Thread: Red tape may delay $400 million for Mexico drug war

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5866815.html

July 1, 2008, 8:37PM
Red tape may delay $400 million for Mexico drug war
White House says money probably won't reach the nation for months

By STEWART M. POWELL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
Comments (7)


WASHINGTON — The Bush administration said Tuesday it would take months, and possibly longer, to deliver $400 million in emergency assistance to help Mexico combat murderous drug cartels, days after pressing Congress to urgently approve the money.

Three senior Bush administration officials outlined various bureaucratic impediments to speedy delivery of assistance to bolster Mexican President Felipe Calderon's $4 billion, military-style campaign against drug traffickers.

The cartels have killed more than 4,000 people over the past 21 months, including some 450 police officers, soldiers or government officials.

Challenges to implementing the first phase of the Merida Initiative include developing coordination between the Defense Department, the State Department and the Treasury; setting benchmarks for success; and prolonged procurements of military equipment such as helicopters and surveillance aircraft.

"Both governments have seized a political moment to show solidarity, but the real planning for implementation has yet to take place," said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. "There was a real sense of urgency to show cooperation, without coordination on a long-term plan."

Staffers for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment about the potential delay in delivering U.S. assistance.

But Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, said he was "personally outraged and deeply disappointed that the Bush administration was so obsessed with pandering to Mexico."

"How soon can we repeal the spending?" he added.

A Calderon spokesman had no comment.

No surprise
Roderic Ai Camp, an expert on Mexico's security issues at Claremont McKenna College in California, said Mexican government officials would not be surprised by the timetable.

"They're pretty sophisticated about how things work in Washington," he said.

President Bush signed the emergency assistance package into law on Monday, providing $400 million to Mexico and $65 million to Central American and Caribbean nations.

The Merida Initiative calling for a total of $1.6 billion for Mexico and nearby nations over three years emerged from a Bush-Calderon summit 14 months ago in Merida, Mexico.

The three senior administration officials described implementation during a news conference linked by videoconference with journalists at U.S. embassies in Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama.

U.S. drug policy director John P. Walters said "the combination of components" approved by Congress and signed by Bush would "allow us to strengthen the ability to combat the threats as they have evolved.

"But we need to go back now, since it has been some time since we submitted (the plans) and forge them into the actual program parts of the initiative."

Bulletproof vests, secure communications gear and U.S. training would be the first U.S. assistance to reach the estimated 30,000 Mexican security forces battling the cartels, Walters said.

Procurement of equipment such as aircraft "obviously will take longer," he said.

Turning 'wolves' into 'cockroaches'
He said the emergency assistance would help the United States and Mexico destroy drug cartels, enabling authorities to "take those who are now day wolves and break them down into cockroaches."

Asked how the Bush administration would measure success, David T. Johnson, an assistant secretary of state, said the administration would weigh "a wide range of issues, as we see how we measure our own success."

"First and foremost is how rapidly we can bring these programs online and make them effective, in Mexico and in Central America."

Johnson, who oversees the State Department's anti-drug efforts, said eventual reduction of drug use in the United States may become the yardstick, but added, "I wouldn't want to, you know, put an X on a calendar as to when that might take place."

Thomas Shannon Jr., the State Department's top diplomat for Latin America, said the administration had not yet apportioned to individual Central American countries the $65 million set aside for the region.

"I think at the end of the day, it will become evident that within Merida, Central America will play an important role, and (they'll) receive an amount of money in cash that will be significant in terms of the threat that it faces," Shannon said.

Camp, the California academic expert, said the promise of U.S. military equipment to Mexico could have a large impact on the nation's armed forces.

The gear includes upgrading two Citation surveillance aircraft for Mexico's attorney general; the purchase of eight medium lift 13-passenger utility helicopters for Mexico's air force; and the purchase of four maritime patrol aircraft to supplement seven surveillance aircraft already operated by the Mexican navy.

Mexico's armed forces receive a small share of the national budget compared with most other countries, Camp said, ''so any assistance we would give to them is money they normally wouldn't be spending on that activity."

The promised aid "would be a sizable boost in support of the drug mission role," Camp said.

Plan boosting border funds fails
The Bush administration officials spoke as Texans in Congress vowed to re-double efforts to boost federal spending on U.S. law enforcement along the border to balance the aid flowing to Mexico.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, had added $100 million to the emergency supplemental spending bill to bolster U.S. law enforcement agencies operating along the U.S. side of the 1,947-mile border with Mexico. But the House knocked the added spending out of the final compromise version of the legislation.

"This legislation was imperfect," Hutchison said, adding that she will try again to increase spending on border law enforcement when Congress returns from the Fourth of July recess next week.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, said he remained "disappointed and frustrated that we can't get funding on this side that our Border Patrol and sheriffs desperately need."

"Apparently," he said, "there are members of Congress who just don't get it when it comes to prioritizing federal dollars to secure the border."

stewart.powell@chron.com

At the same time "our" Government wants to send $1,500,000,000 to the mexican government "our" Senate was "willing" to send just $100,000,000 to "our" Border Law Enforcement Agencies until the House deleted the money for "our" Law Enforcement Agencies, the very people who want to and are attempting to Secure Our National Borders! JUST SECURE OUR NATIONAL BORDERS!!!!!!!!!! Do any of our Elitist Politicians care about United States Citizens or are they just concerned about their Elitist Political Contributors and their Special Interest Groups?????????