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03/04/93
Agency says sect was tipped off; ATF defends actions in raid, confirms reports of telephone call defends
By Al Brumley / The Dallas Morning News
WACO-Ever since its disastrous raid on a religious compound Sunday, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been second-guessed about its planning and strategy for the mission.
But on Wednesday, ATF officials broke their three-day official silence on the subject, defending their actions and confirming reports that the operation was ruined by a telephone call to the compound about an hour before agents arrived Sunday.
"We lost the element of surprise,' said Dan Hartnett, associate director of the ATF.
Mr. Hartnett said officials did not know who made the call. That is being investigated, he said.
For three days after the raid, ATF and FBI agents imposed a virtual news blackout. They had hoped to coax sect leader David Koresh out by allowing him to air a meandering, hourlong religious message Tuesday afternoon on Dallas radio station KRLD-AM (1080) and the Christian Broadcasting Network.
That strategy failed, and officials from the two agencies held the news conference Wednesday to discuss what went wrong Sunday and how they plan to proceed. They also laid to rest several rumors that had been running rampant. Concerning the reported tip, Mr. Hartnett said:
"It is believed that prior to the execution of the warrant, a phone call was received that placed the occupants on alert. There is no doubt they were expecting our arrival.'
Mr. Hartnett discounted speculation that news media were the source of the call that tipped the cult to the raid. News crews from the Waco Tribune-Herald and a television station had learned of the raid and were at the compound when agents arrived, he said.
A federal agent who had been inside the compound heard the call come in Sunday morning but did not know what it was, Mr. Hartnett said.
"When he left the compound, everything was normal,' Mr. Hartnett said. "Children were outside; people were going about their business.'
The phone call that is believed to have tipped off the cult to the impending raid is being investigated by the Texas Rangers. Lt. Richard Sweaney of the Rangers' Company B in Dallas confirmed Wednesday his office is helping the FBI and ATF.
One question about strategy was this: Why didn't the ATF simply wait for Mr. Koresh to leave the compound and then arrest him?
Mr. Hartnett said that was not feasible because Mr. Koresh had been holed up, saying God had told him not to leave.
"I don't have the exact time when he stopped . . . going out any longer,' he said. "But social workers had gone in there because of the children from time to time, and he had told them that he wasn't going out anymore. He decided God had told him that he should stay there.'
Mr. Harnett said the nearly 100 agents who raided the compound Sunday morning underwent months of extensive training. Without that preparation, "there could have been an even greater loss of life,' he said.
The director refuted notions that the ATF agents were outgunned by Branch Davidians, a suggestion made Monday by an ATF spokesman.
Because the agents are trained not to fire until they can see a target-and because there were so many women and children scattered throughout the compound-the agents could not fight effectively against the guerrilla tactics used by the sect members, Mr. Hartnett said.
The agents who were hit worst were from a New Orleans-based assault team that was one of three assigned to secure the compound and a cache of weapons, he said.
The New Orleans team approached from one side while the others hit the center and other side of the building. All were struck by withering gunfire.
"Agents were going up to the rear, were going up into a location where an arms cache was thought to be,' he said. "Once they got into that room, firing started coming through the walls. They were spraying indiscriminantly. We had to wait for a target because there were so many women and children that were usually at prayers during that time.'
As for the question of firepower, he said: "Our weapons are the best weapons you can have to go into this type of situation. We're a law enforcement agency-we don't fire through walls indiscriminantly at people. We have to have a target.'
A Waco television crew captured footage of one agent being hit by heavy fire as he tried to tear a curtain from a second-story window of the compound.
Authorities in Washington said the agent was wounded but survived the attack. They would not say how his colleagues who entered the window fared.
Mr. Hartnett said the assault teams simply did not expect to encounter such heavy fire.
"We expected this thing to go on without anybody being injured,' he said. "The element of surprise was essential for us to get in.'
In Washington, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen pushed aside questions about the performance of his department's ATF agents, saying their actions would be reviewed once the situation was resolved. Mr. Bentsen said he is monitoring the standoff closely.
"There was incredible bravery on the part of a number of ATF people in that, and they have good training,' Mr. Bentsen said. "Obviously, when all of this is through, whenever you have a major operation like that, you evaluate it after the facts as to its effectiveness.'
The former Texas senator said he was being briefed regularly by ATF officials and had consulted with President Clinton and Texas Gov. Ann Richards.
Mr. Bentsen acknowledged he was not apprised of plans for the deadly armed assault by ATF agents before he left Friday for a meeting of finance ministers in London.
"It had been cleared, as I understand it, with the U.S. district attorney and cleared with the head of the ATF, and Treasury was apprised while I was on the plane to London,' he said.
And he said control of the Texas operation was now in the hands of the FBI and decisions about bringing it to a close would be made on the scene.
Retired Col. Charles Beckwith, the founding commander of the Army's elite Delta Force, said Wednesday that he believed the ATF "didn't have a good plan. It's a disgrace to this country.'
Mr. Beckwith sent a letter to the White House on Monday expressing his concerns.
Staff writers Victoria Loe in Dallas and Robert Dodge in Washington contributed to this report.
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