From: [i--s--t] at [delphi.com] Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: Labaton on FBI Report Date: Sat, 12 Mar 94 19:45:47 -0500 OUTSIDE REVIEW CRITICIZES F.B.I. ON RAID ON CULT Agency is Given Some Blame for Death of 75 By Stephen Labaton Special to the New York Times WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - A Harvard professor retained by the Justice Department to review the Government's tear gas assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., said today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had helped drive cult members to mass suicide and then misled officials in the review that followed. Contradicting the official review of the operation published last month by the Justice Department, the professor, Dr. Alan Stone, said the Government bore some blame for the deaths of 75 people, including 25 children, in the assault on April 19 that ended a 51 day standoff outside the cult's compound. Dr. Stone, an authority on violence, who sits on the faculties of the medical and law schools at Harvard, said that although there was no intentional misconduct, F.B.I. officials who were making decisions during the standoff had ignored their own behavioral experts and instead "embarked on a misguided and punishing law enforcement strategy that contributed to the tragic ending at Waco." To justify the operation, Dr. Stone said, the bureau withheld from the officials conducting the review the assessment that its behavioral experts had provided before the assault. That assessment said the cult's leader David Koresh, was a religious fanatic who was likely to fulfil his apocalyptic vision. Instead, the F.B.I. characterized the assessment as having depicted Mr. Koresh as a petty con artist who would be likely to commit suicide. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Dr. Stone also said there were "serious unanswered questions" about why Attorney Janet Reno thought it would be safe to use tear gas "in a closed space where there were 25 children, many of them toddlers and infants." "It is difficult to understand why a person whose primary concern was the safety of the children would agree to the F.B.I.'s plan," he said, referring to Ms. Reno's approval of the April 19 tear gas asault that ended when the cult's compound caught fire and burned to the ground in less than an hour." Ms. Reno ordered the assault on the 52d day of a standoff between the Branch Davidian cult and the F.B.I. The standoff began on Feb. 28 when Federal agents tried to serve the cult and Mr. Koresh with a search warrant for possible violations of Federal firearms statutes. Four Federal agents and at least six cult members died that day in a shootout; 20 agents and an unknown number of cult members were wounded. Dr. Stone said that is was clear that in recommending the April assault to Ms. Reno, senior F.B.I. officials had discounted the advice of the behavioral experts at the scene. "By the time the A.G. made her decision," he wrote, "the noose was closed, and as one agent told me, the F.B.I. believed they had three options - 'gas, gas and gas.'" Officials at the Justice Department said Ms. Reno would have no comment on the report. The F.B.I. today released a statement defending its actions. Dr. Stone was one of 19 unpaid experts picked by the Government to review the 51 day standoff at the Branch Davidians compound and the April assault. None of the others were critical of Ms. Reno or suggested that that the F.B.I. had contributed to mass suicide, although a few said that the advice of the behavioral experts was mistakenly discounted by senior officials. The experts also provided suggestions on how to handle similar situations that may arise. Dr. Stone refused to submit his report when the department's review was published in October because he said he needed more information to evaluate the information. His report is the first official criticism of Attorney General Reno's handling of the affair. The department's review, in its chronology of the 51-day operation, presented facts that contradicted Ms. Reno's account of why she had ordered the tear gas assault. But it concluded by praising the performance of the F.B.I. and Justice Department and blaming Mr. Koresh for the outcome, which it said was unavoidable. Today Mr. Stone rejected that view. Instead, he said the F.B.I.'s carrot-and-stick approach of rewarding and then punishing the Branch Davidians during the standoff was part of an uncoordinated strategy that ultimatly backfired. "There is, to my mind, unequivocal evidence in the report and briefings that the Branch Davidians set the compound on fire them- selves and ended their lives on David Koresh's order," Dr. Stone said. "However, I am also now convinced that the F.B.I.'s noose tightening tactics may well have precipated Koresh's decision to commit himself and his followers to this course of mass suicide." Although Dr. Stone's report is not expected to result in any further action by the Government in the case, it adds weight to Administration critics like Henry S. Ruth, Jr. who have said that the assault was a fatal mistake and that its official review of the affair was a whitewash. Mr. Ruth, a former Watergate prosecutor, conducted a review for the Treasury Department, which harshly criticized the role in the affair of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a Treasury agency.