U.S. Aided Mexican Drug War, With Frustration

[groovedaddy]

MEXICO CITY — More than a year ago — before drug cartels killed a gubernatorial candidate and began murdering mayors, before shootings and kidnappings in Mexico’s industrial capital, Monterrey, surged to the point that the State Department ordered children of American diplomats there to leave the country — a Mexican official admitted that the government feared it could lose control of parts of the nation.

At a dinner held by Mexico’s acting attorney general for a visiting delegation from the Department of Justice in October 2009, the comments by Gerónimo Gutiérrez, then a deputy secretary in the ministry in charge of domestic security, suggested that even then a sense of anxiety about the drug war had begun to take hold in many parts of the Mexican government.

In the account of the meeting, which was included in the American diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks and posted on Mexican news Web sites, Mr. Gutiérrez was quoted as saying: “We have 18 months and if we do not produce a tangible success that is recognizable to the Mexican people, it will be difficult to sustain the confrontation into the next administration.”

The summary of Mr. Gutiérrez’s comments, written by the United States ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, continued: “He expressed a real concern with ‘losing’ certain regions. It is damaging Mexico’s international reputation, hurting foreign investment, and leading to a sense of government impotence, Gutiérrez said.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/world/americas/04wikileaks-mexico.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a22