RIGHT OF CENTER: AFTER WACO, IS ANYONE REALLY SAFE?

This week marked the two-year anniversary of that federal law enforcement debacle known as Waco.

Waco began with a misguided and poorly planned attempt to serve arrest and search warrants for weapons violations at a cluster of buildings outside the Texas city that housed the Branch Davidians, a small religious sect. It ended seven weeks later, on April 19, 1993, in the fiery slaughter of 75 men, women and children within the Mt. Carmel complex near Waco.

Perhaps the best and most explicit account of the events that led to the raid, and the most compelling case against the government's role in the episode, is in the latest issue of "First Things" magazine. The article, titled "Waco: A Massacre and its Aftermath," relates the history of the Branch Davidians and their leader Vernon Howell, a.k.a. David Koresh. The lengthy article presents previously unreported evidence not only of tactical blunders committed by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI, but of the agencies' almost unbelievable incompetence and naivete in trying to end the long siege. The article also tracks the subsequent trial of surviving Branch Davidians held responsible for the deaths of four ATF agents killed in the initial raid of Feb. 28. The trial ended with a judge imposing 40-year prison sentences on five of the nine defendants.

After reading several accounts from various sources, these conclusions emerge from the Waco massacre:

-- The arrest and search warrants for illegal weapons served by ATF agents on their initial raid -- an assault of 75 armed agents in full commando gear with cover from armored vehicles -- were illegal. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution states that searches and seizures be based on warrants and that the warrants must not be issued except upon "probable cause." Nothing in the Waco record shows any proof that there ever were illegal weapons at Mt. Carmel.

-- The chosen method of serving the arrest and search warrants was foolish and likely motivated by a desire by ATF to acquire favorable press coverage following a TV program in late 1992 that was critical of the bureau. In choosing a supposedly surprise, quick-strike raid of Mt. Carmel, ATF rejected three other options. The first was to avoid violence and serve the warrants in a simple visit to the complex. Another option was to arrest Koresh when he was making one of his routine trips to town. The third option was an all-out siege, which was rejected for fear that evidence of illegal weapons could be destroyed and that it might end in mass suicide. As it turned out, the surprise raid was anything but, and Branch Davidians, under assault by armed agents in armored vehicles, thwarted the raid with force. After the seven-week standoff, the FBI, under Attorney General Janet Reno, decided to go ahead with the siege.

-- During the standoff, FBI negotiators were slow to realize they had little expertise in dealing with a millenialist sect led by the apocalyptic Koresh. Experts in such matters have reviewed materials Koresh was compiling during the standoff and are convinced he intended to surrender as soon as he finished interpreting the Seven Seals of the apocalypse in the Bible, perhaps in two or three weeks.

-- The siege on April 19 in which a highly toxic and potentially deadly riot-control agent, CS -- not tear gas as erroneously reported in much of the media -- virtually guaranteed the events a numb public watched unfold April 19, 1993, as flames consumed the complex. The government was quick to assert the fires were started by the Branch Davidians, but it should be noted that federal agents reportedly notified the burn unit at an area hospital the day of the siege to prepare for burn victims. They wore fireproof suits during the siege, indicating they at least knew there was a potential for fire. Since the FBI cut off electricity to Mt. Carmel, forcing the Branch Davidians to use fuel lanterns, it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine the lanterns tipping over and igniting the complex when federal armored vehicles and tanks crashed through the walls of the building to discharge their potentially lethal doses of CS.

-- Finally, the Branch Davidians who were convicted ought never to have spent a day in jail. There was no evidence at the trial that any of the defendants were responsible for the deaths of four ATF agents killed in the initial raid. At least one of the agents probably was killed by the friendly fire of other agents. The jury convicted each of the Davidians of lesser crimes, only to see the judge sentence them as if they had committed a premeditated, lethal assault on the ATF agents. In an interview last June, Sara L. Bain, a San Antonio schoolteacher and the presiding member of the jury, said she and her peers thought the weapons charges "would be a slap on the wrist," First Things reported. "I wish everyone had just been acquitted on all charges.

"We spoke in the jury room about the fact that the wrong people were on trial, that it should have been the ones that planned the raid and orchestrated it and insisted on carrying out this plan who should have been on trial," Bain said.

That 79 people died at Waco two years ago is tragic. That they died because of a misguided and mishandled government publicity stunt gone awry is criminal. And when the lawbreakers turn out to be the nation's top law enforcement agencies, one must wonder: Is anyone truly safe?

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.