19, 1993, fire at the Davidian compound.
The blaze ended a 51-day standoff between Davidian leader David Koresh and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI. Some 80 followers died, some from the fire, others from gunshot wounds. ``Janet Reno has systematically suppressed evidence, covered up her wrongdoings, and engaged in dozens of other Byzantine practices,'' Jones said.
Reno refused to comment about most of the Waco-related questions, citing the investigation by former Sen. John Danforth, the independent counsel who is looking into whether federal personnel fired into the retreat as it burned to the ground.
Congress also continues to investigate.
``Yes, I owe an explanation to the American people and I have given it once, twice, a third time and I will continue to give it, but at the time now with Senator Danforth investigating I think I owe it to him to make sure that he can conduct this investigation in the appropriate way,'' Reno said.
Last week, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to throw out key parts of the wrongful-death lawsuit against the government over the Waco raid. The case, brought by surviving Davidians and relatives of those who died, is scheduled for trial in mid-May.

Last October, an investigator for Waco special counsel John C. Danforth visited a federal prison in Louisiana to interview Graeme Craddock, one of nine survivors of the government's siege on the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas, in 1993.
What the two men talked about is secret. But Craddock gave another sworn statement later that month that provided new evidence that the Branch Davidians started a fire that killed dozens of people on the last day of the siege, April 19, 1993.
"It looked to me like they were pouring fuel on the floor," Craddock said in a deposition. A short time later, he said, he heard Mark Wendel, another Branch Davidian, say, "Light the fire." Craddock said he looked up at the sky. "I could see black bits of debris falling, like snow, black snow," he said.
Craddock's testimony seems to support the government's contention that the Branch Davidians started the fire. His recollections are among hundreds of pages of recently released depositions from a score of witnesses, including many government agents, that give a rough idea of how Danforth's investigation is progressing. Although the depositions were taken in a separate court case, the testimony is from many of the same agents Danforth has interviewed.
So far, the case against the government does not appear much stronger than it was five months ago, when Danforth began looking into what he called the four dark questions surrounding the tragedy.
No proof of illegal military involvement has turned up. No new evidence of a government cover-up has emerged. And the weight of the evidence indicates that the Branch Davidians started the fire.
That would leave only one question: Did government agents fire weapons during their final assault on the complex? And that question appears to have become the focus of Danforth's inquiry.
In depositions taken by Branch Davidian lawyers and in interviews on Capitol Hill, no witness reported government gunfire. That is why next month's test of flashes on an infrared tape of the incident looms large.
Danforth clearly considers the flashes to be important information, and several reputable experts say the flashes are gunfire. If Danforth can prove that government gunfire trapped the Branch Davidians in the complex, then there would have to have been a cover-up as well because the government has consistently maintained that no agent fired a weapon.
In September, when Danforth got the Waco assignment from Attorney General Janet Reno, he said he would focus on bad acts, not bad judgment. But where to draw that line is not always clear, and the fire is a good example.
Behind the question of who started the fire are more complex issues, such as whether FBI commanders suspected that their tear gas attack could prompt some of the group's members to start a suicide fire.
As originally approved by Reno, the plan called for tanks to gas the complex for 48 hours before the tanks would start breaking into the wooden building.
But within a few hours of the gassing, as Branch Davidians fired on them, the tanks began ramming the front and back walls.
Attorneys for the Branch Davidian survivors who have sued the government in a wrongful death claim say that deviation from the plan led to fatal consequences and justifies naming as individual defendants the FBI's on-scene commanders: Jeffrey Jamar and Richard Rogers.
In court documents filed last week, the lawyers quoted Gary Noesner, an FBI hostage negotiator, as saying, "Any negotiator would have told them (Jamar and Rogers) that dismantling the building would provoke a violent response." Also quoted in the documents was Peter Smerick, an FBI criminal profiler. According to a Department of Justice internal review, Smerick said he told Jamar they could not send in the tanks because "children would die and the FBI would be blamed even if they were not responsible." The documents said deviating from the approved plan to tear down the building contributed to the tragic outcome at the Branch Davidian's Mount Carmel complex, 12 miles northeast of Waco.
Is deviating from the plan a bad act or bad judgment? Lawyers for the Justice Department say it's a judgment call. The commanders must make decisions, the lawyers said, based on the conditions at Mount Carmel, the weapons inside and the prior use of deadly force during an initial raid on the complex Feb. 28.
Using a converted tank to clear a path through the building for tear gas was based on law enforcement policy, including considerations of resources, risk, danger and the urgency of their mission, government lawyers said in court documents last week. The move was within the FBI's discretion and couldn't be second-guessed, the government lawyers added, even if the commanders knew the Branch Davidians might shoot at the tanks or would view the assault as an attack and refuse to surrender.
What's next?
After a test in March of the infrared information, Judge Walter S. Smith Jr.
will convene the wrongful death trial in May. Smith was once criticized as a hanging judge who had given excessive sentences to the surviving Branch Davidians. But recently, he has been tough on the government, forcing a massive turnover of documents. Danforth undoubtedly will wait until after the trial to report.
The plans of congressional committees investigating Waco are uncertain. Political considerations seem to militate against high-profile hearings. Democrats are playing defense because they don't want President Bill Clinton's administration to look bad, and the Republicans who control Congress count law enforcement in its core constituency.
In the Senate, a spokesman for Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said last week that Waco is neither on the front burner or back burner.
"It's sort of a side-burner issue," he said.

Government attorneys in the Branch Davidian wrongful-death lawsuit asked a federal judge in Waco on Friday to dismiss portions of the suit relating to how the FBI brought the 51-day standoff with David Koresh and his followers to an end.
The lawyers claimed sovereign immunity for actions relating to government law enforcement duties. Attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. to dismiss negligence claims arising from the way agents dealt with the fire at Mount Carmel and the manner in which they pumped tear gas into the structure before the fire started.
Government attorneys assert that agents acted reasonably when they held back Waco-area firefighting units, including volunteers. They say Branch Davidians were shooting at the military vehicles during the insertion of the tear gas, and might have also targeted firefighters.
"The grounds for this motion are that there is no genuine issue as to the material fact that the Branch Davidians were directing gunfire at vehicles that approached their compound and, therefore, it was reasonable as a matter of law to hold the fire trucks and civilian firefighting personnel away from the compound until the gunfire ceased," the government motion states.
Also, the government attorneys allege, testimony from Branch Davidian Graeme Craddock confirms that fuel was spread intentionally inside the compound and the fire was lit by one or more of the Branch Davidians. Because sect members started the fire, the government is not responsible for the fire and is entitled to a partial summary judgment in the case, according to the motion.
The three issues to be decided at trial, which is scheduled for May 15, are whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms used excessive force during the Feb. 28, 1993, raid on Koresh's compound; whether the FBI used excessive force during the insertion of the tear gas; and whether the FBI was negligent in how it handled the fire.
Koresh and 75 of his followers died on April 19, 1993, after a wind-swept fire consumed their home 12 miles east of Waco.
Branch Davidian survivors claim that FBI aerial infrared surveillance tapes show that FBI agents fired into the compound as it burned, cutting off Davidians' escape routes.
The FBI has denied that it fired on the final day.
Lead plaintiff attorney Mike Caddell of Houston said he might be willing to concede that it was proper to hold back the civilian volunteer firefighters once the fire started. Besides shots being fired, ammunition was "cooking off" in the fire, he said.
However, the government should have been more prepared for the tragedy before it started its tear gas assault, he said.
"We have to look long and hard at that, but the point is that the people on the scene failed to implement the attorney general's instructions," Caddell said. "She (Janet Reno) had told them to have adequate firefighting equipment on the scene, and in fact, they had even contacted the Department of Defense to inquire into having armored firefighting equipment there.
"But what do they end up doing? The firefighting equipment was the Bellmead volunteer firefighters who only had two paid employees during the day. That is not acceptable," Caddell said.

The new church being built outside Waco for the Branch Davidians is nearing completion, awaiting a few final touches - such as a fire-retardant treatment.
"It makes it hard to burn the wood," said Alex Jones, the right-wing radio host who used his talk show to organize volunteers for the project. "Just in case there's any arson problem ever again from vandals and others, like our friends in the federal government." Jones said the church, a 40-by-65 foot building smack on the spot where the Davidians' old chapel sat, will be ready by April 19, the seventh anniversary of the fire that ended the government's 51-day siege of Mount Carmel and led to the deaths of David Koresh and 75 followers.
"It's been historic and it's been enjoyable," said Jones, who lives in Austin and whose radio program is syndicated by Genesis Communication Network in 60 cities nationally. "We'll easily have it done by the 19th. We're going to plant some shrubs and trees, just like there were before the tanks ran over them, and we'll have the Davidian flag back flapping high on a new flagpole." Davidian Sheila Martin, who lost her husband, Wayne, a Waco attorney, and four children in the 1993 fire, praised the volunteers building the church.
"They're the kind of people who believe if you lose your home, you should have a place to live," Martin said, "if you lose your church, you should have a place to worship. Hopefully, thanks to them, I won't have to always think of this as a sad place, but as a place where people showed their love." The only fighting at Mount Carmel recently has been over ownership of the property.
Besides the surviving Davidians, Amo Roden Bishop (the ex-wife of the late George Roden, who lost a power struggle to Koresh) and Douglas Mitchell, who was a Davidian before Koresh became the group's leader, have staked claims to Mount Carmel.
The surviving Davidians, about 20 of whom live in the Waco area, have won the most recent court skirmishes. They also pay the taxes on the property.
Construction started on a church for them last September. Early on a Sunday morning, Jones led a convoy of about 50 vehicles from Austin to Mount Carmel, which is about 10 miles east of Waco. About 100 men, women and children began work on the church's pier-and-beam foundation. "God Bless the Renegades" blasted from stereo speakers and several people wore buttons proclaiming, "You burn it, We build it." Most weekends since, work has continued on the Davidian church.
Jones - who can quickly launch into a diatribe, then, just as quickly, apologize politely for rambling - admits the project began half-way as a political statement.
"It can't help but be one, when you think about it," Jones said. "But I was also disgusted no one was helping these people. These people were abused, left out there with their whole community destroyed. I'm about action. I don't like to watch bad things going on. I said, 'Let's try to heal some of the wounds.'" About $60,000 has been spent so far building the Davidian church, Jones said. Much of the outside of the building is complete. The inside, however, is largely unfinished. Materials like insulation, sheetrock, electrical supplies and paint are needed for that. Concrete is also needed to build an outside wheelchair ramp.
Information on the materials needed can be found on Jones' Web site (http://www.infowars.com ).
"The only satisfaction these people are going to get is from the community," Jones said. "They're not going to get it from the federal government or that judge, who keeps restricting the case any way he can, or the state, which was derelict in its duty in allowing the feds in there in the first place. The only ones who are going to help are those sick of hearing all the propaganda and know these are kind, decent people barely able to eke out a living. Maybe this will give them hope." There's been talk of rebuilding Mount Carmel to more closely resemble what it used to look like, a rambling two-story structure with a tower that dominated the horizon for miles.
But Martin said those days are gone forever.
Like the group's informal leader, Clive Doyle, Martin would rather see a series of homes built at Mount Carmel for the remaining Davidians.
"I think we've all enjoyed our privacy," Martin said. "We know it can't be the way it was. The families, the people, the different nationalities, all the things that made up Mount Carmel won't come back until God brings us back to one place."

Attorneys for FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi, the lone individual defendant in wrongful-death lawsuit filed by surviving Branch Davidians against the government, asked U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. of Waco Wednesday to dismiss him from the suit.
The motion, filed by Department of Justice attorneys, argues there is no evidence that Horiuchi - who in 1992 shot and killed the wife of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge - fired a shot at Mount Carmel on the day of the fire that led to the deaths of David Koresh and 75 followers.
"SA (Special Agent) Horiuchi did not fire a weapon at the Branch Davidian compound on April 19, 1993," the motion asserts.
The plaintiffs claim the FBI's aerial infrared surveillance tapes offer proof that FBI agents fired into Mount Carmel as it burned, cutting off the Davidians' only route of escape.
Horiuchi, however, submitted a sworn statement denying firing a shot. He wrote that he saw a combat engineering vehicle (CEV) begin punching holes in Mount Carmel to insert tear gas at 6 a.m. on April 19. At that time, he heard popping noises, which he recognized as gunfire, coming from the residence, Horiuchi wrote. But he denied firing back.
"Through my binoculars, I saw green tracer rounds bouncing off the CEV from an unknown location," Horiuchi said. "I did not see any muzzle flashes. Shortly thereafter, I radioed to the Tactical Operation Center the codeword 'compromise' indicating that FBI personnel had been subjected to hostile gunfire. I was unable to locate a specific target and did not fire my weapon." A sworn statement from FBI Special Agent Charles Riley, included in the motion, disputes a 1993 FBI after-action report quoting him as reporting that he heard gunshots coming from the sniper position manned by Horiuchi.
Smith noted Riley's report in leaving Horiuchi in the lawsuit as a defendant. But Riley contends in his sworn statement that his report was written by an agent who interviewed him over the telephone and incorrectly wrote down his recollections. He didn't read the report for accuracy, Riley wrote.
"I never told the interviewing agent that I heard "shots being fired from position number 1," wrote Riley, who was at a sniper post in front of Sierra-1. "I told the interviewing agent I heard gunshots fired from the compound and also reports from Sierra-1 (also known as sniper position No. 1) that shots had been fired from the compound." Sworn statements from several FBI snipers are included in the motion. All but Riley were at Sierra-1, a house approximately 330 yards from the front of Mount Carmel.
"All of the witnesses in close proximity to SA Horiuchi on April 19, 1993 testified that he did not fire his weapon," the motion said.
Christopher Curran, now a supervisor for the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group, was at Sierra-1 with Horiuchi. In his sworn statement, Curran said he was stationed about five feet to the right of Horiuchi, who was visible to him throughout the operation.
"I neither observed nor heard SA Horiuchi fire any shots on April 19, 1993," Curran wrote. "I also observed no armed subjects during the operation and consequently fired no shots." Justice Department attorneys noted that in leaving Horiuchi in the lawsuit, Smith mentioned the controversy over the infrared tapes and whether they show flashes that appear to be gunfire. Even if the flashes are gunfire, the motion stated, they aren't evidence that Horiuchi fired any shots at Mount Carmel.
"Horiuchi was ... approximately 330 yards away from the front of the compound," the motion said. "Even plaintiffs do not contend that the 'flashes' come from that direction. Rather, if anything, the 'flashes' on the videotape appear to be coming from the backside of the compound and near the CEVs adjacent to the compound."

The FBI's two lead Waco commanders violated a Washington-approved plan by ordering tanks to begin demolishing the Branch Davidian compound in 1993, and thus should be liable for the horrific tragedy that ensued, the sect's lawyers argued Wednesday.
Their Wednesday plea in a Waco federal court lays out a detailed case for how FBI commanders Jeffrey Jamar and Richard Rogers within hours diverted from the plan authorized by top FBI officials and approved by Attorney General Janet Reno. That written plan allowed for demolition of the sect's embattled building only after tear gas had been sprayed into it for 48 hours, but FBI tanks began demolishing the rear of the building less than five hours after the gassing began.
"The decisions made by Rogers and Jamar were unauthorized, outside the scope of their authority, unjustified by the circumstances, and caused or contributed to the deaths of countless innocent children and some adults," the plaintiff's motion argued.
The plaintiff's pleading came one day after the Justice Department argued that legal limits on lawsuits against federal agencies and officials should prevent the Branch Davidians from putting the government on trial for its handling of the 1993 gassing operation, including its use of tanks. The government argued that federal law prohibits using lawsuits to "second-guess" the judgment calls of federal officials, even if those decisions have tragic results.
The motions from both sides come as Judge Smith prepares to make final decisions about the size and scope of the sect's wrongful-death case.
He has set a trial for mid-May on three major questions: Did federal agents use excessive force in the raid that began the 1993 standoff, a botched operation that disintegrated into a gunbattle that left four agents and several sect members dead? Did federal agents shoot at the Branch Davidians and prevent their escape when the compound caught fire during the FBI's gas assault? And was the FBI negligent in failing to prepare for the threat of a fire and for refusing to let local firetrucks approach when a fire did erupt? More than 80 Branch Davidians died in the fire, which began less than an hour after FBI tanks rolled deep into the building on April 19, 1993. Government officials have argued that the sect was solely to blame, noting that government arson investigators ruled that Branch Davidians deliberately set the blaze.
In his decision last July to allow the Branch Davidians' case to go to trial, Judge Smith dismissed Agent Jamar, Agent Rogers and most other federal officials from the lawsuit.
He left one defendant in the case: a hostage rescue team sniper accused by the sect of firing at the compound during the April 19, 1993, tear-gas assault. The judge based that decision largely on the statement of another FBI agent, who told investigators after the siege that he heard shots fired from the position where the sniper was assigned that day. The agent has since said he was misquoted, and other agents in the area have said that the only gunfire they heard came from the sect.
The sniper, FBI Agent Lon Horiuchi, has denied firing a shot. Earlier this week, lawyers for the agent asked the judge to dismiss him from the case for a lack of evidence.
Lawyers for the sect have conceded that the agent will probably be dismissed, despite recent revelations about evidence that could support the gunfire claim. Texas Rangers issued a report last fall that described how a dozen spent .308 shell casings had been found after the incident in the house where Agent Horiuchi was stationed.
The house had been used earlier by snipers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms during the raid that began the standoff, and federal officials have argued that the shell casings came from ATF guns. The office of special counsel John Danforth is performing forensic tests to determine which agency's guns were used.
The two FBI commanders were among the large number of federal officials dismissed from the lawsuit last summer.
If the judge decides to reinstate them as defendants, it would be the first time that either Agent Jamar, the FBI's on-scene Waco commander, or Agent Rogers, head of the FBI's hostage rescue team, have testified at a trial arising from the tragedy. Neither FBI nor ATF commanders involved in the initial raid were called to testify at the 1994 criminal trial of surviving Branch Davidians, in part because prosecutors feared that defense lawyers would use them to put the government on trial.
In Wednesday's pleading, the sect's lawyers contended that Agents Jamar and Rogers should be reinstated as defendants because they not only violated federal policy but the sect's constitutional rights. The plaintiff's brief argued those violations stripped the two men of normal federal legal protections that severely limit civil lawsuits against federal officials and agencies.
"The problem that the FBI has with calling use of the tanks to destroy the building a judgment call: Those commanders didn't have the authority to make that call. The attorney general of the United States approved a plan, and that plan could not have been clearer: Don't even consider demolishing the building until you've gassed for 48 hours," lead sect lawyer Mike Caddell said.
"Instead, these two cowboys Jamar and Rogers, went off on their own without authorization, thumbed their noses at the AG's plan and said, 'We know better than you,' " he said.
Asked about the matter Wednesday, a spokesman for Ms. Reno declined to comment. Agents Jamar and Rogers could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Caddell's filing and a separate motion filed by another attorney for the sect, former U.S. Attorney Ramsey Clark, also argued that the two men should be put on trial because they were commanders at the time that sect members allege gunfire was directed at the compound.
Officials have denied for years that any FBI agents fired a shot during the 51-day siege. But the sect's lawyers have argued that infrared videotape shot by the FBI on April 19 captured repeated rhythmic flashes that could have only come from gunfire.
Judge Smith has authorized a court-supervised field test next month to try to resolve the issue.
Mr. Caddell's motion focused on the commanders' decision to send in tanks to demolish the rear of the Branch Davidian compound.
He cited statements by senior FBI negotiators and other behavioral experts who had explicitly warned prior to the assault that sending in tanks guaranteed a violent response and massive loss of life.
He also cited detailed internal agency reports and congressional testimony in which senior FBI and Justice Department officials said demolishing the building was thought too risky to consider in the early stages of the tear-gas operation.
He noted that Deputy FBI Director Floyd Clark told Congress a month after the fire that officials had ruled out the idea of using tanks to "systematically dismantle the building."
"That didn't have a very good likelihood, because on a number of occasions when we were maneuvering around the building, removing the obstacles, the Davidians would appear in the windows and hold the children up, refer to them as the Kevlar kids," Mr. Clark testified in 1993. "So we had to dismiss that."
The motion alleges that Agent Rogers later tried to "cover up" violating the decision of his superiors in Washington by telling Congress and the public that the tanks had only tried "to clear a pathway" for spraying in more gas. But internal FBI documents show that Agent Rogers and his lieutenants told bureau leaders that the tanks were on a demolition operation. A proposal in which he and his lieutenants unsuccessfully lobbied for plaques, medals and cash awards for the hostage rescue team specifically praised two tank drivers for courage in carrying out their "mission of slowly and methodically beginning the dismantling" of the rear area of the compound.

Two new developments in John C. Danforth's investigation of the Waco siege reflect the inquiry's increasing focus on one of the four questions Danforth set out to investigate - whether government agents fired into the Branch Davidians' complex during the April 19, 1993, assault on the compound.
Last week an Army commando passed a lie detector test administered by Danforth's office in which the commando said he didn't shoot or see any other government agents shoot at the complex, sources say.
Meanwhile, Danforth and the FBI have asked the British military for use of a specially equipped helicopter to conduct next month's test to determine if flashes on infrared tape of the Waco siege are from government guns.
A Danforth spokesman declined to comment. When Danforth was appointed last summer he said he would investigate four main areas - cover-up, military involvement, government gunfire and government involvement in the fire that left about 80 Branch Davidians dead.
The Army weapons expert who passed the lie detector test was one of three members of the secretive Delta Force at Waco on April 19. He was asked to submit to the test after his account of the day differed from that of a Delta Force technician. The technician had said the weapons expert got drunk the night before the assault on the compound and didn't show up until after the fire. The weapons expert said he had a few beers the night before and arrived at the complex around 8 a.m., sources say.
According to the polygraph test, the weapons expert answered truthfully when he said he neither saw nor directed gunfire at the complex and did not approach it. He repeated his testimony last Friday to House investigators and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Specter is overseeing the Senate's inquiry of Waco.
Michael Caddell, the Houston lawyer for the Branch Davidians, said the testimony did not answer all questions, but "generally closed the door" on the investigation of military involvement.
Increasingly, the attention of investigators is turning to next month's test to determine if gunfire shows up as flashes on infrared tape. Johnny Hodgkins, a spokesman for the British Ministry of Defense, said Monday that the ministry was reviewing Danforth's request for the use of a Lynx helicopter equipped with a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) system. The helicopter, which normally flies off the back of Royal Navy ships, is equipped with a GEC Marconi system similar to that used by the FBI in a surveillance airplane that flew over the Branch Davidian complex.
Paul Beaver, an analyst for Jane's Information Group in London, said he believed the government would be willing to lend the system if transportation could be arranged. Beaver, who appeared on a CBS "60 Minutes II" program last week, said the flashes on the FBI tapes looked like gunfire to him.
The Justice Department has said that its tests show the flashes are not gunfire. It is bolstering that view by pointing to a 1986 incident where an earlier version of the FLIR system did not detect gunfire during a gunfight at Horseshoe Bay, Texas.
But Caddell says that government tests used M-16 rifles instead of the shorter-barreled CAR-15 guns used by the FBI at Waco, which have larger muzzle flashes.