President Obama said today an inspector general's report exonerated Attorney General Eric Holder of involvement in the "Fast and Furious" fiasco

"I will tell you that Eric Holder has my complete confidence because he has shown himself to be willing to hold accountable those who took these actions," Obama said during an Hispanic issues forum in Coral Gables, Fla.

As our colleague Kevin Johnson reports in USA TODAY, the IG report recommended that 14 federal law enforcement officials be disciplined over the botched gun-trafficking operation that allowed an estimated 2,000 firearms to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel enforcers, and led to the death of a U.S. border patrol agent.

The report also concluded that Holder "was not informed of the program's controversial tactics run by the department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives until after it had been shut down in late 2010," Kevin reported.

Asked about the investigation during the forum at the University of Miami, Obama said:

"Well, first of all, I think it's important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field- initiated program begun under the previous administration. When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned a inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued, confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and the people who did initiate this were held accountable.

But what I think is most important is recognizing that we've got a challenge in terms of weapons flowing south. And the strategy that was pursued obviously, out of Arizona, was completely wrongheaded. Those folks who were responsible have been held accountable. The question now is, how do we move forward with a strategy that will actually work?

And you know, we are going to have to work with Mexican law enforcement to accomplish this, but I will tell you that Eric Holder has my complete confidence because he has shown himself to be willing to hold accountable those who took these actions and is passionate about making sure that we're preventing guns from getting into the wrong hands."