"We should have done more for Mexico," says Condoleeza Rice

The former secretary of state to president George W. Bush says that the United States "should have done more" to assist Mexico in its war with the drug cartels, apart from purely military and financial aid.

The remarks appeared in Rice's memoir, No Higher Honor, published yesterday in the United States. Rice served the Bush administration as national security adviser from 2001 to 2005, and as secretary of state from 2005 to 2009.

"I wished we had done more. There are parts of Mexico which are beginning to resemble a failed state," wrote Rice.

Rice recalled a meeting she had with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa in October 2008. "We were in Puerto Vallarta, relaxing near the beach, and I remember well the moment, and the impact of some of the statistics she gave me. She told me that over 5,000 government officials had been murdered, and that thousands of civilians had been caught up in the violence."

Rice offered no details on what the Bush administration might have done differently. In 2007 the former U.S. president met with Felipe Calderón and the two hammered out a plan known as the Mérida Initiative, which calls for military and intelligence cooperation in the war against the drug cartels. The United States also agreed to give Mexico $1.5 billion in direct aid, but only a fraction of that money has been delivered.

Calderón has repeatedly said that until the United States brings its voracious drug appetite under control, and takes firm measures to stop the flow of military assault weapons into Mexico, it will be impossible to eliminate the cartels. Most of them now operate at the international level, in drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises.

Earlier this week a U.S. Justice Dept. official told a congressional investigation committee that former president Bush had authorized the confidential sale of arms to Mexican drug dealers in a weapons tracking program known as Wide Receiver, which was in existence from 2006 to 2007: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/11/64000-us-made-weapons-have-been-used-by.html.

More on the Mérida Initiative: http://mexicogulfreporter-supplement.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-us-ambassador-to-mexico-stands.html.
Mérida Initiative takes off in Maryland: http://mexicogulfreporter-supplement.blogspot.com/2011/11/merida-initiative-takes-off-in-maryland.html.