Bill Clinton and the Branch Davidians
* What: The disastrous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raid on the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas in 1993.
* The Body Count: 80 Branch Davidian deaths including 20 children. Four ATF agents were killed and sixteen wounded in the shootout, shot by Branch Davidian members.
* Who Else Gets the Blame:
* The Branch Davidians themselves and leader David Koresh in particular were often blamed by the Clinton administration and much of the public.
* Attorney General Janet Reno, who supervised the raid and gave the order for the final assault on the compound that led to most Davidian deaths. Reno argued she had to order the assault because of the danger of children being abused. But such crimes are under local jurisdiction, not federal. She also claimed the Davidians were planning to commit mass suicide and must have killed themselves. In fact suicide was against Davidian belief. Their deaths were caused by being burned to death and smoke inhalation, with the government raid blocking their escape. There were no Davidian suicides, only deaths caused by Reno's incompetence.
* FBI Director Louis Freeh, who jointly ran the siege with Reno. The FBI has jurisdiction over the murder of any federal agents.
* Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Director Steve Higgins planned and approved the raid, hoping for a high profile success.
* The Branch Davidians are a breakaway group from another breakaway group that split from the Seventh Day Adventists in the 1950s. The Davidians believed the Apocalypse and the return of Christ were imminent and so moved to a compound outside of Waco, Texas. A young Vernon Howell, later renaming himself David Koresh, led part of that group to split off yet again and form their own faction of Davidians. Several of Koresh's Davidians were tried for attempted murder of the leader of the original faction in 1987, but were acquitted. There were claims that Koresh was abusing children, marrying himself illegally to underage brides as young as twelve. The cult also had a business buying and selling weapons, and the ATF believed the group might be stockpiling weapons.
* The ATF put the cult under surveillance, with several agents moving into a neighboring house and an undercover agent planted among the Davidians. ATF surveillance was very clumsy. Posing as college students, the agents were all older than most typical students and never attended classes. So the cult knew in advance the ATF planned to raid them. The ATF obtained a warrant claiming the cult had illegal guns and parts. But all the group's weapons were legal. The ATF's undercover agent informed the raid planners that the group knew the raid was coming. Still, the raid went forward.
* There are conflicting reports of who fired the first shot, ATF agents or cult members. What is certain is that this was the most disastrous day in the agency's history. Four agents were killed and sixteen wounded. The ATF team only withdrew because they ran out of ammunition. Five cult members were killed in the shootout, and Koresh himself was badly wounded in the belly. The siege that followed lasted seven weeks, making headlines worldwide, with live television coverage.
* FBI negotiators took over for the ATF. Koresh told the FBI he had to finish tapes of religious significance before he could surrender. FBI agents became convinced he was stalling. Attorney General Janet Reno ordered an assault. Government tanks punched holes in the compound building with their turrets and pumped in tear gas. At some point the building caught fire, fed by the flammable tear gas. Most cult members were burned to death or died of smoke inhalation. The fire department was not allowed to put out the fire or carry out rescue because of fear they would be fired on. Most Davidians were trapped from escaping the building by the rubble knocked over by government tanks.
* Twelve surviving Davidians were put on trial. A jury found four of them innocent of all charges. None of the remaining eight were convicted of murdering federal agents. Five of them were convicted of manslaughter, all eight convicted of firearms charges. Over 100 family members of Davidians filed civil suits against the government. Judges dismissed all the cases.
* Clinton had no involvement during the first raid. He also had little involvement in the day to day siege, leaving that to agents on the scene and their supervisors. But Clinton did approve the final assault in the siege, kept Reno in spite of her deadly incompetence, and defended her actions and his own afterward. In one interview, Clinton, in a rare display of temper, practically shouted at reporter Chris Wallace when criticized about the many deaths at Waco.
* The deaths may have been more directly caused by Janet Reno, but Clinton could and should have halted her from carrying out the raid. It is not and never should have been a federal job to pursue alleged child abusers. In any case, there was no evidence of any abuse of children going on during the siege. Did Reno seriously think Koresh was assaulting young girls while suffering from a severe belly wound? Most evidence points towards ATF leaders wanting a high profile success in a gun prosecution case, hoping the capture of the Davidians would rescue their image. That the Branch Davidians may have a strange religion to many is completely irrelevant and borderline bigoted.
* This standoff prompted many conspiracy theories, and still does. But there is no credible evidence, as those on the fringe claim, that the Davidians were deliberately murdered. Even evidence that law enforcement may have accidentally started the deadly fires is mixed at best.
* But what is clear is that the raid should never have happened in the first place. If still begun, it should have been planned far better, should have had a better administration than Janet Reno's, and authorities should not have chosen to end the siege so forcefully, especially with a group that had such apocalyptic beliefs and an erratic leader. Just as unconscionable, there were clearly several in federal law enforcement who should have been fired for their utter incompetence. No one was punished for causing these deaths. Louis Freeh remained Director of the FBI and Reno remained Attorney General for five more years, the rest of Clinton's time in office. Steven Higgens of the ATF resigned after a critical report on the ATF's actions. Both Higgens and Reno, plus the ATF planners on the site of the original raid, should have faced strong consequences, perhaps even trial for the almost 80 deaths caused by their negligence.
* The siege made martyrs out of the Davidians, a group certainly not deserving such status. The failure to punish government officials responsible for their deaths fed paranoia within the far right, militias, white supremacists, millennial cults, libertarians, gun fanatics, and the more conspiracy minded conservatives. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh cited the Waco siege as his biggest motivation to become a terrorist and mass murderer. (The Turner Diaries, a poorly written fantasy from a vanity press about a white supremacist uprising mass murdering Blacks, Jews, Mexicans, and Asians, also influenced McVeigh.) The increase in right wing militia terrorism (see Section Seven) is partly due to Clinton and Reno's actions. After leaving office, Reno ran for governor of Florida and narrowly lost.
* Few outside of the conspiracy minded remember how Clinton failing to rein in Reno caused Davidian deaths. Like most conspiracy claims, their presence distracts from actual evidence and useful solutions. That some are willing to dismiss or forget their deaths because of the Davidians' beliefs is shameful. That Clinton's critics focused on the Lewinsky scandal instead is almost as shameful. Deaths caused by government incompetence at Waco were the second worst thing Clinton ever did, after ignoring Rwandan genocide.