U.S. Anti-Drug Plan Would Recast Legal System in Mexico

"SEDENA's role in interdiction fills a gap that no other agency can match," one of the documents says.

The plan endorses some shifts in strategy, including conducting inspections in the country's interior to prevent arms trafficking. As many as 2,000 weapons are smuggled from the United States into Mexico each day, according to a Mexican government estimate. Currently, Mexican inspectors primarily focus on land borders and seaports.

Arms trafficking has long been a sensitive subject. U.S. officials appear reluctant to draw attention to the flow of guns into Mexico because of concerns that the United States, already blamed for creating the drug market that makes Mexican cartels rich, will also be blamed for arming them. But talks on the aid package have brought more attention to the problem.

In a Capitol Hill hearing last week, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), ranking minority member on the Foreign Relations Committee, urged lawmakers to ensure that the U.S. aid includes provisions to stop the flow of guns into Mexico. "We do not want to create a self-defeating situation in which a critical foreign assistance program meant to assist a neighbor and enhance U.S. security is being undercut by an illegal flow of weapons originating from within our own borders," Lugar said.

The documents include unusually blunt criticisms of Mexico, with one declaring that "there is widespread popular distrust within Mexico for its law enforcement institutions."

In justifying $15 million for training prosecutors and developing a system of court clerks, the document states that "the current court management system is inefficient and ripe for corruption."

Corruption is a theme that runs throughout the plan. Nearly $29 million would be spent on hardware and software to support an ongoing attorney general's office reform project intended to "help eliminate impunity, delays and injustices of the current system." An additional $2 million would be set aside for the training of attorney general's office internal affairs units to "help reduce corruption."

Federal Bureau of Prisons officials would be sent to Mexico for training aimed at helping Mexican officials "assert control over the prisons," where some drug kingpins are said to live in luxurious cells and run their crime empires from behind bars.

"The Mexican federal prison system," one of the documents says, "is plagued by overcrowding, limited alternatives to incarceration, and is facing challenges created by prisoners involved in narco-trafficking."

While the documents provide a trove of details about the drug plan, some areas are not fully fleshed out. Half a million dollars would be set aside for media campaigns designed to create a "culture of lawfulness" and for helping nongovernmental organizations develop "centers of moral authority." But the document does not define a center of moral authority.