Source: Reuters Pubdate: 3 Dec 1997 U.S. BETS ON BORDER FORCES TO STOP MEXICO DRUG FLOW By Anthony Boadle WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) The U.S. government is banking on border task forces to be set up with Mexico by the end of this year to reverse its poor results in the war on drug traffickers, counternarcotics officials said on Wednesday. But they said many details, particularly the key issue of whether U.S. agents will be allowed to carry guns and use them on the Mexican side of the border, must still be ironed out. The antidrug officials said the violence and corruption spawned by the Mexican drug cartels had reached unprecedented levels on both sides of the frontier, and cries of victory over the Ciudad Juarez cartel after the death of its leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, had been premature. The new binational strategy involves the creation of three Border Task Forces, most probably in Tijuana, El Paso and Reinosa, though officials were cagey about the exact locations. ``We will have the beginning of decent binational task forces by the end of this month,'' said White House antidrug policy chief Barry McCaffrey. ``Both sides are going to use offset locations,'' he told reporters. ``We do not want criminal organizations to understand precisely how we are organizing or what the manpower will be.'' McCaffrey said the Mexican government has been rebuilding its counter narcotics force and screening every agent since the embarrassing arrest of antidrug czar Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo in February for being in the pay of drug barons. The U.S. government is again sharing intelligence with Mexican agencies, he said after a meeting with 400 U.S. drug enforcement and prevention officers. U.S. officials estimate up to 70 percent of the illegal drugs used in the United States enter the country across the southwest border with Mexico, mainly cocaine and marijuana, but also increasing quantities of heroin and methamphetamines. McCaffrey said drug violence has also spilled over the border and U.S. law enforcement, customs and border patrol officers are subject to daily assaults, including some with automatic weapons. U.S. drug enforcement officers say the ability to carry weapons on their crossborder missions is crucial, but Mexican authorities face nationalist opposition to allowing armed U.S. agents into the country. ``The Mexican government has agreed in principle, but this is still under negotiation,'' said former El Paso Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief Travis Kuykendall. The veteran officer, who once headed the DEA office in Monterrey, said the new border task forces will operate under a completely different concept. U.S. and Mexican agents were to be working side by side with high level political backing and consular immunity. ``It will be a much more formal agreement and hopefully more permanent and more successful,'' he told Reuters. But the two governments must work out details on weapons, rules of engagement, the number of agents involved and whether they will be allowed to investigate, handle informants and be present at arrests and drug seizures across the border. Since 1978, U.S. agents have been barred by Mexico from taking part in arrests or seizures. The rules were further tightened after the 1985 killing of DEA agent Enrique Camarena, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Guadalajara. Kuykendall said random assassinations had increased to ``unbelievable'' levels in Ciudad Juarez, where the DEA will open a threeman office next year despite concern for their safety. He said the cartel founded by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died in July after radical plastic surgery to change his looks, was being run by his brother and and the former boss's son. ``We see no shortage of drugs,'' Kuykendall said. ``We believe the organization is intact and still operating.''