ATF Chief Retires Days Before Waco Raid Report : Government: The review is expected to criticize agency’s director for his handling of fatal assault. Probe of FBI attack is nearly complete.

The director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms retired Monday, days before the release of a Treasury Department report that is expected to criticize his agency’s handling of last February’s fatal raid on the Branch Davidian cult headquarters near Waco, Tex.

Stephen E. Higgins, director of the bureau for 10 years, said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen that he realizes that “changes in direction and focus” will be called for in the report. But he said he disagrees with some of its conclusions.

Joan Logue-Kinder, an aide to Bentsen, said that Higgins’ decision to leave had been accepted and the report would be released this week.

“ATF deserves a director who is willing to act on it,” she said.

Higgins, 55, said last April that he expected to retire once the Treasury Department had completed its review. He was widely criticized in Congress for the incomplete and confusing statements that officials of his agency made about the raid and the events that led to it. Of particular concern was whether the bureau had been aware of reports that David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian cult, had been tipped to the raid.

Congressional sources have said that the agency may have inadvertently alerted Koresh to the raid while seeking media coverage.

Responding to reports that cult members were stockpiling weapons, AFT agents mounted their raid on the compound early on Feb. 28. In an ensuing gun battle, four agents and at least six cultists were killed and 16 agents were wounded.

The failed raid then led to a 51-day standoff between the cult and the FBI that ended in a conflagration on April 19, when the FBI attacked the compound with tanks and tear gas. Koresh and 86 cultists died--some reportedly shot by other members--as fire consumed the wooden structures.

The FBI attack, for which Atty. Gen. Janet Reno promptly took responsibility, has been the subject of another review--this one by the Justice Department--that is nearly complete.

In addition to criticism from Congress, Higgins also faced a sharp rebuke from Bentsen, who said in a statement last April that he was “deeply troubled by conflicting statements” by Higgins and others about the raid.

While telling Congress that no ATF official would knowingly lead his men into an ambush, Higgins declined to say specifically whether agents knew they had lost “the element of surprise” before entering the compound.

Court documents released in recent months suggest that supervisors ordered the raid even though they knew Koresh and his heavily armed cult members were expecting them.

The Treasury Department reportedly will fault Higgins for allowing inaccurate or incomplete statements to be made to Congress, his Treasury Department superiors and the public.

It is also expected to call for the reassignment of or disciplinary action against other agency officials, including Associate Director Daniel Hartnett, Deputy Associate Director Edward Conroy and Intelligence Director David Troy.

Hartnett and Conroy have been accused of making misleading statements about whether an undercover agent recommended that the raid be called off because Koresh had learned it was being planned. Troy also has been criticized for issuing false or misleading statements after the raid.

Hartnett and Conroy have said that they too might retire this year because of higher retirement benefits now available to federal law enforcement officials.

In his letter to Bentsen, in which he said his retirement would take effect Oct. 30, Higgins said that Treasury officials “apparently see what happened in Waco as an indication that ATF needs to make significant changes in direction and focus.”

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.