Other perspectives of Koresh incident

I had a question (maybe it's so obvious to most of you...): About the WACO tragedy... the impression that the ML's gave were that David Koresh and his group were like martyers for the cause of religious freedom. The F. was in a state of "shock and awe" at how the U.S. government would "persecute" a small Christian community on it's own soil.
My question is: was their "community" a cult? I am still unclear about it. Did the government have any justification to attack them?
My brain needs some "unwashing" to get a better perspective on those type of situations. Like when Jim Jones and his group committed suicide or the "Heaven's Gate" people, too... the only reaction that sticks out to me while in the F. was "it's a new attack on the small religious groups" or "the enemy is on the attack"... blah, blah.
After the David Koresh incident, the F. was looking for system "spokesman" to speak for them. They found that some people who were defending DK were in fact of the "militia" groups. When that was found out, they dropped contact with them.
I'm just still muddled about those events... can you help me?