Obama's Other Problem: Mexican Drug Cartels

This problem could be solved if demand was lowered. Who's demanding all the drugs? Why we are of course. We help keep poppy fields flourishing in Afghanistan too. I know, that's a simple way to look at the problem. But even more simple is blaming Mexico, which the republicans like to do. Mexican drug cartels are just meeting our insatiable demand. It's free market principles.

CNN: The conversation, which Obama initiated within hours of Mullen's return to the United States from a visit to Mexico City, underscores the growing concern with which the United States views the situation.

"The president was eager to get the chairman's observations on what he found out," the official told CNN.

The president expressed interest in military capabilities that the U.S. has that could help Mexican forces, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technology, the official said.

Mexico's military and police have been embroiled in increasingly violent clashes with cartels, which are battling among themselves for control over an ever-growing market in the United States.

This week, a U.S. citizen was among the three decapitated bodies found in Tijuana, Mexican authorities said Saturday. Growing drug violence has made beheadings in Tijuana, Juarez and other Mexican towns more commonplace over the past year.