Tripped Up By Lies

By Howard Chua-Eoan

The elements are almost the stuff of comedy. Federal agents get wind of a surreptitious arms hoard. They then set up surveillance of a compound using 40-year-old agents passing as college students. Suddenly a raid on the compound is imminent -- without a detailed plan on how to carry it out. A sketchy plan is then drawn up -- and ignored. Meanwhile, the targets of the raid know something is up, and their watchers know that the targets know but still think surprise is a possibility. That's where the comedy turns to tragedy.

"The decision to proceed was tragically wrong, not just in retrospect, but because of what the decision makers knew at the time." Thus concluded a devastating 220-page critique of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms issued by the Treasury Department last week. The Feb. 28 raid on David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas, resulted in the death of four ATF agents and six cult members and led to a 51-day siege and a fiery conflagration that claimed the lives of 85 people, including at least 17 children. The bureau, the report said, not only handled a sensitive situation ineptly but tried to cover up its bumbling with lies and obfuscations. As the study coldly noted, "There may be occasions when pressing operational considerations -- or legal constraints -- prevent law-enforcement officials from being . . . completely candid in their public utterances. This was not one of them."

After the report was released, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, whose department is in charge of ATF, announced the replacement of the agency's entire top management. Its boss, Stephen Higgins, who knew the report was going to be harsh, announced his retirement three days before. "It is now clear that those in charge in Texas realized they had lost the element of surprise before the raid began," Bentsen said. The field commanders made "inaccurate and disingenuous statements" to cover up their missteps, putting the blame on agents.

ATF has had a tradition of going in with guns blazing. (For example, the legendary Eliot Ness and his Prohibition-era "Untouchables" were not FBI men, but rather direct predecessors of today's ATF agents.) The Branch Davidian saga was true to tradition. Little consideration was given to arresting David Koresh outside his Mount Carmel compound. Indeed, after its preliminary investigations, the ATF began preparing for what would be the biggest raid in its history. All it lacked was a plan -- and the element of surprise. Even though a raid had been set for March 1, the mandatory documents for such a plan were not ready by Feb. 23. When acting Special Agent in Charge Darrell Dyer arrived from Kansas City and asked to see the paperwork, he found that none existed. In the next four days, Dyer and fellow agent William Krone drew up a plan -- but it was never distributed. Meanwhile, Koresh was already suspicious, having noticed that the "college students" who had moved into a house near his 77-acre compound looked like people only a few years shy of their 25th reunion.

On the day of the raid, an ambulance company hired by the ATF agents leaked word of "Operation Trojan Horse" to a local TV station, which then sent a cameraman to check on the situation. The cameraman asked a local postman, David Jones, for directions to the Koresh compound. He also told Jones about the raid. Jones, who happened to be David Koresh's brother-in-law, told his father about the impending operation, and the word reached Koresh.

Koresh was leading a Bible session when he was tipped off. In attendance was Robert Rodriguez, an undercover ATF agent. Koresh was already suspicious of Rodriguez, but according to one surviving cult member had hoped to recruit him anyway. In a dramatic confrontation, said last week's report, Koresh, looking agitated, dropped his Bible and muttered the words "the kingdom of God." Then he said, "Neither the ATF team nor the National Guard will ever get me. They got me once and they'll never get me again." Looking out a window, he said, "They're coming, Robert. The time has come."

Rodriguez immediately made an excuse to leave in order to warn the ATF team that there was no longer any hope of surprise. As he headed out the door, Koresh grabbed his hand and said, "Good luck, Robert." The agent immediately reported to his superior, ATF tactical coordinator Charles Sarabyn, who relayed word to Phillip Chojnacki, the agent in charge of the raid. "Sarabyn expressed his belief that the raid could still be executed successfully if they hurried," said the report. "Chojnacki responded, 'Let's go.' " A number of agents informed the Treasury investigative panel that Sarabyn said things like "Get ready to go; they know we are coming."

ATF obfuscation began almost immediately after the compound burned down. On March 3 Daniel Hartnett, associate director of law enforcement, told the press that though Rodriguez knew Koresh had received a phone call, the agent "did not realize this was a tip at the time." On March 29 Higgins said, "We would not have executed the plans if our supervisors had lost the element ((of surprise))."

When the Texas Rangers asked to see the plans for the raid, Chojnacki, Sarabyn and Dyer revised the original documents, says the report, "to make it more thorough and complete." Last week Bentsen summoned Hartnett, Chojnacki and Sarabyn, along with Edward Daniel Conroy, the deputy director for law enforcement, and David Troy, chief of the intelligence division, and told them they were being removed from active service. The evidence against them had been found in their own internal records and the accounts of more than 60 agents in the field.

ATF's future has already been much debated. Al Gore has asked that it be dismembered, its firearms division merged with the FBI and the remaining sections sent over to the IRS. But Bentsen believes he has solved ATF's problems with the change of management. He will talk merger if the FBI agrees to preserve ATF's special knowledge of firearms. Also, some say, he would like the FBI to cede to the Secret Service more financial investigations. That is unlikely to happen. While some reports indicate that a Justice Department report, expected this week, will rebuke lower- and mid-level FBI agents for the disastrous operation, sources have told Time that the criticisms will be relatively mild. In any case, the controversial question of mass suicide -- and how carefully the FBI weighed it -- is expected to be a large part of the report. The Treasury study indicated that the cult's self-destructive tendencies were already apparent in the first raid. Three of the cult fatalities were caused by gunshot wounds delivered at close range, indicating that they were suicides or executions.

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington