Badges - ATF Chief Out Over Botched Mexican Arms Sting
- From: CarlGlas@xxxxxxxxxxx
- To: badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:05:20 -0500
'Fast and Furious' fallout: ATF boss reassigned; US attorney losing job
Obama administration announces shakeup over
botched operation to track Mexican arms
August 30, 2011
WASHINGTON ? The Obama administration on Tuesday
removed or reassigned the top officials involved
in a widely criticized U.S. operation to trace
the flow of illegal guns into Mexico.
"Fast and Furious" was intended to gather
information on how Mexican drug cartels use
operatives in the U.S. to buy and smuggle guns
across the border. Federal Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms agents were instructed to watch ? but
not to stop ? the illegal sales in the hope of
gathering intelligence on how the smugglers
worked. But in the process, hundreds of guns
wound up in the hands of Mexican drug gangs. Two
of the weapons turned up at the scene where a
U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout.
The acting director of ATF, Kenneth Melson, has
been reassigned to a Justice Department policy
office. And Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in
Arizona who approved the "Fast and Furious"
operation, resigned Tuesday. A senior Justice
Department official said Attorney General Eric
Holder had lost confidence in them and that ATF needed "a fresh start."
Melson has been under fire and has admitted
mistakes in the sting operation meant to try to
crack down on the flow of weapons to violent drug gangs.
Burke is an experienced federal prosecutor. He
was also a chief of staff to Janet Napolitano
when she was governor of Arizona. Napolitano is
now homeland security secretary.
"My long tenure in public service has been
intensely gratifying. It has also been intensely
demanding. For me, it is the right time to move
on to pursue other aspects of my career and my
life and allow the office to move ahead," Burke
said Tuesday in a memo to his staff.
At ATF, Melson will be replaced by Todd Jones,
the U.S. Attorney from Minnesota, who will now do
both jobs ? continuing as U.S. attorney while
running ATF. The Bush administration did
something similar, appointing the U.S. Attorney
from Boston to run ATF and continue as a prosecutor.
"Fast and Furious," has spawned congressional and
internal Justice Department probes and put the
Obama administration on the defensive about
whether dangerous weapons were knowingly allowed to cross the border.
Vanishing arms
Republicans in Congress have been demanding the
Obama administration explain who knew what and
when about the ATF program, which was conceived
of and run out of the agency's Phoenix division.
Authorities had hoped they would be able to
follow the guns to cartel leaders, but ATF agents
did not track the weapons after they were
transferred from the initial buyer to others.
Some agents have said they were not allowed to continue the pursuit.
Instead, numerous weapons from the operation,
which began in late 2009 and ran through 2010,
have shown up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.
U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke speaks
behind a cache of seized weapons on Jan. 25 in
Phoenix. Burke on Tuesday resigned from his job.
ATF intelligence analyst Lorren Leadmon testified
before Congress that of more than 2,000 weapons
linked to the operation, some 1,400 have not been recovered.
U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry died in a
December 2010 shootout on the American side of
the border and two guns found there have been
traced to the sting. It is not yet known if those
guns were used to fire the fatal shots.
Terry's slaying effectively ended the operation.
Mexican authorities have complained bitterly
about the thousands of guns that cross the border
from the United States each year and want
Washington to do more to stem the flow.
Melson took the unusual step of being interviewed
on the July 4 holiday by congressional
investigators. During those discussions he
acknowledged mistakes had been made and other law
enforcement agencies had had critical information
that they did not share about their targets.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the
personnel changes announced Tuesday were warranted.
"While the reckless disregard for safety that
took place in Operation Fast and Furious
certainly merits changes within the Department of
Justice, the Oversight and Government Reform
Committee will continue its investigation to
ensure that blame isn't offloaded on just a few
individuals for a matter that involved much
higher levels of the Justice Department," Issa said in a statement.
"There are still many questions to be answered
about what happened in Operation Fast and Furious
and who else bears responsibility, but these
changes are warranted and offer an opportunity
for the Justice Department to explain the role
other officials and offices played in the
infamous efforts to allow weapons to flow to Mexican drug cartels."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44328901/ns/us_news-security/
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