An investigation is underway after four officials, including two Americans, were killed in a car crash in Mexico.

It happened in the state of Chihuahua, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

It's being called an accident by the local government, but happened after a special operation to destroy drug labs in a mountainous part of the state.

It's been widely reported that the two Americans were CIA officers.

Now, the search for answers, including from Mexico's president, Claudia Scheinbaum,

who says the Mexico federal government was not aware that U.S. officials would be involved in the operation.

This has to be clarified.

The foreign ministry sent a letter to the U.S. ambassador requesting that all information

be provided, saying that this is not a part of the security protocol we have agreed upon,

nor the understanding we have with them, and asking that all information be provided.

It is an issue of national security and

sovereignty. So what is happening is not a minor matter. For a perspective on this, we're joined now

by John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama with a lengthy diplomatic career in Latin America.

He's now chief executive of the Center for Media Integrity of the Americas. Good to see you. Thanks for being here.

It's a real pleasure.

So before we get to what President Shanebaum said there, the circumstances of the deaths here remain a little bit unclear.

But why would U.S. officials, and in particular CIA officials, be involved in an operation like this?

Is that unusual?

First of all, I can't confirm they were CIA officials. But I was the deputy chief of mission

in Mexico as far back as 2009. The United States in Mexico have always collaborated. That

collaboration goes up and down, and there are peaks and valleys, usually driven by politics.

But you have to understand on that, that the training and expertise that up and down and there are peaks and valleys, usually driven by politics.

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