ATF Guns-to-Drug Cartels Scheme Mirrored Similar Bush Administration Program

Sunday, January 08, 2012
Republicans in Congress have been going after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ever since its “Fast and Furious” gun operation became exposed. The GOP critics have been beside themselves, asking how the ATF could have ever allowed thousands of hand guns and rifles to deliberately fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, a tactic known as “gunwalking.” “Fast and Furious” backfired because ATF lost track of a majority of the 2,000+ guns they were trying to follow.
 
Well, it turns out the agency got the idea during the George W. Bush administration.
 
New government documents tell how ATF, beginning in early 2006, carried out “Operation Wide Receiver” in which federal agents permitted “straw” buyers to illegally move firearms from the U.S. to Mexico so federal law enforcement could track the sales and gather intelligence on drug-running operations.
 
The description of “Wide Receiver” is nearly identical to “Fast and Furious” and, like the Obama-era program, it drew repeated criticisms from individual Justice Department officials. Both programs were run by ATF’s Phoenix division.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
 
Justice Dept Documents Describe Another Gun Probe (by Pete Yost, Associated Press)

Justice Dept. Transfers Border Patrol Murder Case Away from Phoenix (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov) 

Comments

Bob Trent 12 years ago
operation wide receiver was only similar in that guns were allowed to "walk," but that was just about the only similarity. wide receiver was carried out with the knowledge and consent of the mexican government. they never let anywhere near the amount of guns to walk as they did in fast & furious. the mexicans were unable to track the weapons, because the tracking devices were faulty, so they quickly shut wide receiver down. i am a retired federal special agent, with extensive experience in performing undercover investigations involving organized crime. from that experience i can't believe fast & furious could have gone through the approval process that all operational proposals have to go through to gain the required doj sanctioning/funding. it leaves me to believe that the operation was conceived above the atf level and hopefully by a politician and not a law enforcement civil servant. i would hope that a law enforcement professional would realize how nutty the operation would be, not to mention dangerous. fast & furious was sanctioned by the organized crime drug enforcement task force program, which is a major crime fighting program that dates back to the 1980s. fast & furious would never have gotten past a first line supervisor, unless they were told from above to let it happen. just think for moment, at what level would a decision be made to not tell the mexicans? i guarantee you that no civil servant has that kind of authority. i believe the oig investigation is close to being published and that is why the atf just removed the managers of fast & furious from their recent re-assignments.
john pepin 12 years ago
yes that is true... except that you left out important information. the bush program didn't let guns escape! they pulled almost every gun back in. arresting culprits as they did. when context is left out of a story, it changes from information, to rhetoric... don't you think?
Dean Speir 12 years ago
"operation wide receiver" is very old news at this juncture, so the question neither messrs. brinkerhoff or wallechinsky are addressing is: "how many murders of united states law enforcement personnel can be directly traced to firearms involved in owr?

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