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10/09/93
FBI failed to weigh cult's beliefs, outside report says
By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News
The FBI ignored the Branch Davidians' apocalyptic religious beliefs and failed to heed warnings that tactical pressure might push the sect to suicide, three outside experts concluded in a report released Friday.
The behavioral science experts were among 10 outside specialists asked to examine various aspects of FBI actions during the 51-day Waco standoff and recommend ways to improve response to future standoffs.
In a report that is markedly more critical than the main Justice Department review, the behavioral experts said the FBI erred in dismissing cult leader David Koresh as a con man and failed to consider that the use of tanks, psychological warfare and tear gas could reinforce Mr. Koresh's apocalyptic prophecies.
"In the end, the intense theological commitment of the Davidians to Koresh and his religious ideas may better explain what happened than the FBI picture of Koresh as a dissembling con man and his followers as psychologically weak but religiously uncommitted sheep," wrote Lawrence Sullivan, director of Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions.
Experts in police tactics, terrorism and law enforcement also explored use of the FBI's hostage-rescue team and coordination with other law enforcement agencies. Among their recommendations in nine separate reports released Friday with the Justice review:
Expanding the hostage-rescue team and giving it clear authority over hostage and barricade standoffs.
Beefing up the FBI's negotiations and behavioral unit and setting up a central data base for information on standoffs, the characteristics of standoff subjects and marginal religions.
Establishing a pool of experts in marginal religions, psychology and sociology for use in future standoffs.
Ensuring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and other federal law enforcement agencies have access to behavioral science expertise. Because ATF officials planning the original raid on the Waco compound did not consult outside behavioral experts, religion and sociology expert Nancy Ammerman wrote: "It became easy to lose sight of the human dynamics of the group involved, to plan as if the group were indeed a military target."
Assigning crisis command to trained specialists instead of to the FBI special agent in charge of the geographic area where the crisis occurs.
Several police and terrorism experts noted that they found no fault with FBI actions in Waco. But several criticized ATF's planning and execution of the initial raid.
A Treasury Department review of the Feb. 28 ATF raid that began the standoff concluded commanders should have called off their operation after learning it had been compromised.
In the Justice Department review, FBI and Justice officials stated that siege commanders received advice from religion scholars, psychiatrists, psychologists and other behavioral experts during the 51-day siege. The Justice review also concluded that senior FBI and Justice officials adequately considered the threat of suicide before deciding to use tear gas, and it noted that behavioral experts gave the FBI conflicting advice on whether Mr. Koresh posed a suicide risk.
Dr. Ammerman, a visiting scholar from Princeton University, wrote, however, that agents did not reach out to recognized experts in marginal religions who might have helped explore the sect's beliefs.
"They (agents) were not in a hostage-rescue situation. They were in a tragic standoff with a group for whom they were already the enemy foretold to destroy them," she said.
New York University Medical Center psychiatrist Robert Cancro said the Branch Davidians likely viewed the FBI's April 19 tear-gas assault as only the first stage of a larger, fatal assault. The sect members then probably concluded that they had "the choice of being killed by enemy weapons or by their own hand," he wrote.
The behavioral experts praised early analysis of the sect by specialists from the FBI's Quantico-based investigative support unit, and they chastised FBI officials for not paying more heed to them.
On March 5, two FBI analysts wrote that increasing tactical and physical pressure "could eventually be counterproductive and could result in loss of life. Every time his followers sense movement of tactical personnel, Koresh validates his prophetic warnings that an attack is forthcoming, and they are going to have to defend themselves."
On March 7, one outside expert noted, the same FBI analysts warned that using psychological warfare such as lights and loud music "would also succeed in shutting down negotiations and convince Koresh and his followers that the end is near."
And on March 8, the FBI analysts also warned against dismissing Mr. Koresh's religious claims as "a con" that could be overcome with a strong show of force.
"In fact, the opposite very well may also occur, whereby the presence of that show of force will draw David Koresh and his followers closer together in the bunker mentality, and they would rather die than surrender," the FBI analysts wrote in the March 8 memo.
Although their assessments were "on target," Dr. Ammerman wrote, the FBI analysts' advice was not heeded because they were outranked and outnumbered by tactical proponents, whose ranks included the Waco FBI commanders.
"There was an understandable desire among many agents in Waco to make Koresh and the Davidians pay for the harm they had caused. Arguments for patience or unconventional tactics fell on deaf ears," she wrote.
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