GRAFT SEEN AS BLOW TO MEXICO'S DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON--Recently uncovered evidence of corruption pervading some
Mexican law enforcement units has dealt a "major setback" to the drug war
in Mexico, a senior Clinton administration official told a Senate panel
Wednesday.

The testimony by Thomas A. Constantine, chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, came just as President Clinton is expected to again certify
Mexico as a cooperative partner in the fight against a booming
international drug trade.

Although Constantine avoided passing judgment on certification, which has
become an annual occasion for crossborder tension and reconciliation, he
and other U.S.

officials raised questions about Mexico's drugfighting record in the past
year.

"There are numerous conditions in Mexico today that, unfortunately, have
allowed the organized criminal drugtrafficking syndicates to grow even
stronger than I predicted a few years ago," Constantine said. "It is almost
as if members of the [Mexican drug] organizations have little to fear
except the slim possibility that they will be extradited to the United
States to face justice." Constantine, in written and oral testimony, listed
a number of major suspected traffickers who appear to operate with virtual
impunity. And he warned that the traffickers have gained such influence
within key Mexican counternarcotics units that future attempts by U.S.
agencies to share sensitive intelligence "will depend on elimination of
corruption" in those units.

Seizing on such remarks, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (DCalif.) pressed a State
Department official to explain why Mexico should be termed an ally in the
drug war despite its failure to extradite any major drug suspects to the
United States.

"Somewhere there's a hangup," Feinstein said.

Rand Beers, assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and
law enforcement affairs, replied, "I would have to say we're not happy [or]
satisfied with where we are on the extradition issue." The hearing before
the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control underscores how the
certification process, in which the United States evaluates the
counternarcotics merits and demerits of 28 countries, produces a volatile
combination of politics, diplomacy and law enforcement.

Countries that are not certified as allies in the antidrug crusade face
economic sanctions, a threat many Mexicans view as harsh and sanctimonious
given the huge U.S. markets for cocaine, marijuana, heroin and
methamphetamine.

Clinton has until Monday to announce whether he will certify Mexico and the
other countries, but the president telegraphed his intentions about Mexico
earlier this month.

In a meeting with Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo in the Yucatan
Peninsula, Clinton praised the Zedillo administration's courage in
confronting the drug trade and corruption and said the country should not
be penalized.

Those statements gave little comfort to congressional critics, who in past
years have mounted unsuccessful efforts to overturn the president's
certification of Mexico.

On Wednesday, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (RIowa), the chairman of the drug
oversight panel, criticized what he called "several years of happy talk" by
U.S. and Mexican officials who have promoted certification. What the two
countries need, he said, are results.

"At this point, it would appear that the best efforts if that is what they
are of Mexico and the United States are flatout failures," Grassley said.