MOSCOW, September 20 - RAPSI. The US Justice Department’s (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a scathing report Wednesday calling for disciplinary or other administrative action to be taken against 14 government officials for the various failures associated with Operation Fast and Furious, a botched attempt to foil a gun trafficking ring, and related matters.

According to the report, “In the course of our review we identified individuals ranging from line agents and prosecutors in Phoenix and Tucson to senior [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)] officials in Washington, D.C., who bore a share of responsibility for ATF’s knowing failure in both these operations to interdict firearms illegally destined for Mexico, and for doing so without adequately taking into account the danger to public safety that flowed from this risky strategy.”

CNN reported that the DOJ Inspector General would testify Thursday before a US House of Representatives oversight committee in connection with the report. 

Operation Fast and Furious was a federal program aimed at strategically selling guns - mostly AK-47s - to individuals suspected of involvement with notoriously violent Mexican drug cartels. According to a statement released Thursday by US advocacy group the National Rifle Association, “The guns would only be traced after they were recovered by unwitting Mexican authorities, often after being used in violent crimes.” Notably, US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in the US by a gun sold through the botched operation.

As explained in the report, “During the course of the investigation, ATF agents seized only about 100 of the firearms purchased, the result of a strategy jointly pursued by ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office that deferred taking overt enforcement action against the individual straw purchasers while seeking to build a case against the leaders of the organization.”