Pubdate: Thu, 18 Oct 2007
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2007 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: Dane Schiller and Dudley Althaus
Note: Schiller reported from Houston; Althaus from Mexico City
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

REPORT: MEXICO DRUG VIOLENCE COULD SPILL INTO U.S.

Drug-gang violence that plagues Mexico is worsening and could spill 
over into the United States, according to a new report by a 
consultant on Gov. Rick Perry's Texas Border Security Council.

While Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed as many as 
20,000 troops and federal police to battle the country's powerful 
drug cartels, gangsters are fighting among themselves for dominance 
as the flow of drugs continues into America.

The 17-page document to be released Wednesday said that more than 
2,100 people were killed in drug-related violence since Jan. 1, 
making 2007 the deadliest year yet.

The U.S. side of the border is vulnerable because, the report 
asserted, law enforcement is poorly coordinated, undersupplied and 
sometimes corrupt.

But drug violence, which has become a part of daily life in many 
Mexican border communities, has not materialized to a significant 
extent in American sister cities.

The document's chief author is former State Department 
counterterrorism agent Fred Burton, now of the Austin-based Stratfor 
consulting firm. It comes as U.S. and Mexican officials are putting 
the finishing touches on an anti-narcotics aid package worth at least 
$1 billion.

Praising Calderon's resolve to take on the drug traffickers in the 
first 11 months of his six-year term, U.S. officials said the aid for 
Mexico is essential for both countries.

"We can't afford to screw up this opportunity," U.S. Rep. Silvestre 
Reyes, D-El Paso, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, 
said last week as he left for a meeting in Mexico City to discuss the 
aid package with senior Calderon administration officials.

"We've not seen this kind of opportunity to impact the gangs."

Offensive working? Although Calderon's offensive against the cartels 
appeared to have little impact in its early months, gangland killings 
steadily declined through the spring and summer after peaking at 319 
in March, according to the Mexican government. Some 195 
gangland-style killings were reported in August.

The bloodletting has slackened in Nuevo Laredo -- across the border 
from Laredo -- in Acapulco and in the towns of Michoacan state where 
many of last year's killings took place.

"There is a lessened expression of violence," Mexican Attorney 
General Eduardo Medina Mora told foreign reporters recently. "We 
think the criminal organizations have changed their strategy as a 
reaction to the forceful response by the Mexican government."

But Burton's report asserted that despite Calderon's efforts, the 
security situation in Mexico is deteriorating, even if the cartels 
have generally been careful about who they kill.

"Cartel hitmen use a variety of techniques to kill and intimidate 
rival drug traffickers, as well as uncooperative or corrupt police 
and civil officials," it said. "The level of brutality involved 
rivals that of tactics used by death squads in Iraq, but Mexican 
cartel violence is noteworthy in that it is usually more precise and 
carefully targeted."

Fighting for northern routes Few systems are in place to keep the 
violence from spreading across the border, Burton's report said. "The 
majority of this vulnerability comes from Mexico, where an 
institutionalized system of corruption and intimidation exists."

It continues: "On the U.S. side, however, the under-reporting of 
crimes ... and corruption among low- and mid-level U.S. law 
enforcement officials facilitate the northward spread of cartel activity.

Traffickers are fighting for control of smuggling routes from ports 
and to northern border cities they use as trampolines into the United States.

Despite the report's criticism, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration 
spokesman Steve Robertson said the United States and its Latin 
American partners have landed major punches in the past year.

He pointed to more than $205 million in cash found in an upscale home 
in Mexico City in March, believed to be the largest cash seizure in 
law-enforcement history, and the seizure that same month of about 21 
tons of cocaine aboard a ship believed to be headed for Mexico.

Counting victories Also, as U.S. and Mexican officials negotiated the 
aid package, Mexico's successes stacked up. Its soldiers captured 3.2 
tons of cocaine from a private jet forced to crash land in the 
Yucatan Peninsula in September, and they recovered nearly 12 tons of 
the drug after a raid on a warehouse in Tampico earlier this month.

This week, Mexican customs agents seized 15 tons of precursor 
chemicals used to make crystal methamphetamine.

"Actually, 2007 has been very successful for DEA and our Mexican 
counterparts ... ," Robertson said. "We are optimistic we are making 
a difference. To the naysayers -- the apologists who say we are not 
making progress -- we will continue to fight the good fight."

Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Perry, said the state is trying to 
fortify the border but needs more federal help. She pointed to a 
recent program in which state funds have been used to pay overtime to 
keep more police and other officers on guard along the Rio Grande.

"There are people who seek to do us harm," she said. "This report 
underscores why we must remain vigilant."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake