Ariz. Rep. Gosar: Americans 'Collateral Damage' in Fast, Furious

Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar tells HumanEvents.com  that the fatally flawed “Operation Fast and Furious” federal undercover sting in his state, which fed guns to bad guys in the United States and Mexico, was doomed from the start.

“There were so many weapons flowing into Mexico as a result of it that Mexican authorities thought they had a civil war on their hands,” Gosar said. The Republican representative sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, which is investigating the program.

The sting, headed up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), was tragically misguided, Gosar said. Only two of the 2,000 guns sold through the operation were traceable, and only then for a few hours, he said.

How the ATF intended to get its hands on cartel figures once they were located is a central question of the investigation, and remains murky.

“There was no way to get the drug lord,” Gosar said. “How could we? We didn’t even tell Mexico what we were doing. So how would we hope to get extradition of a cartel member?”

Agents had intended to trace the guns back to drug cartels in order to bag bigger game. Then the guns started turning up at crime scenes, including the December 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Human Events suggested there is a cover-up involved with Fast and Furious, and asked Gosar how deep the alleged conspiracy might go.

“We’re still inquiring,” he said. “But what we do know is that it was an operation carried out on our own people – on Americans. We were the known collateral damage.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is taking heat over how much it knew about Fast and Furious, CNSNews.com reports. It gave an ambiguous response when the oversight committee asked how long Attorney General Eric Holder had known about the sting, saying only that issues about the operation had been raised “earlier this year.”

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who is spearheading the investigation in that chamber, said during an exclusive interview with Newsmax this week that Holder broke a deal with Republicans to respond to questions about the controversy.