waco clinton press conference part here is a press release from the white house president clinton s remarks on waco with q a to national desk contact white house office of the press secretary washington april u s newswire following are remarks by president clinton in a question and answer session with the press part of go ahead sarah q there are two questions i want to ask you the first is i think that they knew very well that the children did not have gas masks while the adults did so the children had no chance because this gas was very she said it was not lethal but it was very dangerous to the children and they could not have survived without gas masks and on february th let s go back didn t those people have a right to practice their religion the president they were not just practicing their religion they were the treasury department believed that they had violated federal laws any number of them q what federal laws the president let me go back and answer i can t answer the question about the gas masks except to tell you that the whole purpose of using the tear gas was that it had been tested they were convinced that it wouldn t kill either a child or an adult but it would force anybody that breathed it to run outside and one of the things that i ve heard i don t want to get into the details of this because i don t know but one of the things that they were speculating about today was that the wind was blowing so fast that the windows might have been opened and some of the gas might have escaped and that may be why it didn t have the desired effect they also knew sarah that there was an underground compound a bus buried underground where the children could be sent and they were i think they were hoping very much that if the children were not released immediately outside that the humane thing would be done and that the children would be sent someplace where they could be protected in terms of the gas masks themselves i learned yesterday i did not ask this fact question before that the gas was supposed to stay active in the compound longer than the gas masks themselves were to work so that it was thought that even if they all had gas masks that eventually the gas would force them out in a nonviolent nonshooting circumstance ms myers last question q mr president why are you still saying that q could you tell us whether or not you ever asked janet reno about the possibility of a mass suicide and when you learned about the actual fire and explosion what went through your mind during those horrendous moments the president what i asked janet reno is if they had considered all the worse things that could happen and she said and of course the whole issue of suicide had been raised in the public he had that had been debated anyway and she said that the people who were most knowledgeable about these kinds of issues concluded that there was no greater risk of that now than there would be tomorrow or the next day or the day after that or at anytime in the future that was the judgment they made whether they were right or wrong of course we will never know what happened when i saw the fire when i saw the building burning i was sick i felt terrible and my immediate concern was whether the children had gotten out and whether they were escaping or whether they were inside trying to burn themselves up that s the first thing i wanted to know thank you q mr president why are you still saying it was a janet reno decision isn t it in the end your decision the president well what i m saying is that i didn t have a four or five hour detailed briefing from the fbi i didn t go over every strategic part of it it is a decision for which i take responsibility i m the president of the united states and i signed off on the general decision and giving her the authority to make the last call when i talked to her on sunday some time had elapsed she might have made a decision to change her mind i said if you decide to go forward with this tomorrow i will support you and i do support her she is not ultimately responsible to the american people i am but i think she has conducted her duties in an appropriate fashion and she has dealt with this situation i think as well as she could have thank you applause
