FOX IN TIJUANA

U.S., Mexico Must Defeat Drug Cartels

Dear President Vicente Fox:

We welcome your announced declaration of war against what you rightly call
the drug trade's "pernicious criminal mafias." These are the vicious
cartels that your predecessor said, also correctly, were the greatest
threat to Mexico's national security. They wreak havoc on both sides of our
mutual border.

In Mexico, the cartels bring corruption and violence on a scale so
staggering as to challenge your country's rule of law. In the United
States, our tragic market for illicit narcotics creates the demand
obviously indispensable to the drug trade. The cartels bring drugs by the
ton -- cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamines. These narcotics
inflict immense damage on our society.

Clearly, Mexico and the United States share a common, compelling interest
in defeating the drug trafficking cartels.

You could not have chosen a more fitting location today in which to affirm
this new assault on the drug traffickers than Tijuana, headquarters of the
infamous Arellano Felix Organization. Defeating the Tijuana cartel will
require an unprecedented effort by your government.

Your initial focus on purging corrupt law enforcement and government
agencies is exactly right. The Arellano Felix cartel thrives because of the
corruption its drug profits buy. Baja California's State Judicial Police,
for example, are perceived to be so completely compromised that they're
considered the cartel's security force.

The federal prosecutors' team led last year by the martyred Jose "Pepe"
Patino Moreno almost certainly was betrayed to the cartel by others on the
attorney general's anti-narcotics task force. The Arellanos could hardly
have grown so rich and powerful since 1989 without also buying the
complicity of important state and local officials in Baja California.

President Fox, this is what you are up against.

A serious, sustained war against the Arellanos and Mexico's other drug
cartels would find the U.S. government eager to help. Ramon Arellano Felix
has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List since 1997. The U.S. State
Department is offering a total of $4 million in reward money for
information leading to the arrest and conviction of Benjamin and Ramon
Arellano. Everardo Arturo Paez Martinez, a top Tijuana cartel lieutenant in
custody in Mexico, is among the most important drug figures sought for
extradition to the United States.

An entire multi-agency law enforcement task force meets regularly in San
Diego with one objective: countering the Arellano Felix Organization. So,
your offensive against the cartels would not lack for support from the
United States. But effective cooperation would require some important
improvements first.

At present, there is little effective cross-border sharing of intelligence
on the Arellano Felix cartel's operations. U.S. law enforcement officials
withhold information they fear would be leaked by Mexican police and
prosecutors to the cartel. That restrictive pattern won't change until U.S.
authorities are convinced that the security of information they share can
be guaranteed.

Active U.S. assistance in helping the Mexican government screen its special
counter-narcotics units for corruption was suspended several years ago.
That joint program should be resumed; indeed, it should be dramatically
expanded. Training and operating carefully vetted Mexican anti-drug units
is essential to success against the cartels.

Extradition of selected Mexican drug kingpins wanted in the United States
is also essential. It's a vital test of Mexico's cooperation in the drug
war, and the traffickers fear nothing more. Start with Paez, whose
extradition was recently authorized by a 10-1 vote of the Mexican Supreme
Court.

Closer cooperation also might permit joint operations by Mexican and U.S.
agents, on both sides of the border. The Arellanos are a binational
criminal problem. A truly binational response would hasten their demise.

We applaud your courage, President Fox, in taking on some of the world's
most vicious drug cartels, starting with the Arellanos. It's a war you must
wage and win. Rest assured that U.S. law enforcement officers, and the new
Bush administration, are eager to help attack this murderous plague on both
our nations.