MEXICO GIVES ITSELF HIGH MARKS FOR LAST YEAR'S ANTI-DRUG EFFORT

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 26 - The Mexican government asserted today that its
soldiers and police seized far more drugs in 1999 than in previous years,
partly as a result of increased spending on high-tech gadgetry, aircraft
and naval vessels deployed in the narcotics war.

The secretaries of defense, navy and interior and the attorney general
described dramatic progress against the drug trade in an annual joint
appearance before journalists. The cabinet officials' statements appeared
timed to cast Mexico's anti-drug efforts in a positive light a month before
President Clinton must report to Congress on how foreign governments are
cooperating in the narcotics war.

"We've made very substantial advances," said Interior Minister Diodoro
Carrasco Altamirano, summing up a slide show and his three colleagues'
reports, delivered in an auditorium at the Interior Ministry. "We achieved
better coordination among our institutions, and we deployed better-trained
Mexicans in the anti-drug struggle. We employed new, cutting-edge
equipment. We spent government resources like never before, and we used
them better. Our results this year were, frankly, very encouraging."

That description of Mexico's progress contrasted dramatically with
testimony to the United States Congress in September, when Richard Fiano,
head of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, painted a
picture of a Mexican anti-drug force that was underequipped, understaffed
and underpaid.

He specifically belittled the work of Mexico's most elite anti-drug units,
the Border Intelligence Units, known as B.I.U.'s, and the Sensitive
Intelligence Units, the S.I.U.'s.

"The investigative achievements of the B.I.U.'s and the S.I.U.'s as related
to cases against the major drug trafficking organizations are minimal," Mr.
Fiano said. Only a few of 343 Mexican police officers who had graduated
from a training course in the United States and had won the confidence of
American officials had been given significant anti-drug assignments after
their return to duty in Mexico, he said.

A senior official who works for Mexico's attorney general, asked to respond
to Mr. Fiano's remarks today, bristled slightly.

"Ask the D.E.A. why they haven't captured the top traffickers in the United
States," the Mexican official shot back.

In a separate briefing later today, Mariano Herran Salvatti, Mexico's
special prosecutor for drug crimes, told three foreign journalists that Mr.
Fiano had erred in several of his statements to Congress. Mr. Herran said
that two anti-drug operations carried out this fall by Mexican officials
had significantly disrupted the drug mafias, and he asserted that Mr. Fiano
himself had been impressed by the Mexican advances.

"Fiano's views have changed," Mr. Herran said.

American and Mexican officials are often at loggerheads over their
governments' respective drug efforts. They often disagree even about the
criteria to emphasize in evaluating progress. D.E.A. officials say that the
most important anti-drug task facing Mexico is arresting its top narcotics
chieftains.

Mexican officials, in contrast, emphasize how much they are spending on
anti-drug efforts: more than $463 million in this fiscal year, Mr. Madrazo
said today. They also point to the quantities of drugs they are
confiscating. The number of kilograms of heroin confiscated increased to
222 in 1999 from 122 in 1998, he said. Cocaine seizures increased to 26
metric tons from 24, he said.