According to the
Latin American Herald Tribune:
"U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published on Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper....Items such as grenades and rocket-launchers are stolen from Central American armies and smuggled into Mexico via neighboring Guatemala...90 percent of the heavy armament Mexican security forces seize from cartel gunmen comes from Central America."
La Jornada’s publication of the cables follows revelations in the United States about a botched sting operation, “Fast and Furious,” that saw members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allow close to 2,000 weapons to be smuggled from Arizona to Mexico over 15 months.
Around 1,200 of the those guns were never tracked down by authorities, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a U.S. think-tank.
U.S. President Barack Obama said that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder gave authorization for Fast and Furious.
From the Mexican magazine
Proceso, with apologies for inadequacy of translation from Spanish:
"Fast and Furious: Everybody Knew"
. . . .
"- What exactly was that operation? This Weekly asked Dodson.
"We identified a group of multiple buyers who had the task of acquiring weapons not for themselves but for others." Dodson explained that the original idea was to track all the weapons were bought in order to stop the traffickers and then to the recipients. Even the Mexican drug traffickers.
"We watched these guys when they bought the weapons, acquired 5, 10 or 20 in one visit to the gun shop. On leaving they met with others in public parks or private garages. Weapons were transferred from one vehicle to another and then taken to the recipients. "
- What happened to the weapons once they were transferred to other cars?
"We had been forbidden to detain individuals, we could not confiscate weapons or identify the people involved. Our sole mission was to observe. That's how we lost track of weapons that came to Mexico."
Even the sellers knew
. . . .
Gun shops where they bought guns and rifles also knew of the operation. The ATF asked them to participate in the case.
Dodson's account: "The gun shops were more concerned than the ATF about the multiple sales because they knew that those who were buying weapons did not want them for their personal use. With this approach, the gun shops thought they were doing the right thing, they had no idea that we (the agents) were not intercepting the weapons. "
. . . .
However, agents of the ATF in Phoenix seized only a couple of arms shipments to Mexico. "The other weapons that ended in ATF's possession were seized by other agencies and they informed us," says Dodson."
Helllloooooooooo, Andy?? Traver are you there?? Where's your sock puppet says the ATF didn't screw the pooch? More and more field agents of the ATF are coming forward and saying they were
ordered to let weapons cross the border. When they questioned those orders they were told "...it had been cleared with Justice..."
Did ATF Smuggle Guns to Mexico to Justify Its Budget? You know, that's a really good question. It's also quite the discussion at
CleanUpATF.org. A surprising number of field agents think so. Quite the testimony on how ethically derelict and morally bankrupt they feel the management of ATF has become.
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