Riding Along as Mexico Battles Drug Cartels

ACAPULCO, Mexico, Feb. 18, 2007 — -- Driving along the Acapulco coastline, you hardly get the sense that you're on the front lines of Mexico's new war on drugs.

Resort hotels dot the sprawling beaches, and the Pacific waters are filled with sailboats, jet skis, and swimmers. Acapulco may not be the tourist paradise of decades ago, having been surpassed in Mexico by resort towns like Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, but it's not too shabby.

The city has the same laid-back, no-worries feel you'll find in any place with sun, sand, and temperatures in the high 80s -- that is, until you hit Playa Icacos, about 20 minutes from the airport, a stretch of beaches and resorts along one of Acapulco's main tourist drags.

The beaches are packed with sunbathers, children build sandcastles, and a hotel guest is sprawled-out on a table beneath a palm tree getting a massage. And there, just a few hundred yards away, anchored in the same waters were people are frolicking in the surf, is a massive Mexican naval ship. It is as odd an image as you'll ever find in a tropical paradise, but it's an unmistakable signal of the massive military presence mustering here.

As it turns-out, the ship is anchored at a permanent naval base adjacent to the beaches, but that base is being used as a major staging point in the Mexican president's new war on drugs. Several thousand soldiers and marines have been sent to Acapulco alone to help crack down on the cartels and stop a sickening wave of violence.

Drug Killings

But the day we arrived in Acapulco, the military could do little to stop the latest attacks. Gunmen, believed to be linked to the drug cartels, opened fire at two police stations, killing seven cops and support staff. They reportedly videotaped the incident.

Mexico's drug gangs have started posting their grisly handiwork on YouTube to taunt their rivals -- and the police.

When we arrived on the scene of the shooting, just a few miles from Acapulco's tourist center but a world away from the palm-fringed beaches, it was as if nothing had happened. The police station was closed, but there was no blood on the streets, no police tape, no sign of the massacre that had unfolded just hours before. A few neighbors milled about quietly in the dusty streets, while others lined up at a ramshackle hut to by freshly made tortillas hot out of a rickety oven.

We met Maria, along with her two young grandchildren. She had lived in this village -- oddly named Renacimiento, or Renaissance -- all her life. She told us she was terrified when the gunmen opened fire just down the street from her home.

"It was a desperate thing," she said. "There was a lot of it."

Maria said she fears for the lives of her grandchildren, that she worries the violence could strike at any time.

"The could wind up killing a child, and they are innocents," she said. "These days we are all really in danger around here."

Down the street, an old, shirtless man beckoned us to him, shouting and waving his arms. He witnessed the shooting and said he's furious about the violence.

"I think it's for the f---ing drugs; they are fighting, looking for money all the time," he told us.

And, the old man said, the government and the police aren't doing enough to help.

That's why President Felipe Calderon is sending in the military. Past attempts to fight the cartels in Mexico have failed, largely because corruption runs deep among local officials who are supposed to be fighting the multi-billion dollar drug trade.

Calderon hopes this time will be different, and he believes he can control the military and keep them focused on the task at hand.

The next day, we embedded with the Mexican navy, piling into an old Russian helicopter next to several officers carrying machine guns.

The pilot flew us more than a hundred miles from Acapulco. We buzzed over isolated beaches and stunning countryside, and when we made our way into inhabited areas, the captain called our attention to a structure that stood out among the ramshackle houses that lined the landscape.

Looking out the windows, we saw a sprawling, walled compound, with a Spanish roof and a large swimming pool. It was a mansion owned by a cartel kingpin, the spoils of the drug trade.

Roadside Checkpoints

Our chopper touched down at a roadside checkpoint along a major coastal route, at a dusty intersection called La Union, a far-flung outpost not quite big enough to be a town. A few thatched huts selling coconut juice and bottled water were about the only buildings there.

But La Union is a major crossroads, and drug runners drive their product through it. You wouldn't know that by looking at the place -- that is, if it weren't for the armed soldiers standing on the side of the road, searching cars and trucks for contraband.

The commander, who leads a battalion of paratroopers assigned to the checkpoint, said the show of force has been effective.

"We've found weapons," he said. "We've found drugs. We check every car and the packages inside it."

While we were there, the soldiers did not discriminate, pulling over truck drivers, commuters, families, and even tourists.

Bob and Claudia Thomas, who moved to Mexico from the United States a couple of years ago, were stopped in their SUV. They said they're encouraged by the Mexican president's war on drugs.

"Right now, it looks like he's trying to come down here and put a little more pressure on those cartels; I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic," Claudia Thomas said.

"But," Bob added, "it'll be an uphill battle."

Uphill Battle

The military campaign now underway is certainly a visible one. Commanders told us that projecting force is key to the success of the mission.

Back in the chopper, the captain got a radio call from a naval ship at sea. The military had detected a suspicious vessel and was going to send out a ship and another helicopter to intercept it and search it.

Within minutes, a naval ship was tearing through the waters, and we saw the other chopper take off. The chopper hovered above a small fishing boat, as the navy ship arrived on the scene and circled it. It was an impressive display, but watching the scene unfold, we couldn't help but wonder whether the fishing boat would have been searched if we weren't along for the ride.

Commanders insist that this effort is not just a publicity stunt, that it's more than an effort by a president elected by the slimmest of margins to launch a major public relations campaign. The soldiers and sailors we spoke to said they are energized by the effort and committed to stamping-out the cartels.

On the surface at least, the military appears to be taking all the right steps. But whether the new war on drugs can overcome decades of corruption remains to be seen.

We asked Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado whether the president's plan to send the military out to fight the war on drugs could work. His answer was cagey.

"Well, this is a plan that they designed," he said. "They are the ones that design the national security strategies, of course, and they had to put together an operation to do that."

Salgado said he was doing all he could to fight the cartels. But just a few days after we talked to Salgado, he was fingered by the government and accused of having ties to the drug gangs.

It was a stark sign of just how challenging this war on drugs will be.