But they didn’t “lose track”. The FBI informants were the ones with the firearms. They didn’t have to track them. So the “stated goal” of the op is horsesh!t. The actual goal was to provide US guns in Mexico to give some cover to the lie they were hoping to pedal about needing more anti gun laws.
My SOP is to take the official story, whatever official story, and run with it to the logical conclusion. In this case, if they admit it was an international sting to identify where the guns ended up then they had to accept random people in another country would die so the location of the guns could be identified - which means that the ATF head (Melson) had to get Attorney General approval (Holder) who had to get POTUS approval (Obama). If the official line is enough to get him incarcerated, I’m content with it though surprised he couldn’t come up with a better story.