Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism,alt.conspiracy From: [l--ue--o] at [shell.portal.com] (Louis Alberto Bueno) Subject: The ATF-Waco Report Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 04:58:37 GMT Well, it's official. The Treasury Department released today (Thursday, September 30) a potentially scathing report on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. The ATF officials who had botched the initial raid this past February lied to their superiors, the police and the news media, as well as altering written reports to conceal their own errors. The 300-page report pointed out that the raid itself was "botched" insofar as that even after agents knew that the element of surprise had been lost and that they were not prepared for a shootout with the Branch Davidians, they proceeded anyway. (This last part is very important, as the ATF team leaders had been specifically instructed not to move in if the element of surprise was lost because the agents were not readily armed for the type of armed standoff which ensued with the BDs.) As a result, four agents were killed and 20 wounded in a 45-minute shootout, in which six BDs died as well. As everyone here knows well, this led to a 51-day standoff that ended in a fiery blaze that totally consumed the BD compound, which resulted in the death of 85 BDs, among which were 29 children. The report notes that Charles Sarabyn, assistant to Phillip Chojancki (the special agent in charge of the Houston ATF office), had been informed by an undercover agent, Robert Rodriguez, that David Koresh had been tipped off to the raid FORTY minutes before it occurred by one of his followers who had spoken to a TV cameraman who was preparing to cover the assault. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, remarking on this, said the commanders "erred by failing to abort the mission," adding, "I don't know what went on in the man's mind when he made the decision ... in absolute violation of the instructions." Days after the shootout, Sarabyn and Chojancki told their superiors that they had no prior knowledge that Koresh would be prepared for the raid, even though field agents who were on the scene were telling investigators and Texas Rangers that the two agents in charge were lying. Stephen Higgins, who was acting head of the ATF at the time (who has retired prior to the release of this report), went on national TV a week later after the shootout and firmly denied that Koresh had any prior knowledge of an impending raid. He said "We would not send our agents into a situation where we didn't think we had the element of surprise." Higgins was criticized in the report for failing to actively pursue media claims that his field commanders were being "less than truthful" about the raid. Only after being confronted with more than 60 witnesses did Sarabyn admit he knew Koresh was ready for the ATF. The report said Higgins should not have taken the field commanders' claims at face value, considering the amount of circumstancial evidence. Another cover-up that was revealed in the report is that the two supervising agents had also doctored the raid plan before submitting it to the Texas Rangers, who were investigating the botched raid at the time. The two agents claimed that they were only sought "to revise the plan to make it more thorough and complete," even though it's apparent that they were only seeking to cover up their own mistakes in the affair. The report went on to criticize the ATF for not seeking alternative plans to seperate Koresh from his arsenal of weapons before arresting him, as well as stating that there are "serious, systemic defects in ATF's ability to plan for and to conduct large-scale tactical operations." Other quotes from the 300-page report: "Unfortunately, the investigation also found disturbing evidence of flawed decision-making, inadequate intelligence gathering, miscommunication, supervisory failures and deliberately misleading post-raid statements." "Despite knowing in advance that the element of surprise was lost, the raid commanders made the decision to go forward. This decision was brutally exploited by Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and his followers." "Higgins must accept responsibility for continuing to take public positions on the issue when repeated questions from the media and information readily available to him should have made it clear that he was on shaky ground. Higgins never adequately questioned his subordinates to determine the facts until early April." "ATF's management, perhaps out of misplaced desire to protect the agency from criticism, offered accounts based on Chojnacki and Sarabyn's statements, disregarding clear evidence that those statements were false." "The problems here rest as much in the planning process as in the plan itself. Not only were the planners, led by Sarabyn, too quick in concluding that a massive mid-morning raid was the best possible enforcement option, but they chose a plan whose window of opportunity might have been far smaller than they realized." And finally, from Bentsen himself: "Mistakes and errors in judgment were made. Numerous officials were less than truthful about the facts." Siempre, --Louis