ASHCROFT OFFERS MEXICO HELP IN COMBATING DRUG TRAFFICKING

Attorney General John Ashcroft met Wednesday with Mexico's national
security adviser and praised Mexico for dismantling a regional drug
trafficking cell operating near the Texas border.

"We're aware of what you're doing and willing and ready if our
assistance was necessary," Ashcroft told Adolfo Aguilar Zinser and a
delegation of Mexican national security officials. "I just wanted you
to know that it was noted."

A high-ranking lieutenant of a drug trafficking gang once known as the
Gulf Cartel was arrested Monday in Tamaulipas state, which borders
Texas. Last week, a brigadier general, a captain and a lieutenant were
arrested on charges of having provided protection for the gang.

Aguilar Zinser said he hoped Mexico and the United States could begin
to work more cooperatively to fight organized crime and drug
trafficking.

"The basis of cooperation has to be construed over a new confidence
building between the two countries," Aguilar Zinser told reporters.
"Our challenge is to create a system of mutual confidence and that
will make us more effective, that will allow us to be closer in our
cooperation."

Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, was said to be proposing to the Bush
administration that U.S. intelligence officials conduct security
checks on their Mexican counterparts.

The proposal, which Aguilar Zinser was conveying, acknowledges that
criminal organizations have corrupted Mexican law enforcement,
according to a Washington Post report Wednesday.

The history of intelligence sharing between the two nations has been
limited, mostly because so many Mexican officials - including Mexico's
top anti-drug official at one point - have turned out to be on the
payroll of drug traffickers or other criminals.

"We want to reverse the unhappy history of intelligence-sharing. ...
We can learn so much faster and be much more effective if we could
share intelligence," Aguilar Zinser told the newspaper.

Ashcroft did not comment on the proposal, but said there are
opportunities for the two countries to work together.

"I think it's very important that we understand there's challenges on
both sides of the border and we have responsibilities on both sides of
the border," Ashcroft said.

Added Aguilar Zinser: "For us it's a new beginning,"

Fox's plan for cooperative security clearances is the latest example
of his breaking with Mexican policies in place for decades.

Fox, whose election in July ended 71 years of uninterrupted rule by
the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, already has changed
long-standing practice. He has allowed extradition of Mexican criminal
suspects and offered to do more to reduce the number of Mexicans
crossing illegally into the United States.

While details of the Mexican proposal must still be worked out in
talks with the Bush administration, Aguilar Zinser said presenting it
to Ashcroft would be the first step in creating trust between law
enforcement agencies in the two countries.