TERRORISM'S TERRIBLE COSTS

Traveling DEA Museum Exhibit Makes Case That American Addictions Fund
Extremists

The battered artifacts measure the cost of terrorism - the children's toys
and the clutter of busy offices, a twisted I-beam and a torn chunk of
limestone. But it's the rest of "Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists
and You" that details how American addictions help provide extremists with
the tools of terrorism, pounding home the links between recreational drug
use, drug trafficking and the radical groups that use drug profits to fund
their campaigns against America and the West.

"Target America," an exhibit that opened at the Drug Enforcement
Administration's Museum in Arlington, Va., on the first anniversary of the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, comes to Dallas two days before the
second anniversary.

The exhibit's six-month stay at The Science Place in Fair Park is the first
stop on a national tour.

"We'll do what we call a soft opening on Sept. 9," Science Place president
Diana Hueter said, "and we'll do the official ribbon-cutting on Sept. 23
with Rudolph Giuliani."

The former New York mayor, who has come to personify the struggle back from
the Sept. 11 attacks, helped open the exhibit at the DEA Museum, director
Sean Fearns said, and told organizers that he'd be glad to help as the
exhibit moved around the country.

"So we took him up on that," Mr. Fearns said. The exhibit opens with Sept.
11 artifacts pulled from the Pentagon and the World Trade Center - shoes,
toys, office items, a bit of the Pentagon's facade. A hidden speaker
provides the sounds of that day. Photos chronicle the crash of a hijacked
jetliner into an empty Pennsylvania field, and the bravery and selflessness
of the passengers on board.

"We worked closely with the New York Police Department and the Port
Authority to go to Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills landfill for artifacts,"
Mr. Fearns said. "That's where the exhibit starts, with this reconstruction
of elements from New York and the Pentagon and photos from Pennsylvania."
DEA offices provided other exhibits, including a captured Taliban flag and
Taliban tax receipts for heroin shipments from Afghanistan, with the
contents labeled "white gold," Mr. Fearns said. At one point, he said, the
Taliban controlled 71 percent of the world's heroin supply. From there, the
exhibit looks back to the earliest records of drug trafficking along the
fabled Silk Road between Europe and Asia, and the rise of assassins - from
the word hashshashin, Muslim fighters who used hashish to create visions of
heaven and carried out assassinations against political and military
leaders, particularly during the Christian Crusades. Another part of the
exhibit examines money laundering, how it works and where, and how some of
that money is funneled to terrorists. Among the so-called narco-terrorists
profiled are Pablo Escobar of Colombia; drug lord Khun Sa of Myanmar;
Abimael Guzman, founder of the Shining Path in Peru; and Hezbollah leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

Photos displayed in a large metal globe show the impact of drugs and
terrorism in various countries around the world. Two panels added for the
Dallas show focus on issues close to home, such as the spate of heroin
deaths in Plano in 1997, the Oklahoma City bombing and the recent
proliferation of methamphetamine labs in the Dallas area. "The final
section is called 'Getting Involved,' " Mr. Fearns said. "After visitors
have had the chance to explore the different sections, this says here's how
to get involved with family, workplace and community, to stay away from
drugs and deny funding to terrorist groups." Ms. Hueter said The Science
Place began working with the DEA to bring "Target America" to Dallas even
before its official opening at the DEA Museum. "Last year, the American
Association of Museums met in Dallas, and we heard that this exhibit was in
the planning stages," she said. "We began working with the DEA with the
potential of having Dallas be the first stop on the national tour.

"We're very excited that that's happened." Even more exciting is an $80,000
gift from an anonymous donor earmarked to provide field trips for
Dallas-area middle school students whose schools don't have the money to
send them, Ms. Hueter said.

"It serves our mission so well," she said. "That's probably the best part."