By Tomas Sarmiento

MEXICO CITY, March 7 (Reuters) - Mexico, battling violent drug gangs, launched its first central crime database on Wednesday to help chaotic police forces that can hardly trace stolen cars and struggle to identify suspects.

President Felipe Calderon said the database will be an essential tool in the fight against powerful cartels who run drugs though Mexico to the United States.

Speaking to police chiefs to announce a new drive to control rampant crime, Calderon said the system would allow Mexico to draw "a criminal map across the country."

"The objective is to regain minimum security conditions in the country that will allow us to live in peace," he said.

Mexico's roughly 1,600 local police forces often operate without a clear chain of command and duplicate each others' work.

Security coordination official Roberto Campa said recently it was common for police in one state to put up "Wanted" posters and launch manhunts for suspects already arrested in another state.

In the absence of a national vehicle registration database police are often unable to identify cars that have been stolen or used in a crime.

In one infamous case last year, a group of men stepped out of a BMW car on a busy street and shot dead another driver in an apparent traffic argument. The car's registration plates were caught on a security camera, but it was never traced.

The system will initially link 500 police stations to a centralized database. It will also coordinate information between local and state police forces.

Since taking office in December, Calderon has made clamping down on drug gangs his top priority and has sent thousands of troops and federal police to hot spots like Tijuana on the U.S. border, beach resort Acapulco and the western state of Michoacan.

A war between the Gulf Cartel and gangs allied with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa cartel for control of trafficking routes as well as marijuana and opium poppy plantations claimed about 2,000 lives last year.

The clampdown has so far done little to stem the violence, with newspapers reporting close to 400 drug related killings so far this year.

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