Editorial: All should want gun-case truth
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Credit: AP
Everything in Washington eventually turns political, and that certainly includes the jousting over a bungled investigation of gunrunning from Arizona to Mexico that may have contributed to the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Congress needs to find out how Operation Fast and Furious, run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, went so horribly wrong and whether there is a cover-up. Republicans have partisan reasons to hype the botched operation. President Barack Obama has partisan reasons to cover it up. But Monday's disclosure that in 2006, under President George W. Bush, the ATF may have used a similar "letting guns walk" tactic makes clear that Congress needs to get beyond the partisan warfare.
Fast and Furious was launched in 2009 to track guns bought illegally in Arizona and moved to drug cartels in Mexico. The goal was to identify and arrest the gun-ring leaders. But ATF lost track of some of the 2,000 guns. Three were later found near the body of agent Brian Terry after a 2010 shootout.
Led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Republicans said the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration may have already known the kingpins' identities, and even paid some of them as informants.
The administration should open up publicly about what happened, including what Attorney General Eric Holder knew and when he knew it.
A clear-eyed assessment would improve the odds against a tragedy like this happening again. hN
