Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), who is a member of the subcommittee that took testimony from experts on the violence in Mexico, said the country is in what amounts to a civil war. (Photo: CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
(CNSNews.com) –  At a House of Representatives hearing on federal law enforcement’s response to the violence along the border between the United States and Mexico, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) said there is more danger in that region than in the Middle East.
 
“Mexico is more dangerous than Iraq,” Culberson said. “There were more deaths in Mexico than there were in Iraq.”
 
But David A. Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, who testified at the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, disagreed with the comparison.
 
“I don’t think that’s a fair characterization,” Shirk said, adding that he believed there were 7,000 civilian deaths in Iraq in the previous year and 6,000 in Mexico.
 
He also denied Mexico’s drug wars could be compared to those in Columbia, saying that during the height of the drug battles in that country the death toll was 100 in 100,000 whereas Mexico’s death rate is 10 to 15 to 100,000.
 
“It would have to get 10 times as bad (in Mexico),” Shirk said.
 
More than 7,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since January 2008.
 
An analysis by CNSNews.com, published earlier this month, showed that the odds of a civilian dying in Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua was three times more likely than a civilian dying in Baghdad.


David A. Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, said the violence is Mexico is exaggerated in media reports at a House hearing on Tuesday. (Photo: CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
The per capita rate of civilian killings in the Mexican border city in 2008 was nearly three-and-a-half times (3.4) as great as the per capita rate of civilian killings in the Iraqi province of Baghdad, CNSNews.com has determined, based on State Department statistics and data supplied by an Iraqi civilian-casualty database recommended by the Department of Defense.
 
In Ciudad Juarez, where drug cartels are fighting with Mexican authorities for control of the city, an estimated 1,800 people were killed in 2008, according to the U.S. State Department.  
 
That equaled one in every 889 residents in a population that the State Department says 1.6 million.
 
Meanwhile, in the Baghdad Governorate (the Iraqi province that includes Baghdad), only about one in 3,040 people were killed in 2008, using the civilian casualty figures gathered by the Iraq Body Count (IBC) project.
 
The overall number of civilians in Baghdad Governorate that were killed in 2008, according to IBC, was between 2,632 and 2,847.
 
But the Baghdad Governorate, with an estimated 6 to 8 million people, is almost four to five times larger in population than Ciudad Juarez, depending upon which figure is utilized.
 
That means people are at greater risk in Juarez than in Baghdad province.
 
In fact, CNSNews.com has calculated that approximately 113 per 100,000 people were killed by violence in Juarez, while in Baghdad about 33 per 100,000 civilians shared the same fate.  See full story. 
 
Culberson claimed Shirk was painting too rosy a picture of the violence in Mexico, including whether Mexico’s drug wars could lead to it becoming a failed state and the determination as to whether or not the violence is spilling over the U.S. border.
 
“In your testimony a moment ago, professor, you said that Mexico is at the end of its rope,” Culberson said. “But a minute ago in your testimony you thought it was overblown to be concerned about the stability of Mexico.”
 
“Yet the testimony that this committee’s received, that we have on Homeland Security – many members of this committee are also on the Homeland Security Committee – the U.S. military has ranked the Mexican government, the Pakistani government and the Afghan government as the three most unstable, potentially likely to collapse governments in the world,” Culberson said.
 
“The level of violence we’re seeing in Mexico certainly has to be qualified essentially as a civil war,” he said. “The level of violence is unprecedented.”
 
Culberson also questioned the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) definition of “spillover,” as when drug cartels or gangs target Americans or American assets.
 
“In Houston, Texas, in broad daylight, we had a machine-gun fight at one of the biggest intersections in southwest Houston,” Culberson said. “A machine-gun battle between two human smugglers. They’re trying to kill each other. That’s not counted as spillover because they are shooting at each other and it’s not a deliberate attack on U.S. civilians.”
 
“Those bullets weren’t hitting each other, those bullets were flying everywhere,” Culberson said.
 
Others testifying at the hearing were Joseph Arabit, Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso Division with the DEA, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, and William Newell, Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
 
On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced a new Secure Border Policy that will increase personnel and equipment along the border and provide millions of dollars to help the Mexican government fight the drug cartels.
 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling to Mexico on Wednesday to meet with Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa and President Felipe Calderon.

She is expected to discuss climate change, the global financial crisis and the Merida Initiative as well as the violence spawned by drug cartels.
 
Clinton's two-day trip south of the border will be followed by others: In early April, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder are scheduled meet with Mexican officials and then President Obama is expected to visit Mexico ahead of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.