BORDER INCIDENT WIDENS U.S.-MEXICO RIFT

Drug Smuggling Showdown In West Texas Triggers War Of Words Between
U.S., Mexican Officials

WASHINGTON - U.S. and Mexican authorities
traded sharp words Thursday over a troubling incursion into West
Texas earlier this week of heavily armed drug traffickers in Mexican
military-style garb.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn said he was disappointed "in the failure of
the government officials in Mexico to act on the intrusions of
American sovereignty," noting that Monday's showdown between drug
traffickers and Texas law enforcement authorities was far from the
first incursion on U.S. soil by purported Mexican military officers.
And he pledged that his Senate immigration subcommittee would convene
hearings within weeks. Mexico's foreign secretary, meanwhile,
suggested that Americans, not Mexicans, might have been disguised as
Mexican troops. The spat threatens to worsen a U.S.-Mexican
relationship already made tense over a tough border-enforcement bill
pending in Congress and the Bush administration's inability to
deliver on a promised immigration liberalization accord that would
benefit millions of Mexicans living illegally in the U.S.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said the uniformed men
who used a military-style Humvee to help the drug smugglers being
chased by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Hudspeth
County sheriff's deputies may have been U.S. soldiers or criminals.
But he offered no evidence to back his suggestion.

"There is a supposition here that this involved Mexican citizens, and
that is absolutely incorrect," Mr. Derbez said. "What we can say is
that no one knows, at the present time, what nationality they were."
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke declined to address Mr.
Derbez's speculation that the traffickers were American. "It is being
thoroughly investigated and as a matter of practice, we do not
comment on investigations," he said.

Mr. Derbez bristled Thursday at a sharply worded statement issued by
U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza demanding a full investigation by the
Mexican government into the incursion, which occurred about 50 miles
east of El Paso. Mr. Derbez called the comments out of line, and he
said he would send a diplomatic note to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice demanding that U.S. officials tone down their rhetoric.

Monday's incursion has touched off a wave of concern on Capitol Hill,
where lawmakers are under growing public pressure to improve security
along the porous U.S.-Mexico border.

"We don't know, of course, who these people were," Mr. Cornyn said.
"It's easy to buy uniforms, and as we know, unfortunately, Mexico has
some domestic problems with regards to law enforcement, drug cartels
and even organized crime engaged in human smuggling."

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Texas
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison demanded a full investigation and report to
Congress. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an arm of the Homeland
Security Department, has launched an inquiry into Monday's incident.
And Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., has asked the State Department to initiate
a formal investigation and talks with Mexican officials to prevent
further incursions. Mr. Kyl, who chairs the Senate Judiciary
subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security, plans hearings on
the incursions in March. The U.S. government has asked the Mexican
government for a "thorough investigation and prompt response," Mr.
Knocke said. Ms. Hutchison urged the Homeland Security Department to
examine the estimated 231 incursions into the U.S. over the last
decade. She also requested a report to Congress on what preventive
measures - including fencing - could be used to secure the border.

"Make no mistake - this is only a symptom of a much larger problem,"
she wrote Mr. Chertoff. "Even after 9/11, our nation's borders remain
porous. We must take bold action in securing our borders."

Mr. Chertoff confirmed last week that border personnel reported
sighting what they believed to be Mexican soldiers crossing onto U.S.
territory hundreds of times in the last decade. But he called any
alarm over the incursions "overblown."

"Sometimes it may be people who are dressed in what appear to be
military uniforms but are just criminals," he said at a Jan. 18
breakfast session. "To create the image that somehow there is a
deliberate effort by the Mexican military to cross the border would
be really to traffic in scare tactics. I don't think we have a
serious problem with official incursions." Still, Mr. Knocke called
Monday's incident serious.

"But I think it's a rare one," he said. "In probably the vast
majority of the instances, we're talking about inadvertent
incursions." Inadvertent or not, the incursions could intensify a
simmering debate over a controversial proposal to fence huge swaths
of the 1,952-mile border. A House-approved border enforcement bill
would fence more than a third of the border - to the dismay of
Mexican leaders who have denounced the wall as "shameful" and "stupid."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.