NEW DEA CHIEF PROMISES TO END INFLATED ARREST DATA

The new head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has pledged to end the
agency's use of inflated drug-arrest and performance statistics and to
focus on growing drug problems in rural America. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a
Republican from Arkansas, was confirmed to the post this week. In an
interview, he said that he hoped to lift America's confidence that the drug
war can succeed.

"We have engaged in this for decades, and there's a lot of frustration out
there both on the law enforcement and public side," he said. "Everyone has
to understand that there's hope we can make a difference."

He also promised that the DEA's staff of 9,100, whose mission is to keep
illegal drugs out of the United States and bust major traffickers, would
work harder to curb rural drug abuse, particularly involving
methamphetamines and the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin.

Hutchinson, 50, was elected to Congress from Arkansas in 1996. A former
U.S. attorney, he was one of the House members who prosecuted President
Clinton during the impeachment trial in 1999. To head the $1.5
billion-a-year agency, he will resign from Congress, effective Tuesday. He
will earn $133,700 as DEA administrator, a slight decrease from his
$135,000 congressional salary. Hutchinson must tackle some internal
problems at the agency.

Recent Inquirer Washington Bureau stories disclosed that the DEA had no
documents to support hundreds of arrests claimed in the agency's latest
36-nation Caribbean antidrug dragnet. Hundreds of other arrests reported by
the DEA turned out to be routine marijuana busts by local police.

Hutchinson deplored the practice and vowed to stop it.

"We have to have the correct moral compass and the proper training to make
sure we gather our statistics in a correct and truthful fashion,"
Hutchinson said. At stake, he said, were "the credibility of federal law
enforcement" and "the confidence of Congress" in his agency.

Of $30.2 million in assets claimed to have been seized from drug
traffickers in the operation, the Washington Bureau found that $30 million
had been seized before the operation began. DEA agents assigned to the San
Juan headquarters overseeing Caribbean operations said superiors told them
to count arrests made by local police as DEA arrests.

"We have to make sure of the accuracy of the statistics," Hutchinson said,
"and that seizures are not double-counted."

Michael Vigil, director of the DEA's San Juan office and overseer of the
operation, subsequently was promoted to head the agency's international
division, which has agents in 56 countries. He is the subject of an ongoing
internal investigation.