REPORT SAYS U.S. FAILS TO ASSESS DRUG AID TO MEXICO

MEXICO CITY -- Despite claims by the United States and Mexico that
drug traffickers are feeling the effects of the countries' joint
offensive, a review by the Government Accountability Office has found
that millions of dollars have been spent without enough regard for
whether the money is doing any good.

The office did say in a report to be released Wednesday that the
Obama administration had done a better job in recent months of
spending the roughly $1.6 billion set aside to fight drug traffickers
in Mexico and Central America. Critics in the region have said
bureaucratic hurdles have delayed the aid, which includes training
and helicopters.

But the report said the State Department, which is overseeing the
so-called Merida Initiative to combat drugs in the region, had failed
to set specific targets to determine whether the money was having the
desired effect of disrupting organized crime groups and reforming law
enforcement agencies.

"Without targets to strive toward, State cannot determine if it is
meeting expectations under the Merida Initiative," the report said.

Officials in Washington and Mexico City typically point to the huge
quantities of drugs, guns and money being seized and the number of
arrests being made as evidence that traffickers are on their heels.
Critics, however, point to the continued violence in Mexico as a sign
that the traffickers remain strong.

Nearly 25,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since
President Felipe Calderon took office at the end of 2006. Recent days
have been particularly bloody, with an attack on a birthday party in
Torreon that killed 17 people and a car bombing in Ciudad Juarez.

Precisely measuring the success or failure of the drug war is
exceedingly hard, experts say. The number of arrests means little if
many detainees are later released or replaced by new recruits. The
seizure of huge quantities of drugs does not indicate that
traffickers are struggling if even larger loads are getting through
to generate big profits.

Violence could be a sign of the traffickers' strength, or it could
indicate their weakness and desperation, as the Mexican government
has contended.

"It's tricky," said an American official involved in the drug fight
who was not authorized to speak on the record. He suggested that
polling on the public perception of the police might be a way to
gauge whether Mexican law enforcement was being properly overhauled.

Representative Eliot L. Engel, the New York Democrat who sought the
spending review, said in a statement, "Nearly three years and $1.6
billion later, our counternarcotics assistance to Mexico and Central
America lacks fundamental measurements of success."