WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican House committee chairman says a watchdog report on a bungled gun-trafficking probe in Arizona is a step toward restoring public faith in the Justice Department.

The department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures in an operation that he said disregarded public safety and allowed hundreds of guns to reach Mexican drug gangs.

At the start of a congressional hearing where Horowitz was to testify, Rep. Darrell Issa says the IG’s report confirms what the Oversight Committee has known for quite some time: The Justice Department let the American people down.

The operation begun in late 2009 was known as “Fast and Furious.”

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