GOP opposes crime measure

A House vote scheduled tomorrow on a $500 million initiative to combat drug violence on the U.S.-Mexico border is under fire from ranking Republicans, who say the measure lacks accountability.

They also criticize a decision to attach the initiative to a spending bill to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mexico favors the so-called Merida initiative, which is designed to fight drug-related crime in several Central American countries and Mexico.

But Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said the measure should not be linked to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The supplemental spending bill is the not the appropriate vehicle for this particular funding initiative,” Mr. Hunter told The Washington Times.

In a letter to President Bush on Friday, Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Ed Royce and Dana Rorhabacher of California and Cliff Stearns of Florida wrote that although “security cooperation remains important to our overall efforts of preventing illegal drugs [it is] “Mexico’s questionable drug-enforcement efforts and reputation for corruption within its government, police and military forces require that we proceed cautiously with the use of American taxpayer funds for this purpose.”

Mr. Hunter told The Times that “the legislation is intended to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the Mexican government’s half-hearted commitment to drug enforcement.”

The initiative was first discussed by Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Mr. Bush in March 2007.

An escalation of killings of Mexican police officers, three high-level officers since Friday alone, has prompted the State Department to plead for the bill’s passage.

“We’re shocked by the escalating violence against Mexican law-enforcement officials,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

“The recent murders of three high-level police officials by criminal syndicates and drug-trafficking cartels are a brutal reaction to President Calderon’s determination to fight organized crime,” he said.

Thomas A. Shannon Jr., assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told a congressional panel Thursday that the initiative is necessary and “the United States has a compelling strategic interest in moving quickly to reinforce our partnership with Central America to check illicit activity in the region.”

“Central America’s collective willingness to work with the United States and Mexico on these issues also represents an important opportunity,” Mr. Shannon said.

The initiative “provides an unprecedented opening to address security in coordination with neighbors whose countries form a bridge running from the Andes to the border of the United States,” he added.