WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Days after the government was absolved of wrongdoing in the 1993 siege and fire at the Branch Davidian compound, the White House released Monday testimony from President Clinton in April that he "felt personally responsible" for the roughly 80 deaths.
Clinton believed he "made a terrible mistake" in allowing FBI agents to storm the sect's compound to end a seven-week standoff, according to testimony during an April 21 interview with Justice Department investigators probing alleged campaign finance violations.
The president was asked specifically about a meeting with Indonesian businessman James Riady at the White House on April 19, 1993, the day of the siege at Waco, but he said he could not recall much about the meeting since he was preoccupied with the events in Texas.
Clinton's thoughts on the Waco siege were made public after an outside investigator last week completely absolved Attorney General Janet Reno and the government of wrongdoing, saying the group's leaders set the fire and shot at their own people.
"Once this thing happened, I was totally preoccupied with it, because I felt responsible for it," Clinton said, citing a similar situation that occurred while he was serving as governor of Arkansas.
In that case, he said he argued successfully against a storming of the compound in question, located in the mountains of north Arkansas. The area was evacuated and arrests were made without any deaths.
"And that's what I thought we should have done. And I gave in to the people in the Justice Department who were pleading to go in early, and I felt personally responsible for what had happened, and I still do," Clinton told the investigators.