GUN SALES TO MEXICAN DRUG GANGS WAS A FOOLISH U.S. OPERATION

Every kid who's ever played cops and robbers knows that the good guys
try to keep guns away from the bad guys.

The last thing you'd do is sit around and watch crooks sell each other
weapons, let them walk off with hundreds of AK-47s, sniper rifles and
revolvers, then sit back and wait for the carnage.

But that's exactly what leadership within the Department of Justice
and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are charged with
doing, in an apparently harebrained ploy to get close to Mexico's drug
cartels.

The plan was dubbed Operation Fast and Furious. Foolish and Fatal
might be more accurate.

In 14 months, agents in Phoenix tracked the sales of more than 1,700
guns, mostly purchased by "straw" buyers -- i.e., buyers procuring
them for criminals. The goal was to then see where the guns turned up,
in an attempt to bust drug kingpins.

Many ATF agents complained bitterly about the operation, frustrated
that they were not allowed in many cases to make busts and seize
weapons they knew were destined for cartel gunmen. They say they were
told to go against all training and sense of humanity, to watch as
guns were sold to straw buyers of suspected cartels, then let guns and
the traffickers "walk." All in the interest of catching bigger fish.

One ATF agent testified: I cannot see anyone who has one iota of
concern for human life being OK with this."

Another agent charged, "It's like they grabbed the ATF rulebook and
threw it out the window."

And ATF agents dreaded the inevitable.

When Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six others killed by
a gunman, Phoenix agents braced. They feared the gun would be one
they'd let walk.

Finally, tragedy occurred. In December 2010, U.S. border agents
pursued a small group of armed criminals they believed were preying on
undocumented immigrants crossing the border. In a shootout, Agent
Brian A. Terry was murdered. Two AK-47s were found by the 40-year-old
ex-Marine's body in the Arizona desert. The initial sales of both guns
from a Phoenix-area gun shop, along with serial numbers, had been
careful tracked by ATF agents.

Only with Terry's murder did the heated concerns of ATF agents find
any traction. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa,
R-Calif., have issued a report charging that the Operation Fast and
Furious has "contributed to the increasing violence and deaths in
Mexico," a result that was "regarded with giddy optimism by ATF
supervisors." More than 38,000 have died in drug violence in Mexico
since 2006.

The government says neither weapon found at the scene fired the fatal
shot. But they don't believe they have the gunman who did either, as
one suspect remains at large.

Some suggest that if a kingpin had been toppled during Fast and
Furious, the outcome would be easier to stomach. Tell that to Terry's
grieving family.

And that's not what happened.

A mere 20 straw buyers have been indicted for lying on forms they
filled out to buy the guns. With the vast majority of those charged,
ATF agents knew about their dealings before the operation began. Many
agents argue that other, less deadly police methods like the use of
informants could have been used.

Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform, began hearings on the ATF operation this month. It is worth
asking whether the ATF officials are following best practices in their
current Project Gunrunner operations -- indeed, whether they would
have been so eager to press on with them if it wasn't mostly Mexicans
who were dying from the trafficked guns.

But it is also imperative to ask whether Issa's and Grassley's
inquisitions aren't motivated -- or at the very least tainted -- by
politics. Issa began his hearings by warning that no testimony would
be admitted that commented on gun control laws or legislation. That's
a tell.

Oversight Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., countered that
"no legitimate examination of this issue will be complete without
analyzing our nation's gun laws, which allow tens of thousands of
assault weapons to flood into Mexico from the United States every
year, including .50-caliber sniper rifles, multiple AK variants, and
scores of others."

How much you want to bet that's a thread that won't be allowed to
unravel in this or any hearing in the near future?