In one regard the Waco hearings confirmed one fact. No one in the government did anything specific. Waco just sort of happened.
No one gave any specific orders or made any particular decisions. Government folks just sort of got together and a course of action emerged that everyone sort of agreed with. Everything that happened "just grew up on spectators."
A few years ago there was a similar problem. Organized crime was able to accomplish the most illegal actions and only those who actually committed the crimes could be found guilty. The reason was the higher ups in the organization did not give specific orders, rather things just sort of happened.
To deal with this the RICO statutes were enacted. These laws were to deal with corrupt practices that in themselves were legal or only marginally illegal but when taken as a whole resulted in a pattern of criminal activity. We need something like that to deal with the BATF and the FBI.
It was Kafka-esque to listen to the Waco hearings and discover that no one on the government side really did anything, that everything everyone in the government did was compelled by circumstances beyond their control. Of course that did not apply to Koresh who did everything from child molestation to mass murder with diversions into everything short of nuclear weapons manufacture.
Of course Janet Reno took responsibility for everything that happened but damned if she could think of anything she or anyone really did that Koresh did not force them to do. It wasn't really the their fault. They were caught up in circumstances that were beyond their control.
Certainly everyone involved shares the responsibility but there just doesn't appear that anyone initiated anything. They were forced to do what they did by something else. If I may be so bold, they used every excuse except "the dog ate it."
This pattern of behavior is exactly why the RICO statutes were enacted. No one person did anything seriously wrong but as a result of a series of minor things, people died. We need similar laws and regulations to deal with these run amok federal agencies.
The law needs read that when the combined actions of many individuals results in unacceptable results that all of the individuals are equally responsible for the results. That means neither that some low or high ranking goober takes the fall and the rest are forgotten. That means everyone involved receives the same punishment.
In other words not only should Reno be fired but also the entire Hostage Rescue Team and about 100 BATF agents should be given the opportunity to apply their skills in the fast food industry. Did the combined actions of everyone involved lead to the deaths of innocent people? Fine. They all stand trial for murder and for the sake of efficiency, they are tried as a group, not individually.
That is the same thing that would be done to organized crime should RICO ever be applied as it was intended. There is no reason to assume the employees of the federal government are less clever than members of organized crime. They have used exactly the same technique that RICO was intended to address. They were clever enough to individually avoid any seriously improper or illegal action.
We have a real problem here which we need to address. In the same manner that organized crime can not be permitted to achieve its ends without legal culpability neither can we permit the federal government to do the same thing. The laws in this country make no exception for a person being on the government payroll when it comes to the law.
It is not a question of where the buck stops. It is a challenge to find the buck. It has to be there somewhere but no one appears to have found it.
There were no decisions made. They got together and in some manner consensus developed as to what to do.
There were no orders given. After the consensus developed everyone just assumed what their part of it was and did it.
It all just sort of happened while they were on duty. They were all innocent bystanders to events that happened around them.
These kind of answers might appeal to bureaucrats who might find their backsides in a crack some day. To the rest of us, our children have come up with better excuses.