MEXICO COULD GET $1.2B FOR DRUG WAR

Officials Discussing U.S. Plan Say Funds Would Be Offered Over 3 Years

EL PASO - A U.S. plan to help Mexico fight drug traffickers and their
widening violence could cost as much as $1.2 billion over a
three-year period, U.S. and Mexican officials close to the talks said Tuesday.

"That's what's on the table," said one official speaking on condition
of anonymity, though the official cautioned that talks are ongoing
and anything can change.

In May, The Dallas Morning News first reported that the two
governments were discussing a counternarcotics plan - known
informally among some U.S. and Mexican officials as Plan Mexico -
that would expand U.S. assistance, now estimated at about $40 million annually.

The plan is aimed at "significantly" enhancing U.S. aid to bolster
Mexico's telecommunications and its ability to monitor its airspace.
It also would be used to strengthen training programs for Mexico's
police; train polygraphers to weed out the country's corrupt federal
police force; and provide law enforcement with eavesdropping
technologies that would enable them to take on drug traffickers
equipped with advanced weapons, electronic monitoring systems and aircraft.

And the aid, which Congress is expected to take up this fall, is
critical not only for Mexico, but for securing the U.S. border, officials said.

"I would like us to be able to monitor some of the ongoing
communication on the part of drug cartels up and down the border and
in the interior of Mexico," said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El
Paso, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. Reyes said the U.S. government is grappling with a critical
choice: Provide Mexico with the hefty increase in counternarcotics
aid or risk spreading "Nuevo Laredo-style violence" along the
2,000-mile boundary, particularly Texas.

Transnational drug traffickers and their gangs pose one of the most
serious threats to U.S. security, said Mr. Reyes, who declined to
offer specifics on the plan but anticipates a feisty debate in Congress.

"Unfortunately there is some kind of cottage industry in the 24-hour
news cable cycle where people are whipped up into a frenzy ... and
believe there cannot be any beneficial partnership with Mexico," Mr.
Reyes said. "All those people need to talk to those of us who
actually live along the border, those of us who represent the border."

Mr. Reyes is a key proponent of the increased counternarcotics
financial initiative and said he believes "it's to our benefit to
assist [Mexico]." He hosted the annual border security conference
"Securing and Managing Our Nation's Border" that ended Tuesday at the
University of Texas at El Paso.

"One thing I'm concerned about is that that window of opportunity
will close and we will have to face the consequences if we don't take
positive steps to address the issues," he said, referring to the
violence that's gripped the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo and
occasionally spilled into Laredo.

Mr. Reyes said he favors a "multiyear effort and even if the figure
is half of that, say half a billion dollars, that would be a quarter
of what we spend on Iraq every month. Can we afford investing in
ourselves that kind of money? That's what we're talking about in
helping Mexico help us in managing the border security."

The plan, formally called a "regional security initiative," would
represent a departure for the Mexican government, which has accepted
only limited U.S. aid in the past out of a sense of nationalism and
fears that more significant aid would come with strings attached.

It would also represent an acknowledgment by Mexico that its
military-led offensive against drug traffickers is falling short of
its goal of controlling violence.

Mr. Reyes' comments come as President Bush and his Mexican
counterpart, Felipe Calderon, prepare to meet with their Canadian
host, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in Montebello, Quebec, on Aug.
20-21 for a series of talks in the Security and Prosperity
Partnership of North initiative.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Calderon will probably update each other on the
ongoing counternarcotics talks, which began during Mr. Calderon's
first visit as president-elect to the White House last November and
were formalized during their meeting in Merida, Yucatan, last March,
officials from both countries said.

It's unlikely that any announcement will be made next week because
the event is a trilateral meeting and crucial details in the
negotiations haven't been worked out, said a U.S. official, speaking
on condition of anonymity.

'This Is Not Colombia'

One Mexican official said one sticking point remains: "How wide do we
open the door to the Americans? That remains a very sore issue. This
is not Colombia."

The Colombia reference is to a U.S. effort under President Bill
Clinton in which U.S. advisers and special operations troops were
heavily involved in anti-cartel operations in that country.

Mexican authorities, noting a long history of U.S. intervention, are
leery about any comparisons to Colombia, or the idea of any American
military, or law enforcement operation on Mexican soil.

U.S. taxpayers have spent about $5 billion over the last five years
in Colombia.

But Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the Mexico Project at the
Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said
he believes "both governments will have to come to terms with the
realization that if they are to effectively combat powerful
transnational organized criminals, they will have to cooperate" at
unprecedented levels.

Seeing Need for Help

Other speakers at the conference in El Paso agreed that more U.S.
financial assistance to Mexico is crucial in helping the country's
military and strengthening U.S. border security and democracy.

Like other Latin American countries, Mexico faces tough challenges
from drug traffickers who are battling over a $325 billion global
drug market, said Anthony Placido, the Drug Enforcement
Administration's chief of intelligence and assistant administrator.

The counternarcotics financial plan is "not about money," he said.
"This is about what you can do with those dollars."

Adm. James. Stavridis, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said
fighting drug trafficking is linked to securing the United States.

"I am very concerned about the ability of monies, and the
infrastructure and the poisonous impact on systems of governance in
central America and parts of South America and certainly in the
Caribbean," Adm. Stavridis said.

Joseph Donovan, acting assistant director of the National Drug
Intelligence Center, added that any new agreement between Mexico and
the United States "must respect the sovereignty of both countries.
This is important for Mexico and the United States as well."

The two-day border conference featured Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff, who expressed hope that Congress will revisit
immigration reform for economic and security reasons.

Mr. Chertoff said his department is faced with the extra burden of
going after maids, gardeners and farmworkers, which pull away
resources from dealing with security threats and harms employers
dependent on illegal immigrants.

"I'm still hopeful that it may be revisited," he said of the
immigration bill, which died in the senate this summer. "In the end,
it's very hard to secure the border with only brute force. It can be
done, but it's going to be a labor-intensive and time-consuming way to do it."