[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HAS MERIDA EVOLVED? PART ONE:
THE EVOLUTION OF DRUG CARTELS AND THE THREAT TO MEXICO'S GOVERNANCE
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
AND THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 13, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-60
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
68-295PDF WASHINGTON : 2011
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
VACANT
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
CONNIE MACK, Florida, Chairman
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DAVID RIVERA, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey Samoa
ELTON GALLEGLY, California DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
------
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
RON PAUL, Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DAVID RIVERA, Florida
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Gary M. Shiffman, Ph.D., adjunct professor, Center for Peace and
Security Studies, Georgetown University........................ 7
Andrew Selee, Ph.D., director, Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson
Center for International Scholars.............................. 17
Robert J. Bunker, Ph.D., senior fellow, Small Wars Journal El
Centro......................................................... 24
Pamela Starr, Ph.D., associate professor in public diplomacy and
the School of International Relations, director of the U.S.-
Mexico Network, University of Southern California.............. 50
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Gary M. Shiffman, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 9
Andrew Selee, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.......................... 20
Robert J. Bunker, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 25
Pamela Starr, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.......................... 52
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 72
Hearing minutes.................................................. 73
The Honorable Connie Mack, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, and chairman, Subcommittee on the Western
Hemisphere: Prepared statement................................. 76
The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations: Prepared statement............... 78
The Honorable Connie Mack: Material submitted for the record..... 83
HAS MERIDA EVOLVED? PART ONE: THE EVOLUTION OF DRUG CARTELS AND THE
THREAT TO MEXICO'S GOVERNANCE
----------
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:36 p.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Connie Mack
(chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere)
presiding.
Mr. Mack. The subcommittee will come to order. I first want
to thank everyone, especially our witnesses, for joining us for
our hearing today.
After recognizing myself and the ranking member, Mr. Engel,
for 5 minutes each for opening statements, I will recognize the
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chairman, Mr.
Rohrabacher, and the ranking member, Mr. Carnahan, for 5
minutes each for their opening statements. We will then proceed
directly to hearing testimony from our distinguished witnesses.
The full text of the written testimony will be inserted into
the record. Without objection, members have 5 days to submit
statements and questions for the record.
After we hear from our witnesses, individual members will
be recognized for 5 minutes each for questions. I now recognize
myself for an opening statement.
And again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I
want to thank the members, also, who are here and those that
are sitting in the audience.
Today's hearing will address the evolution of illegal
activity in Mexico to determine if taxpayer-funded programs
have evolved accordingly. The reality is clear, and while
Mexico doesn't want to admit this, there is an insurgency
taking place in Mexico along the U.S. border.
Since 2006, Mexican drug cartels have evolved into
resilient and diversified transnational criminal organizations.
The drug cartels have splintered into subgroups and expanded
operations into human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion,
weapons smuggling, and stealing resources such as oil. The
result: A well-funded criminal insurgency raging along our
southern border, threatening the lives of U.S. citizens and
harming the U.S. Economy by undermining legal businesses.
The insurgent activities utilized by the cartel are aimed
at undermining the government, protecting their illegal
activity, and winning the support of the people. For example,
one cartel has provided economic and social services in Mexico,
and crossing over into Central America, where they build roads
and provide housing, food, clothes, and toys to lower income
residents in return for their loyalty. If they are unable to
win the hearts and minds, these criminal organizations use
extreme violence to instill fear in the population to undermine
the Mexican Government's ability to control its territory. The
violent display of over 40,000 deaths since 2007 is but one
example.
It is time that our determination to eradicate the cartels
matches the cartels' determination to undermine the freedom,
security, and prosperity of the United States, Mexico, and the
Western hemisphere. The United States has an important national
security role to play in this fight as a result of our
proximity to, and consumption of, the trafficked drugs.
However, President Calderon's efforts to place all the blame on
the United States is incorrect and counterproductive. The U.S.
and Mexico must work together in a joint effort to stop illegal
activity across our shared border while supporting trade and
efficiency in transfer of legal goods. We must stop the drugs
and criminals or terrorists coming north, and the money and
guns traveling south on our border.
Addressing the illegal gun trade is something President
Calderon has specifically asked us to jointly address. Little
did we know that the U.S. Department of Justice funded a
program called Fast and Furious that was sending guns into
Mexico. This was an appalling, immoral act, and while we
investigate and hold the administration accountable for
implementing and hiding a dangerous and illegal program, we
need to design a new, productive way forward.
This productive way forward is not, I repeat, is not the
Merida Initiative. The State Department's Merida Initiative,
originally a 3-year, $1.5 billion counterdrug plan with Mexico
has seen chronic delays and implementation challenges. The
Obama administration's Beyond Merida has failed to set target
dates, tangible goals, or strategic guidance to ensure the
successful use of these funds.
Showing up to a burning house late with a half assembled
hose is a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, the
Mexican drug cartels continue to work in a coordinated strategy
to undermine the Mexican state through insurgent activities
that include violence, corruption, propaganda, asset control,
and social and community programs. The current U.S. policy with
Mexico does not seriously address the national security
challenges we face.
It is time that we recognize the need for a
counterinsurgency strategy that can combat the evolution and
resilience of Mexico's transnational criminal organizations.
The United States should support a targeted, yet comprehensive
strategy that works with Mexico to secure one key population
center at a time in order to build and support vital
infrastructure and social development for lasting results.
The counterinsurgency measures must include, but not be
limited to, an all U.S. agency plan including Treasury, DEA,
CIA, ICE, and State to aggressively attack and dismantle the
criminal networks in the United States and Mexico; second,
doubling border patrol agents, fully funding needed border
protection equipment such as additional unmanned aerial
vehicles, and the completion of a double-layered security fence
in urban and hard-to-enforce areas of the border; and third,
teaching the culture of lawfulness program to ensure local
populations support the government and the rule of law over the
cartels.
I look forward to the hearing today and the expert
testimony on this topic, and it is the goal of these two
subcommittees to advance the ball and finally have a program in
the United States that correctly identifies the problem as an
insurgency and, with your recommendations and others, help put
a plan forward to combat the problem.
With that, I would like to recognize the ranking member,
Mr. Engel, for his opening statement.
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is an
important hearing on a key priority for United States foreign
and domestic policy, and I am glad to be here with you today.
There is no more important relationship to the United
States and the Western hemisphere than the one we have with
Mexico. We share a very long border, a rich and intertwined
history, deep cultural connection, and problems which extend to
both sides of the border. In the last several years, the drug
trade, which had once been the domain predominantly of South
America, has moved north. It has taken hold in Mexico and
ravaged the northern part of Central America. If nothing else
comes out of today's hearing, I want it to be clear that the
United States stands with our friends in the south in their
efforts to fight the narcotrafficking.
We have come a long way since the Merida Initiative was
first announced on October 22, 2007. Between Fiscal Year 2008
and Fiscal Year 2010, Congress appropriated $1.5 billion for
Merida Initiative programs in Mexico, with the bulk of that
funding dedicated to training and equipping Mexican security
forces. The program got off to a slow start, and provision of
our assistance was halted for the first couple of years.
I am glad to report that as of the beginning of last month,
$473.8 million in assistance have been provided, and the State
Department has committed to delivering another $500 million by
the end of this year. This will include some of the big ticket
items, four Blackhawk helicopters and a CASA 235 maritime
surveillance aircraft.
Today, the Merida program is moving away from expensive
equipment to a focus on institution building through training
and technical assistance. I think this switch in emphasis is
critical for a number of reasons. Technical expertise is not
only less costly than helicopters or aircraft, but it is more
flexible and can be provided more quickly. In addition, Mexico
has long been plagued by corruption and weakness in state and
local institutions. I believe it is a positive sign that we are
moving to help in this area.
Among the areas I would like to explore further in the
questioning are illicit weapons trafficking and the importance
of reducing demand for illegal drugs here at home. First, I
have long been concerned about the illegal flow of weapons
crossing the border from the U.S. into Mexico and elsewhere in
Latin America. President Calderon once told me that 90 percent
of the weapons used by the drug criminals come from the United
States. That is simply unacceptable. In fact, the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms once called the trafficking an
iron river of guns. Much more needs to be done by both
countries to halt the illegal flow of these weapons.
Two ideas immediately come to mind, both of which are
compliant with the Second Amendment. First, too many foreign-
style assault weapons are being imported into the United
States, and under the law and the Constitution, we can stop
them before they enter our country. How? We should return to
enforcement of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which authorizes
the President to block the import of nonsporting weapons. The
first President Bush and President Clinton enforced the law,
and so should President Obama.
No new legislation is needed. This is a law on the books.
It should be enforced. It doesn't impinge on Second Amendment
rights. To me, it is just commonsense rights.
I am also hoping that at some point soon the Senate will
ratify the American Convention against Illicit Manufacturing of
and Trafficking in Firearms, also known as CIFTA. The State
Department has repeatedly confirmed that the United States is
in compliance with CIFTA. Its ratification will help stiffen
our resolve to fight illegal weapons trafficking.
Secondly, helping Mexico combat the drug trade addresses
only half of the problem. The other half, the demand for
illicit, lies within our own borders. I have often thought that
we were so busy trying to eradicate the supply side but not
doing very much trying to eradicate the demand side. We need to
do both.
The original joint statement from October 2007 announcing
the Merida program said, and I quote, ``The U.S. will intensify
its efforts to address all aspects of drug trafficking,
including demand-related portions.''
Without demand for marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine
here in the United States, there wouldn't be a problem in
Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, or elsewhere. We simply need to do
more to drive down demand.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing,
and I look forward to the statements by our distinguished panel
of witnesses. I yield back.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Mr. Engel, and I appreciate, as we
have often said, our abilities to work together on these
important issues. So thank you for being here.
Now, I would like to recognize Mr. Rohrabacher for 5
minutes for his opening statement.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. Thank you very much,
Chairman Mack. I appreciate your leadership, your willingness
to take on some very tough issues, and you have jumped right
into the fight in a number of areas. So I am very proud to be
at your side.
Today, all of our witnesses are outside experts who have
experience working with, and studying the Merida Initiative. I
am interested in hearing your evaluation of how Merida is
working. Obviously our southern border poses a serious threat
to the well-being of the American people, and it is a growing
threat. The more attention that we pay to it, the more
dangerous it seems; yet, we have conflicting interests as to
what new policies should be in place to meet that challenge.
Business interests seem to be unwilling to suffer any
delays at the border to allow adequate inspections and
safeguards in terms of new commerce going between our
countries; thus, they are undermining perhaps the efforts that
would uncover smuggling at ports of entry, and some of our own
business interests actually see the uncontrollable flow of
illegal immigrants as something that is positive in bringing
down the wages that they have to pay their own people here in
the United States. The initiative, for example, that we are
talking about today seems silent about the border and of the
lack of adequate barriers and controls. So what about that?
On the other side, of course, Mexican interests,
commercial, governmental, and criminal seem united in their
efforts to keep the border open at all points. The U.S. ran a
$64 billion trade deficit with Mexico last year, which means
the outsourcing of production is almost back to where it was
before this great recession that we are suffering, even though
American production and jobs are not back to that level. The
Mexican Government and those commercial interests who benefit
by this imbalance want it to continue. Mexico also gains over
$20 billion a year in remittances sent home by people working
in the United States, many of whom are illegal immigrants.
Mexico has no incentive and has shown very little cooperation
in helping close the border to illegal immigration, even though
in a joint statement from April, the U.S.-Mexico conference
talked of the shared responsibilities for a common border.
Then there is the question of criminal operations in
dealing with drugs, weapons, and laundered money.
This initiative is meant to help Mexico build up its police
and judiciary, but it is the open border that provides the
cartels with money that is used to subvert police and courts
and to fund an insurgency, as the chairman just noted, that
threatens to make Mexico a failed state. How much cooperation
between Mexico and the United States law enforcement
organizations has been evident after we have already spent $1
billion on this program since 2008, which was supposed to
promote such cooperation?
So I am interested in hearing the views of the witnesses
and what they think is the appropriate policy and analyzing
what is going on, and we need to know if they believe there is
any real commitment on the part of Mexico to closing our border
to illegal activity, and does this initiative do enough to move
Mexico in the direction of border security?
And, finally, Mr. Chairman, let me just note that just
beside those issues of the day, we have got some overreaching
policies that have been with us for a long time that need to be
addressed. One is the area of drugs which Mr. Engel noted, and
as long as we are sending billions of dollars in drug money to
the cartels in Mexico and throughout Latin America--we are
sending that to them. It is coming from people in the United
States directly to these criminal elements--I do not see how we
are going to be able to match that or get the situation under
control. I am interested in your opinions on that.
And, finally, I believe that we should not just ignore one
of what I consider to be the most serious scandals that I have
seen in Washington during my 30 years here. I worked at the
White House prior to this, and I have been in Congress for 24
years, and that a bureau of the United States Government had
sent over 3,000 weapons to the drug cartels and organized crime
in Mexico has got to be one of the worst scandals that I have
ever seen. We should not succumb to stepping away from this
without demanding a full accountability and sending people to
prison for doing this. We are talking about AK-47s, automatic
weapons, sniper rifles--50-caliber sniper rifles sent to the
drug cartel.
We understand that people are trying to say, oh, well, I
didn't do it, he did it. We need to get to the bottom of this.
It is not our hearing today, but this is one scandal that we
cannot just overlook, and I would like to know what your
opinions are of how the Fast and Furious Program and this
disclosure, what does that mean in terms of our relations with
Mexico and trying to get this situation under control.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher, and I would now like
to recognize Mr. Carnahan for 5 minutes for an opening
statement.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to just add
my thanks to our chairs and my fellow ranking member that is
here and the work that they have done on this issue, and I want
to make just a few brief remarks and say that the time is right
for Congress to be reviewing the success of the initiative to
see what next steps are needed to improve it.
At its core, this Initiative acknowledges the challenges in
Mexico and Central America that are in our direct interests to
solve. My home State of Missouri continues to be plagued by a
multitude of problems associated with meth, and continues to be
one of the hardest hit States in our country year after year.
We need to continue to attack this problem from all angles,
both domestic and international.
According to the National Drug Intelligence Center's 2010
National Drug Threat Assessment, ``Methamphetamine availability
in the U.S. is directly related to methamphetamine production
trends in Mexico, which is the primary source of
methamphetamine consumed in the United States.'' While
availability has previously declined, it began to rise again in
2008 and 2009. I specifically would like to hear the panel's
testimony if these trends are continuing and the success of the
initiative regarding meth.
So, again, thank you all for being here, and with that Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan.
And, now, I would like to introduce the witnesses quickly.
First, Dr. Gary Shiffman. Dr. Shiffman is a professor for the
Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University.
Prior to teaching, Dr. Shiffman was the chief of staff at the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and additionally, Mr.
Shiffman is a U.S. Navy veteran. And just as a side note, Mr.
Shiffman is someone who I think this committee can rely upon.
He has got a great, vast knowledge of topics and he is a very
thoughtful person. So I appreciate you being here, Mr.
Shiffman.
Second, Dr. Andrew Selee is the director of the Woodrow
Wilson Center's Mexico Institute which promotes dialogue and
understanding between the United States and Mexico.
Additionally, Dr. Selee is a professor of government at John
Hopkins University in the advanced academic programs.
Third, Dr. Robert Bunker is a senior fellow for the Small
Wars Journal. Dr. Bunker previously served as the chief
executive officer of the Counter OPFOR Corporation and was a
professor for the national security studies program at
California State University, San Bernardino. Welcome.
And finally, Dr. Pamela Starr is the director of the U.S.-
Mexico Network at the University of Southern California--Go
Gators. Sorry. I hope my wife's watching. Additionally, Dr.
Starr is an associate professor in public diplomacy and a
university fellow at the USC Center of Public Diplomacy. Thank
you for being here.
I would like to recognize Dr. Shiffman now for 5 minutes
for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF GARY M. SHIFFMAN, PH.D., ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, CENTER
FOR PEACE AND SECURITY STUDIES, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Mr. Shiffman. Chairman Mack, Chairman Rohrabacher, and
Ranking members Engel and Carnahan, thank you very much for the
opportunity to appear before you today to testify on the nature
of violence taking place in Mexico today. I want to
particularly thank this committee for its leadership bringing
needed attention to the serious nature of the drug trafficking
organizations in this hemisphere and their impact on U.S.
national security.
Drug cartels are businesses run by individuals with
specific goals most often related to power and wealth. It is
important to understand the profit motive before discussing the
violence. The drugs being trafficked by the kingpins represent
a commodity, something to trade in order to create wealth and
power. It is not the psychoactive impact of the commodity that
the drug traffickers seek, simply the ability to sell for a
profit. And violence is a byproduct of the nature of the
marketplace in which they operate when individuals can take
coercive power to extremes. As Michael Corleone calmly says to
his hothead brother Sonny in Mario Puzo's ``The Godfather,''
``It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.''
Let me make three brief points in summarizing my testimony.
First, while the organized violence in Mexico may seem complex,
it makes sense in the context of a battle between and among
government and outlaw forces for the hearts and minds of local
populations, sometimes we call this an insurgency. Second, once
accepted, this insurgency framework can simplify the narrative
of events taking place in Mexico. And finally, with this
enhanced understanding, we can create better policies. So let
me say at the outset, however, that I have been a supporter of
Merida, but I agree with the desire to improve its
implementation. In addition, I also support the efforts of
President Calderon in Mexico.
I think it is important to note that countless brave and
dedicated people in the United States and in Mexico have been
working tirelessly to defeat the drug trafficking
organizations, and we must recognize and commend those people.
My first point: Complex threat vectors. Since 2006, as the
chairman said, nearly 40,000 people have been killed in Mexico
as a result of drug-related violence. More recently, on
February 15, 2011, members of the Zeta cartel, for example,
ambushed two ICE agents driving in northern Mexico,
unfortunately killing Special Agent Jaime Zapata. The common
denominator among all of these cases of violence is not the
drugs specifically, but the environment, the environment where
people have the means and capability to use violence as a tool
to advance their goals. We must address this environment that
allows for the widespread use of extreme violence. Countering
violence in Mexico requires diplomacy, intelligence, military,
economic, and law enforcement capabilities.
Second, understanding the Mexican insurgency. The drug
trafficking organizations, in fact, behave like an insurgency.
In order to perform the business functions of a drug
trafficker, one requires the ability to govern. Specifically,
one would need resources, a place of business, a workforce, the
ability to set and enforce rules, and the consent of the
governed to abide by those rules.
The consent comes from the application of two tools: The
provision of goods and coercion. As a drug trafficker, one
would need political control, and as the state seeks to prevent
that control, we could see a violent battle for political
dominance of a location, an insurgency. Academics typically
define a state as the institution with a monopoly control over
the tools of violence. Clearly, the Government of Mexico lacks
that control in some places.
The organizations, the drug trafficking organizations
provide economic goods, social services, and jobs, as well as a
social safety net. Simultaneously, they use violence and the
threat of violence to coerce law enforcement, the population,
and their enemies. The drug trafficking organizations use
violence to flex their muscles, for example, the killing of ICE
Agent Zapata, to coerce the local population and to battle each
other and the Mexican Government for political control.
Implications for U.S. policy. The profit motive allows us
to clearly see that insurgent-type behavior will take place
when expected revenues exceed expected costs. Our policies must
increase the cost of doing business for drug traffickers. Where
the kingpins earn--today the kingpins earn the acquiescence of
a local population, we want to see a strong support for the
rule of law, security, and economic freedom. We must focus on
the vicious cycle of the slow defeat of the Mexican authorities
across local communities.
U.S. officials must accept the state of insurgency taking
place in large parts of Mexico today and envision the
counterinsurgency strategy to combat the evolution and
resilience of the transnational criminal organizations
operating on the border. In classic counterinsurgency theory,
the battle space is not geography but the population, and only
the Mexican Government can defeat these cartels. We must
support the Mexican Government in these efforts.
And I will withhold the rest of my comments for the
question-and-answer period.
Mr. Mack. Thank you very much, Dr. Shiffman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shiffman follows:]
----------
Mr. Mack. Dr. Selee, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW SELEE, PH.D., DIRECTOR, MEXICO INSTITUTE,
WOODROW WILSON CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARS
Mr. Selee. Thank you, Chairman Mack. Thanks for the
invitation to be here. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher. I want
to recognize Ranking Member Engel, Ranking Member Carnahan, and
the other members who are here. Congressman Payne, good to see
you again. We share a past association with the YMCA. It is
always great to see you in things outside of politics and
policy.
There are few, if any, countries that matter more for the
future of the United States than Mexico. It is our neighbor. We
share a 2,000-mile border. It is our second destination for our
exports. It is a state that matters economically, not only to
Arizona and Texas and California and New Mexico but to States
like Nebraska and Iowa and Indiana and New Hampshire, Michigan,
and many other States far away from the border. It is an
important trading partner. It is the country of heritage for
one in 10 Americans and it is our ally on numerous issues of
global concern from climate change to fighting terrorism.
Mexico is facing an unprecedented spike in violence,
spurred by the power and ruthlessness of organized crime groups
that traffic illegal narcotics into the United States, and
these groups, as the chairman has said, receive billions of
dollars from U.S. consumers for these illegal sales, about $6
billion to $9 billion in profit, about half of that in cocaine;
about 20-30 percent in methamphetamine and heroin; about 20-25
percent in marijuana, for parenthesis.
Just to put this in perspective, we should say that Mexico
has a much lower crime rate than El Salvador, Guatemala,
Venezuela. It has a lower crime rate than Colombia or Brazil
where the next Olympics will be held. That said, there are
places in Mexico where the violence is extreme. There are
places where the violence is critical. We saw a casino fire
that took 52 innocent lives a couple of weeks ago in Monterrey,
and this is serious business. We have both ethical and
strategic reasons for being concerned about this as the two
chairs have said. This is a circular trade. It is our consumers
that fund this violence, but it is also a strategic violence.
This is a country on our border and Mexico's ability to
strengthen rule of law impacts us. Its ability to grow the
economy impacts us.
So I would like to throw out four ideas that I think we can
work on in partnership with the Government of Mexico. Like Dr.
Shiffman, I want to say that I have also been a supporter of
Merida. The Wilson Center takes no position on this, but
personally, I think have been a supporter of Merida, but I
think there are four ways that we could be looking at shifting
our strategy that would be very helpful.
The first of these is to think about developing a strategic
plan for intelligence sharing that reduces violence. Our
strategy and strategy of the Government to Mexico to date has
been to go after these organizations organically, try and take
down criminals wherever they can find them, and by all means we
should always capture criminals wherever we can find them. But
in terms of giving priority, we should do--increasingly, we
should work with Mexico to develop the capacity to go after the
worst groups first. The organization--the trafficking
organizations that kill civilians, that kill mayors, that are
willing to take on the military and execute Army officers, that
kill journalists--which has become an increasingly large
problem--that kill children and innocent civilians with no
regard for life, these are the worst organizations. We should
prioritize where the killing is worse, okay.
And this may sound like obvious things. This is what we do
in the United States to a large extent, but instead of thinking
about how we take down all these organizations, how we go after
the most violent organizations, and we make an example every
time that they do something like this, every time the worst
kind of violence that destroys the civic texture of
communities, that destroy innocent people's lives and that go
against the state, we should be making an example of this, and
we should help the Mexican Government.
There are two places where we have done this, in Tijuana
and Ciudad Juarez, where we have worked very closely with the
Mexican Government to look at how we reduce violence,
specifically where it is not just going after the top of the
cartel, but looking at how we take apart the whole structure of
the most violent organizations. What we have seen is that
violence has dropped dramatically in Tijuana, right across from
San Diego, dramatically over the past 2 years. And Ciudad
Juarez is down considerably but we still have to see if that
holds.
Violence has now shifted to other parts of Mexico actually,
but this is something we have to do systematically.
Intelligence sharing has been key to this, and our ability to
share intelligence, but share intelligence in a strategic way,
not just when we get information on the traffickers, but to sit
down and figure out who are the targets that we should be going
after with the Mexican Government is critical.
Secondly, how do we map and target the trafficking
organizations in the United States? The chair has already
referred to this. We do not actually have a good mapping of how
these organizations operate once they cross the U.S. border. We
need to develop the map that allows us to know particularly how
they move their money, as well as how they move weapons, but
money critically. We need to see if we can get Treasury to do
the same kind of things they have done on counterterrorism to
do this on drug trafficking, begin to track how they move their
money, and because sometimes they use bulk cash, ICE and DEA
and local law enforcement--their local law enforcement are
absolutely critical also in tracking the money.
Third, support reforms for police, prosecutors, and the
courts. I am convinced that this is something that Mexico has
to do. It is something we cannot do. The other we can do. We
can certainly--sharing intelligence, mapping the traffickers in
the U.S., this is under our control. In terms of police,
prosecutors, and the courts, this is really on Mexico, but
there is a lot we can do. Here, the Merida Initiative is
critical, supporting the change agents within the Mexican
Government and outside the Mexican Government that are trying
to clean up the police, that are trying to support the courts,
who are trying to change the courts, who are trying to build a
real prosecutorial system. The Merida Initiative has been very
useful in funding projects that the Council of State
Governments, the Conference of Western Attorneys Generals that
have been doing this, as well as a number of--great deal of
working with Federal and State authorities.
And finally, let me just say reducing the consumption of
illegal narcotics, we are not going to start a huge new crusade
on this in the U.S., but there are certain things we know that
work. Eighty percent of the hard drugs--80 percent of the
profits of the cartels are hard drugs; 80 percent of the
consumption is 20 percent of the users. Most of these folks are
in the criminal justice system. We know there are a number of
things that work, like Project Hope did in Hawaii, like drug
courts that can be very effective in investing to try and take
care of that population. It is a small population of people
that is driving this trade, and we need to focus on those
people.
Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Dr. Selee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Selee follows:]
----------
Mr. Mack. Dr. Bunker, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. BUNKER, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW, SMALL WARS
JOURNAL EL CENTRO
Mr. Bunker. Thank you, sir.
It is great privilege to provide testimony before the
esteemed members of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on
the Western Hemisphere. I will quickly paraphrase the high
points and takeaways for the subcommittee.
We need this basic premise to be clear: That Mexico is
facing something way beyond an organized crime threat. With
this as a premise from which it starts, this congressional
testimony will posit that the Merida Initiative, as it stands,
is too myopic in nature, given the on-the-ground realities
currently present in Mexico. These two contentions will hereby
be discussed in more detail and their merits supported by
evidence from my own work and that of other subject
specialists.
Of necessity, therefore, this testimony will focus upon the
broader security environment and the policy and strategic
levels of analysis. It integrates writings that I have done
previously, both on my own and in collaboration with my
colleague, John Sullivan, a law enforcement officer, and others
on this topic. The analysis is divided into two sections
addressing first the narco-criminal threat and then
governmental policies. Each section, in turn, is divided into
two main themes.
Within the first section of narco-criminal threat, the
themes that I addressed were the increasing cartel and gain
evolution toward new warmaking entities. The second is the rise
of both criminal and spiritual insurgencies; hence, societal
warfare starting to break out in Mexico.
The second section that I address was governmental
policies. I went back about 30 years, and there is essentially
an ongoing cycle of countermoves and unintended consequences,
second order effects, stemming from our own and allied
governmental policies in this area. The second is the myopic
nature of the Merida Initiative versus the need for a Western
hemispheric strategy against cartel and gangs.
Time limitations restrict me from detailing these themes.
Hopefully, you have reviewed my written arguments and analyses
and have found them to have merit.
The key policy suggestion that I offer is this: Due to the
evolution of the cartels and gangs into new warmaking entities,
the rise in new forms of criminal and spiritual insurgencies
promoting societal warfare, and the ongoing cycle of
countermoves and unintended consequences confounding our own
and allied governmental policies, the Merida Initiative and
others like it directed at Colombia and Central America need to
evolve to a more encompassing scope and scale and with a
greater sense of strategic urgency than most congressional
policymakers might a priori think is necessary.
Following the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, the key
strategic insight that I offer is this: Without a new strategic
imperative for the United States, which requires the
realignment of our national threat perceptions, is needed. This
is very serious, folks. The cartels and narco-gangs of the
Americas, with those in Mexico of the highest priority, must
now be elevated to the number one strategic threat to the
United States. While the threat posed by al Qaeda and radical
Islam is still significant, it must be downgraded presently to
that of secondary strategic importance.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Dr. Bunker.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bunker follows:]
----------
Mr. Mack. Dr. Starr, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF PAMELA STARR, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN PUBLIC
DIPLOMACY AND THE SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, DIRECTOR
OF THE U.S.-MEXICO NETWORK, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Ms. Starr. Thank you, Chairman Mack, and thank you,
Chairman Rohrabacher as well, and Ranking Members Engel and
Carnahan for the invitation to address the committee members
today.
I would like to look a little bit more at the background of
the issue and look at how the situation in Mexico has changed
on the ground since the initiation of the Merida Initiative and
how that then--what lessons that tells us how about we need to
think about changing the Initiative itself so that it more
effectively addresses the situation on the ground.
Mexico has long been a source for illicit drugs entering
U.S. markets. This is nothing new, but it is only in the last
generation that this cross-border contraband trade has given
rise to organized crime syndicates that threaten Mexican
national security and pose the single most important criminal
threat to United States' well-being.
The forces that produce these criminal organizations are
many. They include obviously demand for the products they
produce in the United States and a good operating environment
in Mexico. But another key factor, without a doubt, has been
the previous successes of U.S. anti-drug policies at closing
the transshipment routes through the Caribbean Sea, at helping
Colombia disarticulate its drug cartels, and most recently, at
closing down meth labs in the United States. These successes
ultimately rerouted Andean cocaine destined for the U.S.
through Mexico. They shifted control over these transshipments
to Mexican drug cartels, and they opened the new markets to
these cartels to supply the U.S. market for meth.
At the same time that the power of the Mexican cartels
consequently grew, Mexico democratized. While democratization
in Mexico is undoubtedly a very good thing, it distracted
Mexican politicians from a brewing national security problem,
and it weakened a previously all-powerful Presidency without
creating democratic institutions to take its place. Instead,
democratic Mexico inherited from generations of authoritarian
rule profoundly weak law enforcement institutions: Police,
prosecutors, courts, and jails.
When President Felipe Calderon launched his Federal
offensive against Mexican drug trafficking organizations in
2006, he thus faced a formidable adversary with a limited
supply of policy tools. The Merida Initiative was designed at
Mexico's request to help address this challenge. Mexico's anti-
cartel strategy relied on its military and incipient
professional Federal police force to disrupt the operational
capacity of the Mexican cartels by targeting their leaders and
other critical employees. The United States assisted this
effort by providing material, equipment, intelligence, and
police training.
Mexico's Merida supported fight against organized crime has
registered significant successes, but these successes have
modified the operating environment in Mexico, making the
shortcomings of the strategy that were always there
increasingly evident. Four changes in this operating
environment stand out in particular.
First, to an important extent, this strategy is
successfully, albeit gradually, transforming a national
security challenge in Mexico into a policing problem, but as it
does so, the acute weakness of Mexican law enforcement is
increasingly placed on full display.
Second, success at weakening some crime syndicates seems to
have emboldened their competitors, reinforced existing
rivalries, and thereby provoking further violence. Indeed, the
vast majority of violence in Mexico is cartel-on-cartel.
Third, criminal organizations with a weakened capacity to
transport drugs into the United States because of the Mexican
Government's efforts have increasingly moved into retail drug
sales in Mexico and other lines of business including
extortion, kidnapping, armed robbery, human smuggling, and
such.
But fourth and most troubling, the weakened crime
syndicates did not turn into disarticulated criminal gangs as
was hoped. They, instead, have morphed into international
criminal networks whose structure is more amorphous than in the
past, whose operational capacity is less susceptible as a
result to strategies designed just to take out key operatives.
This is challenge to which Mexico, with our support, must now
respond. It is, above all, a law enforcement problem. It is not
a military problem, and it is one which now extends well into
Central America. It, thus, requires law enforcement solutions:
A redoubled emphasis on police training, especially at State
and local levels where law enforcement is extremely weak, and a
significantly expanded effort to improve the quality of Mexican
legal and penal systems, and Merida must expand its efforts to
address a now well-established operation of Mexican criminal
networks in Central America.
We need to mend Merida. We do not need to end the program.
Our long-term national security depends on this success.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Dr. Starr.
[The prepared statement of Pamela Starr follows:]
----------
Mr. Mack. We now will move into questions, and I recognize
myself for 5 minutes.
I think, just to give a kind of little premise here, I
think all of us, everyone, recognizes the importance of our
relationship with Mexico, the shared responsibility that we
have to the citizens of the United States and to Mexico and to
the hemisphere. I think one of the things that at least I am
looking at is where have we been and what is it that we are
trying to accomplish and have we defined the problem correctly,
because if you don't define the problem correctly, you can't
put a solution to it unless you understand the problem, and
that is really what we are charged with hopefully today.
So my first question is this--and I will ask it of Dr.
Shiffman. I am used to calling you Gary, but I guess for today
I will call you Dr. Shiffman. The Mexican's transnational
criminal organizations have become much more resilient since
2007 when Mexican President Mr. Calderon announced his campaign
on the drug trafficking. They have diversified and expanded
their operation into a wide variety of illicit activities such
as human smuggling, the sale of stolen oil, extortion, weapons
trafficking, kidnapping, sex trafficking, and cyber crime. The
Mexican transnational criminal organizations have also
organized, strengthened, and expanded their operations into
Central America. So the first question is simple. Do you
believe that the Mexico's governance and rule of law is
threatened, and if so, is it more in jeopardy today than it was
in 2007?
And before you answer, again, I am trying to get to this
idea that the difference between just the illegal drug activity
that is happening and now into a insurgency and what that
definition of insurgency is and what it means. So Mr. Shiffman,
if you could maybe answer that.
Mr. Shiffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and first of all,
the testimony you received today is excellent. I congratulate
everybody else. I think they have laid down really a nice
predicate for what you are trying to accomplish.
The argument that I am trying to give you today is that
these are complex businesses. Now, the amount of money at stake
is so large and so significant that there is actual significant
threat to the Government of Mexico today that didn't exist or
not to the same degree in 2007. So the basic answer to your
question is, absolutely, things are in a condition today in
Mexico that we have to take very seriously. We must elevate it
for all of the reasons that the rest of the panelists said.
There is oftentimes this hesitance to use the word
``insurgency'' so I just described it. What you have over large
parts of the Mexican population is this battle for political
control. So somebody wants to control the political space.
Whoever controls the political space can operate freely. So, if
the drug cartels can make billions of dollars operating if they
just control the political space, the political sphere, then
that is what they are going to fight for.
So, as Dr. Starr just said, she made a really important
point. In the past, it may have been the drug cartels fighting
against local governance. What you see now oftentimes is cartel
versus cartel. That means that the government is not even
relevant anymore, and it is just cartel-on-cartel fighting for
who gets to control that turf. Whoever gets to control the turf
gets to use that turf to run their businesses. They can raise
money, they can traffic their drugs, they can do their
recruiting, training. They can really run their base of
operations, but you need the political control first, and that
is often called an insurgency. I don't have a problem saying
that that is what is going on across large parts of Mexico.
Mr. Mack. Thank you. Dr. Selee.
Mr. Selee. I think we may actually be misdiagnosing the
problem a little bit. Let me say that have had this discussion
with colleagues in the Mexican Government who are also
beginning to rethink this and with people in the U.S.
Government. I think we tend to think of a sort of six or seven
large organizations that run drugs to the United States, they
are giant organizations, they have lots of people working for
them. I think, actually, these are much smaller groups, much
more compact groups. They control about 1 percent of Mexican
GDP, but they are divided among these sort of six groups and
then there is a bunch of smaller groups that do heroin. The
groups that do kidnapping and extortion may or may not actually
belong to the cartel. They probably give them some money. They
often use their name, but these are actually loose criminal
networks of people, and the reason why this is important----
Mr. Mack. I apologize, but my time has expired, and so
hopefully we will be able to get to it, but I want to try to--I
have got to set an example by keeping my----
Mr. Selee. I am not sure that makes them any less
dangerous, but I think it has implications we will talk about
later.
Mr. Mack. Thank you. Mr. Engel is recognized for 5 minutes
for questions.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Any of the panelists that would like to respond to this, I
would like to hear what you have to say. Reports have indicated
that one unplanned positive benefit of the Merida Initiative
has been the closer cooperation and deeper trust between the
U.S. and the Mexican Governments. There appears to be more
information sharing and a strong partnership with Mexico in the
fight against drug trafficking. Could any of you further
characterize the existing level of cooperation with Mexico? Do
these changes extend beyond the breadth of the working
relationship we have with the various Mexican ministries and
agencies, or are they solely at the top levels of these
agencies?
The reason I ask that is because is this new cooperation
sufficiently institutionalized or do you see it changing when
President Calderon finishes his term? Dr. Selee.
Mr. Selee. Thank you, Congressman Engel. I think this has
sunk down within the administration. Dr. Shiffman can correct
me if I am wrong since he was been at DHS in a past life, but I
think this is--actually I hear talking to people on both sides
a great deal of respect at a much lower level in the
administration, which I think bodes well for future
cooperation, which doesn't mean there is not going to be
hurdles in the future, because I think any new Mexican
Government is going to be a little bit more skeptical of going
after--of being publicly identified with the United States, but
I think the cooperation is actually fairly deep.
And just to finish an earlier point, I think there is a
larger concern of rule of law in Mexico. There is a larger
concern of violence. Much of the violence is not about drug
trafficking; it is about other sorts of things. And it is not
necessarily Chapo Guzman, or the leader of the Zeta's, one of
the two leaders, saying go kill someone over this corridor. A
lot of it is petty things over extortion. A lot of it is petty
things over kidnapping. I mean, petty, it is human lives here,
but these are things that are not sort of part of an actual
narrative of we are going to go out and traffic billions of
dollars. People are getting killed over small amounts of money
in some way. So it is a larger question of rule of law in
Mexico. I think we need to focus on that cooperation.
Mr. Engel. Dr. Shiffman, do you agree with the level of
cooperation between Mexico and the U.S.?
Mr. Shiffman. We need to identify those advocates within
the Mexican Government that are willing to take this battle on.
They exist from the local level all the way through the
Presidency. Whoever the next President is, we need to make sure
that the United States is endorsing and working with those
people.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. I want to ask you about the comment I
made before about reducing job demand in the United States.
Tell me what you feel about the job we are doing. I don't think
it is a stretch to say that if we didn't have drug demand in
this country we would have a much less significant narco-
criminal problem in Mexico, Colombia, or elsewhere. There was a
joint statement when we initiated Merida ability tackling that
part of the problem as well. Are we living up to our original
commitments in the Merida joint statement? Anyone who would
like to comment on that? Dr. Starr.
Ms. Starr. I think it is true that there has been a change
of emphasis during the Obama administration in terms of our
drug control strategy. So it has become a strategy that, while
still heavily emphasizing limiting supply available to drug
users, it has increased its emphasis on trying to limit demand,
and in fact, the selection for the national drug czar was
designed to send that message very clearly; there was a going
to be a change in emphasis.
That said, I don't think the change of emphasis has been
sufficiently pushed forward. The United States, we know how to
deal with addiction to drugs and to minimize the use of it. Our
anti-smoking campaigns demonstrates that we know how to reduce
demand for addictive drugs, and if we put our minds to it and
put together a really strong public relations campaign, I think
we can do the same thing.
That said, we will never eliminate demand for illegal drugs
and, therefore, will never fully eliminate this issue in
dealing with the trafficking organizations that deal in drugs.
That is always going to be an underlying factor as long as
people want to use illicit drugs, and indeed, they always have
and always will.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. I want to try to get one last
question in, and that is about CIFTA. Do you think that the
Senate should ratify this treaty? Are we in compliance with it?
And to what extent are arms trafficked from the U.S. into
Mexico and then further trafficked to Central America? Dr.
Bunker.
Mr. Bunker. Yes, sir. The analysis that I have done
recently with another colleague was about 20 percent of the
arms Mexico, the cartels are getting, come from the United
States. The bulk of the arms come from Central America, from
the international arms market, and also from Mexico itself,
from law enforcement personnel that have defected, and also
from some military stores. So I think there is more to this
than we understand.
Mr. Mack. Thank you. And now I would like to recognize Mr.
Rohrabacher for 5 minutes for questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just note for the record that the scourge of
kidnapping in Mexico is not petty. In fact, it is something
that is horrendous and affects the lives of people who are
trying to lead that country and that whole region into a better
era, and we have some people who I have met personally with who
have been victimized by this, and it is systematic, and it is,
in fact, transnational in its nature and just as the drug
cartel is. And let me just note, Chairman Mack has agreed that
we will be having hearings into the transnational nature of
kidnapping and other crime in Mexico in the near future where
we will be focusing on not just what is going on in Mexico but
the contacts with other countries that are part of this
criminal network. That is number one.
Number two about intelligence sharing. I don't want to
sound skeptical, but I have been deeply involved over the last
30 years with Pakistan, and I have come to the conclusion that
we have been patsies for Pakistan, and that when we share
intelligence with Pakistan, we end up tipping off the people
who we are actually trying to fight against.
Do any of you disagree with me that there is a high
likelihood that as we cooperate with intelligence with our
Mexican counterparts that some of them may well just be giving
that information to the cartels? Anyone doubt that? Go right
ahead.
Mr. Selee. Absolutely. By the way, let me agree with you
that it is not petty. What I was referring to is that there is
a larger question of criminality, with the idea that violence
is--everyone is being killed over $2 billion deals or $2
million deals. Much of this is over a $500 ransom. I know, too,
people who have been kidnapped and officers killed.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Mr. Selee. So I mean not to say the killing is petty, but a
lot of the violence is generalized. It is not always the fight
between the cartels. There is a larger question of violence
going on in Mexico.
Yes, intelligence is often wrongly used, and it is often
wrongly used within the administration. It is one of the
frustrations of the people who are trying to do the right thing
in the Mexican Government that sometimes when they share it
with their colleagues they find that it----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Or actually when we get directed, for
example, some genius just took the--I guess the advice that
they could ship 2,000 AK-47s and sniper rifles to the drug
cartels and that that would be a good way that we could see who
really is benefiting from the arms trade.
Mr. Selee. Chairman, if I could say, I think the evidence
is when you talk to people in U.S. law enforcement agencies
that they feel that there has been increasingly channels that
are trustworthy most of the time that have been successful at
getting some of the people they want to target.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Selee. It is far from fail safe. It is far from
perfect. My favorite comment came from frontline cops in San
Diego. Actually we talked to them about their relationship with
some of the police in Tijuana, and they said, look, our
evidence is that more often than not when we give them evidence
now, the right thing happens. Not all the time, but more often
than not.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. I got the answer.
Let me just note whatever problems we are talking about,
this is not a partisan issue. It is not a partisan issue at
all, and let me know perhaps what I believe is one of the worst
undermining of our efforts to control our borders happened
under the last administration when Ramos and Compean, two
Border Patrol agents, were arrested and put through hell for
stopping a Mexican drug dealer from coming across the border.
And I guess I will ask this question, but obviously, it is
to be taken as not necessarily as a serious point, and that is,
I take it that you agree with me that when we arrested Ramos
and Compean, the two Border Patrol agents, who had clean
records I might add, perfectly clean records, thrown them into
prison for stopping this drug mule, whatever he was, carrying
the drugs across the border, that this was not taken as an act
of sincerity that endeared us to the drug cartel leaders.
I take it that you would agree with me that they didn't
take it as sincere or they weren't--and they also weren't
impressed with our courageous dedication to the rule of law by
arresting Ramos and Campion. And you might agree with me that
the drug cartels that we are talking about today looked at the
arrest of Ramos and Campion as a sign of weakness and a lack of
resolve on the part of our Government. So this is not a
partisan issue. This is an issue where Republicans and
Democrats have equally made stupid decisions. And now it is up
to us to try to work together to put it right. And we will be
getting down to the actual international connections that are
making this task even more difficult.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. And I now recognize
Mr. Payne for 5 minutes. Welcome. Good to see you.
Mr. Payne. Great. Good to see you. I hope you had a nice
summer.
Mr. Mack. Yeah, pretty good.
Mr. Payne. Good to see the great panel. Of course, Dr.
Selee, it is good to see you again. And you know I served on
the committee in Geneva also. It was a great experience. And it
is good to see you.
I just have a question--three quick questions if I can get
them out. One is the 25th of August, the New York Times had an
article, ``U.S. Widens Role in Mexican Fight,'' which went on,
of course, to say that the administration has expanded its role
in Mexico's fight in organized crime by allowing the Mexican
police to stage crossborder drug raids from inside the United
States.
And I just want to question--have any of those raids
happened? And is there any kind of conflict in U.S. law that
concerns constitutionality? Does anybody want to take a shot at
that?
Mr. Shiffman. Sir, I don't know the specifics, Mr. Payne.
But maybe getting back to Chairman Rohrabacher's comments as
well as yours, there is--in local levels again, there is great
cooperation in an operational level between the U.S. and
Mexican side. There are often local commanders that operate
very well together. So I am sure great things are happening.
Mexican officials, of course, have no authority inside of
United States' borders. It would just be an information
liaison-type role. The same thing with U.S. officials inside of
Mexico.
Mr. Payne. Well, they went to say it was giving the Mexican
police the right to stage crossborder drug raids. I need to
maybe take a look at that a little bit more. It was the August
25th New York Times. You might want to check that out because
it kind of stunned me a little bit also.
Quickly, could you tell me how we measure the success, any
one of you, of the program? It certainly can't be by the number
of deaths, because that would mean we are failing. So how is it
that these billions of dollars that we are allocating are--or
when are we winning? I mean, anybody know how we can call
success? Maybe quitting it out.
Mr. Selee. I think you have to use two--if I can, Mr.
Chairman, I think you have to use two sets of measures. I mean,
one is I would look at violence because I think violence
matters. That is what matters in people's daily lives. I think
I would look also at whether the cartels are splintering,
because we have said that is part of the objective. I mean, are
they fragmenting? Some of the violence is because they are
fragmenting. Maybe we are winning on that front but losing on
the violence front. Maybe we have to readjust there, but we
want both of those. We want to fragment them but we also want
to see violence drop in people's lives.
And then I think we need to look at rule of law because the
larger question is they are not police, they are not
prosecutors, and they are not courts that make it dangerous for
armed criminals to operate with impunity. So we need to
actually measure with our colleagues in Mexico, with our
partners in Mexico, what is developing with the police, what
can we measure, the Federal and State police? What has
improved? What has improved in terms of prosecutions? Are
prosecutions more successful than they were in the past? Are
they moving forward on changing their court system, as they
said they had, to a more transparent system? And are people
actually being judged correctly in the court system? I think we
need those measures.
Ms. Starr. If I might just add quickly, I think we also
have to measure based on what the Mexican Government has said
its objectives are. And its objective from the very beginning
has been to break down large organized crime syndicates that
threaten the national security of Mexico into small armed gangs
that can be managed locally and at State level with police.
They have done that extremely well. Unfortunately, much of the
violence is a consequence of having done that extremely well.
And so we need to take the next step, which Dr. Selee is
pointing out, that we need to build up the policing and law
enforcement capacity to deal with this new kind of problem.
Mr. Bunker. I think we have another issue when we look at
the level of violence. You could have a plaza, a city or a
region that has very low levels of violence. Well, basically
one of the cartels now dominates that area. So the absence of
violence can also be a bad thing as far as political control of
an area.
Mr. Payne. Okay. Thank you. I am able to get my final
question in. I don't know how long casino gambling has been in
Mexico. Can anybody tell me? Five years, one year? Is it
relatively new? Do you know? Organized crime loves casino
gambling, they tell me. And do you think that this--well, it is
done now. But money laundering--I mean, I can see all kinds of
negative things happening through the casinos. What do you
think? Quickly, because I only have 10 seconds left.
Mr. Selee. It can't be a good thing. It certainly creates
one more area where money can disappear.
Mr. Bunker. The cartels also make money through extortion.
You basically pay our tax or we are going to burn your place
down. That happens in a lot of areas in Mexico now too. So you
should look into that issue maybe.
Ms. Starr. I just want to say the cartels are also very
effective at laundering their money through legitimate
businesses such as construction, so they really don't need the
casinos to do it.
Mr. Mack. Thank you very much. And, Mr. Payne, thank you
for your questions. If I can add real quick, that is--I think
your question about what are the objectives, how do we know,
that is very much a part of the question that we are trying to
get at today, is, you know--I don't know that there is a clear
understanding of what the objectives are, but certainly
defining the problem, whether it is just a drug cartel-type
problem or if this is an insurgency is what we are trying to
get at, so we can work and come up with some proposal on how to
define the objectives so we can have success. So thank you for
that.
Mr. McCaul is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Shiffman, you said the direct cartels are a threat to
the Government of Mexico. I agree with you.
Dr. Bunker, you said that--you made a very bold statement
that the drug cartels are the number one greatest threat to the
security of the United States, surpassing al Qaeda. I happen to
agree with you as well on that. Political assassinations,
extortion, kidnappings, terrorizing the Mexican people.
Recently President Calderon, after the casino--50 killed in
the casino--said we are facing true terrorists who have
surpassed not only the limits of the law but basic common sense
and respect for life. And I would like to read from you as the
United States Code out of Federal law, Black Law's definition
of terrorism: ``An act of terrorism means an activity that
involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that
is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of
any State or that would be a criminal violation if committed
within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any
State''--this is where it is important--``and it appears to be
intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to
influence the policy of a government by intimidation or
coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by
assassination or kidnapping.''
Would all of you agree that the drug cartels fall squarely
within this definition of terrorists? Dr. Shiffman.
Mr. Shiffman. Sir, thank you. And thank you for all of your
leadership on this issue through the years. The definition of
terrorism is an act often including civilians for some sort of
political goal. Insurgents do take part in terrorist acts, and
absolutely it fits the definition.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you. Dr. Selee.
Mr. Selee. I think it is a slippery slope. I mean, I am not
sure these are organizations involved in political acts. I
think this is primarily about the money, as Dr. Shiffman's
paper says actually. And this is primarily about the money. I
think we get into a slippery slope when we start to confuse
them with terrorists. There certainly are acts that are very
similar, like the casino fire, to what terrorists do. But there
are also acts in this country that are truly terrible that we
wouldn't necessarily qualify as terrorism, right?
Mr. McCaul. I think the tactics of decapitating people and
burning people alive and shooting school buses is certainly----
Mr. Selee. It is terrible and at the same time it is a
slippery slope. I mean, this is not a clear political message
or political intent in most cases.
Mr. McCaul. Dr. Bunker.
Mr. Bunker. They engage in terrorist acts, they engage in
insurgent acts. You are also getting accidental insurgents
where they are taking over political control of a city just
because they have basically gotten to the point where no one is
watching what they are doing, so now we have to, like, run this
place. The other issue, too, is--I will just let it go.
Mr. McCaul. And Dr. Starr.
Ms. Starr. I am going to obfuscate a little bit. I think it
is much more important to understand what is happening in
Mexico than to label it. Because when we label it, we have the
tendency of comparing it with other things that have similar
labels. My concern about calling what is going on in Mexico
either as terrorism or insurgency or something like that is
then we equate Mexico with something like Afghanistan or
Pakistan, and they are not equal in any way, shape or form. In
Afghanistan, in Pakistan, you have terrorists, you have
insurgents, whose objective it is to overthrow the sitting
government. That is not the objective of organized crime
syndicates in Mexico. They are organized crime. They want to
make money.
Mr. McCaul. Well, I agree with President Calderon. He
called them terrorists. And, Dr. Bunker, it is the number one
greatest threat to our national security.
I introduced a bill to designate them as foreign terrorist
organizations which would give us--as a Federal prosecutor, it
gives us greater tools to go after them, including freezing
these bank assets, which, Dr. Selee, I thought you gave
excellent testimony about the role of the banks and the
laundering of money. How complicit are the banks in Mexico with
the drug cartels?
Mr. Selee. I don't think we know that answer, actually. I
mean, I think it is something we need to know and it is
something that we need to put resources into. We put resources
in--our Treasury Department is very good at this, into figuring
out--and Mexico needs to put some more resources into this as
well. I mean, we are both falling down on the job on this.
Mr. McCaul. I have got limited time. But, Mr. Chairman, the
idea of Treasury doing an audit would be certainly helpful to
see how complicit they are because they are making money off
this whole thing. There is no question in my mind.
Last point. I got to go down with the chairman to Colombia,
joint intelligence/military operation. It worked very
effectively over time. We need--in the post-Merida--as we talk
about post-Merida, we need something like that I think in
Mexico. It is a regional concern.
Guatemala, as we were down there, 25 farmers got their--
were decapitated by the Zetas. And that is truly a failed State
in Guatemala. And the one point take-away I got from that trip
and I will--is in meeting with President Santos. Colombian
Special Forces are very well trained. He was willing to help
Mexico with these Special Forces. When we met President
Calderon, they are shifting from the national police to take
over the military's operation, which I think is a right
direction for Mexico and they have trained a lot of police
officers. But in the short term, it seems to me that we ought
to be using some of the Colombian Special Forces to work side
by side with the Mexican Special Forces. They clearly would
blend in from a cultural standpoint, language standpoint, far
better than, say, the gringo from the United States.
And so I hope--when we mentioned that to President
Calderon, he had shown an interest. And the chairman and I
mentioned this to the Secretary of State as well. And with
that, I yield back.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Mr. McCaul. I would now like to
recognize Mr. Rivera for 5 minutes for questions.
Mr. Rivera. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to
all of you for being here.
Dr. Selee, I would like to inquire a little bit about the
international support for some of these transnational criminal
organizations in Mexico. You mentioned earlier and it struck my
attention, Chapo Guzman. Who is that?
Mr. Selee. The head of the Sinaloa cartel.
Mr. Rivera. The head of what?
Mr. Selee. The Sinaloa cartel, the largest crime
organization in Mexico.
Mr. Rivera. And where is he?
Mr. Selee. Oh, that is a good question. I am not privy to
that information.
Mr. Rivera. Is there any speculation as to if he is in
Mexico, outside of Mexico?
Mr. Selee. He is largely believed to be inside of Mexico. I
think if you talk to people in the Intelligence Community, they
would say he is in Mexico.
Mr. Rivera. Inside Mexico. Okay. Would it surprise you if
you were to ever receive information that he was receiving safe
harbor from countries outside of Mexico?
Mr. Selee. That is certainly possible. It certainly
happened in the history of organized crime.
Mr. Rivera. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned the
existence of transnational criminal organizations in the United
States and the need to map their movement as a way to track or
stop their transactions. Can you expand a little bit on this?
Mr. Selee. We have very good operational intelligence. We
have excellent--our law enforcement entities, both at a State
and local level, but also DEA, FBI, ICE, CBP and others, do a
fantastic job of getting operational intelligence, finding
where people are, picking them up, figuring out where a network
in Houston is, for example. We don't do as good a job because
we don't do intelligence as much in the United States. We have
barriers between our Intelligence Community and our law
enforcement community in trying to do the mapping.
So in terms of the Zetas, for example, who we have named a
transnational criminal organization recently, you know, knowing
what happens to the Zetas when they come into the United
States--who they are working with, who are their business
partners, where do they operate, who their cells are operating
in the United States, who do they hand off to, which gangs they
are working with--we have fragments of this information because
our law enforcement agencies pick up fragments of this, but we
don't have a central depository of all of the information that
says this is how they operate, this is where their money goes.
There is no one who is a specialist on the Zetas in the U.S.
Government. There are a lot of people who are specialists on
pieces of the Zetas, but it is hard to know where the mapping
is.
Mr. Rivera. Does the United States Government issue any
types of rewards or bounties for any of these cartel heads like
Chapo Guzman? Anyone. Whoever might have information.
Mr. Selee. I am not aware of it, but certainly some of them
are on the 10 Most Wanted. And we do actively go after some of
them in partnership with Mexico. And Mexico has issued
bounties.
Mr. Rivera. Is Chapo Guzman on the Most Wanted?
Mr. Selee. I believe he is, actually. I don't know if he is
in the top ten, but I believe he is, actually.
Mr. Rivera. On the FBI Most Wanted?
Mr. Selee. I believe he is. I could be wrong about that,
though. So, I mean, I should check that before--do you know the
answer to that?
Mr. Bunker. Just a statement I wanted to make was, a few
years ago you could be a bona fide member of the Zetas, have
your brand on your breast, have your santa muerte tattoo, and
you could be walking around and you basically were free to do
whatever you want. It is amazing.
Mr. Rivera. Any information on what we can do about going
after--or what the Treasury Department can do about going after
some of this drug trafficking financing?
Mr. Selee. You have to really--do you want to----
Mr. Rivera. Dr. Shiffman.
Mr. Shiffman. Congressman, thank you. The thing about
running a business, an illicit business, just like any other,
is if you are successful, you end up with a lot of money. Now,
you have to do something with it. And if you have ever, you
know, seen large bulk cash, it actually takes up a lot of
space. It is very heavy. It is a very difficult thing to deal
with. So you have to use banks, you have to use--you have to
use illicit movement of money. But at some point, the illicit
money transfer organizations have to deal with banks. That is
how you find them. It is a very complex task to do, but that is
how you do it. Because if you are making a lot of money, you
have got to do something with your money.
Mr. Selee. You almost have to work in--if I can,
Congressman--in two ways. I mean, one is--Dr. Shiffman says you
have to work in the banking system. And we have done some
things. I mean, Treasury has gone after Wachovia Bank, for
example, which did not have sufficient controls on money
laundering, never a very high fine on them, so figuring out how
this money is getting into the U.S. financial system.
And secondly, some of it still does go back in bulk cash
because there is a border, there is a 2,000-mile border. The
same people that bring drugs can bring money and guns back. So
also ICE, FBI, local law enforcement, CBP, figuring out how
this money is packaged.
And if I can say something controversial. I mean, the best
place to do border enforcement is actually far away from the
border. Once things get to the border, they are mostly hidden.
So if we can do border enforcement in Houston before money gets
to El Paso, or try and catch drugs in Tamaulipas but before it
gets to Tampico, before it gets to Matamoros, that is by far
the best way. Which is not to say you don't do border
enforcement, CBP does a great job of that, but most of the
stuff is hidden by the time you get to the border. We need to
find cash in the safe houses, drugs in the safe houses, and
leadership and organizations.
Mr. Rivera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Mr. Rivera. And Mr. Poe is now
recognized for 5 minutes for questions.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here,
all of you, all four doctors. The rest of us could be lawyers.
That is an interesting combination. But be that as it may, a
few questions.
Mr. McCaul talked about the drug cartels being labeled as
foreign terrorist organizations. I agree with that philosophy
based on the current status of the law. The failed State issue
that you all addressed. Today, which direction is Mexico
headed, more to the failed State or getting it together? Just a
quick opinion. Okay, Dr. Bunker?
Mr. Bunker. I think there is another avenue and that is
criminalized State.
Mr. Poe. What is that?
Mr. Bunker. That would be a State where the criminals are
pulling a lot of the strings in the background politically. And
you are seeing parts of Mexico that have basically lost--the
cities are gone in that country. So it doesn't have to fail. It
could become something else.
Mr. Poe. It is a political environment that is controlled
by the drug cartels in certain areas. Is that a fair statement?
In what areas?
Mr. Bunker. In some of your northern controlled areas with
the Zetas and Gulf Cartel and some of your--probably your
southern areas is relatively quiet. You have got some areas in
Sinaloa and Michoacana also where you have issues.
Mr. Selee. I throw out another distinction, too, which is
think the cartels are actually less powerful than they were 5
years ago when the Mexican Government got serious about this.
The big cartels--I mean, these were six or seven big groups.
What you have now is lots of small groups that are operating,
lots of people who call themselves Zetas, that may or may not
be, which has increased criminality.
So it is actually not an either/or. What you have is lots
of places--probably there is less control by these six or seven
groups that once controlled large swaths of territory, but
there are lots of freelancers running around controlling, you
know, and trying to infiltrate the government.
Mr. Poe. What do you think about that, Dr. Shiffman? Drug
cartels, powerful, headed to a failed State--what do you want
to call the type of government Mexico is heading to with the
massive amount of drug influence?
Mr. Shiffman. Things are headed in the wrong direction in a
broad stroke, but you don't need to want to take over Mexico
City and run the whole government in order for it to be an
insurgency. All you need to do is be able to have a base of
operations in which you want to run and grow your business. And
it is becoming increasingly easy for the cartels to do that in
Mexico. And that is what we need to be concerned about.
Mr. Poe. So they do have political influence in certain
areas?
Mr. Shiffman. Absolutely.
Mr. Poe. This national security issue for Mexico, would you
all four agree that it is national security--is the issue in
Mexico a national security issue for the United States? Without
a nod, why don't you say yes or no. Just go down the list.
Mr. Shiffman. Yes on both.
Mr. Selee. Yes.
Mr. Poe. Is that a yes, Dr. Starr?
Ms. Starr. That is a yes.
Mr. Poe. Is part of the problem the fact that the border is
open in both directions, not just one direction? The fact that,
you know, people and money can move north and guns and money--
or people and drugs come north, money and guns go south. I
mean, it seems to be open in both directions. Is that part of
something that we have to figure out here, that the border is
open in both directions?
Mr. Selee. Yes, although it is less a problem with the
border than it is of the areas away from the border. I mean,
most of what is passing through is passing through legal
checkpoints. This is not a question----
Mr. Poe. Ports of entry?
Mr. Selee. Ports of entry, right. Things--the high value
drugs are passing through ports of entry. Not exclusively, but
a lot of them are.
Mr. Poe. But that is on the border. Ports of entry are on
the border.
Mr. Selee. It is hard to seal those things. I mean, what
you need to do is actually stop things before they get to the
border, where it is a lot easier to get done. We continue to
increase the--I think we should be very vigilant on the border.
And I think it is good we have started doing southbound
inspections. I mean, these are all good things. But we are only
going to solve this by actually getting at the points away from
the border where things are bundled and put together. And that
is strategic intelligence, the kind of things that Dr. Shiffman
was working on at CBP.
Mr. Poe. I will try to get to a few more questions in the
last minute. The drug cartels that operate primarily in
Mexico--I know they operate in other places, but they also have
operations in the United States. They don't stop at the border
and all of a sudden turn that over to somebody else. I mean,
the Zetas work in Mexico and then they have operatives in the
United States that help them get rid of their drugs and then
get the money and the guns and go back south. Is that not true,
Dr. Shiffman, or not?
Mr. Shiffman. It is true. And their cartels go down into
Central America, Colombia, and other places as well. So Mexico
is both a source of drugs but also, more significantly perhaps,
a transshipment point. And that is where they are making their
money.
Mr. Poe. All right. And the last question that I have.
Mexico has a drug problem among its population as well.
President Calderon talks about how bad it is in the United
States. But they have an internal problem with the abuse of
drugs as well; is that true? That is my last question to all
four of you. Just a yes or no is all we have got time for.
Mr. Bunker. It is increasing.
Ms. Starr. Yes.
Mr. Poe. Dr. Starr?
Mr. Selee. And one of the things is reality is this
consumption of--local distribution in Mexico, like kidnapping
and extortion, is probably disproportionate to the amount of
the violence as well.
Mr. Shiffman. [Nonverbal response.]
Mr. Poe. All right, Dr. Shiffman, thank you. That was a
yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Mr. Poe. And I want to thank the
witnesses. I want to thank the members who showed up. And I
would like to, if you don't mind--we don't typically do this,
but I am going to allow Mr. Rohrabacher and myself an
opportunity to make some closing statements. So, Mr.
Rohrabacher, you are recognized.
Mr. Rohrabacher. What happens in Mexico is of vital
interest to the people of the United States and it will be
pivotal as to whether or not we are successful here as a
country as well. I grew up in the southwest part of the United
States. I am a Californian, very proud of the Mexican-American
heritage of California. And all of us who came from that part
of the world or part of our country know that God made us
neighbors with the Mexican people. They are our neighbors and
we always said that God made us neighbors. But it is up to us
whether or not we are going to be friends or not. And there is
a great sense of loss right now in Southern California--I can't
speak for Arizona or Texas or New Mexico--but there is a great
sense of loss that we have lost a friend and we are losing
friends in Mexico. I mean, I lived with a Mexican family for 3
months when I was in high school down in Guadalajara. And I
have spent I cannot tell you how many days and weeks of my
life--everybody knows I am a surfer--down the coastline of
Baja, California, and in the cantinas at night, et cetera. And
I had many, many good friends. In fact, every time I would go
there to Mexico, I would meet new friends because they are such
wonderful people.
And now the new generation of Americans in Southern
California are not having that same experience. Our young
people aren't going there to live with a Mexican family. Our
young people aren't going down and enjoying camaraderie. I
remember I spent about 2 or 3 days on a beach with a group of
Mexican teenagers, guys, all guys my age, playing the guitar
and drinking mescal--pretty heavy-duty stuff. I mean, those
things aren't happening anymore and it is a very, very sad
thing.
I think that that relationship between Mexico and the
United States was a treasure, and we should not let it go
easily. We should try to recapture it, work with the good
people, our friends in Mexico, to help drive out the evil
forces that are taking that country and those people away from
us as friends and family. So, anything we can do.
One last thought. I know I--our country didn't have--drugs
weren't illegal in our country until this century, until, what,
1910 or something like that. These drugs were legal in our
country. And when they made booze illegal in our country, we
found out you couldn't do that and there were repercussions if
you have a group of people consuming something that is illegal,
and then all of a sudden you build up organized crime. We did
that in the United States. Mr. Al Capone and the organized
crime was first really developed in the United States. It was
during Prohibition.
Well, now we have large groups of Americans who are using
these groups, and the side impact of that is the building up
of, what, of organized crime unfortunately. In Mexico. And we
need to do something about it.
I cannot tell you what the--there is no easy answer, but we
should be committed to that. And I will tell you that I am
looking forward to working with Chairman Mack, who has again
demonstrated his willingness and courage to take on some very
serious issues.
So thank you to the witnesses. I appreciate it. We will
have more joint hearings on the situation in Mexico, especially
the international elements that are at play in Mexico that need
to be dealt with. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mack. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher. It is always a
pleasure to work with you, and I learn something new about you
at every hearing.
A couple of things, if I could. First of all, I wanted to
just quickly mention--and unfortunately my good friend, Mr.
Engel, is not here. But we keep hearing this number, this 90
percent of the guns are coming from the United States. That is
just false. When we had a hearing not too long--well, it might
have been a year or 2 or something like that ago. And the
person who did this report admitted that it was 90 percent of
the guns that they could trace, and it was only the U.S. guns
that they could trace. I think the issues that we need to deal
with in Mexico, we need to not let this continue to be part of
the equation because it is just not--it is just not true.
A couple of things. We talked a lot about the criminal
activity of the cartels and whether or not Merida has been
successful in kind of dismantling or breaking them apart into
smaller organizations. But some of the things that we know are
true is that these--this criminal insurgency is doing more than
just the drug trafficking and violence. They are putting on
fairs for kids, trying to win the hearts and minds of the
people to subvert the political and the governmental will in
Mexico. There are areas--if you will look up on the screen,
there is the banner there that is supported by a drug cartel,
and they have got hotdogs and they have got food and drinks and
clowns and everything else. They are offering health care and
better pay. This is an activity that is not being done out of
the goodness of their heart. This is an activity to try to
subvert the governmental and political will in Mexico. So that
is an activity I think that is certainly worth pointing to.
This definition to me is important because if we continue
to look at the problem as just a drug trafficking problem, we
have missed the opportunity to really try to solve the problem.
What we have seen is that--I believe that Merida, when
introduced, was a very good plan to try to combat what was
happening in Mexico and in developing that partnership and
relationship with the Government of Mexico. Unfortunately, I
think the delivery of it has been so slow, without clear
targets and a clear understanding of the objectives or changing
objectives, not being able to keep up with the changing
influence of the insurgency that we now see, that we need to
readdress what it is that we want to accomplish.
And I am of the opinion that Merida, the initial plan of
Merida, it has evolved to a point where we need to have a
completely different way of looking about how to solve the
problem and engage with Mexico.
I am going to put into the record a few documents that
highlight what I think is clearly a definition of criminal
insurgency acts by the cartels and these groups in Mexico that
substantiate and help define criminal insurgency with their
actions.
And we appreciate the testimony of all of you. We do plan
on in this committee taking your testimony, the ideas, the
members on the committee, on the two committees, hopefully the
full committee, and trying to put forward a plan that
identifies the problem and comes up with solutions to solve the
problem that we have identified.
So with that, the meeting is adjourned and I want to thank
all of the witnesses once again for being here.
[Whereupon, at 4:08 p.m., the subcommittees were
adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative
in Congress from the State of California, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations