MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon said crime gangs and drug cartels were "taking over Mexico" before he launched his offensive against them.

He said in an interview with the news network Televisa that the crackdown has achieved uneven results.

Calderon's comments were taped prior to his statement Wednesday that reducing poverty is now "the first priority" for his administration. But in the previously recorded Televisa interview, Calderon made it clear he's not abandoning the war on drugs.

But Calderon acknowledges uneven results. He said the government is clearly imposing law and order in some zones like the border city of Tijuana and the western state of Michoacan. But he said "there are other areas where that isn't happening, like Ciudad Juarez, for example, where the criminal organizations continue fighting each other with unheard of brutality."

Juarez is across from El Paso, Texas, and is Mexico's deadliest city. More than 2,200 people have been killed there this year in violence that authorities largely attribute to turf battles between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels.