U.S. works closely with Mexico to curb power of cartels

to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

There are so many State Department narcotics personnel that they took up two entire floors ofthe U.S. Embassy in Mexico Citybefore moving into a new building with their Mexican counterparts. This is the second so-called fusion center the two countries share in Mexico now.

The U.S. has spent $364 million of the $1.5 billion promised for Mexico since 2008 under the Merida Initiative, a U.S.-Central American joint anti-crime effort, and Mexico will spend about $10.7 billion on public security this year.

Despite close law enforcement collaboration, Mexican officials often play down U.S. involvement to avoid rubbing nationalist raw spots. The sensitivities were evident Wednesday in the angry reaction of Mexican lawmakers to news that CBP has been operating Predator drones in Mexico for the past two years, while the U.S. military’s Global Hawk drone began flying south of the border in March. They said they were not informed by Mexico’s National Security Council, which had invited the spy planes in.

Earlier this month, members of Mexico’s Congress were infuriated to learn that U.S. agents had allowed hundreds, possibly thousands, of guns to be smuggled into Mexico in undercover operations aimed at busting cartel bosses. Mexico’s Attorney General has launched an investigation.

If U.S. agents in Mexico worked on the operation, that “would force us to restate many issues in the relationship,” warned Jorge Alberto Lara Rivera, Deputy Attorney General for International Affairs.

Joint enforcement is also controversial north of the border. Notable arrests and seizures were made last year, yet overall, success is less obvious than the dangers. Calls for congressional hearings were prompted by the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in a highway ambush that also wounded his colleague, Victor Avila (“Gun used to kill ICE agent in Mexico was bought in Dallas” 1 March 2011 HSNW). It came less than a year after the murder of three people connected to the U.S. Consulate General in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas , who chairs the Homeland Security Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, demanded to know what plan the U.S. had in mind for fighting the cartels. Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to disclose specific actions but confirmed that cooperation has intensified and includes sharing information, gathering evidence, extraditing fugitives in both directions, tracing