Clinton Aide Calls Focus on Waco a ‘Diversion’ : Politics: Panetta decries likening Oklahoma blast to ’93 raid, says some in GOP are using it to stall terrorism bill.

A senior White House official on Sunday denounced efforts by anti-government activists to focus renewed attention on the 1993 debacle at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., rather than on last month’s bombing in Oklahoma City.

Leon E. Panetta, President Clinton’s chief of staff, declared that “this diversion” is being used by some Republicans to stall the progress of anti-terrorism legislation in Congress. To compare the two tragedies is “despicable,” he said.

Since the April 19 bombing in Oklahoma City, the National Rifle Assn. and a number of Republican lawmakers have called for congressional hearings on the Waco tragedy, in which more than 80 cult members died at the end of a 51-day standoff with federal agents.

Panetta said that Congress and an executive branch review panel already have examined the case, so scheduling congressional hearings would serve little purpose.

“What I find unfortunate is that there is this diversion going on in this country right now in which those who want to take attention away from the tragedy of Oklahoma City are saying we ought to look at Waco,” Panetta said on the CBS-TV show “Face the Nation.” “Anti-terrorism legislation . . . isn’t moving because there is this diversion going on to try to create attention on the Waco incident.”

He acknowledged, however, that “mistakes were made” by the federal agents who participated in the raid.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said last week that the FBI’s promotion of Larry Potts to deputy director “will further slow down the terrorist legislation” because Potts had a supervisory role in the Branch Davidian siege.

Panetta said the public should remember that four agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were killed when the agency stormed the compound in February, 1993, to serve an arrest warrant on cult leader David Koresh for illegal possession of explosives and combat weapons.

After a lengthy standoff, Koresh and scores of his followers died in a fire that engulfed their complex of frame buildings on April 19, 1993. The blaze began after FBI agents fired tear-gas canisters into the compound. A federal inquiry concluded that Koresh’s aides set the fire and shot many of those who died.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno acknowledged on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday that there had been conflicting opinions within the FBI about whether to use tear gas. And knowing how the raid turned out, she said, “I would not do it again.” But she said “to blame the FBI for what David Koresh did just isn’t logical.”

The Oklahoma City bombing, which claimed 168 lives, occurred on the second anniversary of the Branch Davidian fire. Federal officials believe the chief bombing suspect, Timothy J. McVeigh, might have planned it as an act of revenge.

Appearing on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” ATF Director John W. Magaw defended his agents as “very patriotic, very talented personnel” in the face of an NRA fund-raising letter that calls them “jackbooted thugs.”

“If they want to have hearings, then we’ll be happy to have them,” Magaw said.

Magaw, who assumed command of the agency several months after Waco, said all accusations against his agents were examined by “an investigative unit that answers only to me.”

The executive director of the NRA, appearing on the same show, said ATF in the past four years has experienced “scandal after scandal,” including charges of sexual harassment and racial discrimination among its employees, in addition to tactical errors at Waco.

The official, Wayne LaPierre, author of the controversial NRA letter, said: “I hear all the talk about the rhetoric, but I don’t hear any talk about the abuses the rhetoric is based on.”

However, LaPierre insisted that “we’re not trying to abolish ATF,” acknowledging that there are many “fine people” in the agency. He called for a presidential review of ATF in addition to congressional hearings.

Former President George Bush, who resigned as an NRA member last week in disagreement with LaPierre’s letter, said Sunday that federal law enforcement officers “put their lives on the line every day.”

He said he strongly disagrees with “those who call them jackbooted thugs and Nazis.” Bush spoke at commencement ceremonies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.