Chertoff: Mexico Troop Reports Overblown

[Eugene]

Chertoff: Mexico Troop Reports Overblown


Thursday January 19, 2006 9:47 AM

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Reports of Mexican soldiers frequently crossing onto U.S. soil are overblown,
and many of the incidents are just mistakes, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

Chertoff's remarks followed a newspaper report that Mexican military units had crossed into the
United States 216 times since 1996. The report by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario on
Sunday was based on a Homeland Security Department report.

Chertoff estimated there were only about 20 crossings a year, and said "a significant number of
those are innocent things" in which police or military from Mexico step across the border because
they're not aware of exactly where the line is.

"I think to create the image that somehow there is a deliberate effort by the Mexican military
to cross the border would be to traffic in scare tactics," he said Wednesday.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-5555983,00.html

Previous DU discussion: Mexican troops aiding smugglers, says report

[rodeodance]

1. Lou Doobs was smacking Chertoff last night for this.

[0007]

2. Here's more

The head of a labor union that represents about 10,500 U.S. Border Patrol agents dismissed Chertoff's remarks as a ``diplomatic response'' to a long-running problem on the U.S.-Mexico border.

``It really doesn't surprise me that he's playing the diplomat,'' said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. ``This is a guy whose time on the border can be measured in hours, not years.''

Bonner said Mexican soldiers - possibly some Army deserters - are providing protection for drug runners.

``It's all about the drugs,'' he said. ``The lure of the riches of the cartel, they're too many for many of their solders to resist, whether they're corrupted on active duty or take up with other bands.''

[fasttense]

3. Well with Communist China courting South America and

Cuba in a mood for diplomatic maneuvers, ignoring incursions by a foreign army seems just plain stupid.

[EFerrari]

4. Unless if you are in the drug business, which the CIA

and other agencies has been from time to time.

[Tanuki]

5. Given Chertoff's incompetence during the Katrina debacle,

why would anyone believe he is not equally clueless in this or any other matter? Sorry, but my memories of that jerk standing by uselessly while New Orleans drowned are still too strong to trust him with anything of consequence, much less our national security.

[bmbmd]

6. 1996-2006 that's ten years.

Ten years times twenty "excursions" per year equals 200. Two hundred is not two hundred sixteen. Glad we got that cleared up.