Mexico Under Siege

U.S. GUN EFFORT FAULTED

Flaws in a Federal Program Let Weapons Flow South to Drug Gangs, a
Review Finds.

A much-touted federal effort to keep U.S. firearms out of the Mexican
drug wars is unwieldy, mismanaged and fraught with "significant
weaknesses" that could doom gun smuggling enforcement on the border
to failure, an internal Justice Department review concluded Tuesday.

Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives focus only on small gun sales and do not share information
with law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, the
review said. Even the cornerstone effort of tracing U.S. guns in
Mexico too often comes up short because of missing data and the lack
of U.S. training for Mexican police, it found.

The investigation by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine is the first to
find systemic problems in a once highly praised project, and it
mirrors concerns of many on the border that weapons from the U.S. are
helping the violence spiral out of control.

About 30,000 people have been killed in Mexican cartel violence since
President Felipe Calderon started deploying troops to take on the
drug and gun traffickers in December 2006. Nearly 70,000
U.S.-originated firearms were recovered in Mexico between 2007 and 2009.

About 7,000 licensed U.S. gun dealers operate near the 2,000-mile
border, and cartel leaders often hire straw buyers to purchase
firearms and pay others to transport the weapons into Mexico. Just as
the drugs flow steadily north, the guns reach Mexico secreted under
truck beds or stashed in car trunks, sometimes even hidden in clothing.

ATF officials defended their marquee program, named Project
Gunrunner, saying it has gone a long way in combating the illegal
flow of U.S. firearms into Mexico since it was started in Texas in
2005 and expanded nationwide a year later.

Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF's deputy director, said in a lengthy
rebuttal letter to the inspector general's report that there had been
"significant accomplishments," with gun investigations up by 109% and
prosecutions up by 54% under the project.

But he said a reduction in funds had limited some gun-tracing
operations and had stalled attempts by the ATF to place more U.S.
agents in Mexican police stations to work on joint investigations.

He said funding last year covered only seven of the 23 agents needed
to expand intelligence operations and that funding for the remaining
16 was not authorized this fiscal year.

Fine acknowledged the budget restraints but said he was concerned
that the ATF was not using its current manpower wisely. He said the
ATF "does not systematically and consistently exchange intelligence
with its Mexican and some U.S. partner agencies," including the Drug
Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As examples, Fine said that "ATF and ICE do not regularly conduct
joint investigations of firearms trafficking to Mexico, do not
consistently notify each other of their firearms trafficking cases,
and do not consistently coordinate their investigative work with each other."

U.S. and Mexican officials estimate that more than 90% of the guns
seized at the border or taken after raids and shootouts in Mexico
originated in the United States, with California and Texas the
largest providers.

And just as the U.S. is pushing Mexico to do more to stop the drugs,
Mexico wants the American guns halted at the border. When President
Obama visited Mexico last year, Calderon appealed for him to do more.
The Mexican leader reiterated his position last week. "We do not want
them to continue sending to Mexico, illegally, dirty money and
weapons," he said.

Mexican Sen. Sebastian Calderon Centeno accused the U.S. of
"doublespeak" by demanding the drugs stop while the guns keep pouring
south. "The U.S. government does nothing to stop it," he said.

Thomas Mangan, a career ATF agent in Phoenix, acknowledged Tuesday
that the agency was fighting an uphill battle. "We've got a couple of
things coming up, some wiretaps on some gun trafficking operations,
some really good stuff coming up," he said. "But has the violence
slowed down in Mexico? No, it hasn't."

An ATF supervisor in south Texas, who asked not to be identified, was
equally frustrated. "Mexican officials don't have the training to
correctly trace the guns, and we don't have enough agents to go down
there and train them," he said.

He said there were more Border Patrol agents in tiny Nogales, Ariz.,
"than we have in our whole agency." There are only 2,500 ATF agents
in the country, and the Border Patrol has about 3,300 agents in the
Tucson Sector, which patrols Nogales. And he and other agents worry
that ATF funds will be cut even further when Republicans take control
of the House next year and the National Rifle Assn. steps up its
Capitol Hill lobbying efforts.