MEXICO CITY - While a gunrunning sting known as Fast and Furious draws criticism in Congress for losing track of weapons that were smuggled into Mexico, Mexicans say the controversy confirms their conviction that the U.S. gun industry profits off bloodshed south of the border.
As new details of the U.S. undercover operation emerged last week in congressional hearings in Washington, many Mexicans said the scandal demonstrates how easily crime gangs obtain large quantities of assault weapons from U.S. gun shops near the border.
Fast and Furious - the code name given by the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to its gun-smuggling investigation - allowed an estimated 2,000 weapons to enter Mexico unobstructed. That, however, accounts for only one-tenth of the weapons found at Mexican crime scenes in recent years that originated in the United States, according to statistics.
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The bureau's acting director, Kenneth Melson, wrote in a recent letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that of the 29,284 weapons recovered in Mexico in 2009 and 2010 and submitted for tracing, 20,504, or 70 percent, came from the United States.
"All of the available evidence shows that the weapons come from the U.S.," said Sergio Aguayo, an academic and news columnist.
Mexicans have been closely following revelations about Fast and Furious. A congressional report made public last week said that on at least 48 occasions, Mexican investigators found Fast and Furious weapons at crime scenes.
"It kind of reinforces the perception that U.S. policy in general is to support arms dealers around the world," said Ana Maria Salazar, a former Pentagon official who now is a security consultant in Mexico City
Salazar said Mexicans see a double standard in Fast and Furious. "Would the United States have done this type of operation, for example, in Afghanistan knowing that there was a likelihood those guns would kill American soldiers? They would've never done it."
