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Two very different pieces tonight: first, Michael joins Anderson Cooper in the NY studio and David Gergen (by video) to discuss the budget plans as they will affect the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then, his "360 Dispatch" about the cartel wars in Juarez, Mexico, followed by more discussion with Anderson.
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ANDERSON
COOPER: Well, tonight a trip to one of the most
dangerous cities on earth, not in Iraq or Afghanistan
or Darfur. We're talking about a place just across
the border from El Paso, Texas.
Mexico is on the -- well, some say it's on the brink
of civil war. Drug cartels ruling large areas across
the border, are in control of areas, intimidating
police, mayors. Thousands have been killed. The
government seems helpless sometimes against the
violence, and the danger is spreading here into the
U.S.
Mexican gangs are turning Phoenix into a
kidnap-for-ransom capital. Texas Governor Rick Perry
is begging Washington to send 1,000 troops to the
border, and the State Department is urging students
on spring break to be careful.
Also this week the U.S. attorney general announced a
massive drug raid and roundup.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: More than 750 people
have been arrested in the United States and also in
Mexico. More than $59 million in illegal drug
proceeds and large amounts of narcotics and weapons
have been seized in the United States by law
enforcement authorities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The Justice Department says more than -- the
drug cartels operate in more than 230 cities in the
United States.
There's going to be more weapons, more drug and
death. Tonight Michael Ware brings you to the front
lines in this surging battle. It's in the city of
Juarez. It's a city that is under siege in many ways,
only a few miles from America.
But first I want to warn you: some of the images
you're going to see are difficult to watch, but the
story, we think, is important. Here's Michael's "360
Dispatch."
(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: Marisela died close to the border crossing,
just yards from U.S. soil. It was her passenger who
was the gunman's target. He was shot multiple times.
She was killed by a single shot to the chest. 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: This sign says it all: a cartel vowing to kill
one person every 48 hours until this man, the chief
of police, stands down. At first he refused to go
until, on one of the days when we were there, and
he'd finally had enough, after the cartel had killed
eight of his officers in less than a week.
In the hours following his resignation, 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.
(voice-over) Now the mayor's family is being
targeted, a cartel threatening to behead them
wherever they are. Police in the U.S. suspect the
cartel is planning to cross into Texas to get to the
family where they're hiding.
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.
"This is not going to be won quickly," says Mexican
government spokesman Enrique Torres. "While we know
the monster is big, we don't have any idea just how
big it is."
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)
COOPER: It's amazing, also, I mean, not just the
violence there but how it's spilling over into the
United States. The Justice Department saying the
cartels are operating in 230 American cities.
WARE: Absolutely. I mean, first there's the
distribution networks. I mean, by and large the
Mexican cartels have taken over from the Colombian
cartels in terms of the power.
Then, once they ship the drugs to America, they have
to distribute it. Now they do that cutting deals with
American gangs, but obviously they need people in
place. They're spread throughout the United States to
distribute. Then there's their
intelligence-gathering. They have informants across
the U.S. border.
And indeed, an American official confirmed to me what
many in El Paso, Texas, were saying: the cartels will
cross over into America, kidnap who they want, and
take them back to Mexico and murder them.
But let's not forget, this whole war is fueled, first
by America's demand for illicit drugs; and, secondly,
it's being fought with American weapons that have
been smuggled back over the border.
COOPER: Just incredible. Michael Ware, appreciate it.
Thanks for going down there.