Mexico Calls in Army as Drug War Escalates

Mexican President Felipe Calderón yesterday defended his decision to deploy 45,000 troops in major cities in his fight against the drug cartels, reports the Washington Post. In a speech to the army, Calderón said the military would remain in place until it had regained control of the country's most violent regions; 650 Mexicans have died since the new year in drug violence.

This week alone a police chief in Ciudad Juarez was assassinated, and a gun battle between soldiers and drug traffickers, shown live on television, left five people dead in Reynosa. One minister in the Calderón government said Wednesday that the drug cartels have grown so powerful that, unless they were crushed, "the next president of the republic would be a narco-trafficker." (More Mexico stories.)