Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jun 2002
Source: Contra Costa Times (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Knight Ridder
Contact: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/contact_us/feedback_np2
Website: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/96
Author: Arianna Huffington

WAR ON DRUGS TRUMPED TERRORISM

THE PHOENIX memo. The Rowley letter. The Oklahoma red flag. All elements in 
this true and tragic story of fumbling feds that has more smoking guns than 
a Quentin Tarantino movie.

So why did the FBI fail to see them?

In announcing his big reorganization, Director Robert Mueller seemed to 
consider the FBI's tragedy of errors a question of flawed management flow 
charts, nothing that a rejiggered PowerPoint presentation couldn't fix. But 
there was a much more fundamental problem plaguing the bureau before Sept. 
11, one of deeply flawed priorities. Namely, its crippling addiction to 
America's war on drugs.

While Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida minions were diligently preparing 
for their murderous mission, the FBI was looking the other way with equal 
determination. More than twice as many FBI agents were assigned to fighting 
drugs (2,500) than fighting terrorism (1,151). And a far greater amount of 
the FBI's financial resources was dedicated to the drug war.

This pathological prioritization of the drug war extended well beyond the 
allocation of money and manpower. It was ingrained in the culture. 
Counterterrorism units were treated like the bureau's ugly stepchildren, 
looked down upon by FBI management because they weren't making the kind of 
high-profile arrests that spruce up a supervisor's resume and make the 
evening news.

It's now painfully clear that there were terror warning signs aplenty but 
that they were disregarded by distracted FBI officials who had their eyes 
on a very different prize.

In Phoenix, where the now infamous Ken Williams memo originated, 
counterterrorism agents complained bitterly about their efforts being given 
"the lowest investigative priority" by a supervisor who preferred glamorous 
drug-fighting investigations. Even though the anti-terror squad was 
understaffed, having been assigned only eight of the division's 200 agents, 
it had managed to infiltrate groups of suspected terrorists through the use 
of paid informants including a man who was being trained to be a suicide 
bomber.

So what was their reward? Head-butting sessions with higher ups who balked 
at having to allocate resources for information that didn't lead to 
immediate, camera-worthy arrests.

Meanwhile, across the country in Boston, Raed Hijazi, an admitted al- Qaida 
member who had become an informant in exchange for avoiding jail, tried to 
warn FBI agents about Arab terrorists and sympathizers. But the FBI wasn't 
interested in Hijazi's terror leads -- they only wanted to hear what he 
knew about heroin being smuggled into America from Afghanistan.

And it wasn't just the FBI. This Drug War Uber-Alles mindset infected the 
entire law enforcement community, starting at the top. "I want to escalate 
the war on drugs," said Attorney General John Ashcroft shortly after being 
nominated for the post. "I want to renew it. I want to refresh it." And he 
was true to his word. Witness the $43 million the Bush administration gave 
to the Taliban just four months before Sept. 11. Sure there was the small 
detail of harboring a guy named bin Laden, but the Taliban had agreed to 
ban the production of opium poppies. And so the drug war trumped the terror 
war once again.

So is this kind of thinking finally a thing of the past? I'm not so sure. 
Even after the highly touted reorganization, which included the 
reassignment of 400 narcotics agents to counterterrorism, there will still 
be 2,100 agents spending their invaluable time and energy fighting a 
fruitless drug war. This despite combating drugs not making Mueller's 
official Top Ten list of priorities.

According to high-ranking FBI officials, Mueller originally intended to 
pull the plug on his agency's involvement in the drug war, but was talked 
out of it by drug war generals who can't admit defeat. He should have 
listened to his gut. Since he didn't, we should demand that the White House 
follow through on Mueller's instinct and go all the way with the shift, 
choosing the war against terror over the war against drugs.

As the soaring budget deficit reminds us, federal coffers are not bottomless.

Everything comes with a price. Sadly, it's looking more and more like the 
price of the drug war may have included the lives lost on Sept. 11.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth