Source: New York Times (NY) Author: Tim Golden Contact: Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Pubdate: 27 Feb 1998 WHITE HOUSE SAYS MEXICO 'COOPERATING' IN DRUG FIGHT DESPITE D.E.A. REPORT WASHINGTON -- Despite a confidential government assessment that recent drug-enforcement measures by Mexico have not produced "significant results," the White House announced Thursday that the Mexican government was "fully cooperating" in the fight against drug trafficking. While some senior administration officials lavishly praised Mexico's record, the confidential assessment, by the Drug Enforcement Administration, painted a much darker picture. It played down the impact of a major effort to overhaul the Mexican federal police, and emphasized that corrupt officials continued to insure the impunity of the country's biggest drug traffickers. "During the past year," the analysis reads, "the government of Mexico has not accomplished its counternarcotics goals or succeeded in cooperation with the United States government." "The scope of Mexican drug trafficking has increased significantly, along with the attendant violence," said the assessment, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. "The level of drug corruption in Mexico continues unabated." Mexico had been expected to win the endorsement of the White House as part of the annual evaluation of drug-control efforts abroad, which is known as certification. But officials acknowledged that the announcement Thursday followed two days of often-chaotic maneuvering, and that the blunt criticism it immediately received from both parties in Congress suggested that the administration might have underestimated the volatility of the issue. "We must make an honest assessment," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said at a Senate subcommittee hearing Thursday. "And by no realistic standard can Mexico be deemed to have cooperated fully, which is the standard of the law." Feinstein and other legislators said they expected considerable debate over the administration's endorsement of Mexico, which can be overturned by Congress. But it was unclear whether the critics have as much support as they did last year, when the White House narrowly prevailed. In its review of drug-enforcement programs in 30 countries considered important to the production or transportation of illegal drugs, the administration denied certification to Afghanistan, Burma, Nigeria and Iran. Under the law, the United States must now withhold part of any foreign aid those countries may receive and vote against loans they seek from development banks. The administration also decertified four other nations -- Colombia, Pakistan, Paraguay and Cambodia -- but waived the penalties in the interest of national security. Most critics of the Mexico decision argued that it should have been placed in that category. The decision on Colombia in effect upgraded the country's status after it had been penalized two years in a row, and it came barely two months after the Colombian government swept aside American appeals and allowed the passage of a new extradition treaty that will protect drug kingpins from the threat of prosecution in the United States. In announcing the decision, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suggested that Colombia's waiver did not reflect government efforts so much as support for the police and efforts "to lay the groundwork for increased future cooperation." Albright's acting deputy for international narcotics issues, Randy Beers, also argued that Colombia was at "a critical turning point" because of the threats posed by increasingly aggressive leftist insurgents, still-powerful drug traffickers and a major increase in the country's cultivation of coca, the raw material for cocaine. A report released Thursday by the General Accounting Office, the investigative office of Congress, contended that Colombia's decertification had hobbled the much-praised Colombian National Police by depriving the force of needed materiel, like explosives and ammunition. Beers, however, contradicted the thrust of the report, and said that since being decertified without a national-interest waiver, Colombia had actually received more and more aid from the United States each year. Administration officials appeared to be far less comfortable with the contradictory evidence of drug-enforcement progress in Mexico. Concerned that dissonant voices might compete with the certification announcement, the White House at one point tried to stop administration officials from testifying on the subject at a Senate hearing scheduled for Thursday. But while the White House drug-policy director, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, bowed out of the hearing, Thomas Constantine, the head of the the Drug Enforcement Administration, did not. Worried about Constantine, who is widely viewed as the most outspoken senior official on the issue, the White House then tried unsuccessfully to get McCaffrey back on the schedule in order to "balance" the portrayal of Mexico, an official said. "These are not the actions of a government that feels confident," said the chairman of the subcommittee, Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga. "They are defensive actions." McCaffrey has consistently taken the lead among administration officials in praising the Mexican government publicly. Thursday, he called its cooperation with the United States "absolutely superlative." The State Department's explanation of the certification decision noted a series of changes by and to Mexican law-enforcement institutions over the last year: the creation of specialized police intelligence units; the reconstitution of special task forces in which agents of the two countries are to work together against traffickers along the border; an increase in drug seizures, and some progress in efforts to insure the extradition from Mexico of drug fugitives wanted in the United States. But many law-enforcement officials said Mexico's history on such matters demanded a greater skepticism. They noted that Mexico has recreated its drug-enforcement agency three times since 1989, that no Mexican national was in fact extradited to face drug charges in the United States, and that the new units have made only modest progress. The analysis by the Drug Enforcement Administration noted many of the changes made. But it added bluntly that "none of these changes have produced significant results." "None have resulted in the arrest of the leadership or the dismantlement of any of the well-known organized criminal groups operating out of Mexico," the analysis said. "Unfortunately, virtually every investigation DEA conducts against major traffickers in Mexico uncovers significant corruption of law-enforcement officials."