A Partnership Blind to Corruption

Drug war: U.S. involvement with Mexico is too close to allow
for detached analysis, even when evidence is abundant.

By JOHN IEONE

Recent events in Mexico illustrate U.S. intelligence lapses at the most
important level: analysis. Because of traditional Eurocentrism in the
State Department, Mexico has not always received the attention it deserves.
This is shortsighted. After all, when you add in illegalEdrugs, Mexico is
our largest trading partner by about $70 billion.
Whatever the reasons, the U.S. repeatedly ignored warnings that drug war
and freetrade policies were playing into the hands of powerful drug
smuggling interests in Mexico.
There is compelling evidence that U.S. military intelligence
anticipating the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas was deliberately ignored or
"lost" in the cheerleading for the freetrade agreement.
Analysts have known for years that the Mexican drug business had to be
abetted by the military; how else do you fly cargo planes into Mexican
airspace? Subcommandante Marcos of the Zapatistas commented casually in an
early 1994 interview that the narcos and the military had easy commerce in
Chiapas, and cited evidence of military bases and equipment used for drug
smuggling. There was never any reason to expect the military to be morally
superior to the federal police, who had been fired by the thousands during
the Salinas presidenccy, only to get immediate employment as guards for the
drug lords. The Mexican army, like armies all over the. world, has been
cashing in on both sides of the drug trade for at least six years. when he
was sacked as President Ernesto Zedillo's drug czar in February, Gen. Jose
de Jesus Guttierrez Rebollo had just finished final negotiations for the
transfer of U.S. Army helicopters to Mexico, lending credence to the
Zapatista charge that U.S. equipment nominally given to the Mexicans for
the drug war was used for drug smuggling and to attack the Indian rebels,
who are known to have fired upon narcos in Chiapas.
In fact as early as 1990, certain analysts publicly. warned against the
Colombianization of Mexico, meaning the takeover of critical aspects of
the government, police and military by drug traffickers; Warnings once
dismissed as fanciful, for example, that U.S. military aid and intelligence
might be going directly to military authorities in Mexico in the pay of
drug smugglers, now appear soberingly true.
How was the general of the U.S. drug war, Barry Mccaffrey, bushwhacked
into praising his Mexican counterpart, who was even then under
investigation, and soon indicted, for being in the pocket of drug lord
Amado Carrillo Fuentes?
This critical failure of analysis alarms some experts.
"There is a tremendous struggle for power going on in Mexico," says
Harvard professor John Womack. "what puzzles me is why the press and the
drug police don't look at those who were in power when Mexico first became
important in drug smuggling" (in the early 1980s). Womack says one reason
may be that important Mexican military and intelligence figures have close
ties to the US; indeed, many received advanced training here.
The failure to properly vet Gutierrez was a failure of analysis. not of
fact gathering. The information was available; coherent interpretation,
apparently, was not. This is a dismal prospect for U.S. intelligence.
If the problem were only that the US. officials actually relied upon the
word of the Mexican military for. Gutierrez's recommendation and inquired
no further, then they might be accused merely of egregious naivete. But if
they accepted the recommendation as authoritative because the lines of real
power are invisible to them, as they are to most Americans, and indeed to
most Mexicans, then they are not accomplishing their jobs and should be
replaced.
One thing might be said in favor of Gutierrez: He may very well have had
no choice in the matter of corruption. The drug lords' offer is plato o
plombo silver or lead for you and your family. But if matters have
actually deteriorated to the point that the "incorruptible" head of the
Mexican drug effort (as Outierrex was known in Washington) is corrupted by
force or choice, then it is just about time to call in the Marines, or call
off the war on drugs, which costs the U.S. aggregately in police, penal and
legal expense about $120 billion a year. That is also about the size of
the total illegal drug business in the U.S. When you add them together,
they roughly equal our annual deficit.

John Leone is a writer based in San Diego
working on a screenplay about Merico.
(His phone number is NOT listed in the San Diego directory)