U.S. Allowed Smuggled Guns into Mexico in Secret Drug War Tactic

Mexico has made an official request for more information about a secret U.S. government operation to allow smugglers to take nearly 1,800 guns into Mexico in an effort to track them to drug cartels, BBC News reported March 6.

Mexico's request comes just days after President Barack Obama and the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, agreed to renew their work to limit gun smuggling and drug traffic.

The operation, code-named “Fast and Furious,” was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), in spite of objections from its own agents. Assault weapons and high-powered sniper rifles were among the guns smuggled in to Mexico over a period of 15 months. Some of the 1,765 weapons have since been linked to crime — including, CBS News reported March 6, the murder of a U.S. border patrol agent in December. Fewer than 800 of the guns have been recovered.

Mexico has long wanted the U.S. to do more to limit gun smuggling. Since Dec. 2006, almost 35,000 people have been murdered inside its borders in drug-related killings, many of them with weapons  allegedly smuggled into the country from the U.S.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered an inquiry into the ATF operation, and the Mexican foreign ministry said it would watch with “special interest.”

“The aim of the governments of Mexico and the U.S. is to stop the trafficking of arms on the basis of shared responsibility,” the ministry said in a statement, “and both sides are working to strengthen bilateral cooperation on this issue.”