Washington Invades Mexico Little By Little

On the pretext of sharing information and intelligence with their Mexican counterparts as part of of Felipe Calderón’s war on narco-trafficking, the United States government will increase its number of military operatives and CIA and DEA agents in Mexico.

To “[e]xpedite expansion of U.S. law enforcement liaison presence in Mexico… Placing expert U.S. personnel where the cartels are operating will enable closer collaboration with Mexican law enforcement partners,” is the stated goal of Point A in Chapter 5 — “Investigations and Prosecutions” — of the National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy released by Barack Obama’s administration on March 19.

The idea of enlarging the presence of U.S. agents in Mexican territory is only a proposal, but according to Mexican and U.S. officials consulted by Proceso, the matter has already been negotiated and agreed to by Calderón’s government.

“If it weren’t so, Point A wouldn’t have been published in the Strategy,” an official with the White House’s National Security Council told Proceso.*

“We have to present to Congress a document with viable proposals so they may approve the money to fund them; increasing the presence of agents in Mexico is an aspect that has already been negotiated (with Mexican authorities),” added the Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He added that after almost three years of supporting Calderón in his war against drug trafficking with the tools of bilateral cooperation that it inherited from George W. Bush’s administration — previously called the Mérida Initiative and now, “Beyond Mérida” — Obama wants to take advantage of the shortcomings and failures of the Mexican government by imposing conditions.

“U.S. law enforcement agencies must, with the consent of the Government of Mexico, work to increase their liaison presence in key Mexican cities along the U.S.-Mexico border and in other locations in order to support the investigation and prosecution of transnational criminal organizations,” reads Point A of Chapter 5 of the Strategy, which was released by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The document stresses that the request to increase the number of agents in Mexican territory conforms to “the direct impact that drug trafficking and related criminal activity in Mexico have on the United States.”

In its national strategy, the Obama administration seems very cautious and never says that the proposed increase of its agents in Mexico is intended to help back Calderón in his war on narco-trafficking. It makes clear that it aims to contain the effects of the conflict in the United States.

The Pretext of September 11

During Vicente Fox’s six-year term, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the White House convinced the Mexican government to allow it to increase the number of its agents in Mexican territory, supposedly to prevent terrorists entering the United States through its southern border.

Fox consented, but limited the presence of U.S. agents to Mexico’s northern border states, where presumably they would devote themselves to surveillance and preventing any attempt by supposed terrorists to enter the U.S.

It wasn’t until the end of Fox’s term when then-president Bush managed to take the first steps that would later accelerate with the arrival of Calderón at Los Pinos [Mexico’s presidential mansion]: the undersecretary for North America of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs signed the acceptance letter of eight new DEA agents to assist in the bilateral fight against the drug trade.

From November 2006 to the present, officially with the consent of Los Pinos, the DEA has 54 agents in Mexico. All are registered with the SRE as liaisons of the U.S. Embassy.

The war that Calderón initiated against narco-trafficking, more than weakening the drug cartels’ structures and regardless of U.S. backing with the Mérida Initiative, has resulted in Mexico accepting more conditions imposed by Washington, including dealing with a center of espionage in the Mexican capital.

In August of last year, the Office of Binational Intelligence began its official duties at 265 Paseo de la Reforma. From there, a building 250 meters from the U.S. Embassy, dozens of U.S. agents operate with complete freedom (the precise number is kept confidential as a matter of national security).

Despite supposedly creating the Office of Binational Intelligence to support Calderón in his fight against narco-trafficking, this center has distinguished itself for more for its many agents dedicated to international espionage than to containing or dismantling organized crime in Mexico.

Just a few steps away from the Angel of Independence monument, the spy center centralizes Pentagon personnel assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency, to the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency.

The Department of Justice, in turn, has agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DEA — in addition to the 54 officially registered with the government of Mexico — and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives there. The Department of Homeland Security is represented by agents from Coast Guard Intelligence and from the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Operatives of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence represent the Department of the Treasury.

Without Restrictions

The National Strategy of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy — headed by Gil Kerilowske, the White House anti-drug czar — doesn’t specify how many more agents Obama wants to put in Mexico, nor the names of the federal and intelligence agencies to which they belong. The information given in this respect is that there should be personnel from the “Department of Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury, Health and the Pentagon.” But agents from these federal departments are already at the OBI.

Sources from the Mexican government consulted by Proceso explain that the increase in U.S. federal agents, even “while not yet accepted officially on paper,” could be consolidated before the end of Calderón’s present term.

“Ever since the increased presence of United States agents in Mexico began and an information and intelligence sharing center started operating, the number of arrests of drug lords has climbed. From this perspective, I see no reason why President Calderón should say no to the United States government,” admitted a Mexican official, who asked for anonymity.

According to a report dated February 2009 that the auditor general of the DEA delivered to his country’s congress, during the first 18 months of Calderón’s term, an increase of almost 50 percent more agents and the opening of another three offices of the counter-narcotic agency were authorized.

The U.S. agents who work in Mexico — especially those working at the OBI — have no restriction on carrying out operations unrelated to combating narco-trafficking and organized crime. They are exclusively charged with operating and managing the specialized team using spying, satellite monitoring and other advanced technologies from the Pentagon to see everything that occurs in Mexico and possibly beyond its southern border.

Although there are Mexican federal government personnel in the OBI, their U.S. counterparts are not obligated to share information with them concerning their other activities. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s national strategy establishes that Washington wants more agents in Mexico in order to defend and guarantee the United States’ national security, not to contain the toll of murder and destruction imposed by the militarized fight against narco-trafficking.

Washington’s interests take priority over the more than 50,000 dead that drug violence has left in Mexico in little more than four years. The clearest example is the killing of U.S. ICE agent Jaime Zapata that occurred last Feb. 15 on a highway in San Luis Potosí. A few days after the killing, the Calderón administration arrested the alleged perpetrators of the crime, who are presumably Zetas.

“When they killed Zapata, we received the order to enter into Mexico to find those responsible from Washington,” an agent from the sheriff’s office in El Paso, Texas, told Proceso, who coordinated part of the compliance with the federal order.

“Dozens of agents of the ICE, the DEA, the FBI, the Pentagon… of all agencies, federal, state, and local, entered into Mexico,” observed the El Paso police officer.

* Translator’s Note: These quotes, while accurately translated, could not be verified with English sources.