The plan to destroy Mexico's criminal insurgency

Houston Chronicle:

The Obama administration promised Tuesday to spend $700 million to eradicate Mexico’s drug cartels as it released details of a new offensive that would deploy hundreds of agents and intelligence operatives to fight narco-driven violence along the borders of Texas, Arizona and California.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the massive infusion of federal cash and personnel is designed to bring stability to northern Mexico, where drug cartels have killed about 500 law enforcement officials in an ongoing insurgency. Deputy Attorney General David Ogden said the U.S. government actions are part of a coordinated strategy by the American and Mexican governments “to destroy these criminal organizations.”

But the White House remained noncommittal about sending U.S. National Guard troops to patrol the border, as sought by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Napolitano said she would discuss the request with the Republican governor in Texas on Thursday before making a recommendation to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

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The new plan expands upon the Merida Initative, a U.S.-Mexico plan negotiated in 2007. Among its key elements, it would:

• Triple the number of intelligence officers working along the U.S. southwest border.

• Double the border enforcement security task forces (known as BEST teams) that combine local, state, federal and Mexican law enforcement officials and intelligence agents.

• Spend $30 million in economic stimulus funding to reimburse state and local law enforcement agencies for their anti-drug efforts in the border region.

• Add 16 new Drug Enforcement Administration positions to the 1,000 agents already working in the southwest region.

• Move an additional 100 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives personnel to the border in the next 45 days to combat drug trafficking.

• Buy five helicopters for the Mexican Army and Air Force and a surveillance aircraft for the Mexican Navy.

• Create a “Southwest Intelligence Group” within the FBI to serve as a clearinghouse for all bureau activities inside Mexico.

• Step up Treasury Department efforts targeting the financial networks of Mexican drug traffickers and add new mobile X-ray technology to detect guns being smuggled south to the cartels.

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Napolitano wants to know what Perry would do with the National Guard troops. Here is what I would do. Put several cordons around El Paso to stop the flow of the cartel's merchandise. Recent reports have said that half the drugs coming into this country go through Juarez to get tot he I-10 corridor in El Paso. That is why there has been such a bloody fight to control this gateway city. If we string a tight multi layered cordon around the gateway, the fight will not be worth as much.

As long as they are spending money on this project, they should get some Predator surveillance drones to cover the areas of the border used by the smugglers. They should also be used in Mexico to follow the criminal insurgents movement of men and contraband. It is the persistence of their view that can thwart the cartel.

They are doing some good things, but the most effective thing they can do to destroy the cartel is beef up a cordon around Juarez and Tijuana. The latter is the gateway for the I-5 corridor. It is time to flood the zone.

CNN has more on the plan. This story from the LA Times says most of the heavy weapons used by the cartel come from South and Central America and are not being bought in Texas and other border states.