AC:
"Unfortunately...there's no ready-made answer."
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Length: 4:54
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Michael updates the latest from the Mexican drug
war. First, a VO looking at a daring prison break
(accomplished with the help of corrupt law
enforcement personnel) and at the overall toll the
cartels are exacting upon the local population;
followed by a Q&A with John King (guest-hosting
from DC.)
JOHN KING: Tonight, a troubling new development in
"The War Next Door."
Mexico has vowed to crush the murderous drug cartels.
And President Obama has pledged hundreds of millions
of dollars to help. But is it enough to stop the
violence and keep it from spreading across the
border?
As Michael Ware found out, the suspects aren't just
foot soldiers and smugglers; they're also public
servants and mayors.
Here's Michael's report and analysis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Watch
closely to what you're about to see. It's incredible
-- grainy security camera video at a prison in
Mexico.
Heavily-armed and obviously well-trained federal
police appear to be sweeping in to transfer
maximum-security prisoners. But this is not what it
looks like, for these men are not police. Fake police
officers arrived in this convoy, their uniforms
legitimate, their cars marked as cop cars. And within
two minutes and 55 seconds, they had scooped up 53
inmates, stolen 23 guns, and driven back out the gate
and away.
Of the 53 prisoners freed, at least 12 were cartel
members. And why many of the 53 were in that cell
block that night is a mystery, as they were meant to
have been held elsewhere. Later, 44 prison guards
were questioned.
When we patrolled neighborhoods in Juarez with
Mexican police, we knew corruption is a deeply
entrenched way of life here. The corruption is so
bad, honest officials don't know who to trust. After
all, just this week, federal police arrested ten
mayors of Mexican cities and 17 other officials. They
charged them with corruption.
And it's the latest escalation in the 2 1/2-year war,
a war that has seen President Felipe Calderon put
45,000 troops into battle against the cartels, and
it's a war that has so far taken the lives of 7,499
people.
Most of the dead were cartel foot soldiers, but many
were innocent Mexican civilians caught in the cross
fire. And a few Americans have been killed, as well.
When we visited the war's front lines in Juarez,
right next to the Texas city of El Paso, we found the
story of this mother of two. Marisela Molinar, a U.S.
resident. Murdered, gunned down within yards of the
El Paso border crossing as cartel assassins targeted
her boss, who was sitting beside her.
Now another American is dead, this time a 15-year-old
high school student. She died while sitting with her
family at a baptism party in Juarez. She was cut down
by a stray round from a firefight that swept past the
house.
All this bloodshed, and for what? A war U.S. and
Mexican law enforcement officers agree cannot be won.
At least not the way it's being fought now. A war
fueled by America's appetite for drugs and one
commonly waged by cartel members with U.S. weapons in
their hands smuggled south across the border.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Michael Ware with us now.
Michael, horrific and depressing reporting there. So
you were there. If nobody trusts anybody, what do the
officials you talked to say needs to happen to win?
WARE: Well, unfortunately, John, there's no
ready-made answer. I mean, even if you probe these
officials -- and they're in such a predicament, John.
I mean, I was in the police headquarters of Juarez,
the police headquarters itself, the command center,
and there were officers there who couldn't talk to me
in front of the other officers, or factions who
couldn't talk in front of others.
And indeed, when I was talking to someone from the
Mexican president's office in Juarez, I was told an
anecdote where a crackdown on a stolen car ring
resulted in a firefight between Mexican police and
Mexican army over who would get to steal the cars. So
that's the nature of the problem we're talking about,
just on the corruption front. Let alone the
organization, sophistication of the cartels, the
support within the people, the improbability of the
terrain. It all adds up to the fact that there's no
quick fix here.
The two most readily obvious extremes are: the first,
you cut down the demand. Legalize these drugs in
America, and that immediately evaporates the need for
organized crime to provide them.
Either that or: we see 45,000 Mexican army troops in
the field. You can militarize the American border,
send the 101st Army Division into Juarez...but no one
wants to see that either. There's no quick fix, mate.
KING: No quick fix and some depressing reporting
there, Michael. Michael Ware, thanks so much.
WARE: Thanks, mate.