adminWednesday’s report into the strategy followed a 19-month review by the department’s inspector general into Operation Fast and Furious, an anti-gun-trafficking effort which allowed the firearms to cross the border into Mexico.
The operation angered US gun-rights advocates and is a focal point for Republican criticism of President Barack Obama leading up to the 6 November election.
Operation Fast and Furious involved “gun-walking,” by Arizona agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), an experimental tactic barred under long-standing department policy.
The agents allowed suspected straw purchasers, in these cases believed to be working for Mexican drug gangs, to leave Phoenix-area gun stores with weapons in order to track them and bring charges against gun-smuggling kingpins who had long eluded prosecution, but they lost track of most of the guns.
Senior Justice Department official Lanny Breuer, an Obama appointee and the head of the department’s criminal division, is cited in the report for not alerting his superiors in 2010 to flaws in a similar programme, Operation Wide Receiver, that was started during George W Bush’s presidency.
The report concluded there is “no evidence” that Attorney General Eric Holder, who heads the Justice Department, knew the details of Fast and Furious before they became publicly known in February 2011.
Jason Weinstein, one of Breuer’s aides, whom the report also refers for possible disciplinary action, has resigned from the department, a spokeswoman said on Wednesday. — AP.
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