Botched BATF op needs explaining

During the past couple weeks, the national media are finally waking up to the fact that the U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) did indeed allow more than 2,000 firearms to be sold to Mexican drug cartels under the moniker, “Fast and Furious.” (The NRA has been reporting on this disaster for months.) 


During the past couple weeks, the national media are finally waking up to the fact that the U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) did indeed allow more than 2,000 firearms to be sold to Mexican drug cartels under the moniker, “Fast and Furious.” (The NRA has been reporting on this disaster for months.)

Incredibly, BATF agents instructed gun dealers in the U.S. to sell guns to “straw purchasers” who were known to the BATF, while the agency recorded the firearm serial numbers. But with no tracking devices in the guns, there was no way the guns could lead BATF agents to anything. The agency simply allowed the firearms to go to Mexico and be used in drug crimes, apparently hoping the guns would be turned in by Mexican law enforcement or U.S. law enforcement! The straw buyers continued buying guns and BATF continued to let them walk free.

Things began to come apart last December when a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, was killed in a shootout in Arizona. One of the BATF guns was found at the scene. At that point, BATF whistleblowers started making noise, and at least one of them was fired.

Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) demanded an investigation, convened hearings and are releasing reports about “Fast and Furious.” At this time, Issa and Grassley have not been able to determine who bears responsibility for this fiasco. President Obama denied any knowledge of the project at a news conference last week. And Attorney General Eric Holder, under whose preview this whole outrageous project took place, said he only learned about it “a few weeks after it was in the press.”

(Holder, who is an even worse AG than Clinton’s Janet Reno, should have been fired after his Justice Department failed to prosecute Black Panthers who were menacing voters. Maybe this will be his final act of ineptitude.)

Kevin Williamson of National Review reports that at a press conference in January, when asked if the BATF had let guns “walk,” Bill Newell, of BATF’s Phoenix field office, responded, “Hell no!” So no one in the Obama Administration is admitting anything.

This entire incident is particularly enraging if one remembers that two years ago Hillary Clinton claimed that 90 percent of crime guns recovered in Mexico came from the U.S. That number, although completely bogus, was repeated by a number of national media, including Fox News. (The more accurate number, by the way, is 17 percent, which is still too many.)

The obvious question is, if President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are so concerned about illegal guns being taken to Mexico, why was the BATF allowed to conduct operation “Fast and Furious” without any knowledge of the President or AG Holder? And what on earth did they hope to achieve?

Some are suggesting that the Obama Administration did this to bolster support for more gun control laws in the U.S. I simply cannot believe that without further evidence. But the Obama Administration owes Americans an explanation of who authorized what.

And then some heads need to roll.


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