U.S. EFFORTS AGAINST MEXICAN CARTELS CALLED LACKING

U.S. efforts to help the Mexican government battle powerful organized
crime networks are falling short, and a recent sharp spike in
violence south of the border poses a growing threat to U.S. citizens,
senators and independent experts told officials from three federal
agencies yesterday on Capitol Hill.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (D), who said his state is the
principal American gateway for drugs and human smuggling from Mexico,
called the Mexican cartels the principal criminal threat for the 21st
century. But he criticized Washington's response as disjointed and
called for more intelligence-sharing and better coordination.

"We are not winning the battle," Goddard told members of the Senate
Judiciary subcommittee on crime and drugs. Lawmakers joined Goddard
in calling for a stronger federal response, including heightened
efforts to stanch the illicit stream of thousands of American guns
and billions of dollars in cash annually flowing southward across the border.

"Mexican drug cartels . . . pose a direct threat to Americans," said
Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the subcommittee
chairman, noting that they now operate in at least 230 U.S. cities,
up from about 50 in 2006.

But their joint alarm over the rising drug-related violence in
northern Mexico -- where more than 1,000 people have been slain since
the beginning of the year -- was not shared by officials at the
hearing from the three principal agencies responsible for helping the
Mexican government: the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security.

Anthony P. Placido, the DEA's top intelligence official, said his
agency believes that Mexican President Felipe Calderon is still
"making important strides" against the cartels. The recently
increasing violence mostly reflects the criminal networks' "desperate
effort to resist," he said.

"The violence we see is actually a signpost of success," Placido said.

A darker picture was presented by Denise Dresser, a
Princeton-educated professor of political science in Mexico City, who
warned that recent U.S. assistance in fighting drug trafficking has
had only mixed success. Cocaine traffickers now spend more than twice
the attorney general's budget just for bribes; 450,000 citizens are
involved in the drug trade; and more than 2,000 weapons a day are
smuggled south to fuel the battle between cartels and against the
Mexican government, she said.

"Mexico is becoming a country where lawlessness prevails, where more
people died in drug-related violence last year than those killed in
Iraq, where the government has been infiltrated by the mafias and
cartels it has vowed to combat," Dresser said. "Although many believe
that Obama's greatest foreign policy challenges lie in Pakistan or
Iran or the Middle East, they may in fact be found in the immediate
neighborhood."

Firearms and immigration officials disputed the estimate of 2,000
smuggled weapons a day, saying the number was more likely in the
hundreds. But they confirmed that these weapons are becoming more
sophisticated and now include .50-caliber rifles with five-inch
shells capable of penetrating walls.

"Unfortunately, in the past six months, we have noted a troubling
increase in the number of grenades . . . seized from or used by drug
traffickers, and we are concerned about the possibility of
explosives-related violence spilling into U.S. border towns," the
Justice Department said in a written statement to lawmakers.

Federal officials said their agencies had cooperated well and
provided timely intelligence and resources to the Mexican government.
But the lawmakers said Mexican officials had told them otherwise, and
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sharply criticized delays in
providing helicopters and surveillance equipment under a special aid
program, the Merida Initiative, begun by the Bush administration.

Although the transfer was funded last year, Mexico will not receive
the gear until 2011, Feinstein said. This is of "enormous concern to
the Mexicans." She also said that federal efforts to stop the
smuggling of weapons were "clearly not enough."

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) asked why more border agents were
not trained and deputized to make drug arrests.

His questions provoked Kumar C. Kibble, a deputy director of
investigations for immigration at DHS, to say that the number of such
agents had been inappropriately capped at 1,475 instead of 5,000.
Placido denied that such a cap existed but warned that heavier
involvement by border agents might compromise drug investigations and
cause suspects to flee.

"I'm afraid, in this country, we tend to segregate by agency,"
Goddard later complained. "On the border, we can't afford to do that."

Separately yesterday, Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who oversees the
U.S. Northern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that
military planners are working with DHS on how to improve border
surveillance operations, and reviewing a request by Texas Gov. Rick
Perry (R) for 1,000 more federal troops or agents at the border.