Pubdate: Mon, 21 Oct 2002
Source: Concord Monitor (NH)
Copyright: 2002 Monitor Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.cmonitor.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/767
Author: Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

DRUG WAR RESOURCES MAY GO TO TERRORISM EFFORT

Critics -- Narcotics Fight Was a Mission Pentagon Never Wanted

WASHINGTON - Citing the need to redirect resources to the war on terrorism, 
the Pentagon has quietly decided to scale back its effort to combat 
international drug trafficking, a central element of the national "war on 
drugs" for 14 years.

Officials are still weighing how exactly to pare the $1-billion-a-year 
program, but they want to reduce deployment of special operations troops on 
counter-narcotics missions and cut back the military's training of 
anti-drug police and soldiers in the United States and abroad. And they 
want to use intelligence-gathering equipment now devoted to counter-drug 
work for counterterrorism as well.

But the military's counter-narcotics effort is highly popular among some on 
Capitol Hill, where the retrenchment plans could run into trouble. The 
plans have not yet been spelled out for lawmakers; however, Defense 
Department memos and interviews with current and former officials make the 
Pentagon's intentions clear.

Congress ordered a reluctant Pentagon to enter the drug war in 1988, when 
surging cocaine traffic from South America sparked a sense of crisis in the 
United States .

"We should not be relaxing our efforts in the war on drugs," said Rep. 
Porter Goss, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Select 
Committee on Intelligence and an important advocate for the effort. 
"Terrorism is the highest priority, but drugs are still insidious. "

The Pentagon's plans have been couched in indirect terms. They were 
signaled this summer in a memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz 
and distributed to senior uniformed and civilian officials.

He said the department had "carefully reviewed its existing 
counter-narcotics policy" because of "the changed national security 
environment, the corresponding shift in the department's budget and other 
priorities, and evolving support requirements." The Pentagon will now focus 
its counternarcotics activities on programs that, among other things, 
"contribute to the war on terrorism," he added.

But even before the Sept. 11 attacks, senior officials including Defense 
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had bluntly stated their lack of enthusiasm for 
the anti-drug mission, which they contend is better handled by civilian 
agencies. Thus, some experts believe the Defense Department may be taking 
advantage of the war on terrorism to scale back a mission they never wanted.

Lawmakers who support the Pentagon's anti-drug mission have been worried 
for some time by what they view as signs that the Rumsfeld team intends to 
scale back the effort.

Early last year, top defense officials asked the Pentagon comptroller to 
study whether to continue the counter-narcotics work and other 
"nontraditional" missions. The study recommended paring the program, former 
Defense officials say. And some observers note that Rumsfeld has not named 
a permanent assistant defense secretary for special operations and low 
intensity conflict, who is supposed to oversee the anti-drug program.

In an interview, Pentagon counter-drug chief Andre Hollis emphasized that 
the Pentagon wants to retain parts of the program that have worked well but 
that all the pieces are being examined to determine if each "is still a 
priority mission. The top priorities now are to defend the homeland and to 
win the war on terrorism."

Over the years, Hollis said, the counter-narcotics mission has multiplied 
into 179 separate sub-programs, a number he called "surreal." He said his 
first assignment when he came to the job in August 2001 was to conduct a 
"bottom-up review" that would distinguish what the Pentagon does well in 
counter-narcotics from "what we shouldn't be doing, or that didn't need to 
be done anymore."

In particular, Hollis said, Defense wants to reduce the burden on special 
operations forces, which are relatively few in number and in heavy demand 
for terrorism-related missions.

And when possible, he said, the department wants to double up on the use of 
intelligence-gathering equipment. If, for instance, a National Guard 
helicopter is flying along the California-Mexico border "looking for drug 
activity, there's no reason why they can't also be looking for terrorists," 
he said.

But a former senior Defense official, who asked for anonymity, said the 
counter-drug operations would inevitably get short shrift if forced to 
share equipment with anti-terrorism operations.

The Pentagon spent about $1 billion on drug-related operations in fiscal 
2002, out of a total federal counter-narcotics outlay of $19 billion. The 
Pentagon has a bigger anti-drug budget than the Coast Guard, Customs 
Service or the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and accounts for a 
significant share of federal money spent to fight drugs abroad.

In its drug interdiction role, the U.S. military acts as the lead U.S. 
agency for gathering intelligence on drug trafficking, and uses an array of 
aircraft, ships, radar and other eavesdropping tools.

While barred from conducting drug raids directly, troops provide some 
real-time technical help - such as communications and intelligence analysis 
- - during anti-drug operations being carried out by law enforcement and 
foreign military organizations.

Highly skilled special operations troops and other military personnel also 
train foreign police and soldiers, as well as U.S. law enforcement 
personnel. They teach everything from basic infantry to languages, first 
aid, boat handling, swimming and horsemanship.

Hollis said these duties could be scaled back. For example, he said, if 
Special Forces are training U.S. customs officials in horseback riding, the 
Customs Service should now turn to local ranchers for that. And if the 
Border Patrol is learning swimming from Special Forces, "they'll have to go 
to the local YMCA."

One high-profile anti-drug operation that may see changes is Joint Task 
Force Six, based at Fort Bliss, Texas.

The task force conducts counter-drug reconnaissance missions on the Mexican 
border, and provides military training and technical services for local, 
state and federal civilian agencies. It has provided training and other 
help for 430 civilian agencies, in such areas as intelligence analysis, 
language, first aid, canine training, marksmanship and small boat operations.

The task force has been asked to review its programs in light of 
Wolfowitz's memo. Hollis said reports that the Task Force "is going to go 
away ... are just rumors," but added that while "people are generally 
anxious about change, 9/11 changed everything for us. We need to look at 
the collective good."

The military's counter-drug efforts have not exactly "won" the drug war, 
some experts note. The price and supply of cocaine, for example, have been 
relatively stable since 1989.

"They're certainly working at the margins in making a difference," said 
Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland economist and former director of 
Rand Corp.'s Drug Policy Research Center.

And liberal critics have argued that by training foreign police and 
soldiers, the U.S. military has in some cases given new tools to brutal 
regimes that often abuse human rights.

Yet the Pentagon's work has led to important drug seizures and arrests, and 
has helped build U.S. ties and open doors for U.S. military access in many 
countries.

The former defense official said that the key unanswered question about the 
shift in plans is how much the administration intends to trim from Pentagon 
anti-drug spending in the upcoming fiscal 2004 budget, and whether 
officials plan to shift to other areas the intelligence-gathering ships and 
planes that have been the backbone of the mission.

Pentagon counter-drug officials have had to struggle to hang on to 
intelligence-gathering planes, such as Navy P-3s and AWACs surveillance 
aircraft, which the Joint Chiefs have frequently diverted to missions 
considered higher priorities.

Top Defense officials are expected to work out the details of the shift in 
counter-drug priorities in the next few weeks as they prepare to give 
Congress their 2004 budget proposal.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens