MEXICO CITY, Feb. 26, 2009
Mexico Drug Violence May Be Reaching Peak
More Than 1,000 People Have Died In Two Months, But Attorney General Says Cartels Are "Melting Down"
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Mexican army soldiers and federal police guard the perimeter around the site where the Interior Secretary and members of the federal security cabinet are gathered to discuss the ongoing wave of violence in the border state of Chihuahua, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Feb. 25, 2009. (AP Photo)
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Play CBS Video Video Mexican Drug Dealers Busted The DEA has seized massive amounts of drugs, cash, and weapons in an effort to halt a massive North American trafficking network. But, as Bill Whitaker reports, violent drug wars continue in Mexico.
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Video Looking The Other Way Bob Schieffer comments on Mexico's little-known war among drug cartels that is creating a crisis within border towns.
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Video Exploding Violence In Mexico Mexican authorities are hunting members of a drug gang who may have escaped a deadly shootout. Warring cartels are fighting to takeover the $14 billion a year drug industry. Bill Whitaker reports.
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Fast Facts Mexico Learn about the people, economy and history.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Calderon said his government has not "lost any part — any single part — of the Mexican territory" to organized crime. He also called "absolutely false" the idea that Mexico is in danger of becoming a failed state if the violence continues.
That concern has been a major topic of discussion in Mexico and along the U.S. border since the U.S. military first raised it in November. The Pentagon report on potential future threats singled out Mexico and Pakistan as countries where state control is at risk.
Meanwhile, Mexico's federal attorney general said Thursday that more than 1,000 people have been killed in the first eight weeks of this year, but he believes the drug violence is reaching its peak.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora also said that 6,290 people were killed last year in drug violence - the most specific accounting yet of killings that doubled the 2007 toll.
Medina Mora said the world's most powerful drug cartels are "melting down" as they engage in turf wars and fight off a nationwide government crackdown.
The government doesn't expect to stop drug trafficking, but hopes to make it so difficult that smugglers no longer use Mexico as their conduit to the United States, he said: "We want to raise the opportunity cost of our country as a route of choice."
He applauded cross-border efforts to arrest more than 700 Sinaloa cartel members in the United States, but called for more U.S. prosecutions of people who sell weapons illegally to the cartels.
He also would like more U.S. efforts to stop drug profits from flowing south to Mexico: Mexico has spent $6.5 billion over the last two years, on top of its normal public security budget, on the fight against drugs, but that falls short of the $10 billion Mexican drug gangs bring in annually, he said.
Mexico has no choice but to press ahead with its fight, he said, predicting that violence will ease.
"I believe we are reaching the peak," he said, but added that the government won't achieve its objective "until Mexican citizens feel they have achieved tranquility."
While violence in Tijuana is down sharply from last year, killings have spiked in the largest border city, Ciudad Juarez. The city of 1.3 million across from El Paso, Texas, is now the most worrisome of a number of hotspots, Medina Mora said.
"But this is not reflecting the power of these groups," he said "It is reflecting how they are melting down."
The attorney general's remarks come on the same day as Mexico announced it will deploy extra troops and federal police to Ciudad Juarez, across the border from Texas, where the police chief recently bowed to crime gang demands that he resign.
Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont did not say how many more soldiers and police would be sent to Ciudad Juarez but promised that the reinforcements "would be visible to the residents."
Gomez-Mont said the agents would be deployed in the coming weeks. His comments came after a meeting with officials in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million inhabitants across the border from El Paso that has been battered by a wave of drug cartel-related violence.
In a sign that Mexico's violence is reaching across the border, federal agents rounded up more than 750 suspects in a wide-ranging crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating inside the United States on Wednesday.
Some of the other numbers behind those arrests are staggering, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker. The DEA seized more than 23 tons of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines; plus dozens of planes, boats and cars; more than $63 million in cash; and scores of weapons in the operation.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- I disagree with the, "clique", comment. I don't go to meetings on a specific day of the week. I don't donate money to an organization. I'm just me. Sometimes, I find someone here that feels/thinks the same as I do. We may,"gang up on y'all", so to speak. But you have to admit, there are many more of you. hehe
Posted by gravyboat63 at 7:25 PM : Feb 28, 2009
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oh come on..never caught yourself with the 'liberals' or 'conservative'..or did they ever ask you where you from..and you say i am an "whatver"..we NEED TO seperate ourselves ..the REASON WHY YOU ARE EVEN DEBATING is based on the issue that we have SEPARATE IDEAS....
so you are telling me you are from another planet?? hell you even defined me as 'religious'.. - Reply to this comment
- No, I haven't noticed that. I do, however, notice believers attacking non believers here and elsewhere in the internet. "if you're not with us, you're against us"...Sort of like GW?
Posted by gravyboat63 at 5:55 PM : Feb 28, 2009
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well ..i think 'non-believers attacking believers' are more common. come on everybody is tribal..WE DEFINE OURSELVES by the little 'clique' we belong.
even non-believers are guilty of that..that is why they create the athiest clique. - Reply to this comment
- gravyboat63
....have you ever observed that athiests has this unnatural FEAR of GOD..the very mention of that word sends them into a frenzy..anyyyyyONE that talks outside of their norm is a 'christian'. - Reply to this comment
- LMMFAO!!! Thanks for explaining to God boy about the G. As far as your explanation about my screen name, that was funny, I don't care WHO ya are!
Truth be told, I never worked a shrimp boat, and I've never shyte myself, although, reading your post made me come close...
I did hang out with Lt. Dan some though...
Posted by gravyboat63 at 7:42 AM : Feb 28, 2009
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GOD???? that is pretty assumptions declaration..I think you have this pretty jaded view of life..
so which GOD is it?? my cyber name IS DEE enigma that exist between god and liberals..AND YOU JUST PROVED IT - Reply to this comment
- We all have a crutch. Yours is the big G. Nice to know you. Hypocrite.
Posted by gravyboat63 at 9:24 PM : Feb 27, 2009
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Lets pretend that i am not as hip as you are in terms of drugs but what the hell is a 'g'? - Reply to this comment
- Simple Solution- start Executing all the Drug Cartel Kingpins, immediately, and their runners and dealers, its not debateable nor open for discussion,, trial waved and immediate execution begins !
- Reply to this comment
- You are "better????" Better than what?
Posted by expatriate2 at 1:38 PM : Feb 27, 2009
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better than mexico...... - Reply to this comment
- millions of mexican ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS risking life and limb to leave that septic tank we call mexico to get a get here kinda indictes that..YES WE ARE BETTER..
Posted by GODSnLIBERALS
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How about a little history lesson? You are better? You have a divorce rate six times higher than Mexico. You have more people incarcerated than any nation in the world. You still consider the primitive concept of a death penalty to be necessary. And you got "better" by robbing Mexico of its legal territories just as you robbed David Kalakawa, the King of Hawaii of his lands. Just as you robbed Spain of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico. Just as you had an extermination policy for the American Indian to get his lands.
You are "better????" Better than what?
Posted by expatriate2 at 1:38 PM : Feb 27, 2009
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again..there are millions of ILLEGAL MEXICANS RISKING LIFE AND LIMB TO GET OUT of Mexico for BETTER LIFE HERE..
Mexico and mexicans ARE OBVIOUSLY MORE THAN WILLING TO TURN THIER COUNTRY INTO A DRUG NATION to make us 'feel better'..
maybe you should ask them - Reply to this comment
- this sounds like a cliche' but................
life is a lot better without any addiction... - Reply to this comment
- Blaming the evil of drug dealing and violence, including kidnapping, torture and murder on the addict is ridiculous. It's a clear example of "blame the victim"----so I guess a woman is the guilty one if a madman rapes her because she was foolishly flirted with a stranger. Many if not most human beings are capable of succumbing to the illness of an addiction. What is clearly evil that cold-hearted monsters capitalize on this weakness by seducing others to succumb to their weaker self.
Posted by hopetrumps at 9:26 AM : Feb 27, 2009
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maybe we should blame you... - Reply to this comment
- We will be traveiling to Cabo on 3/25/09 - 04/01/09 is this something we should consider cancelling?
- Reply to this comment
- Blaming the evil of drug dealing and violence, including kidnapping, torture and murder on the addict is ridiculous. It's a clear example of "blame the victim"----so I guess a woman is the guilty one if a madman rapes her as a result of her foolishly flirting with a stranger after a few drinks at a bar. Many if not most human beings are capable of succumbing to the illness of an addiction. What is clearly evil that cold-hearted monsters capitalize on this weakness by seducing others to succumb to their weaker self.
- Reply to this comment
- Blaming the evil of drug dealing and violence, including kidnapping, torture and murder on the addict is ridiculous. It's a clear example of "blame the victim"----so I guess a woman is the guilty one if a madman rapes her because she was foolishly flirted with a stranger. Many if not most human beings are capable of succumbing to the illness of an addiction. What is clearly evil that cold-hearted monsters capitalize on this weakness by seducing others to succumb to their weaker self.
- Reply to this comment
- STOP GEORGE SOROS!!!
George Soros is a British agent assigned to continue the 'opium wars' which built the British East India Company Financial Empire.
If the CIA or FBI is watching just look at the channel of money and weapons into Mexico by groups promoting 'drug legalization' by George Soros. - Reply to this comment
- "Mexico Drug Violence May Be Reaching Peak"
Ah, yeah, sure, right.
How much is that oceanfront property in Arizona? - Reply to this comment
- Why not? Your Congress spent the last eight years trying to convince you that your government was good.
Posted by expatriate2 at 8:40 PM : Feb 26, 2009
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millions of mexican ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS risking life and limb to leave that septic tank we call mexico to get a get here kinda indictes that..YES WE ARE BETTER.. - Reply to this comment
- I personally believe in legalizing ALL class I, II, and III drugs that are currently either totally illegal or only available w/a doctors' prescription. AND the drugs should be government subsidized so that the are available to all for pennies a day. My reasoning is simple. People who have their head screwed on straight don't do drugs no matter how available they are & durg users are, well, losers. Six months, a year tops, after drugs are legalized and made cheap the druggies will have killed themselves off and the rest of us can get on with living our lives.
- Reply to this comment
- legalized crystal meth ..is legalizing murder..
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- Posted by gunownerdan at 2:10 PM : Feb 26, 2009
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you are right..no one dies of an overdose with weed however a LOT OF PEOPLE DIE because they become unstable AFTER THEY SMOKED WEED. - Reply to this comment
- GODSnLIBERALS, Government propaganda would have you believe marijuana is very toxic and poisonous but there has never been any proof that anyone has ever died from an overdose unlike alcohol or even aspirin! The fact is most of the harm that is associated with marijuana comes directly from the failed policy of prohibition.
Posted by gunownerdan at 2:10 PM : Feb 26, 2009
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I am not worried about 'weed'
if we are to legalize drugs. crystal meth, herion, opium, cocaine will be able to 'trojan horse' themselves to legality..can you imagine the devistation that would create. it would have enough money and motivation to HIRE MARKETING AGENCIES, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPment to create more potent drugs...ALL LEGAL..then what??
how are you put this genie back in the bottle?? THEY WOULD HAVE high priced lawyers ready to rip you a new one..JUST LIKE THE TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL INDUSTRY..
then what??? the tax revenues you created might not be enough to fix this - Reply to this comment
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