Sierra Vista Herald
written by Staff
August 21, 2011
It’s well past time the American public receive clear answers on Operation Fast and Furious.
At this juncture, after months of a congressional investigation, it appears Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are committed to hoping an extended silence will allow the entire scandal to simply go away
Each time law enforcement officials recover another of the thousands of guns that were allowed to be transported to members of Mexican drug cartels, the failure of this operation is again brought to light.
Fast and Furious, which was the Arizona version of a similar investigation called Gunrunner in Texas, was conceived and approved somewhere by someone around October 2009, and was tasked to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The goal was to allow “straw man” gun purchases in the U.S. and track the high-powered weapons to their expected destination, Mexico’s violent drug cartels.
What has happened is nothing short of a national disgrace.
Someone at the federal level, we still have no specific information on whom or which agency, allowed these investigations to proceed without intervening before the weapons left the United States.
What has resulted is the death of two federal agents, shot with guns traced back to these investigations, and the suspected murder of hundreds of Mexicans caught in the middle of the violent drug wars.
Even as Justice Department officials have stalled and stonewalled, what new details have emerged are alarming.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has been a leader in demanding information on this fiasco, as he should on behalf of his border-state constituents. Yes, it’s possible he sees partisan advantage in going after a Democratic administration, but it doesn’t make him wrong.
Until we get the extent of this failure, and find who is accountable, the investigation should continue with urgency.
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