Correct. Let me explain the Chicago Way:
Prior to Jan 2009, Obama meets in private with Holder, Emmanuel, Jarrett, etc (all his close confidants) and sets the agenda items.
One of the items on the agenda is gun control. With their Senate majority, they could pass whatever they wanted, even ratify the UN treaty.
Obama's confidants pass their part of the agenda to key people for implementation. I think they knew the situation in Mexico was bad and that the Mexicans were blaming US guns. But the numbers were not there.
They knew about what happened under Bush and decided a similar program would work. All they needed was one or two crime scenes where the majority of firearms were traced back to US dealers. Add one cartel leader's home full of US weapons and Congress would do the rest.
Right after innauguration, Obama, Clinton, etc all start talking up the 90% story knowing that someone far down the chain was working on making that happen.
But the firearms were not accumulating in the same spot. It turns out that the cartels are not stupid. When they get firearms, they spread them out and don't put them all in one place.
Therefore, the "walked" firearms were all over the place and the firearm traces did not support the 90% story.
Then, the murder of Brian Terry took place and everything began to unravel.