WikiLeaks: Mexican drug war gets Calderon 'down'

MEXICO'S four-year assault on drug cartels lacks a clear strategy and a modernised military, and suffers from infighting among security agencies, according to US State Department cables leaked to WikiLeaks....

The cables call into question many of the efforts publicly touted by the two countries, from the use of the Mexican army, which is described as outdated, slow and risk averse, to the United States' $1.4 billion Merida Initiative, which is seen as ill-conceived and doing little so far to fight drug traffickers.

In one cable, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asks about how the stress is affecting President Felipe Calderon's "personality and management style,'' while a cable by U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual notes that Calderon has admitted to having a tough year and has appeared "down'' in meetings....

"Calderon has aggressively attacked Mexico's drug-trafficking organisations but has struggled with an unwieldy and uncoordinated interagency and spiraling rates of violence that have made him vulnerable to criticism that his anti-crime strategy has failed,'' reads a January 29 memo called "Scenesetter for Opening of the Defence Bilateral Working Group'' that also criticises competition among Mexican security agencies, corruption and Mexico's abysmally low prosecution rate.