Pubdate: Tue, 23 Jan 2007
Source: Concord Monitor (NH)
Copyright: 2007 Monitor Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.concordmonitor.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/767
Author: Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

WAR ON DRUGS TAKES BACKSEAT TO OTHER CONFLICTS

Military Had Been Key In Finding Traffickers

Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. 
military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving 
significant gaps in U.S. anti-narcotics efforts.

Since 1989, Congress has directed the Pentagon to lead the detection 
by air and sea of illegal drugs headed to the United States and to 
support the Coast Guard in catching them.

But since 2002, the military has withdrawn many of those assets, 
according to more than a dozen current and former counter-narcotics 
officials, as well as a review of congressional, military and 
Homeland Security documents.

Internal records show that in the last four years, the Pentagon has 
reduced by more than 62 percent its flight hours over Caribbean and 
Pacific Ocean routes used to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and Colombian 
heroin. The Navy is deploying one-third fewer patrol boats.

The Department of Defense defended its policy shift in a budget 
document for Congress in October: "The DOD position is that detecting 
drug trafficking is a lower priority than supporting our service 
members on ongoing combat missions." Members of Congress and 
drug-control officials have said the cuts have hamstrung anti-drug 
efforts at a time when about 1,000 metric tons of cheap, high-quality 
cocaine are entering the country each year.

In the budget report, the Pentagon estimated that it detected only 22 
percent of the "actionable maritime events" in fiscal 2006 because it 
"lacks the optimal number of assets." Even when they found suspected 
smuggling vessels, authorities had to let one in every five go 
because they lacked the resources to chase them.

"We have not stopped trying to fix that gap. We're very much 
concerned about it, and working very hard to try and fix these 
problems," said Edward Frothingham, acting deputy assistant defense 
secretary for counter-narcotics. "But in the post-9/11 world, some of 
these assets are needed elsewhere."

The cutbacks continue even though the Pentagon has classified the 
anti-drug effort as part of the war on terrorism, citing intelligence 
showing ties among terrorists, drug dealers and organized crime.

"In the post-9/11 world, where both securing and detecting threats to 
our nation's borders have become critical national security 
objectives, we cannot continue to neglect the fact that 
narco-traffickers are breaching our borders on a daily basis," said a 
report issued last month by the House Oversight and Government Reform 
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

At a 2005 hearing before another House subcommittee, Rep. Dan Burton, 
an Indiana Republican, said the lack of military assets and the 
amount of drugs getting through "just boggled my mind."

"The spike in narcotics shipments via Central America we ignore at 
our own peril," said Burton, who at the time was chairman of the 
international relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. "They 
could be carrying weapons, terrorists and other things that could 
destroy not only the youth of America, but American cities."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman