Fast and Furious: Embassy kept in dark as guns flooded Mexico

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Fast and Furious: Embassy kept in dark as guns flooded Mexico


By Richard A. Serrano Washington Bureau July 25, 2011, 8:34 p.m.


Reporting from Washington ?

As a surge of weapons from the United States began to show up at homicide scenes in Mexico last summer, officials in the U.S. Embassy sent a cable to Washington that asserted authorities needed to focus on small-time operators as the suppliers of guns to the drug cartels.

What embassy officials did not know was that at least some of the weapons they were noticing were guns that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had allowed straw purchasers to buy as part of a sting operation, dubbed Fast and Furious. Ultimately, ATF lost track of an estimated 1,700 guns as they flowed into Mexico.

 

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Issa: Obama admin intimidating witnesses in ATF gun probe

Issa: Obama admin intimidating witnesses in ATF gun probe

Issa: Obama admin intimidating witnesses in ATF gun probe

The Obama administration sought to intimidate witnesses into not testifying to Congress on Tuesday about whether ATF knowingly allowed weapons, including assault rifles, to be "walked" into Mexico, the chairman of a House committee investigating the program said in an interview Monday.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, said at least two scheduled witnesses expected to be asked about a controversial weapons investigation known as "Fast and Furious"received warning letters from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to limit their testimony.

Mr. Issa's committee is set to hear testimony from six current or former ATF employees, including agents and attaches assigned to the bureau's offices in Mexico, about the operation ? in which, federal agents say, they were told to stand down and watch as guns flowed from U.S. dealers in Arizona to violent criminals and drug cartels in Mexico.