WHY WASN'T THE U.S. WARNED THAT MEXICO WAS ABOUT TO ARREST ITS OWN TOP DRUG FIGHTER FOR CORRUPTION?

No one in Washington expected the news. Bill Clinton's antidrug czar Barry McCaffrey heard it from the State Department, which had found out about it from reporters. The Drug Enforcement Administration was caught flatfooted, as was the CIA. At a press conference, a chagrined Attorney General Janet Reno said, "What I learned was at the point after the arrest was made." The man arrested was McCaffrey's counterpart in Mexico, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, a man of reputed honesty and heroism whose appointment only 10 weeks ago McCaffrey had praised effusively. That image began to fade on Feb. 6, when an informant told the Mexican Defense Secretary, General Enrique Cervantes, that Gutierrez was living in a luxury apartment "whose rent cannot be paid with the salary of a public official," a statement from Cervantes' office later said. Summoned to a midnight meeting on the same day, Mexico's drug czar suffered a heart attack when questioned about the apartment, and was ordered into a military hospital.

[continues 619 words]