Obama DOJ Gave Cartel Enough Guns to Arm a Marine Regiment

“These guns went to ruthless criminals,” Carlos Canino, ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico said in testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday regarding the scandal-plagued Operation Fast and Furious. “It’s alleged that over 2,000 guns were trafficked in this investigation. To put that in context, upon information and belief, the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has approximately 2,500 rangers. That means that as a result of this investigation, the Sinaloa cartel may have received almost as many guns that are needed to arm the entire regiment. Out of these 2,000 weapons, 34 were .50-caliber sniper rifles. That is approximately the number of sniper riles a Marine infantry regiment takes into battle.”

The Department of Justice proposed a southwest border strategy in October 2009 to combat Mexican cartels, with final plans for the operation now known as Operation Fast and Furious coming in January 2010. The new “strategy” included multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, ICE, the IRS and the FBI. This operation entailed ATF agents watching straw purchasers buy hundreds of high-powered weapons and allowed them to go back or “walk” into Mexico, with a goal of “tracing” them back to cartel leaders. As Americans learned in the second hearing about this operation on June 15, guns were lost, not traced, and now a cover-up has begun.

“The Acting Director of the ATF, in a transcribed interview with investigators, has said that the Justice Department is trying to push all of this away from its political appointees. That is not the response this committee, Congress and the public, should expect from the ‘most transparent administration in history,’” Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said during opening statements. “To date, President Obama has been keen to talk about who didn’t know about the program and who didn’t authorize it. These answers will not suffice. The American people have a right to know, once and for all, who did authorize it and who knew about it.”

A new report released by Issa’s office shows ATF agents working in Mexico were left in the dark about the details of Operation Fast and Furious. The report shows that in late 2009, ATF officials in Mexico began to see increasing amounts of guns traced to the Phoenix ATF Field Division office showing up at violent crime scenes. Former ATF Attaché to Mexico Darren Gil and ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico Carlos Canino expressed their concerns to officials in the Phoenix Field Office and in Washington D.C. but were ignored. The report shows ATF and DOJ “failed to share crucial details of the of Operation Fast and Furious with either their own employees stationed in Mexico or representatives of the Government of Mexico.” Specifically, personnel in Arizona denied ATF agents working in Mexico information directly related to their jobs and everyday operations.

“I would like to inform this committee and the American public that I believe what happened here was inexcusable – and we in Mexico had no part of it,” Carino said in testimony Tuesday. “We were aware of this investigation but were never aware of the policy to walk guns in this investigation.”

To make things worse, ATF leadership deliberately lied to agents working in Mexico, telling them Operation Fast and Furious would end in July 2010, but the program didn’t end until December 2010, only after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed by a cartel member in the Arizona desert using a gun issued through Operation Fast and Furious.

“This was not even knowing of the potential for gun walking. This was just . . . not shutting this investigation down and letting another 300 weapons come into the country after the first 300 weapons,” Carino said in an interview issued in the Oversight Committee report. “What these guys did was basically grab the ATF rule book on trafficking and threw it out the window. This is indefensible. It is indefensible.”

Every time agents working in Mexico asked about the investigation, their “U.S. based ATF counterparts in Phoenix and Washington, D.C. continued to say they were ‘working on it’ and ‘everything was under control,’” according to the report.

At this point, 48 different recoveries of weapons have occurred in Mexico, and the public has only seen the beginning of the violence as a result of Operation Fast and Furious.

One suspect was able to purchase and transfer over 600 weapons to cartel members before he was arrested.

“I recall my first days at the ATF academy, where it was drilled into us as new agents that under no circumstances would any firearms, in any investigation, leave the control of ATF. Instructors stressed that even if a weapon was lost “by accident,” the agent was still subject to termination,” former ATF Attaché to Mexico Darren D. Gil said in testimony.

“Unfortunately, as a result of this operation, it is the Mexican people who will continue to suffer the consequences of narco-related firearms violence. I have no doubt, as recent media reports have indicated, that American citizens will also be exposed to more firearms-related violence as a result of this operation,” Gil said.

The media report Gil is referring to comes from internal emails that show weapons issued by ATF were being used to commit crimes in the Phoenix area.

Up until now, nobody within ATF or DOJ has been terminated as a result of purposely losing 2,000 high powered weapons in Mexico; however, one ATF agent has alleged he was fired for coming forward and acting as a whistleblower on the deadly program, and Issa has said the Obama administration is intimidating agents in an effort to prevent their testimony before Congress. ATF Associate Chief Counsel Barry Orlow has sent letters to ATF agents called to testify to the Oversight Committee under subpoena, warning them to watch what they say. Senior Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich, both nominated by President Obama, have repeatedly stonewalled the oversight committee investigation and have not complied with multiple congressional subpoenas to submit Operation Fast and Furious documents.

“I was skeptical when the first whistle-blower came to this committee with allegations of hundreds, maybe thousands of guns being allowed to “walk” into the country of Mexico. I could not believe that someone in ATF would so callously let firearms wind up in the hands of criminals. And that this activity has seemingly been approved by our own Justice Department and ATF management in the misguided hope of catching the “big fish,” Jose Wall, ATF Senior Special Agents based in Tijuana, Mexico said. “These firearms that are now in the hands of people who have no regard for human life pose a threat to all of us, a threat to which none of us is immune.”

Former ATF Special Agent in Charge William Newell would not condemn Operation Fast and Furious and allowing guns to walk into Mexico during testimony and questioning. In fact, Newell went so far as to say he was unaware of guns walking into Mexico, despite internal emails showing he did know. Newell admitted the agency made mistakes but would not admit the program was a bad idea and exposed that he was in communication with a member of the White House national security team. His testimony also conflicted with previous testimony given by Special Agent John Dodson of the Phoenix Field Division who said on June 15, “Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals, this was the plan. It was so mandated.”

“At no time in our strategy was it to allow guns to be taken to Mexico,” Newell said, adding that at no time did his agency allow guns to walk.

ATF Team Leader Lorren Leadmon disagreed and directly countered Newell’s testimony that is was not the plan of ATF to give dangerous cartels weapons, that there was no doubt weapons were going to criminal organizations as early as 2009.

This, is the perfect storm of idiocy,” Canino said in an interview issued in the Oversight Committee report. “You don't lose guns. You don't walk guns. You don't let guns get out of your sight.”

NOTE This nails all of them.....0bama, Clinton, Incompetano, and Holder.

AG Holder discussed "Project Gun Runner" in April 2009 in Mexico.
FR POSTED Friday, July 08, 2011 by Glock The Vote
SOURCE: DOJ release | April 2, 2009

US Attorney General Eric Holder at the Mexico/United States Arms Trafficking Conference CUERNAVACA, MEXICO ~ Thursday, April 2, 2009 Remarks as prepared for delivery.

ATTY GEN HOLDER: First, let me express my thanks to (Mexican) Attorney General Medina Mora and Secy of Government Gomez Mont for making this conference possible. This is my first trip to another country as Attorney General.

I wanted to come to Mexico to deliver a single message: We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in this fight against the narcotics cartels. The United States shares responsibility for this problem and we will take responsibility by joining our Mexican counterparts in every step...

And, together, we will win – thanks in large part to the courage of my Mexican colleagues here today, who are on the front lines every day, and with whom I am proud to collaborate.

The topic that has been addressed over the past two days could not be more important – the development of an arms trafficking prosecution and enforcement strategy on both sides of the border.

I would like to thank the Mexican and U.S. experts who have worked so hard on this issue. On our side, Secretary Napolitano and I are committed to putting the resources in place to increase our attack on arms trafficking into Mexico.

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion.

DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail. But as today’s conference has emphasized, the problem of arms trafficking will not be stopped at the border alone. Rather, as our experts emphasized, this is a problem that must be met as part of a comprehensive attack against the cartels – an attack in depth, on both sides of the border, that focuses on the leadership and assets of the cartel.

This is the type of full-bore, prosecution-driven approach that the U.S. Department of Justice took to dismantle La Cosa Nostra – once the most powerful organized crime group operating in the United States. With partners like those we have here today, I am confident that together, we will defeat these narcotics cartels in exactly the same way. I am proud to stand with you, and to join you in this fight.

Thank you again for inviting me here. ####

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REFERENCE----WHAT IS THE MERIDA INITIATIVE? The US Congress passed legislation in late June 2008 to provide Mexico with $400 million and Central American countries with $65 million that year alone, for the specific purpose of "fighting drug wars." The initiative was announced 22 Oct 2007 and signed into law June 30, 2008.

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REFERENCE America's Third War: Is the U.S. Arming Mexican Cartels?
FoxNews.com | May 31, 2011 | William La Jeunesse
FR Posted on Thursday, June 02, 2011 by neverdem

If you ever watch video or look at pictures of Mexican drug wars, you see some pretty heavy weapons. It is a war being waged with rockets and plastic explosives, not pea shooters and Saturday Night Specials.

Consider these incidents:- A M26A2 fragmentation grenade used against a U.S. Consulate in Mexico in 2008 - Explosive projectiles and 21 grenades found during a raid in Guadalupe - An unexploded grenade and pull ring used to attack a TV station in Monterrey - Automatic weapons, including U.S.-made M16s, found at a cartel crime scene in May 2009- U.S. military-issued ammunition found in a cartel raid in Reynosa in November 2008. You can't buy this stuff at a U.S. gun store. So where do the cartels get it?

According to leaked diplomatic cables, there are three sources.

1. US Defense Department shipments to Latin America, known and tracked by the US State Department as "foreign military sales."

2. Weapons ordered by the Mexican government, tracked by the State Department as "direct commercial sales."

3. Aging, but plentiful arsenals of military weapon stores in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Even though these facts were well-known by the Obama administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder, it blamed much of the violence in Mexico on US gun shops. "More than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our border," President Obama said in February 2009.

That was contested, but few listened to gun store owners and former vets like Lynn Kartchner, owner of Allsafe Security, a gun shop in Douglas, Ariz...(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com

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