Rice visits Mexico for a meeting about its drug war

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The Bush administration signaled its alarm about Mexico's vicious drug war by sending the American secretary of state on Wednesday to a two-day meeting on improving cross-border cooperation in the battle against the country's powerful drug cartels.

The Bush administration increasingly sees the violent clashes in Mexico as a threat to American security, and the lawlessness was high on the agenda when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived on Wednesday in Puerto Vallarta for meetings with her local counterpart, Patricia Espinosa. The Mexicans had sought the high-level visit to press for greater coordination with the United States in their fight against the heavily armed cartels, but the world economic crisis was also discussed.

Rice's arrival was the latest in a series of visits this month alone by top-level administration officials. Attorney General Michael Mukasey met with his counterpart in Mexico City several weeks back. Last week, John Walters, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, made the rounds of the Mexican capital.

The visits are indications of the Bush administration's desire to lend a hand to President Felipe Calderón's government, which has made fighting the traffickers the centerpiece of its agenda but has nonetheless seen security around the country deteriorate.

"There is a great deal of stress and strain being placed on the Calderón administration in Mexico, and we want to show our support," said a State Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

On Wednesday, Mexican authorities were touting the arrest of Jesús Zambada García, a high-level trafficker from the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, after a shootout with the police in Mexico City.

The Mexican government's fight against traffickers comes with considerable risk, because cartel leaders have singled out for assassination numerous law enforcement officials engaged in the antidrug campaign. Calderón has said that he has received numerous threats since he started his antidrug offensive upon taking office nearly two years ago.

Even though the White House successfully pushed through Congress $400 million in aid for Mexico's antidrug effort, Calderón has complained of the need for even more focused attention from the United States. Not only is America the world's largest market for illegal narcotics, but it also provides much of the weaponry used by Mexican cartels.

The violence has directly affected American government facilities. The American Consulate in Monterrey was attacked this month by a gunman who fired several shots at the building and another man who lofted a grenade, which did not detonate. Several days later, after a visit to the building by the American ambassador to Mexico, Antonio O. Garza, gunshots rang out nearby and the consulate was closed for the day.

In Ciudad Juárez, a border city that has experienced more than 1,000 killings this year as part of a raging battle among traffickers, American officials recently reported a series of muggings near the consulate there. Visa applicants visiting the building have been warned not to use cash.

The American Embassy in Mexico City, meanwhile, upgraded its travel alert in recent days for Americans visiting Mexico, warning that drug cartels posed a significant danger, especially along the border. "Firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico but particularly in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juárez," the alert said. "The situation in northern Mexico remains fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements cannot be predicted."

During his visit to Mexico last week, Walters heaped praise on Calderón for his "courageous leadership" in taking on the cartels. But he also expressed concern about the spillover effects of the drug war on the United States.

"Some of these groups not only engage in crime and violence in Mexico, but they come across, kidnap, murder, carry out assassinations," he told reporters, noting that the intensity of the violence was still much higher south of the border than north of it.

"Our goal is to reduce the period of suffering as rapidly as possible by bringing these people to justice," he said. "That's what this is all about on both sides of the border."

Walters, a vehement opponent of drug legalization, backed a proposal by Calderón not to prosecute people caught carrying relatively small amounts of illegal narcotics, including cocaine and heroin. Under Calderón's plan, addicts would be treated differently from traffickers and would avoid jail if they agreed to undergo treatment, not unlike similar programs in some parts of the United States. "I don't think that's legalization," Walters said.

Another proposal, put forward recently by a Mexico City lawmaker belonging to an opposition party, would legalize the carrying of small amounts of marijuana. That proposal has been roundly criticized by Mexico's political establishment and is not expected to advance.

Elisabeth Malkin and Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting.