Joint Chiefs chairman sees security ties with Latin America as key to war on terror

Joint Chiefs chairman sees security ties with Latin America as key to war on terror
By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, March 30, 3:27 AM

MANAUS, Brazil — The rationale for building closer U.S. security ties in Latin America rests in part on a worry that the smuggling networks used today to move illegal drugs into the U.S. could be tomorrow’s path for a terrorist’s bomb, the U.S. military’s top general says.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey made that point repeatedly this week on his first trip to Latin America as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Dempsey is wary of a dangerous network of drug traffickers, weapons smugglers and organized criminal elements in South and Central America. They have developed transit avenues — by land, sea and air — that one day could be used to move far more dangerous things, like weapons of mass destruction, across the southern U.S. border, he said in an interview with reporters traveling with him.

“That network can move anything,” he said. “It’ll go to the highest bidder. So looking to the future, it’s certainly in our interest to do what we can to help the nations in this region to break those networks” to prevent it being used by terrorists.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/joint-chiefs-chairman-sees-security-ties-with-latin-america-as-key-to-war-on-terror/2012/03/30/gIQAljShkS_story.html