Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 29, 1995 TAG: 9507310033
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, began just a few weeks after Clinton's inauguration. It started when four federal agents were slain in an aborted raid on the compound. It ended with the fiery deaths of David Koresh and dozens of his followers.
Though more may emerge when Attorney General Janet Reno testifies next week, the Waco hearings have not altered the fundamental picture outlined in earlier reports: bungling, miscalculation, miscommunication and arrogance by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and by the FBI - and mid- to low-level cover-your-tail evasions since.
No evidence has arisen of any kind of federal conspiracy, though. Nor has anything emerged to contradict the notion that the greatest blame for the deaths - both of the agents at the beginning of the siege and of compound residents, including children, at the end - must be placed on Koresh himself.
The hearings have reinforced the point that he was not simply a wacko, but a dangerous one. Indeed, a key criticism of authorities' performance is how seriously they underestimated the danger. Warnings that Koresh knew in advance of the raid apparently were ignored or discounted by ATF officials. Had the FBI made more effort to understand what was going on inside Koresh's head, some argue, the authorities could have predicted the final conflagration and been better equipped to deal with it.
If the reopened Waco investigation leads to meaningful reforms within the FBI and ATF bureaucracies, the hearings will have proved useful. But as an explosive indictment of the top levels of the administration, Waco to date remains more sound than substance.
Whitewater may prove the exact opposite. Unlike the Waco hearings, those on Whitewater have begun quietly. Implausible and distracting allegations that the 1993 death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster died by anything but his own hand have been put to rest. New York Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, who is chairing the Whitewater hearings, has uncharacteristically avoided a strident tone in his efforts to follow the paper trail.
Certainly, Whitewater is a harder story to follow, a matter of financial transactions rather than life-or-death decisions. Most of it is ancient history, from long before Clinton was elected president; much of it is clouded not only by the passage of time but by apparently deliberate obfuscation.
Yet shards of information keep piercing through the fog, raising questions of Clinton cupidity whose answers could be scandalous even if not illegal under the loose rules of Arkansas politics. Why did it take so long to close a Clinton crony's insolvent, state-regulated savings-and-loan? Did the Clintons lose money on their Whitewater investment, as they have claimed, or did it serve as a conduit for financial gain?
The Whitewater hearings are scheduled to go on for months. While not strident, D'Amato has been persistent in demanding Whitewater documents. He is right to be so. Apparent White House candor has turned out to be less than candid.
The aggressive probing of long-ago events embarrassing to a Democratic administration has coincided, it's fair to note, with the GOP takeover of Congress. As with the Waco hearings, the Whitewater investigation has been touched by more than a little partisanship and paranoia. Yet what is known at the moment about Whitewater is too little to explain and too much to ignore.
by CNB