GUNRUNNER RUNS AMOK

Program Let Arms Go South, With Deadly Results

Disturbing recent news reports suggest that federal agents knowingly
let arms buyers for Mexican drug cartels smuggle high-powered
weaponry across the border, with deadly consequences for U.S. law
enforcers. Mexican leaders have warned for years that lax U.S.
enforcement of gun smuggling was fueling border-area violence, but
they should be particularly disturbed to learn that, in some cases,
weapons were being deliberately allowed to flow southward.

CBS News reported last week about Project Gunrunner, an operation by
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to track how
weapons purchased in U.S. gun stores reached Mexican drug gangs. Had
Gunrunner been a limited, tightly focused study, it might have
provided useful intelligence to shut down major gun-smuggling
operations. Instead, it went badly awry.

As CBS reported, nervous gun shop owners in Arizona phoned ATF,
warning repeatedly that suspicious buyers were acquiring arsenals of
AK-47s and .50-calibre rifles. Later, ATF's own agents complained
when senior-level officials pressed ahead with Project Gunrunner. One
agent estimated 2,500 guns crossed the border into Mexico.

On Dec. 14, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in
Arizona. The serial numbers of two AK-47 assault rifles found at the
scene were traced to a smuggler under ATF surveillance.

In North Texas, at the same time, ATF agents were conducting another
Project Gunrunner surveillance operation involving brothers Otilio
and Ranferi Osorio. ATF and Drug Enforcement Administration officials
organized the November undercover transfer of about 40 weapons
believed to be destined for a Mexican drug cartel. When Immigration
and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was gunned down Feb. 15 in
Mexico, ballistics tests and a partial serial number linked one
weapon used in the shooting to Otilio Osorio. He was not arrested until Monday.

ATF Dallas division spokesman Tom Crowley said that at no time did
weapons in the North Texas operation "walk into Mexico." All 40 guns
were seized in Laredo, he said.

Still, the fact that Osorio and others known to have smuggling
connections remained free adds to our concern about Project Gunrunner.

As President Barack Obama and his Mexican counterpart, Felipe
Calderon, made clear Thursday in Washington, cooperation is growing
between the two nations to curtail gun smuggling. Both sides
understand the deadly consequences when American guns reach murderous
Mexican drug gangs.

ATF's enthusiasm in expanding the fight is laudable. Its tactics,
however, need radical revision. There's no telling how many people
died from Project Gunrunner weapons. ATF must provide a full
accounting of the operation and explain what, exactly, were the
benefits reaped from a program that appears to have directly fed
Mexico's gun violence and may well have contributed to two American
law enforcement deaths.