Pubdate: Wed, 18 Mar 2009
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A02
Copyright: 2009 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

U.S. EFFORTS AGAINST MEXICAN CARTELS CALLED LACKING

U.S. efforts to help the Mexican government battle powerful organized 
crime networks are falling short, and a recent sharp spike in 
violence south of the border poses a growing threat to U.S. citizens, 
senators and independent experts told officials from three federal 
agencies yesterday on Capitol Hill.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (D), who said his state is the 
principal American gateway for drugs and human smuggling from Mexico, 
called the Mexican cartels the principal criminal threat for the 21st 
century. But he criticized Washington's response as disjointed and 
called for more intelligence-sharing and better coordination.

"We are not winning the battle," Goddard told members of the Senate 
Judiciary subcommittee on crime and drugs. Lawmakers joined Goddard 
in calling for a stronger federal response, including heightened 
efforts to stanch the illicit stream of thousands of American guns 
and billions of dollars in cash annually flowing southward across the border.

"Mexican drug cartels . . . pose a direct threat to Americans," said 
Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the subcommittee 
chairman, noting that they now operate in at least 230 U.S. cities, 
up from about 50 in 2006.

But their joint alarm over the rising drug-related violence in 
northern Mexico -- where more than 1,000 people have been slain since 
the beginning of the year -- was not shared by officials at the 
hearing from the three principal agencies responsible for helping the 
Mexican government: the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau 
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security.

Anthony P. Placido, the DEA's top intelligence official, said his 
agency believes that Mexican President Felipe Calderon is still 
"making important strides" against the cartels. The recently 
increasing violence mostly reflects the criminal networks' "desperate 
effort to resist," he said.

"The violence we see is actually a signpost of success," Placido said.

A darker picture was presented by Denise Dresser, a 
Princeton-educated professor of political science in Mexico City, who 
warned that recent U.S. assistance in fighting drug trafficking has 
had only mixed success. Cocaine traffickers now spend more than twice 
the attorney general's budget just for bribes; 450,000 citizens are 
involved in the drug trade; and more than 2,000 weapons a day are 
smuggled south to fuel the battle between cartels and against the 
Mexican government, she said.

"Mexico is becoming a country where lawlessness prevails, where more 
people died in drug-related violence last year than those killed in 
Iraq, where the government has been infiltrated by the mafias and 
cartels it has vowed to combat," Dresser said. "Although many believe 
that Obama's greatest foreign policy challenges lie in Pakistan or 
Iran or the Middle East, they may in fact be found in the immediate 
neighborhood."

Firearms and immigration officials disputed the estimate of 2,000 
smuggled weapons a day, saying the number was more likely in the 
hundreds. But they confirmed that these weapons are becoming more 
sophisticated and now include .50-caliber rifles with five-inch 
shells capable of penetrating walls.

"Unfortunately, in the past six months, we have noted a troubling 
increase in the number of grenades . . . seized from or used by drug 
traffickers, and we are concerned about the possibility of 
explosives-related violence spilling into U.S. border towns," the 
Justice Department said in a written statement to lawmakers.

Federal officials said their agencies had cooperated well and 
provided timely intelligence and resources to the Mexican government. 
But the lawmakers said Mexican officials had told them otherwise, and 
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sharply criticized delays in 
providing helicopters and surveillance equipment under a special aid 
program, the Merida Initiative, begun by the Bush administration.

Although the transfer was funded last year, Mexico will not receive 
the gear until 2011, Feinstein said. This is of "enormous concern to 
the Mexicans." She also said that federal efforts to stop the 
smuggling of weapons were "clearly not enough."

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) asked why more border agents were 
not trained and deputized to make drug arrests.

His questions provoked Kumar C. Kibble, a deputy director of 
investigations for immigration at DHS, to say that the number of such 
agents had been inappropriately capped at 1,475 instead of 5,000. 
Placido denied that such a cap existed but warned that heavier 
involvement by border agents might compromise drug investigations and 
cause suspects to flee.

"I'm afraid, in this country, we tend to segregate by agency," 
Goddard later complained. "On the border, we can't afford to do that."

Separately yesterday, Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who oversees the 
U.S. Northern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that 
military planners are working with DHS on how to improve border 
surveillance operations, and reviewing a request by Texas Gov. Rick 
Perry (R) for 1,000 more federal troops or agents at the border.
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