Border lawmakers fear drug-terrorism link

Members of Congress are raising the alarm that war-like conditions on the Mexican border could lead to Mexican
drug cartels helping terrorists attack the U.S.

“When you have…gangs and they have loose ties with al Qaeda and then you have Iran not too far away from building a nuclear
capability, nuclear terrorism may not be far off,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-
Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services committee.

{mosads}The Mexican drug cartels’ violence accounted for more
than 6,000 deaths last year, and in recent months it has begun spilling over
into the districts of lawmakers from the southwest region, even as far north as
Phoenix, Ariz. — which has become, Franks noted, the “kidnap capital of the
U.S.”

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), whose district borders Mexico,
said that while the situation is bad, it could easily get worse.

“The goal of the cartels is to make money,” said Cuellar,
who sits on the House Homeland Security committee. “If they can smuggle in
drugs and human cargo, then certainly they can smuggle other things in, other
devices to cause us harm.”

“We have not heard of any associations, but is there the
possibility? I’ll be the first to say, yeah. They have the routes,
they can very easily smuggle in other things. If I was a bad guy in another
country, I would go into Central America because the U.S. is not paying the
proper attention.”

Violence reached new levels last week when the mayor of
Juarez, a Mexican city with 1.6 million people that serves as a major transit
point for drug smugglers, moved his family to El Paso, Texas, after receiving
threats against his and their lives.

The move corresponded with the resignation of the city’s
police chief after a drug cartel promised to kill a police officer every 48
hours if he did not step down. The city’s police director of operations, a
police officer and a prison guard were killed by the cartels in days prior.

“That was a mistake in my judgment,” Franks said of the
chief’s resignation. “The federal government should have come in and said
listen, we’re going to put a Marine division there to help you out if that’s
what’s necessary, but narco-terrorists are not going to tell America who to
elect and who resigns.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said earlier
this week that there are no plans to militarize the border, but Texas Gov. Rick
Perry last week asked for 1,000 additional forces, such as National Guardsmen,
to help protect the country’s border.

The Homeland Security and House Oversight and Government
Reform committees, which Cuellar sits on, and the House Appropriations
subcommittees on Homeland Security and State, Foreign Operations, and Related
Programs all have hearings scheduled next week to address the increase in
violence.

“The U.S. moves on crisis,” Cuellar said. “My colleagues
aren’t going to pay attention to it until it boils up to a particular point.
And we’re boiling.”

A report on global security threats issued by the U.S.
Joint Forces Command earlier this year stated that Mexico is on the same level
as Pakistan for the potential of “a rapid and sudden collapse.”

Cuellar, who does not think Mexico has reached a
“failed state” status, traveled to Mexico City two weeks ago to meet
with the Mexican secretary of defense and Mexico’s attorney general, asking
them what more assistance the U.S. can provide.

“If you ask the Mexicans what’s the biggest thing we can
do, it’s stop the flow of guns,” he said, adding that during his visit he viewed
a large cache of seized weapons. “A lot of (the guns) were from the U.S. but
some were from China, Bulgaria, and other places.”

According to ATF, 95 percent of the weapons used by drug
cartels came from the U.S.

Under the Merida Initiative, initiated by President
George W. Bush, the U.S. has committed to provide Mexico with $1.4 billion over
three years to fight the drug cartels. The omnibus spending bill that is
currently caught up in the Senate carries $405 million designated for the
program.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas), who sits on the House
Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, said he hasn’t seen much
violence spilling over into his district, which spans nearly all of Texas’ border with Mexico. But, he added, he is still very concerned
about the situation.

“One thing we’re working on from Homeland Security is to
beef up from a border patrol perspective, from the passage back and forth
perspective, and also not to shoot ourselves in the foot as far as trade; our
economies are directly tied in to each other,” he said.

Rodriguez, who was born in Mexico and has spent nearly 10
years in Congress, said there may be a silver lining to the influx of violence.

“I hate to say this but the fact that that’s occurring
right now is a good sign that they’re (the drug cartels) not in control,” he
said. “In other words, if you don’t hear any noise anywhere, it
doesn’t mean that it’s okay, it just means that one group is in control.”

But the unrest does not ease the concern of Franks, whose
district borders Phoenix, where police reported an average of one
kidnapping a day last year linked to Mexican drug cartels.

“I take it personal in that I have two little 7-month-old babies,” Franks said. “If lawlessness like that is not contained, it almost
always has a tendency to grow more and more bold and broad and a lot of times
these kidnap victims are held for ransom, so they may say, ‘Why not kidnap a
rich American kid?’”

“They make a mistake if they do that because I think that
would finally get the attention of the American government to the point where
we responded.”