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Another $50 Million Would Go to Central America's Efforts in the Joint Project
WASHINGTON - President Bush asked Congress Monday for $550 million to help Mexico and Central America fight drug trafficking amid escalating drug-related violence, particularly on the Texas-Mexico border.
The funding request, part of a two-to three-year package that would total about $1.4 billion, is included in a $46 billion request to increase funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It delivers vital assistance for our partners in Mexico and Central America, who are working to break up drug cartels, and fight organized crime, and stop human trafficking," Bush said at the White House, shortly after calling Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Bush said the anti-narcotics funding, along with funds to care for wounded soldiers and to bolster the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur, are "urgent priorities of the United States," and asked Congress to approve the funding by year's end.
The aid package, which U.S. and Mexican officials have been negotiating since Bush met with Calderon in Merida, Mexico, last March, would include money for additional helicopters and other surveillance aircraft, drug-sniffing dogs and telecommunications equipment. And it would pay for training Mexican police and military involved in intercepting drug shipments en route to the United States. ( Central American nations would share $50 million of the $550 million total. )
Thomas Shannon, the State Department's top diplomat for the Western Hemisphere, said the plan does not call for additional U.S. personnel working on the ground in Mexico.
He said Mexico already has invested $3 billion of its own money to fight organized crime and drug trafficking and is making progress.
The aid package, dubbed the "Merida Initiative," comes "at a particular moment in which organized crime presents a real threat in Mexico and Central America, and we have leadership in Mexico and Central American to fight that threat," he said. "The kind of cooperation we have been able to establish is historic."
Working as partners with Mexico and Central America, the United States has started a dialogue that will reap long-term benefits, Shannon said, not just in reducing drug trafficking and the violence that accompanies it, but in creating a regional security strategy that also could keep terrorists from attacking the United States and its closest neighbors.
"I know $550 million is a relatively small amount of money, but from our point of view, it is a really important initiative," he said.
In addition to the new request, Shannon said the Bush administration has spent $17 billion to reduce demand for drugs in the United States, and the United States also has worked with Mexico to improve law enforcement cooperation in the borderlands and to prevent weapons from flowing south into Mexico.
U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, who recently returned from Mexico where he and other lawmakers met with their Mexican counterparts to discuss the plan, said that since Calderon's election last year, "Mexico has made a much stronger effort to deal with drug trafficking and they have paid a big price: They have lost a number of their soldiers and police chiefs."
"If they don't do it, people will be bringing that ( violence ) across our border," he said. "We want to do whatever we can to support them in their effort."
Green said the plan appears to have the support of Democratic leadership in the House; he noted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asked him and other lawmakers to make the urgent trip to Mexico.
But Pelosi and others indicated it could be tough for Bush to get the overall funding package through Capitol Hill when support for the war in Iraq is at an all-time low and when Bush has recently vetoed funding for children's health insurance, a move that angered many Democrats.
Matt Mackowiak, a spokesman for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said the senator "believes it is of the utmost importance that we secure the United States and protect the Western Hemisphere from narcotics trafficking and the criminal organizations that finance their operations."
"These criminals cross our borders and threaten Texans by doing inestimable damage to our communities," Mackowiak said.
Hutchison recently met with Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan to discuss the issue, he said.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also "is inclined to support this initiative" but wants more information, said his spokesman Brian Walsh.
In Mexico City, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza called the plan "the single most most aggressive undertaking ever to combat Mexican drug cartels and the associated violence they pose to citizens in both the U.S. and Mexico."
"Mexicans understand the stakes and realize that security is every bit as much a priority for them as it is for us," Garza said.
Mexico produces marijuana, methamphetamines and heroin for the U.S. market, and the country has long served as the main trafficking route for South American cocaine bound for the United States. Violence has spiraled in recent years amid feuding over prime smuggling routes between rival gangs, which are better armed than most Mexican police forces and have long been able to win cooperation from officials and police through bribery or intimidation.
Since taking office in December, Calderon has made the crackdown on narcotics traffickers a cornerstone of his administration. He has ordered thousands of soldiers to take up law enforcement roles in violence-plagued states and has extradited senior drug traffickers to the United States to stand trial.
In recent weeks, Mexican soldiers and police captured nearly 15 tons of cocaine, including nearly 12 tons in the port city of Tampico - the largest drug bust in the country's history.
"These seizures are cyclical and the greater part are made with information from the United States," said political analyst Jorge Chabat, who specializes in Mexican narcotics enforcement and national security issues. "That doesn't mean we will see such seizures in the coming years.
"But it means that the Calderon government is determined to prosecute the drug war," Chabat said. "And that's going to help in the negotiations with the United States."
Successive Mexican administrations through the past 20 years have frequently purged their anti-drug police forces and deployed the army at crucial times to take on drug traffickers. Scores of senior narcotics gangsters have been killed or jailed. Tons of narcotics have been seized.
Yet the trade continues to flourish. A senior Mexican justice department official said over the weekend that U.S. proceeeds from the drug trade pump some $10 billion a year annually into the Mexican economy, nearly half as much as the country's oil exports.
Reinert reported from Washington; Althaus from Mexico City.
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Page: Front Page
Copyright: 2007 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact: viewpoints@chron.com
Website: Houston news, entertainment, search and shopping | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
WASHINGTON - President Bush asked Congress Monday for $550 million to help Mexico and Central America fight drug trafficking amid escalating drug-related violence, particularly on the Texas-Mexico border.
The funding request, part of a two-to three-year package that would total about $1.4 billion, is included in a $46 billion request to increase funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It delivers vital assistance for our partners in Mexico and Central America, who are working to break up drug cartels, and fight organized crime, and stop human trafficking," Bush said at the White House, shortly after calling Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Bush said the anti-narcotics funding, along with funds to care for wounded soldiers and to bolster the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur, are "urgent priorities of the United States," and asked Congress to approve the funding by year's end.
The aid package, which U.S. and Mexican officials have been negotiating since Bush met with Calderon in Merida, Mexico, last March, would include money for additional helicopters and other surveillance aircraft, drug-sniffing dogs and telecommunications equipment. And it would pay for training Mexican police and military involved in intercepting drug shipments en route to the United States. ( Central American nations would share $50 million of the $550 million total. )
Thomas Shannon, the State Department's top diplomat for the Western Hemisphere, said the plan does not call for additional U.S. personnel working on the ground in Mexico.
He said Mexico already has invested $3 billion of its own money to fight organized crime and drug trafficking and is making progress.
The aid package, dubbed the "Merida Initiative," comes "at a particular moment in which organized crime presents a real threat in Mexico and Central America, and we have leadership in Mexico and Central American to fight that threat," he said. "The kind of cooperation we have been able to establish is historic."
Working as partners with Mexico and Central America, the United States has started a dialogue that will reap long-term benefits, Shannon said, not just in reducing drug trafficking and the violence that accompanies it, but in creating a regional security strategy that also could keep terrorists from attacking the United States and its closest neighbors.
"I know $550 million is a relatively small amount of money, but from our point of view, it is a really important initiative," he said.
In addition to the new request, Shannon said the Bush administration has spent $17 billion to reduce demand for drugs in the United States, and the United States also has worked with Mexico to improve law enforcement cooperation in the borderlands and to prevent weapons from flowing south into Mexico.
U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, who recently returned from Mexico where he and other lawmakers met with their Mexican counterparts to discuss the plan, said that since Calderon's election last year, "Mexico has made a much stronger effort to deal with drug trafficking and they have paid a big price: They have lost a number of their soldiers and police chiefs."
"If they don't do it, people will be bringing that ( violence ) across our border," he said. "We want to do whatever we can to support them in their effort."
Green said the plan appears to have the support of Democratic leadership in the House; he noted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asked him and other lawmakers to make the urgent trip to Mexico.
But Pelosi and others indicated it could be tough for Bush to get the overall funding package through Capitol Hill when support for the war in Iraq is at an all-time low and when Bush has recently vetoed funding for children's health insurance, a move that angered many Democrats.
Matt Mackowiak, a spokesman for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said the senator "believes it is of the utmost importance that we secure the United States and protect the Western Hemisphere from narcotics trafficking and the criminal organizations that finance their operations."
"These criminals cross our borders and threaten Texans by doing inestimable damage to our communities," Mackowiak said.
Hutchison recently met with Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan to discuss the issue, he said.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also "is inclined to support this initiative" but wants more information, said his spokesman Brian Walsh.
In Mexico City, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza called the plan "the single most most aggressive undertaking ever to combat Mexican drug cartels and the associated violence they pose to citizens in both the U.S. and Mexico."
"Mexicans understand the stakes and realize that security is every bit as much a priority for them as it is for us," Garza said.
Mexico produces marijuana, methamphetamines and heroin for the U.S. market, and the country has long served as the main trafficking route for South American cocaine bound for the United States. Violence has spiraled in recent years amid feuding over prime smuggling routes between rival gangs, which are better armed than most Mexican police forces and have long been able to win cooperation from officials and police through bribery or intimidation.
Since taking office in December, Calderon has made the crackdown on narcotics traffickers a cornerstone of his administration. He has ordered thousands of soldiers to take up law enforcement roles in violence-plagued states and has extradited senior drug traffickers to the United States to stand trial.
In recent weeks, Mexican soldiers and police captured nearly 15 tons of cocaine, including nearly 12 tons in the port city of Tampico - the largest drug bust in the country's history.
"These seizures are cyclical and the greater part are made with information from the United States," said political analyst Jorge Chabat, who specializes in Mexican narcotics enforcement and national security issues. "That doesn't mean we will see such seizures in the coming years.
"But it means that the Calderon government is determined to prosecute the drug war," Chabat said. "And that's going to help in the negotiations with the United States."
Successive Mexican administrations through the past 20 years have frequently purged their anti-drug police forces and deployed the army at crucial times to take on drug traffickers. Scores of senior narcotics gangsters have been killed or jailed. Tons of narcotics have been seized.
Yet the trade continues to flourish. A senior Mexican justice department official said over the weekend that U.S. proceeeds from the drug trade pump some $10 billion a year annually into the Mexican economy, nearly half as much as the country's oil exports.
Reinert reported from Washington; Althaus from Mexico City.
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Page: Front Page
Copyright: 2007 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact: viewpoints@chron.com
Website: Houston news, entertainment, search and shopping | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
