X-Men

It's no wonder that ICE is taking over the firearm business of ATF. First, they have a Secretary with a set bigger than any ATF Senior manager. Hoover, Chait and Newell are all about self promotion and self gain. Melson forgot what it was to have a set. Any self respecting person with a task as great as protecting the people of this country would have realized long ago that his management team lacks the integrity to carry a badge and call themselves law enforcement officers or executives.

The SW Border initiative has always been a joke. New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and Los Angeles have never committed to the idea of stopping the flow of firearms into Mexico. Monies allocated to this mission have misspent and agents in these divisions have been instructed to report any incident/investigation, no matter how loosely related to Gun Runner. It seems that ATF management (SACS, ASAC,DAD,AD and the DD) would rather lie to congress, cook the books, alter the numbers instead of DOING THE JOB.

Not surprisingly the scapegoating has started. As many of us have talked about and shared here on CUATF, this agency and our leadership does not posses the ability to take responsibility for ANY of their actions. NEWS flash DD Melson; the criticisms in the OIG gunrunner report are NOT attributable to the field. We have NOT been included in the formation of any gunrunner strategies. You and yours created this mess. Did you ever wonder why you are kept in the dark and have had minimal DIRECT contact with the ATF employees executing our SW Border strategy? Have you asked yourself why Billy,Chait,Newell,Torres and Webb have told you how wonderful we are doing when that couldn't be further from the truth. Ronald Reagan ALWAYS double checked info his advisers gave him because he KNEW the self serving nature of a Bureacracy. Wonder why meetings with the Mexico Attache were cancelled by Billy and Chait? Is it because what he would tell you would totally contradict what your Executive staff is telling you? Haven't we learned that scapegoating doesn't do anything but create problems in the Bureau? When is just ONE senior manager going to say "the buck stops here", I am responsible, and quit making excuses and spinning things and playing the blame game? We (the agents,inspectors and clerical staff) are about the mission. Your bosses are about media headlines, management bonuses, promotions and retirement connections. 2 Simple questions to ask yourself Mr. Melson, #1 how many of your SACs or SES' have walked into your office and said, "that's my bad boss, I totally screwed the pooch on that one"? #2 If the answer is none, the why are they still in place? Stop blaming hard working agents who have poor leadership and start fixing the problems. I know Ms. Loos and Bacon regularly advise you the agents are always wrong, but I would submit to you, where theirs smoke there's fire.
Final thought; could the money used to send a group to Dublin, Ireland been used to brainstorm, bring in some agents for a round table and tighten up gunrunner at the enforcement level? Is Dublin, a gunrunner priority? PS I thought we were broke and making cuts.