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U.S. Has Dual Role In Drug War

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The Associated Press

Published: March 7, 2009

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military is in a better position to provide Mexico's military with training, resources and intelligence as its southern neighbor battles deadly drug cartels, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence this year. In 2008, the toll doubled from the previous year to 6,290. The United States and Canada have warned that murders related to drug activity in parts of Mexico, particularly along the border with the United States, raised the level of risk in visiting the country.

"I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past. Some of the old biases against cooperation with our - between our militaries and so on, I think, are being set aside," Gates said in an interview broadcasat Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"It clearly is a serious problem," he said.

Gates praised Mexican President Felipe Calderon for taking on the cartels and sending the army into the fight.

"What I think people need to point out is the courage that Calderon has shown in taking this on, because one of the reasons it's gotten as bad as it has is because his predecessors basically refused to do that," he said.

The Mexican government is deploying another 1,000 federal police officers as part of a wider effort to restore order in Ciudad Juarez, the nation's most violent city, officials said.

Some of those uniformed federal officers began arriving in the border city Monday, two days after about 2,000 soldiers landed there in a related military buildup. Those soldiers were the first of an expected 5,000 additional troops who will be sent to help perform basic police functions.

The military reinforcements will bring to more than 7,000 the number of soldiers in Ciudad Juarez, more than doubling the army presence there.

President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said Obama and Calderon agreed to work together to stabilize the border when they met shortly before Obama's inauguration. Calderon was the first foreign leader Obama met as president-elect.

Guns Going South

A U.S. report has found that weapons in the drug killings are coming from north of the border. Mexican authorities are outgunned by the drug cartels because the criminals are receiving their high-powered arms from the United States, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told The Associated Press in an interview Feb. 26.

Calderon says the United States should aggressively enforce gun laws.

Their complaints were supported by a recent U.S. State Department report that weapons bought or stolen in the United States were used in 95 percent of the killings.

The report also said cartels are increasingly carrying out contract killings inside the United States, part of a wave of violence that also includes a sharp rise in kidnappings in Phoenix.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced in February that the Drug Enforcement Administration had rounded up 755 suspected Sinaloa cartel members and seized more than $59 million in drug money in the past 21 months.

Congress is also paying attention. Lawmakers included $10 million in the economic stimulus package for Project Gunrunner, a federal crackdown on U.S. gun-trafficking networks.

The Brookings Institution has estimated that 2,000 guns enter Mexico from the United States every day. The ATF says more than 7,700 guns sold in America were traced to Mexico last year, up from 3,300 the year before and about 2,100 in 2006.

Cartels turn to the United States because Mexico's gun laws are much stricter - gun buys must be pre-approved by the Mexican defense department and are limited to light weapons, no higher than the standard .38-caliber. Larger calibers are considered military weapons and are off-limits to civilians.

North of the border, cartel representatives often pay U.S. citizens to purchase assault rifles for them at gun shows where background checks aren't required and sales aren't easily traced.

Securing The Border

Emanuel said the two nations have a mutual interest in securing their common border.

"They want to clearly stop the guns from the United States going south. We want to stop the drugs coming north," Emanuel said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "That border is important to us, and Mexico is a key ally of ours."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who had experience dealing with Mexican issues as governor of the border state of Arizona, told Congress last week that the drug-related violence in Mexico was a top priority and that she was working with other U.S. agencies to end weapons trafficking and to support the Mexican government.

More than 700 suspects have been arrested as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating inside the United States, the Justice Department said last week.

Information from the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

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