GUNS FROM U.S. PROBE SURFACE IN MEXICO

An arsenal found in Mexico included at least five assault rifles that
U.S authorities trace to a federal operation gone badly awry,
according to government documents.

The discovery appears to confirm for the first time fears cited by
Republican lawmakers that a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives operation called Fast and Furious failed to stop guns from
ending up with drug gangs in Mexico.

The Fast and Furious program, run by the ATF's Phoenix office,
monitored weapons purchases by suspected gun traffickers who were
believed to be funneling weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Some
lawmakers say ATF didn't have the means to track the guns and
shouldn't have used such tactics.

An ATF spokesman declined to comment, citing ongoing investigations,
including one ordered by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice
Department's inspector general is conducting. Ricardo Alday, spokesman
for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, also declined to comment.

Problems with Fast and Furious are emerging as one of the biggest
controversies at the ATF since a lethal 1993 raid on the Waco, Texas,
compound of a religious sect known as the Branch Davidians. Fast and
Furious, which became public after ATF whistle-blowers contacted
lawmakers earlier this year, is also now the subject of congressional
probes.

Mexican and U.S. officials say weapons trafficked mostly from U.S.
border states are fueling the cartel wars that have killed more than
40,000 people in Mexico since 2006.

The lawmakers claim the operation allowed suspected traffickers to buy
more than 2,500 weapons in the U.S. and may have helped fuel the
trafficking the ATF is supposed to try to prevent.

Mexican police in late April raided a home in Ciudad Juarez, across
the border from El Paso, Texas. They reported finding a cache that
included two dozen AK-47-style rifles, three antiaircraft machine
guns, dozens of grenades and more than 26,000 rounds of ammunition.

U.S. authorities have identified at least five Romanian-made
AK-47-style rifles as having been purchased in the U.S. by suspects
the ATF was tracking in the Fast and Furious operation. Documents from
the ATF's National Tracing Center detail the makes and serial numbers
of the firearms, their recovery in Mexico, and dates in 2009 and 2010
when the ATF entered them into a database of suspect guns.

Gun traffickers often depend on a network of "straw" buyers, who are
paid to buy guns in small quantities. The ATF's aim was to track
purchases and build evidence to bring a case against higher-level
traffickers.

Other weapons used in recent border violence, including a December
shootout that killed a border patrol agent in Arizona, have also been
traced to the ATF operation, according to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley,
the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Darrell
Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee. The two
are leading the congressional probes.

Mr. Holder told a House hearing last month the Justice Department's
policy is to stop weapons from being trafficked to Mexico. "Under no
circumstances should guns be allowed to be distributed in an
uncontrolled manner," he said. Mr. Holder said the department issued
orders to the ATF and other agencies specifically barring tactics like
those alleged to have been used by the ATF.

Mr. Issa is planning hearings next week, including one expected to
include the family of Brian Terry, the border agent killed in December.

The matter is growing into a political dispute, with GOP lawmakers
accusing the Justice Department and the Obama administration of
stonewalling their efforts to investigate. Mr. Grassley doesn't have
subpoena power in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but Mr. Issa does.
He contends Fast and Furious must have had approval from top Justice
officials in Washington.

The Justice Department said last month that the Fast and Furious
operation was first approved by the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona
and the ATF's Phoenix field office, and later by a multiagency
organized-crime task force.

Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said: "The attorney
general takes the allegations that have been raised seriously, which
is why he has asked the inspector general to investigate and made
clear to everyone in the department that under no circumstances should
guns be allowed to cross the border."

In a 2010 audit, the Justice Department inspector general criticized
the ATF for pursuing too many small-buyer cases and not using its
resources to find major gun traffickers. People familiar with the ATF
operation say Fast and Furious was conceived in part as a response to
such criticism, and aimed to use straw buyers to implicate bigger
trafficking bosses.

Gun-rights groups, which dispute that the U.S. is a major source of
firearms trafficked to Mexico, have criticized ATF attempts to
regulate gun purchases. At the same time, the Obama administration has
been under pressure from big-city mayors and others who favor tighter
restrictions.

The ATF has been without a Senate-approved director since 2006, with
both the Bush and Obama administration unable to win approval for
nominees over the objections from gun-rights groups and lawmakers.