Mexican army used against drug cartels in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico.

Obama Lays Out US-Mexico Border Strategy

WASHINGTON (By Spencer S. Hsu and Joby Warrick, Washington Post) March 24, 2009 — President Obama will send at least 450 more federal agents, drug-sniffing dogs, x-ray scanners, intelligence analysts and other law enforcement resources to the U.S.-Mexico border in what administration officials called a "comprehensive response" to increased violence from Mexico's fight against transnational drug cartels, U.S. officials said.

In a White House announcement this morning, U.S. officials outlined roughly $800 million in new and existing efforts paid for through stimulus funds and the Merida Initiative, a three-year counter-trafficking aid program for Mexico and Central America approved by Congress last year.

"The president admires President Felipe Calderón's courage and determination to confront and dismantle the drug cartels, and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him in that fight," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a briefing, "Mexico undoubtedly faces serious challenges, but it is vigorously confronting them. "

Obama's first domestic security initiative comes as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Gibbs prepare to visit Mexico in coming days, followed by Obama's own visit in mid-April. The administration blitz is intended to support Calderón, whose two-year campaign to break the power of Mexican narco-trafficking rings has triggered a spiral of violence that has killed 7,200 people since the beginning of 2008.

U.S. intelligence officials said Mexican drug violence remains almost entirely limited to individuals with links to the drug trades — a trend that also holds true for the overwhelming majority of government officials killed so far. Further, they said U.S. crime statistics do not bear out the view the killings are spreading to American cities.

Still, as one senior U.S. official warned in private "things could get uglier before they get better," including what one called the possibility of "more spectacular violence in some areas." And while the cartels do not now pose a national security threat to the United States, Gibbs said the effort had twin motives: "We want to help our colleagues in Mexico. But it does have an impact on safety and security within the United States."

In that effort, the Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury departments will ramp-up personnel under coordination by the White House national security and homeland security councils, Gibbs said. U.S. officials are aiming their efforts to squeeze the cash and weapons that flow into Mexico, part of an estimated $18 billion to $39 billion annual trade made in exchange for the northbound smuggling of illegal immigrants and drugs.

Mexican authorities have long called for a U.S. crackdown on gun smuggling, saying 90 percent of guns used in crimes there originate from the United States.

Among new efforts, the Homeland Security Department will send 350 people, including 100 customs inspection personnel; more mobile x-ray scanners; license-plate readers and canine teams to southbound checkpoints aimed at deterring cash and weapons smuggling south from the United States into Mexico. For the first time, the United States has begun efforts that will result in screening 100 percent of rail cars moving south across the border for contraband, Gibbs said.

The department also will double the number, to about 18, of bi-national Border Enforcement Security Task Forces, and increase the number of intelligence, law enforcement liaison and attache personnel assigned to Mexico border areas and Mexico City to coordinate stepped up operations. Inside targeted U.S. border communities, the department will continue to expand the use of fingerprinting of suspected criminal illegal immigrants, which began last winter.

The Treasury Department and other agencies are analyzing cross-border cash flows, providing training and targeting cartel-related money laundering.

Ogden said the FBI is creating a Southwest Intelligence Group clearinghouse of its Mexico-related activities. The Drug Enforcement Administration will create four new mobile teams to track Mexican methamphetamine trafficking and related violence, and add 16 new positions to its southwest border field divisions, bringing their total share of 1,171 total DEA domestic agents to 29 percent.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will relocate 100 personnel in 45 days to target weapons traffickers under its Operation Gunrunner. ATF will also continue its eTrace Initiative, under which Mexican authorities in 2007 submitted about 1,112 guns used in crimes south of the border for tracking because they came from Texas, Arizona or California.

The biggest chunks of financial aid were previously approved. The Bush administration last year pushed through $1.4 billion for the Merida initiative, a package of training, military hardware, scanning technology and security database improvements. But Congress has approved only $700 million of the $900 million pledged so far, and delivery of some helicopters and surveillance aircraft has been delayed at least two years by procurement requirements.

Separately, DHS is sending $59 million in previously budgeted local law enforcement grants to order agencies, the Justice Department is sending $30 million in stimulus funding to local agencies in drug smuggling corridors, and expanding the operational capacity of its Organized Drug Enforcement Task Forces Program.

Security analysts said it was unclear what impact the measures would have against a cash and weapons trade often described as following an "ant-trafficking" model — where tiny amounts of contraband cross the border in huge numbers of people, vehicle and aircraft each day. Regional analysts said the U.S. efforts may ease the way for closer military, intelligence and other cooperation with Mexico and help Calderon maintain public support amid the bloody carnage triggered by the fight.

Gibbs said the Merida Initiative to combat rising drug violence was a result of "a profound and strategic commitment by President Calderon to address these deep challenges" affecting citizens in both countries.

"That partnership really is quite comprehensive," Gibbs told reporters today, including not just border security, "but more profoundly with the law enforcement and criminal justice system in Mexico, dealing with legal reform, dealing with issues of corruption, dealing with issues of strengthening the capacity of the Mexican state to meet these challenges which are so important to our common well-being."