April 19, 1993: Attorney General Admits Decision to Assault Davidian Compound Was ‘Obviously Wrong’

Attorney General Janet Reno, described by the New York Times as “shaken,” explains the decision to allow the FBI to assault the besieged Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas (see March 1, 1993), a decision that resulted in an inferno of flames and almost 80 dead Davidians (see April 19, 1993). She says that in hindsight the order to assault the compound was a mistake. Reno takes responsibility for the assault and says that she regrets the loss of life. “Today was not meant to be D-Day,” she says. “This was just a step forward in trying to bring about a peaceful resolution by constantly exerting further pressure to shrink the perimeter.… Obviously, if I had thought that the chances were great of a mass suicide, I would never have approved the plan.” She says FBI officials in charge of the operation did not believe that Koresh’s reaction to the assault, which deployed tanks, armored vehicles, and a huge amount of tear gas, would be to order a mass suicide. In an interview on CNN, Reno says the decision “was based on what we knew then,” apparently referring to what she and FBI officials knew before the raid (see April 17-18, 1993). “Based on what we know now, it was obviously wrong.” FBI senior agent Bob Ricks, who was at the siege for almost all of its 51 days, concurs with Reno’s statements. “Our desire was to get them out, use nonlethal means in a systematic manner, so that they could come before the bar and face justice,” he says, not to precipitate their deaths. Reno says that one of the factors that led her to approve the assault was reports that the Davidians were physically abusing the children inside. “We had information that babies were being beaten” by Davidian leader David Koresh, she says. “I specifically asked, ‘You really mean babies?’ ‘Yes, that he’s slapping babies around.’ These are concerns that we had.” She also says that had the siege lasted much longer, most if not all of the FBI agents deployed around the compound would have needed to be withdrawn for rest and retraining, and replaced with a new team. “The experts advised us, advised me, that in those situations where you had to be constantly on the alert that it was in the best interests of everybody concerned, including the safety of the agents and others involved, to provide for really time off, and what I was told is that there were no backups,” she says. [New York Times, 4/20/1993; New York Times, 4/20/1993; New York Times, 4/20/1993]