This could be a major league diplomatic situation, or this could be a bunch of Mexican politicians covering their hind ends, but members of the Mexican government say they knew the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were allowing straw purchases to be made by people associated with Mexican drug cartels, however, they say they didn’t know they were being allowed to bring those guns back across the border.

It’s those little details that make all the difference:

In a statement issued late Thursday, Mexico’s federal attorney general’s office said Mexican officials were advised of operations north of the border against suspected traffickers. But the Mexican agency said it “had no knowledge of the existence of an operation that might include the transgression or controlled trafficking of arms to Mexican territory.”

The attorney general’s statement said Mexico would never have given permission for weapons to enter the country as part of Operation Fast and Furious, under which U.S. agents permitted the purchase of weapons to build more sweeping criminal cases against crime bosses.

“The government of Mexico has not given nor will it give its authorization, tacit or express, under any circumstance, for that to occur,” the agency said in the most extensive comments the government has offered on the matter so far.

A statement issued by the U.S. Embassy here Thursday said American officials had kept Mexican counterparts informed “as plans unfolded on operations in the United States” through Jan. 25, when 20 suspected weapons traffickers were arrested in Arizona. On Friday, the embassy said there was “no contradiction” between the Mexican statement and information provided by American officials.

I don’t want to be all tin foil hatish, but this does nothing to dissuade me from believing Alec Rawls hypothesis posted over at Flopping Aces:

The only actual reason the ATF would have to let American-sourced guns “walk” into Mexico is to provide facts in support of the Obama administration’s ongoing effort to blame Mexican gun violence on American arms dealers, as justification for further infringing the constitutionally protected gun rights of American citizens. They have been putting out trumped up charges of U.S. blame for Mexican drug violence since they got into office, but their weak evidence hasn’t stood up to scrutiny. So they decided to manufacture some hard evidence. It is the only logical explanation.

The Mexicans say they had no idea the guns were coming into the country.  Our people, well, the government says that’s about right.

If the Mexican government didn’t know they were coming, how did we expect to build a case for the presence of weapons in Mexico?  Don’t you think letting the host country in on the sting would be a big part of executing the plan?

And how exactly did they break the news to them?

“Uh, hi.  This is America.  Hey, how’s it going?  You know those folks that were buying weapons in America for use in Mexico? Yeah, well, uh, they bought a lot of stuff and, heh, you’re gonna love this.  We let them take it back into Mexico and we didn’t tell anyone in your government about it.  Also, we were wondering if you knew where they happened to get off to, because we kinda lost track of them.”

If Mexico is telling the truth, and that’s a big if, it damages the BATFE’s assertion that they were trying to “see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel.”  Unless of course they think the Mexican government is so corrupt they couldn’t tell a single person on the whole country’s payroll, including the President.

If they are lying, that means our government is covering for them, which is makes it even more suspicious.

There has to be some sunlight on this operation soon.