Bush Says U.S. Will Prosecute in Riot Cases

President Bush said Tuesday that the federal government intends to seek out and prosecute the murderers, arsonists and looters involved in the Los Angeles riots and is already reviewing videotapes of the violence to identify suspects.

The Administration later announced the formation of a new joint federal-state law enforcement task force it said would be dispatched to Los Angeles to assist local authorities in bringing those responsible for death and destruction to justice.

The planned federal crackdown, disclosed by Bush during a meeting with Republican senators, represents a new effort by the White House to impose a strict law-and-order stamp in its response to the urban turmoil. It came as officials appeared to resist wider proposals for addressing urban ills but also to step back from Monday’s widely criticized attempt to put the blame on Democratic-backed welfare programs.

But whether the new approach would help solve the broad array of problems that boiled to the surface after the Rodney G. King verdicts and the rioting remained to be seen. Administration officials are apparently uncertain and divided over how to deal with the situation.

Bush is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles tonight on a trip that has been accelerated by half a day to give him more time to survey the city’s riot-damaged neighborhoods. But White House aides said the President had no plans to offer new policy initiatives to address problems exposed by the events.

Instead, Bush was expected to tread cautiously on what aides regard as a politically perilous three-day journey, meeting with citizens and community leaders affected by the violence but avoiding sweeping pronouncements.

The low-key tactics for the visit appeared to reflect a deep discomfiture and fierce debate within the White House about how best to address the riot and its aftermath. It suggested that Bush had rejected the advice of some senior advisers who urged that he seize the occasion to suggest broader solutions to the nation’s urban problems.

At the same time, White House officials said Bush was also not likely to echo the arguments made Monday by his chief spokesman, who responded to Democratic criticism of Administration neglect by blaming the violence on failed liberal programs from the 1960s.

The remarks by press secretary Marlin Fitzwater were privately derided across Washington Tuesday by ranking Republican officials, including those within Bush’s own reelection camp. “For the President’s spokesman to walk out after the largest and most deadly racial confrontation of the century and to blame it on Lyndon Johnson is nothing short of bizarre,” a senior campaign official said.

By day’s end Tuesday, even Fitzwater had moved to distance himself from his earlier remarks, telling reporters that he “was not suggesting that the policies were the cause of the riots” but merely “that the policies did not help.”

With Housing Secretary Jack Kemp and others urging the White House to adopt a more assertive stance in the wake of the riots, it appeared likely that the leery mood could add to an impression of Administration inaction.

That image was underscored Tuesday afternoon when, after the intense debate about what steps to take, senior White House officials elected only to summon reporters to a briefing at which they defended existing programs. Other aides said Bush would maintain similar caution throughout his three-day visit.

“The idea is to have some give and take with the people out there,” one White House official said of the plans for Bush’s trip. “I would expect it to be more of a listening session than anything else.”

The President, accompanied by several Cabinet members, was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles late tonight after a full working day at the White House and to consult on arrival with members of the high-level federal team he sent to Los Angeles early this week.

In an agenda assembled with the advice of Mayor Tom Bradley, Bush was to spend Thursday touring the riot-affected area and attending an ecumenical worship service at a Catholic church in South Los Angeles as part of a national day of prayer.

A White House official said he would also meet Thursday with a group of businessmen and homeowners that were victims of the violence, and would hold talks with Korean-American and other community leaders “to learn what they had been through.” Bush is to meet Friday with police officers and citizens involved in cleanup efforts.

The official said Bush had canceled an appearance before the Town Hall of California so that he could focus on riot-related events and had decided to deliver no speeches, except for remarks at the final event.

In the contentious planning sessions that preceded that decision, some Bush advisers had urged the President to use his visit to the city to deliver a nationally televised address about urban problems or, alternatively, expand a new anti-crime, anti-poverty program to include Los Angeles.

The officials had been chagrined to learn that the program, known as Weed and Seed, does not provide any funds to Los Angeles because federal authorities in the region had elected to establish a pilot program in Santa Ana instead.

Some participants in the meetings were said to have warned explicitly against the danger of being seen as doing nothing. But sources said White House Chief of Staff Samuel K. Skinner and others had successfully argued that any change of tack could be portrayed by political opponents as a sign that previous efforts had been inadequate.

The mostly symbolic law enforcement initiative presented by Bush in a closed meeting with Republican senators Tuesday takes advantage of broad legal statutes that treat as a federal crime virtually all wrongdoing during incidents of civil unrest.

According to Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.), Bush told the group during an hourlong meeting that the Justice Department was reviewing videotapes of the rioting and intended “to prosecute to the fullest the looters and those that created mayhem and destroyed property and were responsible for the killings.”

U.S. Atty. Gen. William P. Barr echoed that hard-line rhetoric later in the day as he announced the formation of the federal-state task force to investigate and prosecute criminal activity related to the disorder.

Under the plan, agents of the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and other agencies are to assist state and local investigators in pursuing those responsible for the most serious crimes committed during the riot, including murder and arson.

But the statement showed that the task force would add no more than 60 federal agents to anti-riot efforts, and Justice Department officials said it was unclear whether the effort would result in speedier prosecutions or stiffer penalties for those convicted of riot-related crimes.

In emphasizing the anti-crime efforts, the White House returned to the argument it has used ever since the riots occurred. Officials have rejected suggestions that the Administration should have done more to address urban discontent.

To fend off such criticism, a senior Administration official invited reporters to a special briefing Tuesday in which copies of Bush’s latest budget proposals were distributed to demonstrate that he actually had presided over an increase in spending on many social programs.

“We’ve been taking a lot of hits, and we wanted to set the record straight,” White House deputy press secretary Gary Foster said. Officials in the session made clear that the White House strategy in coming weeks will be focused on efforts to win passage of existing proposals, including the establishment of enterprise zones to encourage investment in the minority community.

The official said such demands would impose a heavy burden on the Small Business Administration, and said the agency might require supplemental funding from Congress. But White House officials said the Administration was opposed to a plan introduced Tuesday by California House Democrats, who urged that Bush declare a budget “emergency” to speed federal relief efforts.

In a letter to the President, the Californians said it may take more than $500 million in new federal funds for SBA and Federal Emergency Management Agency to carry out their assistance programs.

A Bush declaration would allow Congress to vote additional funds for the SBA and other federal agencies without complying with the pay-as-you-go requirements of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. But White House officials said there appeared no need for such action and said Bush remained opposed to any step that would undermine that budget agreement.

Times staff writers Glenn Bunting and William J. Eaton contributed to this article.