MEXICO WEIGHS OPTIONS AS LAWLESSNESS CONTINUES TO GRIP CIUDAD JUAREZ

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- Senior Mexican officials have begun a
sweeping review of the military's two-year occupation of this
dangerous border city, concluding that the U.S.-backed deployment of
thousands of soldiers against drug traffickers has failed to control
the violence and crime, according to officials in both countries.

The multi-agency review, which has not been made public, represents a
"serious reassessment" of President Felipe Calderon's anti-narcotics
strategy and reflects growing alarm that Juarez, across from El Paso,
has descended into lawlessness, U.S. officials familiar with the process said.

The war on Mexico's powerful drug cartels has been the defining
policy of Calderon's administration, involving unprecedented
cooperation with American political and law enforcement authorities.
Failure in a high-profile battleground such as Ciudad Juarez would
represent a major defeat for Calderon and for U.S. officials
determined to curb the multibillion dollar flow of drugs across the border.

"There is an almost unanimous consensus in the city that the strategy
hasn't worked," said Hugo Almada, a sociology professor at the
Autonomous University of Juarez who earlier this month organized a
peace march of more than 3,000 people.

"The most terrifying question that everyone asks is, 'If the army
comes in and can't control the situation, what happens to us now?'"
Almada said.

Calderon declared Juarez the "tip of the spear" in the fight against
the ultra-violent drug cartels, and it is here that the Mexican
president has most militarized the fight. Calderon sent 10,000
soldiers and federal agents into the city of 1.3 million to bolster
the local police and replace corrupt or incompetent elements. This
month, for the first time in Mexico, the government distributed
German-made assault rifles that fire up to 750 rounds a minute to
hundreds of newly trained municipal police officers, also the first
to receive urban combat training by the army.

But criminal outfits fighting over Juarez have overwhelmed even
military authorities in this crucial port of entry into the world's
largest market for illegal narcotics. With more than 2,500 homicides,
Juarez accounts for more than one-third of the 6,000 drug-related
murders in Mexico this year; since April, when a surge of federal
troops brought a brief lull in the death toll, the city has resumed a
pace of eight to 10 murders a day. The violence has also spilled over
into the suburban neighborhoods of El Paso.

In a macabre daily ritual, assassins now appear to time their
killings so that they get play on the afternoon and evening
television news shows, according to Jaime Torres, a spokesman on
public security for the Juarez government and former news director.

The city estimates that the violence has created 7,000 orphans and
displaced 100,000 people, many of whom have fled across the Rio
Grande to Texas. Most of the members of the business and political
elite of Juarez, including the mayor, now either sleep or maintain a
second home in El Paso. The chief human rights advocate also
retreated across the river.

Well-known prosecutors, professors, attorneys, doctors, executives
and journalists have been assassinated. Victims also include a
growing number of small-shop owners because extortion is rampant;
earlier this week an elderly woman selling burritos at a busy
intersection near the tourist zone was shot dead. Police counted 36
shell casings at the scene.

A Switch to 'Soft Power'

Mexican officials will weigh why the military has failed to stem the
violence -- and what new options may be available. The soldiers have
proved to be a blunt instrument; they lack experience handling
criminal investigations and frequently have been accused of human
rights abuses. Calderon has said the military will return to its
barracks when federal and local police officers are ready, but
reforms have moved slowly and may be years away, U.S. and Mexican
officials caution.

There is now widespread debate over the way forward in Juarez, with
some officials and civic leaders proposing additional troops, and
others a complete withdrawal. The head of the powerful business
organization that represents the local assembly factories, or
maquiladoras, recently called for the United Nations to send
blue-helmeted peacekeeping soldiers to Juarez.

The new U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, abruptly canceled
a fact-finding trip to Juarez this month after learning of the
Mexican government's policy review. U.S. officials said they are
waiting to learn whether the discussions will lead to a shift in
Calderon's military-led strategy, which has come under fire even from
members of his own party.

The United States backed that strategy under the 2007 Merida
Initiative, signed by President George W. Bush. The bulk of the $1.4
billion aid package funds Black Hawk and Bell 412 helicopters, CASA
CN-235 surveillance planes, police training and inspection equipment.

But with the three-year initiative due to expire next year, U.S.
officials have indicated that they plan to move from military
assistance to a "softer" approach focusing on issues such as
institution building, judicial reform and support programs aimed at
impoverished youths like those who are recruited by the thousands
into criminal gangs. Two-thirds of those killed violently in Juarez
are between 14 and 24 years old.

"It's more sustainable. A helicopter at best is going to have a
25-year life, but a human being in Mexico has a 75-year life
expectancy," said John Feeley, the deputy chief of mission at the
U.S. Embassy in Mexico. "If you can get to the children, you are not
just giving assistance, you are contributing in the development of a
person, of the society."

Calderon has resisted calls to alter his military strategy, saying it
would be tantamount to surrender. But a growing chorus of civic
leaders and lawmakers here has urged the government to focus on the
roots of drug trafficking rather than efforts to eradicate the cartel
leaders, who draw their power from billions of dollars in drug sales
in the United States.

Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said he recently requested an
emergency "intervention" from the federal government to boost social
services. He said the Mexican government is prepared to spend $100
million to curb unemployment and improve opportunities for
disadvantaged youths here.

"We have convinced the federal government that it is necessary,"
Reyes said of an effort that Mexican officials call "a social surge."

The U.S. State Department also plans to contribute to Juarez
programs, American officials said.

On the Urban Frontlines

Despite the military buildup, law enforcement in Juarez has become a
dangerous, frustrating and increasingly futile endeavor for the
thousands of soldiers and police who chase traffickers and their
surrogates through the shantytowns that grow out of the city sprawl.

One evening this month, a police convoy of a half-dozen trucks set
out from the station house in Delicias, a poor district on the west
side of the city. Masked officers sporting black, bulletproof vests
and assault rifles stood in the backs of the trucks, which climbed
into the hills overlooking the lights of Juarez and El Paso.

Every few hundreds yards, the convoy halted. Officers fanned out to
grab and interrogate young men deemed suspicious. The officers
sniffed their fingers for traces of marijuana or another drug, agua
celeste, or heavenly water, a cheap, blue industrial solvent.

"They didn't do anything! They were just playing in the street!"
shouted an elderly woman as police forced six boys, one of whom said
he was 12, to stand spread-eagle beside a police truck while officers
frisked them.

A call came over the radio, and the convoy suddenly sped off. The
trucks raced downhill, screeching through the curving streets, until
they arrived at a busy intersection across from a gas station. A
bullet-riddled police truck stood on the side of the road, its front
wheels on the curb. The pavement was littered with glass and flooded
with water and radiator fluid.

A Delicias commander had been ambushed, shot in the leg after
stopping to get gas, police said. Two more officers in the city were
attacked in the same night.

Thirty Juarez police officers have been killed this year; most were
hunted down in their homes, according to police officials. Asked if
the municipal police had sufficient resources, David Rivera Breton, a
retired general who heads the force, replied: "I think that question
should be directed to other people."

"At the end of the day, the Mexican state, the rule of law, has to
prevail," Breton said in an interview. "The good guys have to win."

When the army descended on Juarez in March 2008, the soldiers were
greeted as heroes. Calderon added another 5,000 troops in late March
of this year, and the murder rate dropped into double digits for each
month; on some days not a single killing was recorded, a fact that
made newspaper headlines. Local police even said the cartels had been
driven out like "cockroaches" in the light of day.

Then, in June, the murder rate shot up 307 percent, and it has
continued to rise. Breton says the cartels, rather than being driven
out, "went into hiding."

"They slowed down their activities," he said. "Later, they figured
out what we were doing, how we were going about this, and, logically,
they adjusted. We have to adjust as well."