Thread: Mexico left in the dark on Fast and Furious, ambassador says

By Jamie Goldberg, Washington Bureau

June 1, 2012

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The failed federal gun-tracking operation called Fast and Furious showed an "outstanding lack of understanding of how criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders," the Mexican ambassador to the United States said.

In a forum Thursday on Capitol Hill, Arturo Sarukhan complained that his government had been left in the dark about operations to stop gun smuggling at the border. He also revealed that his government was conducting its own official investigation into how some 2,000 U.S.-purchased firearms made it across the border and into the hands of drug cartels amid the escalating violence in Mexico.

"Mexico was never apprised how the operation would be designed and implemented," Sarukhan told officials at a forum hosted by the New Democrat Network, or NDN, a center-left think tank and advocacy organization, and the New Policy Institute, one of its sister organizations.

"Regardless of whether this was or was not the intent or the design of Fast and Furious," Sarukhan said, "the thinking that you can let guns walk across the border and maintain operational control of those weapons is really an outstanding lack of understanding of how these criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders."

He added that the ill-conceived operation had "poisoned the wellsprings" of public opinion in Mexico, putting strains on the strides that had been achieved between the United States and Mexico in combating illegal gun trafficking.

The Fast and Furious operation — run by the Phoenix office of theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives— allowed illegal gun purchases in Arizona in hopes of tracking the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders. However, roughly 1,700 guns vanished, many turning up later at crime scenes in Mexico.

An ATF study found that 68,000 of 99,000 guns recovered by law enforcement agencies in Mexico could be traced to the United States.

While condemning the ATF's gun-walking debacle, Sarukhan also tried to turn the focus to how the United States and Mexico could work together to prevent transnational gun trafficking. For Mexico, that would mean adding manpower and resources into its customs inspections and facilities at the border, he said.

"This has to be a dual process," Sarukhan said. "We won't achieve too much if the only ones inspecting or looking for guns are Mexican customs."

In March, Rep.Adam B. Schiff(D-Burbank) introduced legislation that would create two-year prison sentences for "straw purchasers," who acquire weapons to sell to Mexican gun smugglers. Currently, straw purchasers face probation or minimal jail time.

Yet he worries that Republicans may oppose the legislation in order to keep the focus on the Fast and Furious debacle.

"The Justice Department's inspector general is doing an investigation, and members on both sides of the aisle agree that we need to get the facts," Schiff said. "What I don't want is the continual use of this investigation for political purposes that distract us from the need to curb the problem at hand and focus on solutions."

Fast and Furious left Mexican officials in the dark, ambassador says - latimes.com

If the DOJ allows Mexico to sue Arizona and other states, will Mexico also be able to sue the Obama administration for running a program that results in the deaths of Mexican citizens?

ADDED TO ALIPAC HOMEPAGE News with amended title ..

http://www.alipac.us/content/mexico-...ador-says-576/

Mexico upset by Fast and Furious as revelation surfaces that Obama accepts killing as part of presidency

By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller

Mexico’s ambassador to the United States detailed last week how the administration of President Barack Obama left his government in the dark while arming violent drug cartel criminals through Operation Fast and Furious.

Last Thursday, Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan told a forum on Capitol Hill that the Obama administration’s handling of the operation demonstrated an “outstanding lack of understanding of how criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders.”

The operation led to the killing of hundreds of Sarukhan’s fellow citizens and two American law enforcement agents: Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata. The identities of the countless Mexican victims are unknown.

“Mexico was never apprised how the operation would be designed and implemented,” Sarukhan said on Thursday at a left-wing event hosted by the New Democrat Network and the New Policy Institute.

“Regardless of whether this was or was not the intent or the design of Fast and Furious, the thinking that you can let guns walk across the border and maintain operational control of those weapons is really an outstanding lack of understanding of how these criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders,” Sarukhan said, adding that he thinks the Obama administration had significantly damaged its popularity in Mexico.

The revelation that Mexico was kept in the dark as the Obama administration pumped thousands of weapons into the hands of criminals in its country – criminals who then used the weapons to kill people – comes after news broke that President Barack Obama thinks it’s part of his job as president to kill people, as detailed in a soon-to-be-released book by Newsweek investigative reporter Daniel Klaidman.

According to excerpts from Klaidman’s book, “Kill or Capture,” former President George W. Bush’s counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke told Obama early in his presidency that the job required he get his hands dirty.

As president, you kill people,” Clarke told Obama, according to the book. Klaidman writes that Obama was unshaken by that remark.

“An inscrutable Obama looked back at Clarke, not betraying any emotion. ‘I know that,’ Obama told Clarke in an even tone,” the book excerpt reads. “‘He didn’t flinch,’ Clarke later said of the meeting.”

In Fast and Furious, the administration likely knew people would die because its actions. The Obama administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives facilitated the sale of the weapons to straw purchasers, who then trafficked them into Mexico. The overall plan was to “track” trafficked weapons to where they ultimately ended up, allowing law enforcement to target bigger kingpin criminals in the weapons trafficking trade.

But the only way to “track” those weapons after they were “walked” into Mexico was to find them at stings or crime scenes. When Mexican drug cartel operatives kill people, they often ditch their weapons at or near the crime scenes.

Agent Terry’s murder on Dec. 15, 2010 sparked a national outcry and what has become a lengthy congressional investigation that’s lasted more than a year. Despite a series of hearings, document requests and congressional subpoenas, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration have failed to provide complete answers about Operation Fast and Furious – which has turned the issue into Obama’s bloodiest scandal.

Read more: Mexico upset by Fast and Furious as revelation surfaces that Obama accepts killing as part of presidency | The Daily Caller