
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 14, 1993                   TAG: 9308140081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

WACO PROBE FINDS ERRORS, LIES

The Treasury Department's top law enforcement officer has told federal firearms administrators that a probe into their Feb. 28 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., has uncovered serious errors in judgment on their part and said that some officials knowingly made misleading statements about the raid to superiors and the media.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms sources said it appears that there will be an overhaul of the leadership at the nation's leading agency for enforcing gun laws in the wake of the raid.

In a recent series of private meetings, Ronald K. Noble, assistant Treasury secretary for law enforcement, told some ATF officials to consider retirement and said others could face severe reprimands, bureau sources said.

Noble also questioned whether ATF Director Stephen Higgins could remain in office, the sources said.

Noble held the meetings after reviewing the findings of a cadre of investigators probing the bureau's performance in Waco. The Treasury Department is expected to release in September a report on the incident and the ensuing siege.

At the center of the probe is whether ATF administrators went ahead with the Feb. 28 raid despite poignant evidence that David Korsesh was expecting their assault and would fight to the finish. Part of the inquiry, which has involved hundreds of hours of interviews, has also focused on whether some bureau officials misled or withheld information from superiors.

In the early weeks of the siege, top ATF officials said repeatedly that the agents conducting the raid were ambushed by Branch Davidians inside the compound. AFT officials said they would not have launched the attack without the element of surprise. ATF field commanders had been told to abort the raid if the opportunity to surprise were lost.

It was later revealed, however, that ATF's own undercover agent in the compound said he told ATF commanders two hours before before the raid that self-styled messiah David Koresh knew the agents were coming. Subsequent indictment records have portrayed a similar scenario.

Treasury officials had expressed concern that top-level ATF management were not fully aware of what their field commanders were doing, were lied to by their managers, or perhaps themselves were less than forthright. None of the scenarios speak well of management at ATF headquarters, the officials say.

by CNB