| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2009 
Mexico Drug-War Aircraft Held Up by U.S. Red Tape
 Chris Hawley - Arizona Republic
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December 15, 2009
| | The body of an alleged drug dealer is seen covered by a sheet after being shot to death in front of his house in Tijuana, Mexico, in this Sept. 6, 2009 file photo. (AP/Guillermo Arias) | |
Mexico City - A storm of red tape has delayed delivery of most of the helicopters and airplanes that the United States has pledged to help Mexico's fight against drug traffickers, a U.S. government report says.
Although the first five helicopters are due to arrive this month, 15 other aircraft may not arrive until 2011, four years after Mexican officials first asked for them to help defeat increasingly well-armed drug cartels, the Government Accountability Office report says.
Aircraft account for half of a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package, known as the Merida Initiative, but have lagged far behind other purchases such as armored vehicles or X-ray machines, the report says. It blamed the bureaucracy involved in purchasing such high-tech aircraft.
In all, only $26 million, or 3 percent, of the first $830 million already appropriated for the Merida Initiative had been spent as of Sept. 30, said the report, which was released Dec. 3.
"It's frustrating," said Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, a member of the House subcommittee that oversees aid for Mexico. "The slow pace was something we didn't anticipate."
The delays come as Mexican authorities are locked in an increasingly bloody battle against the drug cartels. More than 13,000 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón dispatched troops to fight smugglers in December 2006.
Mexican authorities are also desperate to gain an edge in weapons. The cartels have added submarines, rocket launchers and even anti-aircraft guns to their arsenals in recent years. Assault rifles, bulletproof vests and helmets are now standard equipment for traffickers.
Mexico says it wants to use the aircraft to hunt down marijuana and poppy farms, speedboats carrying Colombian cocaine, small planes carrying marijuana, and the convoys of sport-utility vehicles that regularly roll into towns to carry out hits or attack police.
The government is also building a network of police bases, each with a heliport, so that authorities can send federal reinforcements to any part of the country within minutes.
Calderón first asked officially for U.S. help during a March 2007 summit with former U.S. President George W. Bush in the Mexican city of Merida. The two countries announced the resulting Merida Initiative aid package in October 2007.
About $649 million of the money already approved by Congress is earmarked for aircraft to help Mexico chase down smugglers. They include:
• Up to five UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters for the Mexican Air Force.
• Three Black Hawks for the Mexican Federal Police.
• Up to four Casa 235 Persuader surveillance airplanes for the Mexican Navy.
• Up to eight Bell 412 helicopters for the Mexican Air Force.
• Upgrades to Mexico's Cessna Citation surveillance planes.
The exact numbers of aircraft will depend on the prices negotiated with manufacturers. All of the aircraft are to come with pilot training, spare parts and three to four years of mechanical support from contractors.
The Mexican Federal Police have a few Black Hawks purchased with Mexican money, but most of the government's fleet is made up of aging Russian-made helicopters or slow, small observation planes.
Buying the U.S.-funded aircraft has proved time-consuming. Haggling over aircraft contracts takes three to six months, and the U.S. State Department has had to negotiate with Mexico and other agencies over equipment and delivery of the aircraft, the GAO report said.
In March, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted the helicopter purchases had been "cumbersome and challenging" and said her department would look at ways to speed up the process.
But it wasn't until September that the U.S. government signed contracts with Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. of Stratford, Conn., for the first three Black Hawk helicopters.
Building those helicopters will take an additional 12 to 18 months, the GAO report said, citing an unnamed State Department official. That would put their delivery date in late 2010 or early 2011.
The surveillance planes, meanwhile, will take even longer to build: 18 months to two years, the report said. The Department of Defense notified Congress in April that it was moving ahead with the delivery of one Casa Persuader to Mexico, but it was unclear whether a sales contract has been signed.
"The timeframes have not always been what one would like, and the flows of money have sometimes left something to be desired," said Rep. Jose Luis Ovando, chairman of the security committee in the Chamber of Deputies, Mexico's lower house of Congress.
Though the State Department controls Merida Initiative money, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was aware of the GAO report, which she characterized as "a little bit out of date." She said the spending was delayed, at least in part, early on as appropriate procedural spending safeguards were put in place.
"I think it is getting on track," Napolitano said Thursday during a meeting with The Arizona Republic. In the case of the Bell helicopters, government purchasers got lucky, the GAO report said. Fort Worth, Texas-based Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. already had several 412s in stock and was able to modify them for Mexico's purposes. The first five of those helicopters are expected to arrive in Mexico this month, the report said.
The State Department, meanwhile, said it is moving as quickly as it can.
In a written response to the GAO report, it acknowledged that the pace of purchases was "below our initial expectations" but noted that much of the unspent money will be paid to contractors in installments as aircraft are built.
It also noted it has already delivered other big-ticket items, including 26 armored vehicles, 30 ion scanners for detecting drugs and explosives, five X-ray vans and forensic equipment for tracing bullets. In addition, U.S. trainers are teaching investigative skills to thousands of Federal Police recruits at an academy in the central city of San Luis Potosí.
Republic reporter Dan Nowicki contributed to this article.
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