U.S. Drug Aid Lags as Mexico Businesses Say Violence Top Threat

The U.S. government has delivered only about 9 percent of the $1.6 billion in drug-war aid promised to Mexico and Central America as Mexican executives say increasing violence is the greatest threat to the economy.

U.S. agencies were forced to delay delivering training and equipment included in the 2008 Merida Initiative because they lacked staff and funding, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report, a draft of which was provided by the office of Congressman Eliot Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. The GAO will present the report in testimony before Congress today.