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The first thing to understand about drug corruption in
Mexico, and the Clinton administration's failure to deal
with it, is that the capture of General Jesus Gutierrez
Rebollo was an accident. Until a few weeks ago, Gutierrez
was Mexico's top official in the war on drugs,
appointed in December to head the National Institute to
Combat Drugs (incd), Mexico's version of the Drug
Enforcement Administration. Gutierrez was also, allegedly,
on the take from one of Mexico's major drug cartels, an
embarrassment he hid from his bosses and from Washington
for seven years. But the general's new appointment went to
his head. Apparently deciding he was not living up to his
station in life, Gutierrez rented an apartment in a fancy
neighborhood. When Gutierrez's boss, Defense Secretary
Enrique Cervantes Aguirre, heard about his employee's new
digs, they struck him as too rich for a general's salary.
Shortly before midnight on February 6, Cervantes summoned
Gutierrez and started questioning him.

Cervantes would later tell reporters that Gutierrez
became "visibly worried and disturbed by the questions and
gave confused answers." Watching Gutierrez sputter and
gasp, Cervantes suddenly realized that the 62yearold
might be suffering a heart attack, and he

Susan E. Reed is a producer with CBS News' "48 Hours."

sent him to the hospital. Over the next few days, while
Gutierrez lay recovering from what was in fact a mild heart
attack, the questioning continued. It soon focused on the
general's relationship with the Mexican national Amado
Carillo Fuentes, who some DEA officials consider to be the
world's most powerful drug trafficker, and who is believed
to control the movement of drugs into the United States
through Ciudad JuArez, a border boom city just across the
Rio Grande from El Paso that has become in recent years a
main point of entry for drugs coming into the United
States. Carillo "can move drugs anywhere in the U.S." from
Brownsville to San Diego, "anytime he wants to, day or
night," says Peter Lupsha, a senior researcher at the
University of New Mexico's Latin American Institute. Lupsha
estimates Carillo grosses $10 billion a year from his drug
running and attendant businesses. It is said that he pays
millions in bribes each year to keep himself in business.
On February 18, Defense Secretary Cervantes announced that
Gutierrez had aided the Carillo cartel for seven years by
protecting cocaine shipments in exchange for vehicles, real
estate and cash.

It is hard to imagine a drugwar development more
embarrassing for the Clinton administration. Just weeks
ago, the administration had welcomed Gutierrez to
Washington, where U.S. drug czar General Barry McCaffrey
praised him as a man of "absolute, unquestioned integrity."
Far worse, American officials had used the visit to provide
Gutierrez with their latest intelligence on Mexico's drug
traffickers, possibly endangering informants. White House
officials are still fuming that the Mexican government
allowed Gutierrez to visit Washington and receive this
informationtwelve days after the Mexicans began to
suspect that Gutierrez was bent.

The embarrassment (and danger to DEA agents and
informants in Mexico) probably could have been avoided.
According to a former American counter narcotics official,
there is reason to believe that a department within the DEA
had some indication that Gutierrez had "a history of
associations with drug traffickers," but this information
was never developed and passed on to policymakers. "There
was a disconnect," the official said. "The people who
needed to know were not informed." James J. McGivney, a
spokesman for the DEA, says there were no suspicions about
Gutierrez before the charges were announced. "It's not our
job to vet these people," he says. "We don't go around
spooking military and government officials; we've got
enough to do with the crooks." He did not mention that
Gutierrez appears to have been one and the same.

As it happened, the arrest of Gutierrez came at the
moment the U.S. government was readying its annual
"certification" that Mexico is cooperating with efforts to
stop drugs from entering this country. The annual narcotics
certification process is outlined in the Foreign Assistance
Act and requires the president to identify countries that
produce and export drugs and then to determine whether or
not their governments are making progress in stemming the
export of drugs to the United States. If a nation is
decertified for lack of cooperation, counternarcotics aid
continues, but the nation loses most other assistance. The
president, though, can grant a "vital national interest"
waiver to a country that fails to meet expectations. This
qualifies as decertification but with an exception that
allows the country to still receive aid. With the arrest of
Gutierrez, the awkwardness that has been obvious for years
in recertifying Mexico became excruciating. Should the
Clinton administration approve $25 to $62 million in
foreign aid this year to a country whose chief
antinarcotics cop was allegedly facilitating the transport
of narcotics into the United States?

The White House seemed at first inclined to dismiss the
question. President Clinton said he found the Gutierrez
scandal "deeply troubling," then characteristically praised
the Mexican government for making the arrest. But, as the
story stayed on the front page into the week in which the
administration had to decide on certification, the tone
changed. On February 25, while the Mexican government was
frantically signaling better intentions by dismissing
dozens of suspect incd employees, Thomas Constantine, head
of the DEA, was testifying to Congress that there is not a
single Mexican law enforcement agency that the DEA fully
trusts. With the president's decision on certification only
two days away, The New York Times reported on its front
page that the White House was for the first time seriously
considering some form of decertification for Mexico.

This, though, was sound and fury orchestrated by the
White House, and it signified not much beyond positioning.
"I don't care what was in the Times today," said a senior
White House official that afternoon. "We are going to end
up with certification, and there is not going to be any
ifs, ands or buts about it. Fully decertifying Mexico is
not an option. It is not on the table. I'm not even sure if
decertification with a waiver is on the table." Despite the
presence for the first time of voices within the White
House itselfand not just from the DEAarguing for
decertification, the official said the administration would
satisfy itself with "some very stiff messages delivered to
the Mexicans about their performance" and recertify on the
grounds that, as usual, progress was being made.

The Gutierrez scandal illustrates how deeply corruption
from drug trafficking has burrowed into Mexican society,
infiltrating and subverting government at all levels, and
of how determinedly the Clinton administration has declined
to publicly deal with it. Prior to last week, the Mexican
military was thought to be the one arm of the state
relatively untainted by drug corruption, at least in its
upper reaches. The shock of Gutierrez has destroyed that
false sense of comfort. The corruption is cloaked in layers
of deception; crooked law enforcement officials commonly
use their jobs as cover, building their reputations as
lawmen and patriots through carefully chosen and staged
busts.

In early January, for instance, General Gutierrez
ordered a raid on a party that Amado Carillo Fuentes was
attending in the state of Sinaloa. Three hundred troops
wound up crashing the wedding reception of Carillo's sister
in an effort to catch her brotherwho had been tipped off
and had already left. This very public attempt to capture
Carillo is only one of three showy tries Gutierrez claimed
to have made to bring in Carillo. The deceptions practiced
by Mexican officials like Gutierrez have found an easy mark
in the Clinton White House. In the past several years, as
America's neighbor has become America's biggest narcotics
menace, President Clinton has avoided all criticism of
Mexico, indeed nearly all mention. Clinton's praise of
Ernesto Zedillo's government last week for catching
Gutierrez was the first time in sixteen months the
president has spoken publicly about drugs and Mexico. The
president's determination to ignore evidence to the
contrary has been impressive. In October 1995, the last
time he spoke of drugs and Mexico, Clinton praised
President Zedillo's "major reform of Mexican law
enforcement." But, six months later, the State Department
concluded in its annual narcotics report that Mexico's
"endemic corruption continued to undermine both policy
initiatives and law enforcement operations." Nevertheless,
Clinton certified Mexico to receive foreign aid in 1996.

The poet and essayist Octavio Paz wrote that the
gullibility of Americans (including, presumably, American
officials) is partly a matter of cultural difference.
Mexico, Paz said, is a country of masks. "The Mexican tells
lies because he delights in fantasy, or because he is
desperate, or because he wants to rise above the sordid
facts of his life; the North American does not tell lies,"
he wrote. "The North Americans are credulous." Credulous,
and also sensitive. Mexico, understandably touchy about
infractions against its sovereignty from the north, is
deeply ambivalent about U.S. assistance and easily
irritated by criticism. Shocking as it may be, one reason
President Clinton shies away from pointing out the Mexican
government's failure to police its borders with the U.S. is
that he doesn't want to hurt its feelings. "We're mindful
of their sensitivity to overreaching by the United States,
and we're trying not to inflame it," one White House
official explained.

But cultural differences and exquisite manners are not
the entire, or even the primary, reason for the
administration's blind eye. That, it appears, would be
money. In an administration devoted to trade above all, the
truth about Mexico is unwelcome. Decertifying Mexico would
not only stop U.S. aid to the country, straining relations
badly, but it would also undermine the entire idea of free
trade with Mexico, an idea embodied in one of the Clinton
administration's greatest triumphs, the North American Free
Trade Agreement. An admission that Mexico has become the
major exporter of drugs into the U.S. raises questions of
trade in general with Mexico. Mexico, which fears it would
become a pariah were it decertified by the U.S., has
lobbied hard against even contemplating the move. The
president has complied. In 1995, he argued that Mexican
drug traffic proved the need for more trade with Mexico: "
The stronger our trade, the greater the wellbeing of all
our people, the deeper our cooperation, the better we will
be able to fight together our common problems like drugs
and crime and pollution," he said. "It's mindboggling that
Mexico gets away with this," says Phil Jordan, a former
head of the El Paso Intelligence Center for the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration. "But, historically, they always
have."

Over the last four years, with the help of corrupt
Mexican officials and myopic American officials, Mexico has
become a narcotics superhighway to the United States,
delivering more methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana to
this country than any other nation. As the Mexican cartels
have gained more and more of the American market, they have
grown bolder in their attempts to expand. Formerly quiet,
mundane trading towns like Eagle Pass, Texas, have become
part of the narcotics interstate.

"They cross the river at dusk and wait for night before
they move out," says Ramiro Trevino, a supervisor for the
U.S. Border Patrol. High on a rocky cliff above the Rio
Grande, he searches the river with binoculars; "I've seen
them backpack marijuana ten to fifteen miles." Trevino was
raised on the border, and he can read the footprints he
finds in the powdery brown soil like signs on a highway. He
can tell the difference between illegal aliens and
marijuana smugglers, at a glance, by the depth of their
tracks. "Looks like we had some backpackers here," he says,
pointing to a brigade of deep boot prints, sunk hard into
the soil by up to a hundred pounds of marijuana. " Dopers,"
as Trevino calls them, pack the bulky marijuana into a home
trash compactor to maximize their loads.

Every night, as darkness falls across the Rio Grande,
the same game of chase and chance begins. Sensors planted
by the Border Patrol electronically map the foot traffic. A
nightvision camera stationed on a ridge above the river
tracks the emerging backpackers. The packers, having no
idea they've been spotted, alternately crouch and dart
among the foliage. Using only their radios and the
moonlight, the agents guide one another to their targets.
One year ago, Senior Agent Jefferson Barr was closing in on
four smugglers who were seen by the nightvision camera
dumping loads of marijuana over a fence. Barr and his
partner met two of them headon. There was a struggle.
Shots went off. "This is where Jeff was killed," Trevino
says quietly, standing before a wooden cross, in a clearing
just a few hundred yards from the Rio Grande. Five hundred
pounds of marijuana were seized from the pasture where Barr
was killed.

Barr's death was an example of the growing willingness
of the Mexican dope traders to use violence against U.S.
law enforcement officials. In 1995, there were no recorded
assaults against U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Del Rio
sector. In 1996, there were more than fifty. There is
everywhere in the region a sense of immediate danger.
Ranchers who live on rambling acreages, miles from
civilization, feel failed by law enforcement they thought
could protect them. An elderly rancher, whose house has
been fired at, says, "We have no faith in our government,
whatsoever," to restore order along the border. The rancher
won't give his name because he worries about retaliation
from the dope dealers on this side. "They know where we
live, and my wife and I aren't safe," he says.

Bud Natus, a rancher who manages 2,200 acres of land,
recalls the time he surprised smugglers on what he calls
"the combat zone," the pasture land along the river. One
smuggler "was holding a rifle and told me he was gonna kill
me," Natus says. At 6'3", and 250 pounds, Natus is not
easily intimidated. But he now carries an assault rife, a
shot gun and a 45 automatic in his pickup truck whenever
he goes near the river. "You never know who's gonna be
lying in the weeds waiting for you, so you best be
careful," he warns. As soon as his brotherinlaw sells the
land, Natus will move away. Driving along county road 1021,
south of Eagle Pass, it seems like every other place is up
for sale. Families are giving up and moving out because
they feel so threatened by the tons of drugs being smuggled
in and the violence that accompanies that passage. "It's
ruining our way of life," says Natus. "This isn't America
anymore; this is Mexico," says another rancher. Law
enforcement officials worry the land up for sale will be
bought by smugglers who will use it as private
importexport centers. Axvisit to a Federal Judicial Police
unit in Ciudad JuArez shows how underequipped and
undermotivated some Mexican law enforcement agents are. The
unit is the sole force in this city charged with
counternarcotics operations. At one o'clock in the
morning, at a dusty roadblock outside the city, a group of
agents are stopping every vehicle, fifty an hour, searching
for drugs. A policewoman paws through the bags of sleepy
tourists aboard a bus from the south, while a policeman
unleashes a drugsniffing dog around a line of trucks. The
agents aren't carrying radios, and their chief sleuth, the
sniffer dog, is tired and dragging. He is one of only two
dogs used for the 123 checkpoints throughout the state of
Chihuahua.

No drugs are found on this piercingly cold morning, but
Commander Socrates Herrera is very proud that his agents
are at least looking. Herrera, head of the Federal Judicial
Police in JuArez, says his people are often offered bribes
by truckers at the roadblocks. He admits that men have
tried to buy him at the office after first knocking
politely on the gate of his headquarters. "People have
offered us a million dollars," he says. They were turned
down, he says proudly.

But, when Herrera is asked if the men who offered the
milliondollar bribes were arrested, he says, "No, because
they didn't have the money right there." This turns out to
be indicative of his approach. Herrera knows all about
drugs in JuArez. Driving through the city, he points out
picaderos, private galleries for buying and shooting
heroin. Asked why he doesn't shut them down, he says, "It's
not our jurisdiction." That would be up to the local
police.

In fact, there is a widespread belief among the jaded
and illserved citizens of JuArez that neither police force
can afford to close the picaderos; it would cost them too
much of the bribery income for which they compete. As
Mexico's antidrug units are currently structured, it would
seem impossible to escape corruption. New recruits undergo
six months of training with the army, then they're put out
on the street, often stationed far from their families in
spartan conditions: in bungalows with little furniture, or
in barracks with bunk beds. Starting pay is $6,000 a year.

In this environment, the police are expected to resist a
combination of deadly threats and bribes that can run to
hundreds of thousands of dollars. " It's kind of like
this," says Robert Nieves, a former chief of International
Operations for the DEA. "You're offered a bribe. If bribery
doesn't work, you're offered violence. And that violence
will be exacted against you or your family members." In
Mexico, the choice is called "plata o plomo," silver or
lead.

The result is a breathtaking level of corruption.
Twentyeight percent of Mexico's federal law enforcement
has been fired for corruption in the last three years. In
the last year alone, the federal government has fired more
than 900 Federal Judicial Police for suspected offenses
that included theft, extortion, guarding drug
shipmentsand even murder. The Clinton administration
applauded the firings because, according to a White House
official, it showed "the Mexicans realize there's a
problem, and they are working toward change, which is a
long way from where they were two years ago. " But everyone
involved in the effort against the Mexican drug trade says
there remains massive corruption. One DEA agent whom I
asked about corruption in Mexican law enforcement pulled
out a thick file full, he said, of information about
commanders still in power who are suspected by the U.S. of
facilitating the transport of drugs into this country.
Former Mexican Attorney General Antonio Lozano has
estimated it would take fifteen years for Mexico's law
enforcement to be completely cleansed of corruption.

Increased trade with Mexico cannot in and of itself end
the drug traffic. The reasona reason that the Clinton
administration has yet to acknowledge is that Mexico's
drug corruption is so pervasive that legitimate trade with
Mexico is inextricably entangled with it. Because
legitimate Mexican businesses launder drug money, and
because so many apparently legitimate Mexican businessmen
and politicians are secretly involved in the drug trade, "
you sometimes have U.S. Embassy personnel in Mexico
negotiating trade deals with a person who is also
facilitating major drug trafficking into the U.S.," as one
senior American law enforcement official told me. Pushing
trade with some politicians and business leaders may only
augment the influence of those who are aiding the drug
runners.

And because a healthy portion of Mexico's economy
already depends on the illegal narcotics trade ($27 to $30
billion, according to the Justice Department) drug money
fuels industries and distorts competition. It is not an
equal trade partnership when American business people are
"competing against enterprises that have extraordinary
access to illegal capital," says Lupsha. "Clinton does not
fully realize that it will be unfair for any American
trying to do business in Mexico with this level of systemic
corruption."

During President Clinton's visit in April, Mexico will
be pushing for free truck passage across our border, a
provision of nafta that was postponed indefinitely by the
U.S. mainly because of safety concerns. In turn, Clinton
will celebrate the expansion of trade with Mexico as a boon
to the American economy, even though Mexico exported $10
billion more in goods to the U.S. last year than the U.S.
did to Mexico. What he should do is take the opportunity to
point out that, at the time the U.S. opened its borders,
the drug traffickers rushed in. Now the U.S. is running a
remarkable deficit with Mexico, not only in legitimate
trade, but in the American lives being lost in the
consumption of drugs delivered by the relentless drive of
the cartels down a stretch of highway that is protected by
some of Mexico's finest law enforcement.