Ex-U.S. drug czar: Millions of Mexicans could cross into U.S. illegally if conditions worsen in Mexico

By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Posted: 01/06/2009 02:41:54 PM MST

EL PASO - Former U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey contends that millions of people from Mexico may overrun the border attempting to cross if security conditions worsen and lead to a governmental collapse in that country. "A failure by the Mexican political system to curtail lawlessness and violence could result (in) a surge of millions of refugees crossing the U.S. border to escape the domestic misery of violence, failed economic policy, poverty, hunger, joblessness, and the mindless cruelty and injustice of a criminal state," said McCaffrey in an after-action report based on the Dec. 5-7 International Forum of Intelligence & Security Specialists in Mexico. The report portrays a scenario eerily reminiscent of ex-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's 1998 fictional book "The Next War," which includes a chapter on a U.S. military intervention in Mexico following a regime collapse due to warring drug cartels. McCaffrey, a retired four-star general who visited Juárez in 1999 while he was the White House drug czar, recommends in his report for the incoming Barack Obama administration to "immediately focus on the dangerous and worsening problems in Mexico, which fundamentally threaten U.S. national security." Then Chihuahua Gov. Patricio Martinez criticized McCaffrey for alleging that Mexico was "awash in drugs." In 2001, Martinez barely survived an assassination attempt ex-President Vicente Fox attributed to the Juárez drug cartel. McCaffrey's report also provides a glimpse of Mexico's current plan of attack against the violent drug organizations: "The strategy articulated by Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora is to break up the four major drug cartels into 50 smaller entities and take away their firepower and huge financial resources." In another foretelling venture, Tom Clancy's "Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter" game created controversy in Mexico two years ago because it depicted ghosts of U.S. soldiers taking out targets in Juárez. Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11386469