Border securityGAO: U.S. aid to Mexico's anti-drug efforts needs better oversight
Under the Obama administration, the focus of the Merida Initiative is shifting away from high-priced helicopters and airplanes and toward reforming Mexico’s corrupt law enforcement, courts and other government institutions
The U.S. State Department has no effective way to measure the success of its billion-dollar program to help Mexico and Central America fight drug traffickers, a congressional report concludes. Slow implementation of the program forced Mexico at least once to buy some equipment on its own while waiting for promised funds, according to the report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress.
AP reports that the report said the State Department lacks adequate methods to determine if the initiative is making a difference in the drug war three years after then-President George W. Bush first launched it during a summit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in the Yucatan Peninsula city of Merida.
“That’s silly,” said Representative Eliot Engel (D-New York) who commissioned the report along with Republican Rep. Connie Mack, of Florida. “We need to find a way of measuring success.” Engel chairs the House subcommittee that will review the document.
State Department officials say they are working together with Mexico to better measure the program’s success.
The Merida Initiative provides equipment such as armored cars and helicopters and helps fund training for law-enforcement officials in Mexico and Central America. It is one of the latest efforts to turn around what has for decades mostly been a losing battle: In May, The Associated Press reported that the U.S. has spent $1 trillion on the war on drugs over forty years without meeting its goals of reducing drug trafficking, consumption and the violence that comes with it.
Despite intensifying U.S.-Mexico cooperation, the war south of the border has only gotten bloodier: Nearly 25,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug violence since Calderon deployed troops and federal police at the end of 2006 to fight the cartels in their strongholds.
Under the Obama administration, the focus of the Merida Initiative is shifting away from high-priced helicopters and airplanes and toward reforming Mexico’s corrupt law enforcement, courts and other government institutions.
Thus, one of the ways the State Department measures Merida’s success is by tracking the number of Mexican law-enforcement officials trained, the report said. But the department fails to “measure the impact of the training,” it added.
That has mattered, according to the report: One U.S. official told congressional investigators that, after the U.S. spent $250,000 to train a group of Mexican investigators, the unit was disbanded.
With the money spent so far, Mexico has received vehicles, five helicopters, bullet-tracing devices, and lie-detector machines, according to budgets obtained by AP in May. About 5,000 federal police have taken investigation courses, and 550 prosecutors have had classes on forensics, interviewing and courtroom arguments.
Still pending is the delivery of five helicopters, several X-ray inspection units, airplanes, and funding for Mexican financial-intelligence units and other agencies, according to the GAO report.
