FOX'S DRUG-WAR IDEA WOULD BE BOON TO BAD GUYS, MCCAFFREY SAYS

If Mexico's military withdraws from fighting drugs, as suggested by
President-elect Vicente Fox, that country's anti-drug efforts will suffer,
said Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. drug-control director.

In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star, McCaffrey said Mexico's
military has played an indispensable role in fighting drug trafficking.

"The Mexican armed forces, both the maritime service and the army, have
been vital to both interdiction and eradication. It's hard to imagine in
the coming years anything replacing that capability," McCaffrey said.

McCaffrey is in El Paso today to announce a reorganization of American
anti-drug efforts on the Southwest border, and he will be in Tucson tomorrow.

He said he had already mentioned his support of the Mexican military's role
in the anti-drug efforts to Fox's transition team.

Fox's anti-crime plan calls for "demilitarizing" law enforcement in Mexico.
That would reverse the trend under outgoing President Ernesto Zedillo of
placing more and more soldiers in police roles, especially in anti-drug
efforts.

Fox, who takes office Dec. 1, believes the military has assumed too many
police roles, exposing it to corruption, his advisers have said.

Mexican soldiers have become a common sight along the U.S. border, setting
up checkpoints on some roads and frequently patrolling in Humvees. They
also walk the underground washes that flow between Nogales, Ariz., and
Nogales, Sonora.

Just Tuesday, two Mexican soldiers emerged from an underground wash about a
half-mile north of the border, Border Patrol spokesman Joseph Pankoke said.
An agent shouted down to the soldiers that they were in the United States,
and they walked back into the tunnel, he said.

Mexico's military patrols are reducing the drug supply, said McCaffrey, a
retired four-star general in the Army.

"There's been a terrific enhancement in interdiction capabilities and
binational cooperation," he said. "Seizure rates are skyrocketing in Mexico."

The Clinton administration's faith in the military's ability to battle drug
trafficking is also underscoring aid to Colombia. The U.S. is providing
Colombia $1.3 billion in military funding for fighting drugs.

The militarization strategy in Mexico has led to questionable successes and
unmistakable failures, said George Grayson, a professor of government at
the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

"The actual interdiction rates are relatively low, and you open an
institution with a relatively good reputation to the danger of corruption,"
said Grayson, a student of the Mexican military. "It's a counterproductive
policy, because we see reports in the Mexican press all the time of
military officials being hauled off to the stockade."

McCaffrey acknowledged the Mexican military's involvement in anti-drug
efforts has exposed Mexico's military to corruption. But he pointed to
other levels of Mexico's law enforcement as more corrupt.

"There is still enormous corruption and violence in state-level law
enforcement in Mexico," he said.

But the most prominent recent arrests have been in the military. On Aug.
31, the Defense Ministry announced it had jailed two senior army generals
on drug charges. They were the first jailings of high-ranking generals for
drug corruption since 1997.

That year, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, Mexico's anti-drug czar, was
imprisoned on charges of protecting suspected cartel leader Amado Carrillo
Fuentes from arrest.

Despite these high-level arrests, allegations of corruption in the military
keep reaching higher. In an interview Tuesday from prison with The
Associated Press, Gutierrez said the Arellano Felix drug trafficking
organization has received protection from Mexico's defense secretary.