Anonymous Host

Branch Davidians limited themselves to one or two 8-ounce drinks per day, essentially one or two cups of water.

People were no longer bathing and sanitary conditions were deteriorating.

Buckets were used instead of flushing toilets.

Food had to be rationed, with everyone receiving two ready-to-eat meals per day.

Branch Davidian David Thibodeau later wrote, The pre-packaged rations of spaghetti and meatballs or tuna casserole taste like mud when eaten cold."

Slime when warmed over our lanterns.

We freeze in the chilly winter prairie wind that rattles our broken windows and whistles through the building's thin sheetrock walls.

Contact with the outside world had been almost entirely cut off, with all messages relayed or filtered through the FBI.

Branch Davidians expressed their frustration by hanging more homemade banners out of their windows with messages like, FBI broke negotiation, we want press.

and Rodney King, We Understand, a reference to the African American man whose brutal beating by police led to the LA riots two years earlier.

There were supporters and sympathisers trying to make contact with them.

J. Philip Arnold and James Tabor, two biblical scholars who'd been following the case since the botched ATF raid on February 28, travelled to Waco to offer the FBI assistance in communicating with the Branch Davidians.

They understood Koresh's preaching about the seven seals and realised that he was a true believer, not a con artist as many in law enforcement seemed to believe.

His faith and that of his followers had to be taken into account when speaking to them.

But when they tried to convey this to the FBI, Arnold and Tabor were turned away.

They kept trying over the ensuing days and weeks, and both were subsequently interviewed about the ongoing siege by a Dallas radio station.

They critiqued media coverage that had depicted Karash as just kind of a crazy man who rambles, pointing out that he knew the Bible well and his teachings were a logical way of interpreting it.

The two scholars worried that the longer the siege dragged on, the higher the likelihood that it would end tragically.

As far as they were concerned, the government's actions were only serving to reinforce the Branch Davidians' apocalyptic belief system.

The ATF, and now the FBI, had created a situation that would look to them like persecution from external forces in a kind of holy war.