Drug Wars Get Attention From Cabinet
March 22, 2009
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will appear on Capitol Hill specifically to address the crisis for the first time. The hearing, before the full Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, also will offer the highest level of attention from Congress on the issue thus far, following a string of subcommittee hearings in both chambers during the past two weeks.
Written by Cam Simpson, The Wall Street Journal
Two Obama cabinet members work this week to assuage concerns both at home and abroad about the drug wars along the Mexican border.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will appear on Capitol Hill specifically to address the crisis for the first time. The hearing, before the full Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, also will offer the highest level of attention from Congress on the issue thus far, following a string of subcommittee hearings in both chambers during the past two weeks.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to arrive in Mexico the same day. The Obama administration has pledged continuing support for Mexican President Felipe Calderón's crackdown on Mexican drug lords who are warring in the nation's north over turf to sell drugs in Mexico and export them to the U.S. A new strategy, including more U.S. agents on the border, could be announced as soon as this week.
During the Senate hearing he is holding on Wednesday, Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who is chairman of the homeland committee, is likely to raise his concerns about Ms. Napolitano's proposed spending plan on border defense for next year. In a letter to his Senate colleagues released last week, Mr. Lieberman pushed for an extra $100 million to counter Mexican drug-trafficking groups by targeting the guns and money from inside the U.S. that flow south across the border to the drug lords.
The government is girding for a possible Katrina-style disaster along the 2,000-mile-long Mexican border that would involve thousands of refugees flooding into the U.S. to escape surging violence in northern Mexico, or gunbattles beginning to routinely spill across the border.
Ms. Napolitano, formerly Arizona's governor, has said she inherited contingency plans from the Bush administration to handle such events, but she told reporters last week that the blueprints were being re-examined because they were crafted without input from the state and local officials who would be among the first to respond.
Ms. Napolitano also will visit Mexico next week. President Barack Obama will do the same later in April, the White House announced last week.
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