GUNWALKER SHOULD RESULT IN FAST AND FURIOUS PROSECUTION OF OBAMA OFFICIALS

Four Border Patrol officers patrolling near Rio Rico, Arizona last December 14 spotted five men they thought were illegal immigrants.  The suspects opened fire when the lawmen identified themselves.  Officer Brian Terry, 40, was killed.

The illegals dropped their weapons and fled when the Border Patrolmen returned fire.  Two of those weapons were AK-47 assault rifles purchased by a certain Jaime Avila at a gun store in Glendale, Arizona Jan. 16, 2010.

Agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had suspected Jaime Avila was a "straw buyer" for Mexican drug cartels since Nov. 25, 2009.  But agents watched as he bought 16 more guns, including the one used to kill Officer Terry.

As CBS reports, at least one gun shop owner did not want to sell to straw buyers, but the ATF supervisor in Phoenix told him to go ahead.

Officer Terry’s death put an end to an operation in which ATF deliberately permitted the transfer of more than 2,000 weapons — enough to equip two infantry battalions — to Mexican drug gangs.  These included .50 caliber sniper rifles, and are thought to have been used in the shootings of 150 Mexican soldiers and policemen.

That operation’s been called "Project Gunwalker" (because ATF permitted the guns to "walk" across the border), and Operation "Fast and Furious," after its code name.  Its ostensible purpose was to gather evidence that might lead to the arrest of Mexican drug kingpins.

Gunwalker was a dangerous reversal of longstanding policy, ATF Agent Olindo Casa told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Operations June 15.

"From the time I started as an ATF special agent…we do not let guns walk, absolutely positively not," he said.  "If ever there were a case (where) we would do that, there better be a really good explanation why we did not grab that gun when we could."

Street agents were appalled, Mr. Casa and three other ATF whistleblowers told the Oversight Committee.

"I cannot begin to think of how the risk of having guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest," said Agent John Dodson.

Assistant Attorney General Robert Weich told Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA, that ATF did not knowingly allow the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers.

Mr. Weich wouldn’t be lying if Gunwalker were a rogue operation no one in Washington knew about.  But the chairman of the Oversight Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, obtained emails which indicate the acting director of ATF and his deputy received weekly briefings on Gunwalker.  The director, Kenneth Melson, had watched a live feed of a straw purchase.

Who else in Washington knew about Gunwalker?  Whose idea was it in the first place?

The House Oversight Committee would like answers to those questions.  But ATF has resisted supplying documents subpoenaed by the committee.  Footdragging continued even after Mr. Issa threatened Mr. Melson with a citation for contempt of Congress.

Mr. Issa described Gunwalker as "felony stupid."  Surveillance stopped at the border, and there was no coordination with Mexican authorities, it is hard to see how it could ever have resulted in prosecutions of Mexican drug lords.  Here is the committee report including the testimony of the agents.

Gunwalker was so stupid some suspect its real purpose was to build support for gun control.

"Success was measured not by the number of criminals being incarcerated, but by the number of weapons transiting the border and the violence those weapons caused," notes Bob Owens of Pajamas Media.  This makes sense, he said, only if Gunwalker "was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists."

Further, says Owens, "At the same time they were damning gun dealers in public, the administration was secretly forcing them to provide weapons to the cartels, by the armful and without oversight. More than one gun industry insider suggests that the administration extorted cooperation and silence from these gun shops. As the ATF has the power to summarily shut dealers down for the most minor of offenses, that is very, very possible."

"More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our border," President Obama said in 2009.

That isn’t true.  In 2008, Mexico asked ATF to trace 7,200 of nearly 30,000 firearms it seized at crime scenes.  Only 4,000 could be traced.  Of these, 3,400 — less than 12 percent of the arms seized in Mexico that year — came from the U.S.

Drug cartels get most of their weapons from stockpiles in Central America left over from conflicts in the region, the general commanding U.S. Southern Command told a Senate committee in April.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday (6/18) Attorney General Eric Holder is likely to fire Mr. Melson in the hopes this will put an end to Mr. Issa’s investigation.  But if Gunwalker’s primary purpose was political, odds are it did not originate with ATF.

"The paper trail created by the program renders ridiculous Holder’s claims not to have authorized Fast and Furious," said Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner. 

Gunwalker should result in a fast and furious perp walk for a number of Obama officials.  The more the merrier.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.