PAST TIME FOR ANSWERS ON OPERATION FAST AND FURIOUS

It's well past time the American public receive clear answers on
Operation Fast and Furious.

At this juncture, after months of a congressional investigation, it
appears Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are
committed to hoping an extended silence will allow the entire scandal
to simply go away.

Each time law enforcement officials recover another of the thousands
of guns that were allowed to be transported to members of Mexican drug
cartels, the failure of this operation is again brought to light.

Fast and Furious, which was the Arizona version of a similar
investigation called Gunrunner in Texas, was conceived and approved
somewhere by someone around October 2009, and was tasked to the
federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The goal
was to allow "straw man" gun purchases in the U.S. and track the
high-powered weapons to their expected destination, Mexico's violent
drug cartels.

What has happened is nothing short of a national disgrace.

Someone at the federal level, we still have no specific information on
whom or which agency, allowed these investigations to proceed without
intervening before the weapons left the United States.

What has resulted is the death of two federal agents, shot with guns
traced back to these investigations, and the suspected murder of
hundreds of Mexicans caught in the middle of the violent drug wars.

Even as Justice Department officials have stalled and stonewalled,
what new details have emerged are alarming.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has been a leader in demanding
information on this fiasco, as he should on behalf of his border-state
constituents. Yes, it's possible he sees partisan advantage in going
after a Democratic administration, but it doesn't make him wrong.

Until we get the extent of this failure, and find who is accountable,
the investigation should continue with urgency.