Pubdate: Mon, 10 Dec 2001
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2001 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact:  http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Robert Novak
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?203 (Terrorism)

AMERICA'S 2 WARS MUST BE LINKED

America's war on terrorism ought to be linked inextricably to the war on 
drugs. It is not. That unfortunate failure, making it more difficult to 
defeat either scourge, is reflected in two anomalies.

*President Bush, omnipresent and eloquent in exhorting his fellow citizens 
to combat terror, since Sept. 11 has mentioned narcotics hardly at all. Not 
once in his daily rhetoric over those three months has the president used 
the phrase "narco-terrorism."

*The Drug Enforcement Administration, widely considered to have the best 
U.S. intelligence operations, has no seat at the inter-agency table in 
fighting terrorism. It never did, and the attacks of Sept. 11 did not 
change anything.

These facts of life are the background to last Tuesday's unprecedented 
narco-terrorism symposium convened by the DEA's aggressive new 
administrator, former Rep. Asa Hutchinson, and held at DEA headquarters in 
Arlington, Va. Criticism was restrained and indirect, but the consensus was 
clear that drug-fighting must be part of the anti-terror strategy.

The DEA always has appreciated the nexus between terror and narcotics, but 
the State Department and the CIA have not. Accordingly, the U.S. government 
for years turned a blind eye to the fact that Colombia's FARC guerrillas 
from the start have been financed by illegal narcotics. The Taliban, which 
supported Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network, have been 
financed by the opium trade to Europe. While U.S. policymakers still talk 
at length about state-sponsored terrorism, support now is more likely to 
come from the poppy seed than from a government sanctuary.

Raphael Perl, narco-terrorism expert for the Congressional Research 
Service, told last week's symposium that "income from the drug trade has 
become increasingly important to terrorist organizations." He added: "State 
sponsors are increasingly difficult to find. What world leader in his right 
mind will risk global sanctions by openly sponsoring al-Qaida or funding it?"

Steven Casteel, DEA chief of intelligence, agreed: "State-sponsored 
terrorism is diminishing. These organizations are looking for funding, and 
drugs bring one thing: quick return on their investment."

Narcotics provide more than a way to finance terrorism, in the DEA's view. 
Al-Qaida expands ABC--atomic, biological and chemical--to ABCD, with drugs 
added, according to Casteel. "Drugs are a weapon of mass destruction that 
can be used against Western societies and help bring them down," he said.

On Sept. 7, DEA agents seized 53 kilos of Afghan heroin distributed by 
Colombians. "I would argue," said Casteel, "that we've been under attack in 
this country for a long time, and it didn't start on Sept. 11."

Considering DEA's experience, it would seem natural that its 
representatives would immediately be put on the high command of the new war 
against terrorism. They were not, and still are not.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA official who was a high-ranking State 
Department counterterrorism expert during the first Bush administration, 
told the symposium: "I can say, hands down, that the best intelligence we 
have on the ground overseas is DEA, and yet, after all of the time that 
I've been involved with counterterrorism, not once have I seen a DEA body 
sitting at the table, at the [Counter- terrorism and Security Group] 
meetings which go on at the White House, where you're talking about 
combatting terrorism." Nor are they there today.

No wonder the president never uses the words narco-terrorism. What is lost 
by this silence is the leverage of the presidential bully pulpit to fight 
drugs. Last week's DEA symposium was called "Target America: Traffickers, 
Terrorists and Your Kids." The "kids" part was discussed by Stephen Pasierb 
of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. He presented polling data 
showing a rare conjunction between generations: a mutual inclination by 
parents and children to believe that illegal drugs finance terrorism.

That opportunity can be exploited by the government's massive megaphone, 
especially the presidential bully pulpit. "The understanding of this link 
[between narcotics and terrorism] is essential," said Pasierb, "and that's 
what our leaders can do. Leadership in this nation can help our people 
understand." The wonder is that the blase attitude toward narcotics in high 
places that marked the Clinton administration has not totally disappeared 
under Bush.
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