Investigation Clears Reno, FBI Officials in Raid on Cult Compound

A Justice Department investigation has concluded that Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and FBI officials bear no significant fault for the outcome of the assault on a Texas cult compound that ended in the deaths of 86 people, sources said Saturday.

Release of the report, which had been expected early this week, will be delayed because it improperly includes information gleaned through listening devices inside the Waco, Tex., compound where the Branch Davidian cult members and their leader, David Koresh, lived, sources familiar with the document said.

The Justice Department’s legal counsel has determined that the recorded information can be used in the trial of the 11 surviving cult members charged in the deaths of four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents killed in the initial raid on the compound.

The information may not legally be made part of the Justice Department report because that document will be made public before the cult members’ trial begins in January, according to the counsel’s opinion.

Justice Department officials are working to remove the material before the report is officially released, sources said.

The Justice Department investigation of the FBI’s role in the episode, along with a Treasury Department review of the ATF’s performance, was ordered by President Clinton after the disastrous end to a 51-day standoff between cult members and federal agents.

The siege began on Feb. 28, when ATF agents, responding to reports that cult members were stockpiling weapons, launched a raid on the compound. In an ensuing gun battle, the four agents and six cult members were killed and 16 agents were wounded.

The failed raid led to the standoff between the cult members and the FBI, which took jurisdiction over the case. It ended with the FBI’s decision to use tanks and tear gas to drive the cult members from the compound. Koresh and 85 of his followers died as fire consumed the wooden structures.

The report on the Justice Department investigation cites shortcomings in federal law enforcement officials’ knowledge of cult philosophy and activities that may have caused them to misjudge the effects of their attack, but it faults no senior officials for the decision.

One critic of the report, who asked not to be named, called it “uncritical in the extreme” and compared it unfavorably to the Treasury Department findings released last week. That report took a much harsher view of the ATF’s performance.

It blamed lax supervision by senior ATF officials and serious mistakes by inexperienced field commanders for the outcome of the initial raid.

It also accused ATF officials of misleading investigators and the public afterward in an attempt to cover up the errors.