Clinton Backs Reno Action but Orders Inquiry

President Clinton said Tuesday that he supports Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s decision to approve the tear-gas attack on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., but he nevertheless directed the Justice and Treasury departments to investigate the episode.

Clinton used strong language to dismiss the notion--raised during a television interview with Reno Monday night--that the attorney general should resign because, as Clinton put it, “some religious fanatics murdered themselves.”

At a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Clinton blamed the fire that destroyed the compound and presumably killed 86 people--24 of them children--on cult leader David Koresh, describing him as “dangerous, irrational and probably insane.”

Calling the outcome “a horrible human tragedy,” Clinton said: “Koresh’s response to the demands for his surrender by federal agents was to destroy himself and murder the children who were his captives, as well as all the other people who were there who did not survive. He killed those he controlled and he bears ultimate responsibility for the carnage that ensued.”

Although Clinton’s first full public statement on the Waco episode came almost 24 hours after the fact, Clinton said he was “bewildered” by suggestions that he was trying to distance himself from the disaster.

“The only reason I made no public statement yesterday . . . is that I had nothing to add to what was being said.

“It’s not possible for a President to distance himself from things that happen when the federal government is in control,” he added.

Clinton said that he is ordering the joint Justice-Treasury inquiry in an attempt to determine whether he and other federal officials should have asked more questions before authorizing the action and whether something could have been done to prevent such a tragic outcome. Senate and House members, meanwhile, pledged to conduct separate investigations of the raid.

To help ensure a tough, impartial review, the President said he has ordered that independent law enforcement experts be involved in the investigation--”not political people, but totally nonpolitical outside experts who can bring to bear the best evidence we have.”

Citing what he said is “a rise in this sort of fanaticism all across the world,” Clinton said: “We may have to confront it again. And I want to know whether there is anything else we can do, particularly when there are children involved.”

Clinton’s statements came as questions were raised about information that children inside the compound were abused. On Monday, Reno cited indications of child abuse as one reason she approved the tear-gas operation.

Larry Potts, assistant FBI director in charge of the criminal investigative division, told reporters during a briefing Tuesday that there had been “continuing indications of molestation of underage children” inside the compound.

He said that the information came from witnesses who had been cult members but were not inside the compound, and from “one witness who came out after this thing began.”

FBI Director William S. Sessions, who led the briefing, said: “It’s well known that some of the younger girls in there were actually mothers of children and they were children themselves.”

But Carl Stern, Reno’s chief spokesman, said he had the impression that the allegation of child abuse was more current. Stern attended part of a meeting in Reno’s conference room Saturday in which Sessions, Deputy FBI Director Floyd Clarke and Potts discussed with Reno and other officials the FBI’s plan to gas the compound.

“I’m under the impression that someone who came out of the compound in the days immediately preceding the operation (on Monday) had described physical abuse to the children,” Stern said. “I was sitting there and I heard that.”

Stern said that, in reaching the decision to approve the operation, there was nothing more important to Reno than the welfare of the children inside the compound.

Clinton recounted his questioning of Reno when she briefed him Sunday on the planned operation, saying: “ ‘Now, I want you to tell me once more why you believe--not why they believe--why you believe we should move now rather than wait some more.’ And she said: ‘It’s because of the children. They (the FBI) have evidence that those children are still being abused and that they’re in increasingly unsafe conditions, and that they don’t think it will get any easier with time, with the passage of time. I have to take their word for that.’ ”

In a related development, a psychologist consulted by the FBI said Tuesday he had told the bureau that suicide “was not part of his (Koresh’s) agenda.”

The consultant, Murray S. Miron, a professor of psychology at Syracuse University, specializes in psycholinguistics, or the study of communication related to forensic or criminal matters.

Miron, who analyzed five of Koresh’s written communications, said in an interview that there was no question Koresh “was quite diseased.”

“He was highly delusional and self-aggrandizing. On the basis of my analysis, I advised the FBI that all of his promises as to giving up were only subterfuges, deceptions and delaying tactics.

“The outcome, in my opinion, was closer to murder than suicide,” continued Miron, who has been a consultant to the FBI for 18 years. “From all the evidence, suicide was not a unanimous decision by his followers. For example, we had people who came out. The plan for mass death seems to have been carried out by Koresh’s lieutenants unbeknownst to many members of that group.”

Reno was asked late Monday in an ABC interview whether she should resign in the wake of the tragedy. “If that’s what the President wants, I’m happy to do so,” she replied.

But Clinton, in his remarks Tuesday, said that her resignation was the furthest thing from his mind.

“I was frankly . . . surprised would be a mild word . . . that anyone would suggest that the attorney general should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves,” the President said.

Republicans in Congress--traditionally tough advocates of law and order--adopted a more critical view of the FBI operation than Democrats. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned why tear gas had been used against women and children, why no firetrucks had been put on alert and whether authorities simply had been “worn down” by the 51-day standoff.

“There may not have been sufficient thought given,” Specter said during an appearance on Fox TV’s “Morning News.”

Another Republican, Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, called the outcome “the worst possible result.”

“It looks like we ran out of patience. Did they take seriously David Koresh’s comments that they would all be engulfed in flames?”

Hyde and Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), also a Judiciary member, said that the committee would open hearings on the raid next week for what Edwards said was “the hope of learning lessons that will prevent such outcomes in the future.”

Edwards explained that “we want to know about the expert advice that was given (to the FBI), what the psychiatrists and others said.”

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the raid “tragic,” adding: “Many of the details . . . remain unclear and many questions about the operational details and decisions need answers.”

Biden welcomed the “full investigation” promised by the Administration and said that his committee would assist in it.

Times staff writer Michael Ross contributed to this story.