Word: waco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Jorgensen, an ATF agent and deputy executive director of the National Association of Treasury Agents, disagrees. "It just really sends the wrong message to the public," he says. And with the start of the latest congressional investigation of Waco, public perception has again become a matter of intense concern. If history is any guide, this new round of scrutiny will once again blow the agency into a period of angst and self-doubt. "We've always been defensive," says Charlotte ATF agent in charge Paul Lyon. "We have always been susceptible to light breezes--it doesn't even take...
...trample the rights of ordinary citizens. Critics have gone so far as to compare its treatment of gun owners to Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II. In a best-selling book published last year, Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association described ATF's disastrous raid at Waco, which began the 51-day siege that ended in conflagration, as "reminiscent of the standoff at the Warsaw ghetto." Opposition to ATF has become so intense in gun-toting quarters as to resemble a religion, says Gerald Nunziato, who heads the ATF tracing center. He distills its creed...
...theory voiced by ATF agents holds that the agency's skittishness may have contributed to its spectacular failure in the initial 1993 raid at Waco, in which four agents and six Branch Davidians were killed. David Koresh, so the theory went, made an ideal safe target -- an apparent madman leading a cult that had armed itself with vast quantities of weapons. While it was the FBI that directed the final assault in which 81 people died, it was the ATF that targeted the compound in the first place. Says Kubicki, without a trace of irony: "Waco was a need...
John Magaw, installed as ATF's director in 1993 in a post-Waco shuffle, has vowed to reform the agency and resolve its interior conflicts. But some agents question his commitment, especially in light of his decision to rehire two leaders of the Waco raid fired last October after the Treasury Department's scathing "Blue Book" report blamed them for botching the action and later lying about why it had failed. The rehiring caused ATF self-esteem to droop yet again. "I've never been more ashamed of being an ATF agent than I am right now," an agent wrote...
...Bill Zeliff (R-N.H.) demanded that former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen explain why he apparently did nothing to deter federal agents under his jurisdiction from using tear gas at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, even after his deputy, Roger Altman, had warned of "the risks of a tragedy" in a memo. "Isn't this an alarm crying out for some responsible action?" Zeliff asked. "Didn'tRoger Altmansound the alarm?" Bentsen responded: "The responsibility at that point was the Justice Department and the FBI. That was their jurisdiction. I had other responsibilities to attend to. I thought...