AAM: "This is literally on
America's doorstep."
Monday, March 02, 2009
Length: 6:11
LARGE (85.9 MB)
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SMALL (7.6 MB)
Michael is back in Mexico and talks with John
Roberts about the cartel war. A slightly shortened
version of his piece from last week airs again, and
he updates the situation with some new details.
JOHN
ROBERTS: A drug-fueled battle on America's doorstep
so violent and bloody that we pulled our war
correspondent to cover it. Michael Ware takes us to a
place that's now considered by some to be the most
dangerous city on earth, a place where Americans are
now getting caught in the crossfire.
There's Michael. He's joining us in just a moment.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Imagine gun battles just like that one going
on on American streets in broad daylight. It could
happen. And for that reason, we have been focusing on
the drug war on the Mexican border that is getting
more and more violent, and spilling over on to
American soil.
Our Michael Ware joins us now from Mexico City. And
we should warn you that some of the video in his
report may be disturbing.
Michael, you spend a lot of time in Ciudad Juarez,
which is just south of El Paso, Texas, a place that
really for many people is ground zero of the drug war
there across the border.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT:
Absolutely, John. I mean, last year alone, 1,600
people were killed in that city, which essentially is
a sister city to El Paso, Texas, so close, it's
divided by no more than a fence and a river.
So, this is literally on America's doorstep. And this
is all being fought in a drug war fueled by American
demand for illicit drugs and battled out with
American weapons on both sides of this conflict.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE (voice-over): This is how American Jose
Molinar knew his wife was dead. He saw these
television pictures of her bullet-riddled car
broadcast from just across the boarder in Juarez
City, Mexico, minutes from his Texas home.
JOSE MOLINAR: As soon as the image came up, I saw her
truck, and I knew what had happened right then and
there.
WARE: His wife, Marisela, a U.S. resident and mother
of two, was gunned down doing a last-minute favor,
giving a Juarez government lawyer a ride to go
shopping.
MOLINAR: Wrong place, wrong time. That's the only way
I can describe that.
WARE: This is the cartel war in Mexico, a conflict
raging on America's doorstep, a conflict in which
Juarez police officers like this one, under attack
from a drug gang, are fighting for their lives, while
the drug cartels are battling throughout the city for
control of a lucrative drug route into the United
States.
Sixteen hundred people killed in this city last year.
That's three times more than the most murderous city
in America, and 50 of them were police officers. This
year, in just two months, 400 more already murdered.
We saw the most recent victims laying in the city's
morgue, overflowing with bodies, many unidentified
cartel members destined for mass graves. They'd been
brutally killed by rivals: beheaded, tortured,
strafed with bullets.
But now the cartels are renewing a favorite tactic:
intimidating government leaders. This time they're
doing it by killing cops one by one.
MAYOR JOSE REYES FERRIZ, CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO: They
started killing police officers, and not while they
were doing police work but when they were coming out
of their homes and getting into their cars to go to
the police station.
WARE: We rode on patrol with police officers out on
the streets, the entire force on high alert, the
cartel war grinding on.
(on camera) And it's going to be a long war with most
of the advantages in the cartels' favor. Their gunmen
outnumber these police, and they're better armed. And
the body count continues to rise.
Meanwhile, over the past year, the Mexican army has
moved into Juarez. Over 2,000 soldiers sent as part
of a huge operation that has 45,000 troops combating
the cartels across Mexico.
And though the U.S. this year is giving Mexico about
$400 million to combat the cartels, officials on both
sides of the border privately agree. The war as it's
fought now cannot be won, which is something Jose
Molinar's wife probably knew before she was gunned
down.
(on camera) This drug war in Juarez robbed you of
your mother. I mean, how do you carry that?
ALBA PRIETO: Day by day, just... I always think she's
at work.
WARE (voice-over): And the unwinnable war that killed
her mother rages on.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WARE: And it's been another terrible week of
bloodshed in Juarez, marked particularly yesterday,
by reports of the death of two more police officers,
a husband and his pregnant wife, who was also a
police officer. And what we hear now is that the
Mexican government has sent more than 1,000 extra
soldiers from the Mexican army to reinforce those
already in this troubled city -- John.
ROBERTS: It's stunning, the level of violence going
on in these Mexican border cities, Michael. And
government officials in Mexico say a lot of it is to
blame on guns flowing from America into Mexico. How
much of a problem is that really?
WARE: Well, over the past few years, the American
authorities say that they're aware of at least 62,000
weapons that have been trafficked from America to
Mexico. And I can tell you, looking at some of the
weapons that the police there have seized from the
cartels, it's extraordinary. American hand grenades.
American assault rifles. And indeed even, American
.50 caliber Barrett sniper rifles that can kill a
person at about a mile. Now, I've only seen those in
the hands of marine and army snipers in Iraq, John.
ROBERTS: Obviously a big problem down there. Michael
Ware for us this morning from Mexico City. Thanks
very much. As a result of this traffic in weapons
between the United States and Mexico, Eric Holder,
the attorney general, has been talking about
reinstating the assault weapons ban.