Agents Prepare for a Long Cult Siege : Violence: Officers say they will wait as long as needed to avoid further bloodshed. Branch Davidian leader awaits ‘instructions from God’ before any surrender.

WACO, Tex. —  As messianic cult leader David Koresh and more than 100 followers awaited “instructions from God” before agreeing to surrender their armed prairie fortress, a well-supplied force of law enforcement officials laid groundwork Wednesday for a long siege, vowing not to risk another bloody assault on the compound.

Two high-ranking federal officials acknowledged publicly that last Sunday’s raid on the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, which left four U.S. firearms agents dead and 15 wounded, lost a crucial “element of surprise” because of a telephoned tip to Koresh less than an hour before the attack.

Dan Hartnett, associate director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said an undercover operative who had penetrated the cult overheard Koresh receiving the call but was not aware that he knew about the raid.

Hartnett and FBI special agent Jeffrey Jamar of San Antonio, the on-site commander of the negotiations, said they were hesitant to again endanger the lives of police and of the 20 children and 90 adults still in the compound. Forty-seven of the adults are women, many of whom officials believe joined the men in firing on agents during the aborted Sunday raid, which was intended to serve arrest and search warrants charging Koresh with federal firearms violations.

Hartnett commended the heroism of the 75 agents who were forced to retreat under a spray of gunfire, and he offered condolences to the families of the fallen agents. “We’re prepared to stay here as long as it takes to settle this matter without further bloodshed,” Jamar said.

A force of at least 400 FBI agents, federal firearms agents and local police were preparing for extended billeting in local hotels and securing portable generators, tents, light standards and other equipment needed to maintain their burgeoning force in the coming weeks. A barbecue restaurant sent out meals for 300 agents and police Tuesday night.

In a letter sent Wednesday to hotel and motel managers in Waco and its surrounding suburbs, an ATF official said agents would require stays of at least another “five to 10 days.”

The official, Darrell Dyer, also asked the hotels to cooperate by keeping federal agents in their rooms in the “necessity of an extension” of the standoff. One inn, the Old Main Lodge, is teeming with more than 70 agents, many clad in flak jackets and toting automatic weapons.

The day after Koresh reneged on an agreement to peacefully exit the sect’s Mt. Carmel fortress in return for the radio broadcast of one of his apocalyptic Bible lessons, federal officials offered little hope for a swift negotiated end to the standoff.

Jamar said Koresh changed his mind about surrendering because “God told him to wait.”

The agent said Koresh planned to come out when he gets further “instructions from God.”

With that in mind, “it’s no use to set deadlines,” Jamar said at one point during a crowded news conference in the Waco Convention Center.

As if to bolster that conclusion, a federal affidavit made public Wednesday quoted a top-ranking firearms official as saying Koresh has said that he and his followers “would fight to the end.”

Jamar said lines of communication were still open between Koresh and teams of federal agents negotiating with him. Jamar said several other men and at least one woman inside the compound have also negotiated for the besieged sect.

Federal agents believe that Koresh and his band are not lacking in vital supplies. “Our impression is they’re very self-sufficient in there,” Jamar said. There have been reports that the Branch Davidians have laid in enough crates of prepackaged meals and water to last several months.

Negotiators have cut off telephone contact between the sect and the outside world but are themselves in “constant contact,” Jamar said. “They call us and we respond. There’ve been several instances where we’ve called them and they just let it ring.”

Despite some media reports that as many as 15 cult members may lie dead behind a number of automatic weapons and at least one .50-caliber machine gun that fires armor-piercing shells, Jamar said he was aware only of “some bodies in the compound. The precise number, we don’t know.”

Koresh has claimed that two people, including one child, are dead inside the compound and that three others are wounded. Koresh has said he is one of the wounded, a contention federal officials could not confirm.

But the ATF did acknowledge Wednesday for the first time details about their undercover investigation into the sect’s illegal stockpiling of weapons, which led to the Sunday raid. Hartnett said the probe began nine months ago and that an undercover agent penetrated the tight-knit sect and its 77-acre compound.

The undercover agent verified the sect’s growing arsenal, which was kept in a rear storeroom in the compound. Court records from an earlier shootout between Koresh and a rival sect leader showed that many of the group’s guns and ammunition were bought legally at the K mart sporting goods department in Waco and at other local gun shops. Recently, Hartnett said, Koresh began appearing at gun collectors’ shows and sales, showing a heightened interest in more sophisticated weaponry.

Challenging critics who argue that the ATF botched the raid, Hartnett said agents drilled repeatedly. And he rebutted earlier statements made by an ATF spokeswoman, who said the agency was outgunned by the Branch Davidians. “We lost the element of surprise,” he said.

During the firefight, church members fired “indiscriminately” through windows and walls of the compound, he said. Agents were under orders to shoot only at known targets, fearing that stray shots would strike children.

On the morning of the raid, Hartnett said, the undercover ATF agent reported that “everything was normal” at the compound. Children played in the yard. Some adults attended church services.

But the agent left the compound just as “a phone call received” at the facility tipped off the sect members. The agent did not realize at the time that the raid had been compromised, Hartnett said.

Koresh’s tipster remains unknown, but “we’re following up on that,” Hartnett said. Some federal officials have suggested that an agency informant might have blown his or her cover.

In another development Wednesday, Earl K. Dunagan, acting resident ATF agent in charge here, filed an affidavit in U.S. District Court stating that all of the adult sect members fired upon the agents on Sunday.

Dunagan said Koresh’s followers took extensive firearms training inside the compound and “were taught to believe that they must be prepared to defend the site.”

The affidavit, filed in connection with murder charges leveled but then dropped against two septuagenarian Branch Davidians who left the compound Tuesday, says that Koresh this week “told law enforcement officers words to the effect that they would fight to the end.”

The two women were still being held as material witnesses.

RAID TACTICS CRITICIZED: Law enforcement experts assail the handling of cult raid. A16