mexico News- Mar. 17

Posted by the Generals on March 21, 2011, 12:37 pm
187.146.128.251

Subject: Mexico News DAILY March 17, 2011 LatinNews Daily - 17 March 2011 US confirms Mexico anti-drugs flights Development: On 16 March the US State Department confirmed that it had used drones in anti-drug trafficking operations over Mexico. Significance: President Felipe Calderón has yet to comment. Indeed in his official report to the Mexican senate on his recent trip to the US, he made no mention of the drones, which were first used only last month (February 2011). The US line is that the drones were being used at the suggestion and with the permission of the Mexican government. Key points: • Alejandro Poiré, the technical secretary of the Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, said that the use of drones was part of US cooperation arrangements with Mexico and confirmed that Mexico had requested the use of drones for specific missions. Poiré implied that there were no implications for Mexican sovereignty because all such operations were run by the Mexican air force. • The revelation that the US is deploying drones over Mexico is another indication that the US, increasingly, is doing things in Mexico without, necessarily, telling the Mexican government. ‘The New York Times’ reported on 15 March that the US had started to use high altitude drones in Mexico in February 2011. Calderón has also yet to comment on operation ‘Fast & Furious’, which began in 2009, under which the US deliberately supplied assault rifles to Mexican gangs in order to track the gangs’ supply chain. • Separately, John Muller, the director general of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told the House of Representative’s justice committee on 16 March that one “couldn’t talk about success [in Mexico’s war against the gangs] given the number of deaths and atrocities south of the border.”

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