WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is in a better position to provide Mexico’s military with training, resources and intelligence as its southern neighbor battles deadly drug cartels, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence this year. In 2008 the toll doubled from the previous year to 6,290.
“I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past. Some of the old biases against cooperation with our — between our militaries and so on, I think, are being set aside,” Gates said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Gates praised Mexican President Felipe Calderon for taking on the cartels and sending the Mexican army into the fight.
“What I think people need to point out is the courage that Calderon has shown in taking this on, because one of the reasons it’s gotten as bad as it has is because his predecessors basically refused to do that,” he said.
President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said Obama and Calderon agreed to work together to stabilize the border when they met shortly before Obama’s inauguration.
Mexican authorities are outgunned by the drug cartels because the criminals are receiving their high-powered arms from the United States, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said last week, mirroring a similar report in the U.S.
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