BUSH ASKS CONGRESS FOR $1.4 BILLION TO FIGHT DRUGS IN MEXICO

MEXICO CITY -- President Bush asked Congress on Monday to approve a
$1.4 billion aid package over the next three years to help the Mexican
government fight narcotics traffickers, who have unleashed a bloody
underworld war that has left more than 4,000 dead across Mexico in the
last two years.

The plan calls for the United States to give Mexico $500 million over
the next 12 months to provide training for the police and tools to
dismantle drug cartels, including helicopters, surveillance planes,
drug-sniffing dogs and software to track cases.

An additional $50 million would go to Central American countries for
the same purposes.

The United States would also provide advisers to help vet police
recruits, establish a witness protection program and set up
citizen-complaint offices to cut down on the endemic corruption in
Mexican police forces, State Department officials said.

Thomas A. Shannon Jr., the assistant secretary of state for Western
Hemisphere affairs, said the initiative was intended to bolster the
administration of President Felipe Calderon as it continues an
unprecedented crackdown on organized crime.

Since taking office in December, Mr. Calderon has sent tens of
thousands of troops into towns once controlled by drug cartels to
restore order; extradited several well-known drug kingpins to the
United States for prosecution; and stepped up seizures of cocaine,
guns and illicit cash. The result has been a violent backlash from
criminal organizations.

"We are at an important moment when organized crime presents a real
threat to democratic governments in Central America and Mexico," Mr.
Shannon said during a telephone news conference in Washington.

Later, Mr. Shannon said Mexico had changed since 1997, when the United
States last provided it with a major aid package to combat drug
trafficking. Under that plan, the United States provided 73
helicopters, which were later returned amid Mexican charges that they
were defective and American countercharges that they were poorly
maintained, and training for elite commando units, some of whom later
defected and became gunmen for the Gulf Cartel.

"This government focuses on fighting crime rather than managing it,"
Mr. Shannon said. "I think this is the kind of government we need to
work with."

Billed as a "security cooperation initiative," the agreement grew out
of talks Mr. Bush held with Mr. Calderon last March in Merida, Mexico.
Before and after the meeting, the Mexican president said the United
States did too little to reduce demand for drugs and to stop the flow
of arms and cash southward into Mexico. Under the agreement, the
United States has pledged to continue its efforts on both fronts.

But the bulk of the agreement is aid for Mexico, in the form of
training for the police and military as well as aircraft and advanced
technology at border crossings. If approved by Congress, the program
will last at least two years but opens the door for a long-term,
yearly transfer of money and training to Mexico to combat drug
trafficking, as the United States currently does with Colombia.

Experts on the Mexican police say that money from the United States
alone cannot change the underlying problems that allow the drug trade
to flourish. Most Mexican police forces lack the means to investigate
corrupt officers or evaluate police performance. That, coupled with
low pay, has led to a system rife with officers on the payroll of
criminal gangs.

"The problem will arise if these resources do not come with new
controls on the police," said Ernesto Lopez Portillo, the executive
director of the Institute for Security and Democracy. "More resources
without internal and external controls are very dangerous."

Mexico's foreign minister, Patricia Espinosa, said none of the aid
would be cash. Instead, she said, Mexico would receive resources like
helicopters and training.

She and Mr. Shannon said the number of United States law enforcement
officials in Mexico would not grow. American military units or
commandos from American law enforcement agencies would not operate
here, as they have in Colombia, Ms. Espinosa said

"We believe in free and sovereign states managing to develop a mature
relationship of mutual respect, although it's hard for some people to
believe," she said.