DRUG CZAR SAYS SOCIETY IS THREATENED BY ILLEGAL TRADE

EL PASO -- Corruption among Mexican police is fueling violence in
Mexico, a top U.S. official said Friday at the 7th Annual Border
Security Conference.

Gil Kerlikowske, head of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control
Policy, was one of the speakers at the conference at the University of
Texas at El Paso.

The former police commissioner of Buffalo, N.Y., spoke to about 300
people. He warned them that the drug trade "threatens the security of
borders and threatens the social fabric of all our areas."

The U.S. is combating the drug trade by working on weaning Mexican law
enforcement officials off their dependency on the Mexican army,
Kerlikowske said.

"We're working with Mexico to develop its long-term police capacity,"
he said. "Our objective is to prepare these police institutions to
take over the work that is currently being done by the military. To
achieve this, we have a number of ongoing training sessions involving
our Mexican counterparts."

Kerlikowske said that in the past, the U.S. provided Mexico with
training, equipment and communications technology. As a result,
Mexican authorities have increased their inspections and traffic
checkpoints at airports and seaports, he said.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon began fighting drug cartels,
about 28,000 people have been killed. In Juarez, about 6,000 have been
killed since the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels began their bloody
war in 2008.

Kerlikowske said the U.S. has been working with Mexican law
enforcement to battle the cross-border drug trade, which continues to
fuel violence along the border and pose a national security threat to
the U.S.

"We must reduce that illegal market if we have any long-term chance of
reducing that trafficking," he said.

But reducing that market also means reducing corruption among Mexican
law enforcement officials, and that "will truly be an international
challenge," Kerlikowske said.