GUN PROBE LOST TRACK OF MORE THAN 1,000 WEAPONS

Federal agents running an Arizona gun-trafficking investigation can't
account for more than 1,000 firearms bought by suspected smugglers, a
new congressional report said.

The report by Republican lawmakers comes ahead of a House hearing
Tuesday examining tactics used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives in its now-controversial gun probe in 2009 and
2010.

The ATF probe was called Operation Fast and Furious and aimed to help
make a big case against top smugglers who funnel weapons from the U.S.
to drug-cartel gangs in Mexico.

GOP lawmakers are leading an examination of Fast and Furious, which
they argue was a reckless operation because the ATF should have known
it couldn't keep track of the firearms it allowed suspects to buy.

Suspected smugglers bought 1,418 firearms after coming to the
attention of ATF agents running the probe, according to the
congressional report, detailing the most complete accounting to date
of weapons in the operation. Of those, 1,048 haven't been recovered or
traced, the report said.

The Justice Department's inspector general's office is conducting its
own probe of the operation. Attorney General Eric Holder and other top
officials have said they didn't know of, nor approve of, the ATF tactics.

The congressional report was released by Rep. Darrell Issa (R.,
Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), who have led the
criticism of the ATF, and its parent agency, the Justice Department,
over the Fast and Furious operation. Mr. Grassley is the top
Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Issa's committee is holding a hearing Tuesday with testimony from
current and former ATF officials.

Among those testifying are ATF agents posted in Mexico City, who told
congressional investigators about frustrations in early 2010 as they
were shut out of information about the Fast and Furious operation.

Darren Gil, the ATF's attache in Mexico City, told congressional
investigators, that after he found out the extent of the operation, he
got into a screaming match with his supervisor arguing for it to be
shut down.

The ATF officials in Mexico noticed in late 2009 an increase in
weapons caches traced to Arizona recovered in Mexico.

The operation continued after the October 2010 kidnapping of the
brother of the attorney general of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. A
shootout between Mexican authorities and drug-cartel members,
suspected in the kidnapping, led to the recovery of two assault rifles
from the Fast and Furious operation, the report said.

The operation wasn't shut down until last December, after a U.S.
border patrol agent was killed in a shootout in Arizona. A firearm
recovered at the scene was bought by a suspected smuggler in the Fast
and Furious investigation. The gun that killed the agent, Brian Terry,
hasn't been identified.

The congressional report cites Justice Department records showing Fast
and Furious weapons recovered in at least 48 caches found in the U.S.
and Mexico.

Mr. Gil's deputy in Mexico, Carlos Canino, called the operation "the
perfect storm of idiocy," according to the lawmakers' report.