Waco revisited: The horrifying liquidation of Waco's Branch Davidian sect, which began with an ATF raid 10 years ago, displayed our government's capacity for lethal lawlessness. (On the Home Front).

Ten years ago on February 28th, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) staged an armed raid against the Branch Davidian community outside of Waco, Texas. Four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians perished needlessly in that eminently avoidable shootout.

But those tragic deaths merely foreshadowed the hideous events of April 19th: The prolonged gassing of the Davidians' church complex by the FBI; the ensuing fire that enveloped the complex; and the horrifying spectacle--captured on forward-looking infrared tape--of federal paramilitaries directing automatic weapons fire into the burning complex, cutting off avenues of possible retreat.

The federal assault on the Branch Davidians actually began on February 27th, when the Waco Tribune-Herald published the first installment of a seven-part hit piece on David Koresh and his followers. Built largely on accusations from disaffected former Davidians, the series depicted Koresh as a sexually depraved, potentially violent megalomaniac and his followers as hopelessly deluded cultists. Three of the individuals interviewed in the newspaper series were working with ATF Special Agent Davy Aguilera, and executives of the Tribune-Herald had discussed the series with the ATF prior to publication.

The opening installment, observes Texas journalist Dick Reavis in his study The Ashes of Waco, "was accompanied by an editorial scolding local lawmen--but not mentioning the feds--for having turned a blind eye to goings-on at Mount Carmel, perhaps because its composers knew that federal action was at hand." Prior to the raid, ATF public relations director Sharon Wheeler had contacted local reporters to arrange a February 28th press conference--presumably to announce the ATF's triumphant armed raid against "cult leader" Koresh and his heavily armed followers.

The Curtain Rises

The Branch Davidians were indeed "stockpiling" firearms as part of a perfectly legal retail trade. The ATF insisted that the February 28th raid was a pre-emptive strike intended to prevent the Davidians from becoming a danger to the local community. However, as ATF Director Stephen Higgins would later admit, a lengthy investigation of the group's firearms dealings failed to produce probable cause for a search.

It wasn't until mid-February that the key "evidence" was found. David Kopel and Paul Blackman point out in their definitive study No More Wacos: "The key evidence in BATE Director Higgins' mind--based on his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee--appears to have been Koresh's religious views, pro-gun rights views, criticism of federal gun laws, and hostility toward the BATF, all of which were protected by the First Amendment." After the lethal ATF raid, the agency obtained a second warrant to seize audio and videotapes documenting negative views "of firearms law enforcement and particularly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms" as "evidence [of Koresh's] or other cult members' motive for wanting to shoot and kill ATE agents."

In fact, Koresh--however bizarre his religious beliefs, however objectionable his sexual conduct--had gone to great lengths to prevent an armed confrontation with the ATF. In congressional testimony, a gun dealer who had sold weapons to Koresh described a late 1992 visit from ATF investigators concerned about the Davidians' gun inventory. When the dealer informed Koresh over the phone of the agents' concerns, Koresh responded by inviting the agents to Mount Carmel to examine his gun inventory and paperwork. The ATF agents declined the offer.

A few hours before the ATF raid, Koresh had learned it was coming (thanks, in large measure, to the ATF's juvenile eagerness to cue in local journalists). Just prior to the shootout, Koresh had a conversation with ATF informant Robert Rodriguez, who had lived at Mount Carmel for a short time. Anticipating the worst, Rodriguez expected to get "a bullet in the back," he later recalled. If Koresh had been the maniacal terrorist subsequently portrayed in federal propaganda, Rodriguez would have been a valuable hostage. Instead, Koresh simply said "Good luck, Robert," shook the informant's hand, and let him go in peace. When Rodriguez reached the ATF command post, he warned the raid commander, Charles Sarabyn: "Chuck, they know. They know."

Rather than calling off the raid, Sarabyn quizzed Rodriguez about the Davidians' battle plans: Did he see any weapons? Were the Davidians mobilizing? Rodriguez answered no. Well then, Sarabyn persisted, what were the Davidians doing when he left? "They were praying," Rodriguez replied. If Sarabyn had any misgivings about shooting up a church full of women and children at prayer, he manfully shoved them aside and did what he took to be his duty.

The ATF paramilitaries displayed little concern about the supposed threat from the Davidians. They pulled up to Mount Carmel on flat-bed trucks, offering an incredibly vulnerable target. Jeff Jamar, who served as FBI commander at Waco, admitted to Justice Department investigators that the Davidians "could have easily killed all of those [ATF] agents before they even got out of the cattle cars with the kind of weapons they had." Yet the Davidians withheld that deadly fusillade, a curious tactical decision for a group purportedly conspiring to murder federal agents.

More curious still, was David Koresh's final, desperate attempt to prevent the shootout. Davidian survivors testify that Koresh opened the front door to the Mount Carmel complex and urged the Feds to hold their fire. According to the Davidians, this petition was met with gunfire--the opening salvo in what would become an agonizing 51-day standoff ending in the immolation of nearly 80 innocent human beings on April 19th.

Going Off-script

The ATF's script was simple: The agents would mount a straight power play, swarming Mount Carmel, flinging "flash-bang" charges into the building to disorient its occupants, and seizing Koresh and his associates. Not only did the ATF expect to stage a "dynamic entry" at Mount Carmel, they hadn't even rehearsed a peaceful entry. ATF raider Kenneth King was asked in court: "Even if... the people at the front door had been welcomed in by David Koresh, none of that would have made any difference, as far as what you were doing was concerned?" "No, sir," replied King.

In fact, the ATF expected casualties, including civilian deaths. Note Kopel and Blackman: "The fall 1993 Treasury investigation into BATF conduct at Waco offers no indication that BATF raid planners were concerned about--or even discussed--how different arrest strategies might minimize the risk of possible injury or death to innocent civilians, including the children. An Army memo compiled in anticipation of the February 28th raid noted that the BATF 'recognizes that casualties are probable.... Casualties will be the [BATF], bad guys and civilians.'"

The Davidians, however, weren't content to play their scripted role. Under an unprovoked assault, they properly responded with lethal force of their own. Every one of the 10 deaths that terrible morning was a tragedy, but those tragedies would never have occurred if the ATF had not launched the illegal raid in the first place. In fact, the death toll would certainly have been much higher if the Davidians had been bent on slaughter rather than self-defense. In keeping with the Christian principles governing the use of deadly force, they allowed the defeated raiders to retreat, rather than mowing them down once the tide of battle had turned and the Feds were at their mercy.

Why?

What prompted the ATF to stage the Mount Carmel raid? Why did the agency decide that open gunplay was its only option? David Koresh had expressed willingness to cooperate with the ATF. If it was considered dangerous to arrest Koresh at Mount Carmel, he could easily have been arrested during his frequent visits to Waco, or while jogging outside the complex. In fact, shortly before the raid, Koresh went target shooting with two ATF agents. Why, then, did the ATF choose to mount a military strike?

One obvious reason is that the ATF wanted to stage a made-for-television event that would enhance the agency's tarnished image. In December 1992, the ATF came under political fire because of a 60 Minutes investigation of sexual harassment within the department. What better way to recapture the PR initiative than by staging a daring raid on a heavily armed "cult compound"?

"A BATF memo written two days before the February 28, 1993 raid explained, 'this operation will generate considerable attention, both locally (Texas) and nationally,'" observe Kopel and Blackman. "BATF public relations director Sharon Wheeler called reporters to ask them for their weekend phone numbers. The reporters contend, and Wheeler denies, that she asked them if they would be interested in covering a weapons raid on a 'cult.' "The ATF's arrogant confidence that it could pull off its violent PR stunt is captured in the codename for the February 28th attack--"Showtime."

Within hours of the Mount Carmel shootout, the FBI took over the siege. For more than a month and a half, the FBI--with the expert advice of Igor Smirnov of the Moscow Institute of Psycho-correction--conducted a campaign of psychological torture designed to break the will of the Davidians.

On the morning of April 19th, FBI operatives and Delta Force commandos staged a combined armor and infantry raid after relentlessly pumping CS gas into the Mount Carmel church building. (The U.S. military is forbidden by treaty to use on the battlefield the specific chemical agent used against American citizens at Waco.) Around noon, a fire began that quickly enveloped the church. Seventy-six people, including 17 small children, were cremated in the fire. Shockingly, a recorded radio transmission between FBI commander Jamar and Dick Rogers, commander of the Bureau's Hostage Rescue Team, indicates that Jamar intended for the adult Davidians to perish in the flames.

Never Forget

This atrocity was committed on American soil by our own government. It grew out of a campaign to "pre-empt" David Koresh's alleged efforts to obtain supposedly illegal firearms. That rationale is curiously similar to that invoked by the Bush administration to justify its desire to wage a "preemptive" war against Iraq, before Saddam Hussein acquires "weapons of mass destruction."

In the build-up to another war on Iraq, the Bush administration and its apologists remind us that Saddam used chemical weapons against his own population. But there is little public recognition that our own government did pretty much the same thing on the morning of April 19,1993. Of course, the United States is not Iraq. Despite our government's abuses of power such as Waco, many of our freedoms are still largely intact, unlike those of the Iraqi people suffering under Saddam's murderous and oppressive regime. But Waco offers a potent illustration of the U.S. government's own capacity for lethal lawlessness, when the custodians of liberty--"We the people," acting through our elected representatives--fail to remain vigilant.

The 10th anniversary is a timely reminder that the government we should worry about most is not headquartered in Baghdad, Pyongyang, Teheran, or Beijing--but in Washington, D.C. If, God forbid, we lose our freedom, it will be because we authored our own destruction.