FOX ACTS TO BUILD U.S. TRUST

Checks On Officials In Mexico Proposed

MEXICO CITY, April 10 -- President Vicente Fox is proposing unprecedented
access for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials to conduct
security checks on their Mexican counterparts, acknowledging that criminal
organizations have corrupted Mexican law enforcement with vast amounts of cash.

Fox's proposal, brought to Washington today by Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, his
national security adviser, seeks to dissipate the mistrust and reluctance
to share intelligence that have grown up 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," said Aguilar Zinser, who is scheduled to deliver an outline
of the proposal at a meeting Wednesday with Attorney General John D.
Ashcroft. He added: "Let's do this together. If they fool us, they fool all
of us."

Fox's plan for cooperative security clearances is the latest example of his
breaking with Mexican policies in place for decades. Fox, whose election
last July ended 71 years of uninterrupted rule by the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI, already has changed long-standing practice by
allowing extradition of Mexican criminal suspects and offering to do more
to reduce the number of Mexicans crossing illegally into the United States.

"We recognize the problem" of extensive corruption among Mexican law
enforcement officials, Aguilar Zinser said in an interview Monday evening.
He said that if he were the FBI, he would not blindly trust Mexican
agencies either. Asked if he thinks Mexican law enforcement institutions
are trustworthy, he responded: "No, not at all."

"The most dangerous criminal organizations are the ones more able to
penetrate government and, let me tell you, there are a lot of competing
ones," Aguilar Zinser said. He added that, with current levels of
corruption, "we don't expect the United States to share information with"
many officials at the Mexican attorney general's office, headquarters for
Mexico's anti-drug efforts.

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

"It's all about building trust, and trust is not built with speeches or
good intentions of high officials, but in the proof of action," said
Aguilar Zinser, who will also meet with national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice and officials at the Pentagon and Drug Enforcement
Administration on his two-day trip to Washington.

Justice Department officials declined to comment in detail today,
characterizing the meeting between Ashcroft and Aguilar Zinser as a
"courtesy visit" between two law-enforcement officials who have not met
before. "These kinds of issues will be discussed, but nothing will be
decided," said a department official.

What little U.S. trust remained in Mexican law enforcement disappeared in
1997, when Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, then Mexico's top anti-drug
official, was convicted of being on the payroll of a notorious drug
trafficker. After the Gutierrez Rebollo case, the Mexican government
quietly asked the DEA and FBI to help screen hundreds of members of the
attorney general's office, including a newly formed elite unit.

The U.S. agencies spent millions of dollars on polygraphs and other tests.
But in testimony before Congress in 1999, then-DEA chief Thomas A.
Constantine concluded that because of evidence of corruption against the
elite officials already vetted by the U.S. agencies, "the ability of U.S.
law enforcement agencies to share sensitive information with these
officials has again been adversely affected."

As Mexico extends its hand for closer cooperation with the United States,
Aguilar Zinser said Mexico also would like more recognition for the good it
does in anti-drug efforts. He said the Mexican military, for example,
spends $2.6 million a month on fuel for naval ships working to block
U.S.-bound drugs passing through Mexican waters because the United States
asks for this help.

Aguilar Zinser said that in exchange for his country's intensified focus on
drugs, a top U.S. priority, Mexico would like the United States to pay more
attention to issues of critical concern to Mexico. He said, for instance,
that Mexico is plagued by guns entering from the United States. He also
said that U.S. officials have done little to stop contraband products, from
clothes to toys, flowing from the United States into Mexico.

"We want the U.S. to be more sensitive to our national interests so we can
be more responsive to the United States," he said.

Fox's willingness to ask publicly for U.S. help in vetting Mexican
officials, reflected in Aguilar Zinser's comments, departs from the
approach of previous Mexican governments, which played down corruption
among Mexican officials and help from the United States.

"This is new and it's very refreshing. Everyone here is tired of the
government saying, 'It's okay; we're winning this war' " on corruption,
said Jorge Chabat, a Mexico City political scientist and specialist on
public security. "Admitting the problem is the first step to solving it."

Chabat said the idea of joint security clearances is a good start toward
more U.S.-Mexico cooperation. But he said the problem of corruption in
Mexican law enforcement will not be solved until there is better training,
pay and oversight to create more professional agencies.

Mexican soldiers on Monday arrested Gilberto Garcia, reputedly one of
Mexico's highest-ranking drug traffickers. Garcia was found hiding in a
tiny compartment in his house in Tamaulipas state, along with a tank of
oxygen, a radio, a cellular phone, four pistols, a machine gun and
toiletries. He had been hiding for nine days, since police entered his town
and arrested 21 members of his gang.

Last week, officials arrested a Mexican army general, captain and
lieutenant on charges of helping traffickers from Garcia's Gulf cartel. The
general was the sixth arrested on drug charges in the past three years. The
arrests were a sobering reminder of how deeply drug traffickers have
infiltrated law enforcement. From 1997 to 1999, more than 1,400 of 3,500
federal police officers were fired for corruption.

Staff writer Dan Eggen in Washington contributed to this report.