HUTCHINSON LIKELY TO BE NEXT DEA CHIEF

The Republican congressman who helped George W. Bush win Arkansas in the
2000 presidential election and served as a House manager during President
Clinton's impeachment trial is expected to be named as the new head of the
Drug Enforcement Administration.

Rep. Asa Hutchinson, three-term Arkansas congressman previously mentioned
as a possible choice for White House drug czar, will replace DEA
Administrator Donnie R. Marshall, the first DEA agent ever to rise through
the ranks to lead the agency.

The announcement, expected within the next several days barring last-minute
complications in an ongoing background investigation, came as a surprise to
many of the DEA's rank-and-file workers, several of whom questioned why the
White House would move to replace an administrator, former agent and
veteran DEA executive who was both successful and well-respected by the
agency's 4,600 agents.

"The only logical answer is politics," said one veteran agent who asked not
to be identified. "As late as last week, Donnie Marshall was talking about
the future, about things he hoped the agency could do. Now he's out."

White House spokeswoman Ann Womack declined to comment yesterday, saying
she could not "confirm, deny or speculate" on any appointment Mr. Bush
might make.

In an internal memo yesterday to DEA agents worldwide, Mr. Marshall
confirmed that he had been asked by the Bush administration to step down
after 32 years with the agency and he did so with "mixed feelings." He told
the agents he would stay on with DEA until a successor was formally
nominated and confirmed.

In the memo, Mr. Marshall praised the "dedicated, talented and courageous
men and women" of DEA and said their efforts had made a "dramatic impact"
on drug organizations around the world.

He also encouraged the agents to "maintain their faith in our mission,"
adding that his appointment as administrator had been the "highest honor I
could ever hope to achieve."

Mr. Hutchinson was elected to the House in 1996 from a heavily Republican
district in northwest Arkansas. He has declined to comment on the
appointment, telling an Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce-Associated
Industries of Arkansas banquet Monday only that they should "stay tuned."

His spokesman, Christian Brill, said yesterday the congressman believed it
would be "inappropriate" to comment on any pending appointment before a
presidential announcement. But Mr. Hutchinson's brother, Tim, the state's
Republican U.S. senator, hinted during that same banquet that the job
belonged to Mr. Hutchinson, saying, "I know he's going to do a great job."

Asa Hutchinson, former chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, played
major roles in the impeachment of Mr. Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky
scandal in both the House, where he emerged as a leader during the House
Judiciary Committee's impeachment debate, and in the Senate, where he was
one of 13 House managers who prosecuted the case against Mr. Clinton. The
former president was acquitted.

A former federal prosecutor, he has been actively involved in DEA issues as
a member of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime. In 1997, he joined
with DEA officials on a fact-finding mission to Colombia to review joint
U.S.-Colombian anti-drug operations. He has had a long-standing interest in
fighting the drug trade and as a member of Congress, made the drug issue a
top priority.

A graduate of Bob Jones University and the University of Arkansas School of
Law, Mr. Hutchinson was approached in January by Bush administration
officials about a possible Justice Department job.

Several close associates said the congressman was first tabbed to become
deputy attorney general, who oversees the DEA, FBI, U.S. Marshals Service
and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, and later as head of the White House Office
of Drug Control Policy.

Mr. Marshall was confirmed as head of the DEA in May 2000.