WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.
He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?
"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."
An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.
Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.
Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's risking his job to go public.
"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."
Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.
ATF named the case "Fast and Furious."
Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles.
So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it.
Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets... the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.
One e-mail noted, "958 killed in March 2010 ... most violent month since 2005." The same e-mail notes: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone," including "numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles."
Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. "I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two," he said. "The more our guys buy, the more violence we're having down there."
Senior agents including Dodson told CBS News they confronted their supervisors over and over.
Their answer, according to Dodson, was, "If you're going to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs."
What???? This is outrageous!! ATF agents are being ordered to just sit back, watch and allow assault weapons to get in the hands of the drug cartels, allowing the drug cartels to walk away with those guns in a strategy which was supposed to culminate with taking down a major cartel. The ATF's job was to stop gun trafficking across the border but was ordered to simply watch so they could see where the cartels would end up, whether these guns crossed the border into Mexico or ended up back into the U.S. These orders were traced all the way up the line to the Justice Department approving this policy of "letting guns walk". These same guns are killing our own people. Brian Terry, a border patrol agent was gunned down in December. The two guns which were found next to him were allowed to "walk". This is unbelievable! An ATF agent named John Dodson has gone public with this information and is blowing this scandal wide open. So, the ATF - essentially the U.S. government - is partially responsible for the escalating violence in Mexico. Our government is responsible for innocent lives being lost. This program clearly needs to be investigated by Congress. The "letting guns walk" program has had a devastating impact on both Mexico and our country so this needs to be stopped.
For some reason the embed code on the CBS video would only show half of the picture on the video so here are the links to the videos:
Here is a link to the interview with ATF agent Dodson
Here is the the link to the investigative report on the ATF
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