Demos Blame Koresh; Gop Notes Mistakes
After 10 long days of examining federal actions at Waco - from the decision to investigate the Branch Davidians to the bloody raid and the final teargas assault - Congress faces an even thornier debate.
What did the hearings accomplish?
Republicans who had predicted that the inquiry would expose major new facts now say that their work mostly filled in details of the government’s mistakes. But they say those details are important.
“We’ve never really had a full and complete examination of what went on,” said Rep. William F. Clinger Jr., R-Pa.
Democrats, who protested the inquiry as an orchestrated attack by the National Rifle Association on the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, now say the hearings deflated some conspiracy theories surrounding the 1993 incident.
“If you just look at the facts, it should put to rest the conspiracy theories,” said ranking Democrat Charles Schumer of New York. But he and others said they fear that some Republicans aired misinformation.
Both sides now will write separate reports on Waco.
Republicans are expected to emphasize mistakes and leadership failures of high-ranking officials in what Rep. Bill Zeliff of New Hampshire, co-chairman of the hearings, called a “preventable and arguably predictable nightmare.”
Democrats are likely to continue arguing that despite the government’s acknowledged mistakes, ultimate blame for the tragedy lies with David Koresh. “You cannot compare the mistakes of the ATF and the FBI with the evil of David Koresh,” Schumer said.
To the public, observers say, the hearings may say less about Waco than about the ways of Congress.
“I think for most people, this is politics as usual,” said political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.
“It probably is an invitation to increased cynicism,” he said, citing public opinion polls showing that 50 percent of Americans disapproved of federal handling of the standoff but two-thirds thought that the goal of the hearings was to embarrass President Clinton.
Still unresolved - and likely to remain so - say some involved in the tragedy, is perhaps the most troubling question of Waco: How does law enforcement deal with a self-proclaimed messiah who convinces followers that bloody battle with the government is the only path to salvation?
“We have an obsession as a nation for laying blame. Somebody has got to be at fault, and I think that’s what this is as much about as anything,” said ATF agent Peter B. Mastin, who participated in the ATF raid and supervised three of the agents who died.
“The problem facing this committee is that it’s hard to accept that one person, David Koresh, could control things,” said Mastin, now the ATF’s ombudsman. “We’ve said, ‘OK, we made errors. But what do we do the next time?’ And there will be one.”