Leaked U.S. files note doubts on Mexico strategy

U.S. ambassador says that cables 'do not represent U.S. policy.'

By Katherine Corcoran

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's 4-year-old assault on drug cartels lacks a clear strategy and a modernized military, and suffers from infighting among security agencies, according to U.S. State Department cables leaked to WikiLeaks.

The classified and secret memos posted on several websites stand in stark contrast to the public declarations by Mexico and the U.S. about the success of the war on organized crime.

The cables call into question many of the efforts publicly touted by the two countries, from the use of the Mexican army, which is described as outdated, slow and risk-averse; to the United States' $1.4 billion Merida Initiative, which is seen as ill-conceived and doing little so far to fight drug traffickers.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual sought to control the damage, explaining in an editorial published Friday that the cables "do not represent U.S. policy."

"They are often impressionistic snapshots of a moment in time. But like some snapshots, they can be out of focus or unflattering," Pascual wrote in the editorial, published in the newspaper El Universal.

In one cable, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asks about how the stress is affecting President Felipe Calderón's "personality and management style," while a cable by Pascual notes that Calderón has admitted to having a tough year and has appeared "down" in meetings.

"Calderón has aggressively attacked Mexico's drug-trafficking organizations but has struggled with an unwieldy and uncoordinated interagency and spiraling rates of violence that have made him vulnerable to criticism that his anti-crime strategy has failed," reads a Jan. 29 memo that also criticizes competition among Mexican security agencies, corruption and Mexico's abysmally low prosecution rate.

In a radio interview hours before the cables were revealed, Calderón was already criticizing "the spying of the Americans, who have always been very interfering in this sense."

source: http://www.statesman.com/news/world/leaked-u-s-files-note-doubts-on-mexico-1098202.html?cxtype=rss_news