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The Waco Fiasco
| Article
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21899 |
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EDITORIAL
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1993 |
933 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
David Koresh was an ideologue who misled people. He was, as the FBI said, a liar. He committed sexual acts on minor children that are forbidden by Texas law and sound morality. Four federal officers were killed during the incompetent shootout that initiated the tragic fiasco. Koresh's likely sincere religious beliefs excuse none of this. And I shed no more tears over his death than I would over any other wasted life.
I am a firm advocate of stern enforcement of laws on such issues and do not balk at the use of force to accomplish this objective. The public strongly approves of the attorney general's handling of the denouement at Waco, which is covered in the Current Issues section this month. Why, then, do I believe that Attorney General Janet Reno should be fired?
No sufficient public purpose justified that particular use of force in the Waco case. The physical abuse of the children, if true, could not justify it. The sexual abuse of Koresh's "wives," although not minor, did not create a clear and present danger to any young girl in the compound beyond what had already been done to her. The risk in an onslaught, on the other hand, was overwhelming.
Perhaps the tragedy was unavoidable. If the FBI had been replaced by local police and if the cult members, after running out of food and water, eventually had immolated themselves, they clearly would have been responsible for their own demise. But neither the attorney general nor the FBI could know that this would occur, and we do not know it now, for, contrary to claims coming from the FBI, whatever happened after the FBI incursion cannot show what would have happened under an entirely different set of circumstances. The FBI created a risk situation that the attorney general, with twelve years of law enforcement experience, should have understood.
The FBI is to be further faulted for not allowing relatives of those in the compound to attempt to persuade them to leave. In a hostage situation, one must convince the hostage takers. But the FBI had no evidence at the time that Koresh was holding anyone hostage. The FBI could not know that Koresh would not allow any to leave, and the fact that he allowed some to leave supports the hypothesis that he might have permitted others to leave. Where was the attorney general while this was going on, and why did she not ask the FBI to allow relatives to attempt to persuade those in the compound to leave as at least a last resort measure? Surely we can expect this much from the commanding officer.
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