Mexican ambassador says Obama administration armed violent cartel criminals, left Mexico in the dark
President Barack Obama and his administration armed violent drug cartel criminals, left the Mexican government completely in the dark, and Mexico is now conducting its own investigation into the matter.
Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan told U.S. officials that operation Fast and Furious “poisoned” public opinion in Mexico, according to The Hill.
Mexico is conducting an investigation into how 2,000 U.S.-purchased firearms crossed the border and landed in the hands of drug cartels, states the Los Angeles Times. “…The thinking that you can let guns walk across the border and maintain operational control of those weapons is really an outstanding lack of understanding of how these criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders,” Sarukhan said.
A report by the U.S. Congress seems to agree with the ambassador. The DOJ’s operation actually fueled the cartel violence, it states. The operation ended after Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered in December, 2010 and acting ATF attache in Mexico Carlos Canino told the investigative congressional panel he was angry, and agent Terry would not be the last guy killed by this operation. “We ATF armed the [Sinaloa] cartel. It is disgusting,” Canino said.
Attorney General Eric Holder has felt the heat from the US investigation already, according to USA Today, so the Mexican investigation, coming before July elections in Mexico, will turn up the heat.
Curiously, the Daily Caller states that Holder and political strategist David Axelrod had a heated exchange after one particular White House Cabinet meeting. The story cited investigative reporter Daniel Klaidman, who wrote of a West Wing incident in his Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency book. Axelrod apparently told Holder, “Don’t ever, ever accuse me of trying to interfere with the operations of the Justice Department.”
