Mexican drug insurgents rake in $23 billion in US

Washington Post:

Mexican drug cartels now operate in almost every region of the United States and bring in as much as $23 billion a year in revenue, according to a Government Accountability Office report that will be released Thursday.

U.S. assistance has helped Mexico combat cartels, the report says, but those efforts have been hampered by Mexican government corruption and by the failure of key players in the United States, including the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, to coordinate better with Mexican law enforcement. The White House drug policy office, the report says, has prepared a counter-narcotics plan but has not discussed portions of the initiative that require Mexican cooperation with authorities in Mexico.

"The Office of National Drug Control Policy has to stop dropping the ball and doing sloppy work," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who requested the report, said in an e-mail Wednesday. "They had plenty of time to forge a working relationship with the Mexican government, but it appears that nothing has been accomplished."

The agency, Grassley added, "needs to realize that we're in this fight together, and it's foolish to think we can implement an effective plan to stop the flow of drugs from Mexico on our own."

Patrick Ward, assistant deputy director of the White House drug office, said in an interview Wednesday that his office has had extensive contact with Mexican authorities about counter-narcotics plans since the GAO conducted its probe.

"Our cooperation with the Mexican government, especially in the last eight to 10 months since President [Felipe] Calder¿n took office, has been absolutely phenomenal," Ward said.

The report, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the starkest evidence yet of Mexico's emergence as the main conduit of illegal drugs into the United States. The share of cocaine arriving in the United States through Mexico, for instance, leapt from 66 percent in 2000 to 90 percent in 2005. Other transshipment points include Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Central America.

Combined, Mexican drug cartels generate more revenue than at least 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, and the U.S. government's highest estimate of cartel revenue tops that of Merck, Deere and Halliburton.

Congressional aides said the report may lead to increased cooperation between the two countries and give more impetus to already well-advanced talks aimed at developing a massive U.S. aid package to fight drug trafficking in Mexico.

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This is not just a drug problem. The cartels have become insurgents who are vying for control of certain space in Mexico and infiltration routes into the US. They are operating more and more like Islamic terrorist organizations using beheadings and other terror tactics to intimidate and corrupt law enforcement in Mexico. Like Hamas they are using the US as a cash cow to support their operations in Mexico and pay for the weapons they are adding to their forces. It is not unusual for the drug insurgents to be better armed than police on both sides of the border.

We need to help Mexico adopt a counterinsurgency strategy like the US is effectively using in Iraq now to deny space to the drug insurgents.