This paper seeks to assess the effectiveness of the crisis response by the US federal government at Waco. Waco was the greatest disaster in the history of US federal law enforcement (Lynch 2001). It resulted in the largest number of deaths of federal law enforcement officers in an official operation, and the greatest number of civilian deaths resulting from such an operation (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 16). The failure of the crisis response to achieve its operational goals is attributable to faulty sense and decision making. The poor quality of the sense and decision making will be explained via reference to Rodney King syndrome, groupthink, organizational identity and high reliability organisations. The only positive aspect of the crisis response was the double-loop learning it induced amongst federal law enforcement. Operational examples will be integral to this assessment which reveal it to be part of a chain of interdependent events.
On February 28, 1993, 100 agents of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) arrived at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, with a warrant to search for illegal guns and to arrest the Davidians’ leader David Koresh. A 45-minute gun battle ensued resulting in the deaths of four ATF agents and five Davidians with sixteen agents injured as well as a number of the Davidians (McCarthy 1993: 17). Subsequently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assumed operational responsibility from the BATF at Waco. The FBI then maintained a 51-day siege of the Davidians, which ended on April 19, 1993, when they stormed the compound building lobbing tear gas canisters in and bulldozing it. A fire broke out which consumed the building. Eighty-nine Davidians were killed, including Koresh and twenty-five children (Blumenthal 2003: 54). There were only nine survivors (Clinton 2004: 499).
In terms of its law enforcement objectives the government crisis response has to be classified as a failure. The BATF brief was to execute a modest warrant to arrest Koresh and search the Davidian premises for illegal guns. There were viable non-violent options available for achieving this, which the BATF chose to ignore. Koresh could have been arrested outside the property as he visited an auto repair shop, junkyard and on a weekly basis a local diner during February 1993 (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 80). Koresh also had a history of complying with requests from government officials. In 1987 he had peacefully submitted to arrest and seizure of his guns (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 91) and he had allowed an official of the Texas Department of Child Protective Services to search the Davidian property on two occasions – without a warrant in 1992 (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 92).
Instead of pursuing the non-violent options of seeking to arrest Koresh outside the compound or to enlist his co-operation, the BATF and FBI both opted for military-style raids resulting in much loss of life. The BATF raid of 28 February, 1993, created an operational crisis. The FBI raid on April 19, 1993, brought this operational crisis to an end, but created a political crisis in the process owing to the further tragic loss of life involved. The political crisis dragged on for years and included official investigations and legal proceedings (Boin et al 2005: 98). It wasn’t until July 2000, when John Danforth (a former Republican senator), acting in his capacity of special counsel for the Department of Justice, issued an investigatory report, in which the government was exonerated of all charges of responsibility for the deaths at Waco (Blumenthal 2003: 54). Attorney General Reno, who authorised the FBI raid, admitted in 1994, “Obviously, I saw what happened, and knowing what had happened, I wouldn’t do it again” (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 292). President Clinton confessed in 2000 to having made a “terrible mistake” in allowing the FBI raid to proceed and that he felt “personally responsible for what happened” (Herbeck & Michel 2004: 380).
The ineffective crisis response needs to be understood as a failure of sense and decision making. This will be explained via reference to the conceptual tools of Rodney King syndrome, groupthink, organizational identity and high reliability organisations.
Vance McLaughlin and Steve Smith offer one explanation for this erroneous sense and decision making. They use Waco to illustrate what they term Rodney King syndrome: law enforcement officials always desiring to be in control of any situation. When they fail to bring an unusual suspect under control using approved tactics and techniques officials tend to become frustrated, angry, and ultimately violent. One justified the FBI raid on the basis that, “These people had thumbed their noses at law enforcement” (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 165). Part of the justification given for the planned raid by Reno to Clinton was that, “the FBI was tired of waiting” (Clinton 2004: 498). They had mounted a 51-day siege which they feared left them appearing ineffective and not in control of the situation (Gibbs 1993: 41). The FBI also wanted a redemptive “victory” over the Davidians to avenge the deaths of the four BATF agents (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 211).
Groupthink refers to extreme agreement seeking amongst members of elite groups. Groups afflicted by this tendency generally have unrealistic expectations as to their ability to prevail in a crisis (Boin et al 2005: 47). In t’Hart’s opinion, groupthink is notably prevalent in “the repressive and military parts of the state apparatus” (t’Hart 1990: 156). Another characteristic of groupthink noted by t’Hart is, “the tendency to become entrapped in a spiral of ineffective policies.” (t’Hart 1990: 280) as groupthink often leads the members of the elite group to value their group above everything else. Elite groups also tend to ignore risks, which affect only the stereotyped outgroup (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 211). All of these groupthink characteristics were present amongst the federal law enforcement officials at Waco and helps to explain their “ineffective policies”. For example, the FBI held much false optimism regarding the chances of success of their planned high-risk paramilitary raid, in spite of the disastrous failure of the BATF raid. Groupthinking was also apparent in the BATF indifference to the risks their raid would pose to the ‘stereotyped outgroup’, ie, the Davidians. The 1993 internal Treasury investigation into BATF conduct at Waco found that in planning the raid the BATF showed little or no concern about the likelihood of civilian casualties. In fact, one official memo revealed that BATF recognized that “casualties are probable” (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 81).
Mitroff and Pauchant in their study of the crisis management capacity of healthy and unhealthy companies, concluded that the fundamental difference between such companies lay in their organizational identity. Unhealthy companies are labelled ‘self-inflated corporations’ and are characterised by their narcissistic nature (Mitroff & Pauchant 2006: 138). They consider a crisis to be something that happens primarily to them (Mitroff & Pauchant 2006: 139) rather than to clients or the environment. ‘Positive self-regard corporations’ are exactly the opposite. The characteristics of the ‘self-inflated corporation’ are readily identifiable in the policy decisions of the BATF and FBI during the Waco crisis. For example, in the reasons offered by the FBI to Reno to justify the raid (which she had to authorise) the FBI appeared to be overly concerned with the impact of the crisis on their own organisation. These included “the FBI was tired of waiting; that the standoff was costing the government a million dollars a week and tying up law-enforcement resources needed elsewhere” (Clinton 2004: 498). It is also apparent in the BATF determination to go ahead with their raid despite the fact “casualties are probable” (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 81).
Boin, McConnell, and t’Hart argue that: “high reliability organisations (HROs) have a particularly well-developed capacity for lesson-drawing…Their systems and cultures are ingrained with the pre-emption of errors, systematic adjustments, learning in the event of tragedy, and a deeper ‘deutero’ learning i.e. learning how to learn…” (Boin, McConnell & t’Hart 2006: 16). Unfortunately, the BATF and FBI in 1993 did not qualify as HROs. They had not learnt from previous tragedies of a comparable nature to Waco, which occurred in Philadelphia, Arkansas and Ruby Ridge.
On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia police bombed the communal home of the MOVE sect after an earlier attempt by a large group of police to serve arrest warrants there resulted in a gun battle. Eleven members of the cult died as a result of the bombing; there were only two survivors. An official city investigation into the incident concluded, “Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable” (Wikipedia 2006) $32 million in compensation has been paid to the victims’ families (Wikipedia 2006).
During Clinton’s tenure as governor of Arkansas a right-wing extremist group had established an well-armed and secure compound in the mountainous north of the state. Amongst the residents were two murder suspects. The FBI asked Governor Clinton for permission to storm the compound. He refused permission after obtaining a situational assessment from a Vietnam veteran who informed him that at least fifty agents would be killed in such a raid. Instead Clinton ordered the compound be put under a state of siege and blockade to prevent anyone leaving or supplies getting in. The group (including the murder suspects) ultimately surrendered with no loss of life. To Clinton’s later regret, he allowed himself to be persuaded by the FBI arguments for their planned Waco raid, rather than insist they adopt a policy of action based on the example of Arkansas (Clinton 2004: 498).
The most egregious example of federal law-enforcement failure to engage in lesson-drawing is provided by the 1992 incident at a cabin in Ruby Ridge, northern Idaho. Randall Weaver was a white supremacist who had been indicted for selling illegal shotguns. After failing to appear in court he holed up with his family at his home. On 21 August 1992, three federal marshals surveying the Weaver property ran into Weaver’s son Samuel and friend Kevin Harris. A gunfight ensued which left one marshal and Samuel Weaver dead. The FBI then laid siege to the Weaver cabin for the next 10 days. An FBI sniper shot and killed Randy’s wife and wounded Randy and Harris. Harris, Weaver and his three daughters finally surrendered after talking with an independent negotiator (Tharp 1993: 33). Weaver and Harris were ultimately acquitted of murder and conspiracy and the Weaver family was paid $3.1 million in compensation by the federal Justice Department (Walter 1995: 453). Richard Rogers, FBI tactical commander at Waco, also served at Ruby Ridge, as did senior FBI officials Larry Potts, Danny Coulson and Michael Kahoe who acted as advisers to Reno on Waco (Lynch 2001). It seems that Rogers, Potts, Coulson, and Kahoe had all failed to take any lesson-drawing from the botched operation at Ruby Ridge.
According to Miglani et al “Crises are composed of many loosely coupled interdependent events often taking place in geographically dispersed locations and at different times. Each event sets the stage for others to occur in a chain reaction that proliferates the crisis” (Miglani et al 2006: 36). This critical insight is of assistance in achieving contextual understanding of the crisis response at Waco. Waco needs to be understood as the culmination of the violent, military style of law enforcement all too often favoured as a crisis response by the American authorities; particularly the FBI. This was apparent in Philadelphia, Arkansas and Ruby Ridge leading up to Waco.
The failure of law enforcement to engage in lesson-drawing resulted in another tragic interdependent event at Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995, the federal building there was blown up with the loss of one hundred and sixty eight lives. Timothy McVeigh, the principal bomber, justified his actions in writing to Gore Vidal: “Foremost, the bombing was a retaliatory strike: a counter-attack, for the cumulative raids (and subsequent violence and damage) that federal agents had participated in over the preceding years (including, but not limited to, Waco)” (Vidal 2002: 290).
The failed operational response at Waco had a “paradigm-shattering” quality (Boin et al 2005: 121) which finally stimulated double-loop learning in federal law enforcement. This involved setting “new priorities and weightings of norms, or by restructuring the norms themselves together with associated strategies and assumptions (Boin et al 2005: 121). The learning process began at the top and continued down to middle-level and street-level bureaucrats.
In July 1993, for example, President Clinton dismissed the director of the FBI, William Sessions because of dissatisfaction with his performance, particularly at Waco (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 237). When Clinton interviewed Louis Freeh for the job he asked him what he thought of the FBI claim that they had to proceed with the raid because it was “wrong” to keep so many resources invested in the one operation over a prolonged period. Freeh replied “They get paid to wait” (Clinton 2004: 530). Clinton subsequently appointed Freeh. Richard Rogers, FBI tactical commander at both Waco and Ruby Ridge, was also replaced in late 1993 (Blackman & Kopel 1997: 236).
The profundity and success of the learning experience was shown by how the FBI next handled a situation similar to Waco. In 1996 the FBI laid siege to a militia group, the Montana Freemen, at their compound in Jordan, Montana, who were wanted over tax fraud and harassment charges. The siege lasted eighty-one days and ended peacefully with the negotiated surrender of the Freemen. The estimated cost for the operation was $50 million and although a significant drain on FBI resources for nearly three months, priority was given to avoiding loss of life, unlike at Waco. No requests were submitted for permission to storm the compound. FBI behaviour was more befitting a ‘positive self-regard corporation’ than a ‘self-inflated corporation’.
Crucially, the learning process extended to the middle-level and street-level bureaucrats whose behaviour determines the outcome of law enforcement policies (Boin et al 2005: 126). They were aware that TV images of BATF and FBI agents storming the Davidian compound at Waco had led to negative perceptions of them; the National Rifle Association had labelled them “jack-booted government thugs” (Fenster 1999: 34). These perceptions had culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing (Herbeck & Michel 2001: 379). Instead of wearing the Kevlar helmets and black uniforms of Waco that were befitting of “the repressive and military parts of the state apparatus” (t’Hart 1990: 156), at Jordan the FBI were wearing casual clothes. Government armoured vehicles were noticeable by their absence. At Waco FBI agents had to endure the 51-day siege without relief. In Jordan agents were rotated after no more than two weeks (Jakes, Jakes & Richmond 1998: 259). The FBI offered repeated assurances through the media that no assault would be made on the compound. Due care was taken to avoid provocation of the Freemen (Jakes, Jakes & Richmond 1998: 266).
The crisis response of federal law enforcement agencies at Waco cannot be considered effective. The modest operational objective was to execute a warrant to search for illegal guns and to arrest the Branch Davidian leader David Koresh. He had a history of co-operation with law enforcement officials and left the Davidian compound on a number of occasions in February 1993. Nonetheless, the BATF chose to attempt a military-style raid, which failed. After a seven-week siege, the FBI decided to repeat the earlier mistaken strategy of the BATF, and again raid the compound. This resulted in even greater loss of life and the creation of a political crisis. Understanding this ineffective crisis response requires application of the conceptual tools of Rodney King syndrome, groupthink, organizational identity and high reliability organisations. This reveals that the worst features of these concepts were present amongst the law enforcement officials at Waco and serves to explain their very poor sense and decision making during the crisis. Indeed, Waco must be understood as part of a chain of interdependent events such as the disastrous raid at Ruby Ridge, which resulted from the same sort of sub-optimal sense and decision making processes which, in turn, helped foster further crises, in particular, the bombing at Oklahoma City.
These connections eventually came to be recognised by federal agencies, prompting them to undertake a process of double loop learning. As such, the only positive that can be derived from the Waco crisis response is that it did ultimately lead to the adoption of improved response policies and practices as revealed in the successful avoidance of any repeat of Waco. A pertinent operational example is provided by the peaceful resolution of a similar crisis to Waco that occurred three years later at Jordan, Montana.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blackman, P. H. & Kopel, D. B. (1997), No More Wacos: What’s Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It, Amherst: Prometheus Books.
Blumenthal, S. (2003), The Clinton Wars: An Insider’s Account of the White House Years, Melbourne: Viking.
Boin, A., t’Hart, P., Stern, E. & Sundelius, B. (2005), The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under Pressure, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boin, A., McConnell, A., & t’Hart, P. (2006), ‘Crisis Politics: How It Affects Public Leaders, Policies and Institutions’, work in progress posted on Paul t’Hart ANU website, http://polsc.anu.edu.au/staff/hart/pubs.htm, accessed 11 September 2006.
Clinton, B. (2004), My Life, London: Hutchinson Books.
Fenster, M. (1999), Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture, Minneapolis: The University of Minneapolis Press.
Gibbs, N. (1993), ‘Fire Storm in Waco’, Time, 3 May 1993, pp.22-41.
Herbeck, D. & Michel, L. (2001), American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & the Oklahoma City Bombing, New York: HarperCollins.
Jakes, C., Jakes, D. & Richmond, C. (1998), False Prophets: The Firsthand Account of a Husband-Wife Team Working for the FBI and Living in Deepest Cover with the Montana Freemen, Los Angeles: Dove Books.
Lynch, T. (2001), ‘No Confidence: An Unofficial Account of the Waco Incident’, The Cato Institute: Policy Analysis No.395 (online), 9 April 2001, available from http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-395es.html (accessed 12 September 2006).
McCarthy, P. (1993), ‘Apocalypse Vow’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 April 1993, p.17.
Migliani, A., Miller, D., Mitroff, I. I. & Shrivastava, P. (2006), ‘Understanding Industrial Crises’, in D. Elliott and D. Smith (eds.) Key Readings in Crisis Management: Systems and Structures for Prevention and Recovery, Basingstoke: Routledge (2006).
Mitroff, I. I. & Pauchant, T. C. (2006), ‘Crisis Prone Versus Crisis Avoiding Organizations: Is Your Company’s Culture Its Own Worst Enemy In Creating Crises?’, in D. Elliott and D. Smith (eds.) Key Readings in Crisis Management: Systems and Structures for Prevention and Recovery, Basingstoke: Routledge (2006).
t’Hart, P. (1990), Groupthink in Government: A Study of Small Groups and Policy Failure, Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger.
Tharp, M. (1993), ‘Case Study: Echoes of the Texas Tragedy’, U.S. News & World Report, 3 May 1993, p.33.
Vidal, G. (2002), The Last Empire: Essay 1992-2001, London: Abacus Books.
Walter, J. (1996), Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth and Tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver Family, New York: HarperCollins.
Wikipedia (2006), ‘MOVE’, Wikipedia online encyclopedia, http://www.wikipedia.com/, accessed 21 September, 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment