Congress Cautious

WHITE HOUSE UNVEILS $1.4 BILLION PROGRAM TO TACKLE TRAFFICKING

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration Monday announced a $1.4
billion, multiyear initiative to help Mexico defeat powerful drug
cartels whose turf wars have left several thousand dead and led
President Felipe Calderon to deploy his military. Dubbed the Merida
Initiative for the Mexican city where President Bush and Calderon
fleshed out the plan at a March meeting, the program also is designed
to redefine the way the two neighbors cooperate on security issues,
U.S. officials said.

The White House said it wants Congress to immediately allocate $500
million for Mexico and $50 million for Central America. The request
was tucked into a $46 billion Iraq-Afghanistan supplemental spending
bill unveiled Monday. Reaction in Congress was guarded, with members
saying they were disposed to help Mexico but needed more information
before committing to the initiative. The $500 million would be the
initial installment of a two-or three-year program, officials said,
and would be in addition to a large but unknown sum provided by Mexico.

Mexico would get training, surveillance aircraft, Bell 412
helicopters to ferry Mexican security personnel, non-intrusive ion
scanners to detect drugs, canine units and more secure communications
technologies, among other materials. "The United States will do all
it can to support Mexico's efforts to break the power and impunity of
drug organizations," the White House said in a statement. Calderon
has made tackling drug-fueled violence a priority, deploying troops
to the struggle and continuing his predecessor's efforts to purge
police forces of corrupt officers. Last year, more than 2,000 people
died in drug-fueled violence.

The Bush administration estimates that 90 percent of the cocaine that
hits U.S. streets enters through Mexico. Mexicans have long
complained that U.S. drug consumption finances much of the violence
and corruption, and that traffickers obtain guns from the United States.

The initiative adds a new dimension to the complex relationship
between Mexico and the United States, which share a 2,000-mile border
that's one of the busiest in the world. Nearly $1 billion worth of
merchandise moves across the border each way every day, in addition
to hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal crossings.

U.S. officials declined to give details of the program or how they'll
ensure that intelligence information doesn't end up in the hands of
corrupt Mexican officials, who could pass it to the cartels. But they
did say that their Mexican counterparts will be vetted before receiving aid.