and gentlemen, that the united states is better and safer today thanks to our support for the merida initiativet, ladies and gentlemen, merida is in transition. where we once focused on delivering equipment and goods, we now focus more on providing specialized training. for four years we concentrated on building strong federal institutions. we now concentrate more on state and municipal institutions. and we will initially focus our support in northern mexico where the violence is greatest and where we have shared border security interests. mr. chairman, the merida initiative was not engraved in stone. it is a living strategy that is modified, adjusted and corrected as circumstances change on the ground and we learn lessons. some of those lessons came from the united states congress and came from some members in this very chamber. it is a valuable idea to integrate our efforts against illicit drugs, organized crime and terrorism into a unified, holistic approach to support the merida initiative. and we have learned lessons from other theaters of operations around the world that can and should be

how does the merida initiative address the issue of corruption among local police officers if merida does not address this issue, what plan of action would you recommend to this committee to counter the crippling influence of corrupt police officers, corrupt police forces and what the initiative is trying to accomplish? a question for the panel? >> let me start first, congressman. and i'll start by the last sentence that i offered in my oral statement and that is, it took us many years to get into this situation. it's going to take us some years to get out and corruption clearly falls in that category. what are we doing right now? first, we are attempting to professionalize first the federal police forces and increasingly in the future the state and local police forces because a professional law enforcement institution is less likely to be corrupt than a nonprofessional one. second, we are supporting the development of internal investigatory capability, the equivalent of an ied in a u.s. municipal or state or federal police institution, individuals within the police force whose job is

i am trying to work for initiatives at the same time, plan colombia, merida in -- you have a right topect me to offer you my best possible judgment and terms of how we can work those for initiatives simultaneously and with unrealistic expectations, what the united states senate and congress can offer us. >> mr. benson, if we agree resources could you not deployed and effectively, your single mission? >> senator, we have a strong footprint in the caribbean, but if we had additional resources we could always deploy those resources to target that threat. >> is my point. there's no question we have to cut our national debt. there's no question that we have to meet our challenge. the question has to deal with intelligently while still meeting what i perceive as national security challenges. i unfortunately have seen too many families in which a child becomes addicted to a drug. and that is devastating for not only that child but for that family. i see too many murders take place on the streets of the cities that i have the privilege of representing. and a fair number of that is related to