Burning Down the House: A Reassessment of the Waco Tragedy

In an interview early in William Gazecki's documentary on the fiasco in Waco, a Branch Davidian makes one desperate plea: "I hope that nobody jumps to conclusions." Waco: The Rules of Engagement means to fulfill this wish.

In 1993, when the Branch Davidian compound burned to the ground, a vast majority of Americans assumed that the conduct of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was just, David Koresh was a religious fanatic, and the Branch Davidians were a legitimate threat to the public. But this tale was told from only one perspective.

Gazecki's Waco: The Rules of Engagement aims to tell a different side of the Waco story--the side the American public presumably did not see. When necessary, it shows the conflict from the side of the Branch Davidians, explaining their behavior and justifying their religious beliefs.

The documentary is most convincing when it examines the sociological breakdown of the Branch Davidians. The members of the Branch Davidians included a large number of elderly and children. The people who composed the Branch Davidians were of diverse ethnicities. Waco essentially questions the public's conception of the Branch Davidians, personalizing them as victims of their own beliefs and the ATF.

Waco: The Rules of Engagement thus does what few others did, asking why these people became Branch Davidians. The members become people who made rational choices rather than blind, impersonal drones who followed Koresh. A portion of the film even documents the history of the Branch Davidians, showing it to be not a cult, but a more established religion. The documentary is most balanced in these passages, treating these people fairly and with sufficient compassion.

The film even dares to have sympathy for the vilified Koresh. The film first presents him ambiguously, quoting Biblical passages. Part of this sympathy may be due to the means of attaining footage. Since the footage largely came from the Branch Davidians themselves, Koresh may have censored it. But that which Gazecki retains shows Koresh as a complex man, far from the villain portrayed by the media.

Even when presenting the history of the Branch Davidians, the documentary does not completely condemn Koresh. Gazecki contrasts the two sects that split (one of which formed the Branch Davidians), showing the leader of the other sect as a disreputable criminal. By this comparison, Koresh seems less villainous. Even when detailing Koresh's greatest flaws, the soundtrack shifts to melancholy music that laments rather than condemns the situation.

The film falters when it attempts to justify the more disreputable behavior among the Branch Davidians. Waco contains almost too much sympathy for the Branch Davidians. When dealing with the sexual abuse of children that may have occurred at the compound, the documentary adopts a specious argument based on parental consent, then places blame on the ATF for using this abuse--an area for which the agency has no jurisdiction--as a basis for involvement. The film, like the ATF itself, shifts blame through technicalities.

Waco works hard to humanize the Branch Davidians, but spends most of its energies condemning the behavior of the ATF. Conspiracies abound as the film jumps from one facet of the conflict to another. This non-linear progression highlights the worst errors of the ATF.

According to the film, the use of the media plays a significant role in the agency's behaviors. The film shows the raid to be more of a publicity stunt than a necessary action. The film is unflinching in its characterization of the ATF as a rogue agency that used the Waco standoff to create an appearance of legitimacy through semantics. What would normally be considered "inventory" became "stockpiles." A "sect" became a "cult." Since the documentary is itself a form of the media, it shows a great deal of interest in the manipulation and withholding of this information. "God help us, we want the press" even became a dire plea by the Branch Davidians.

For Gazecki, the greatest crime by the ATF is misrepresentation of the Branch Davidians and of its own motives. The ATF claimed that the raid on the compound was an anti-drug raid, despite evidence to the contrary. The film goes to great lengths and largely succeeds in laying bare the false intentions of the ATF.

With the exception of the treatment of media affairs, the documentary best indicts the ATF through indirect questions for which it has no concrete answers. Waco picks apart disparate bits of information and uses them to bring about logical conclusions. For example, why didn't the Davidians, despite their mass of weapons and knowledge of the raid, immediately bomb the ATF's forces? If the Davidians were the aggressors, why were most of the bullet holes inverted, suggesting the contrary?

The film uses a variety of sources, even bringing in disturbing autopsy footage to suggest other breaches by the ATF. The film becomes jarring and shocking at these points, usually credits for a film. Yet this shock value obscures some of the facts of the case. The mass suicide by the Branch Davidians is insufficiently covered. The gratuitous use of graphic images disgusts the viewer, implying that the ATF was automatically complicit simply because the Davidians died so gruesomely.

However, the major flaw of Waco: The Rules of Engagement is its failure to extend its blame past the ATF. The film concentrates on the ATF to the almost complete exclusion of any other influences. There are few glimpses or references to Attorney General Janet Reno, and even fewer to President Clinton. What role, positive or negative, did these figures have in the conflict? The film fails to provide an adequate answer.

Waco: The Rules of Engagement contains an admirable sympathy for those Branch Davidians who died in 1993. But in making humans out of villains, the film falls prey to the vilification that it hopes to counteract.