FBI'S MISSION IN AREA SHIFTING

Local Anti-Drug Efforts May Be Scaled Back As Focus Turns To Terrorism

With the FBI's focus shifting from the war on drugs to counterterrorism,
federal law enforcement officials in North Texas are bracing for the effect
of the change on local drug task forces, white-collar crime cases and other
areas of enforcement.

Dallas FBI officials say the nation's 10th-largest field division
implemented many of the Justice Department's planned changes months ago,
moving dozens of agents from violent crime and white-collar fraud work into
three new permanent counterterrorism squads after Sept. 11. Only a few
agents were permanently reassigned from drug work after the terrorist attacks.

Law enforcement leaders based in Dallas say they are uncertain whether the
FBI might be asked to go further, cutting back on FBI-sponsored drug task
forces such as the one established for Denton and Collin counties after a
series of heroin overdoses. The 12-member task force has produced more than
70 drug convictions over the last several years.

Other drug task forces considered at risk work in Tyler, San Angelo and
Abilene.

Acting FBI Special Agent in Charge Ed Lueckenhoff was among a number of top
regional law enforcement officials who predicted that few additional
changes would be required.

"We moved people months before this announcement," Agent Lueckenhoff said.
"Up front, we knew we needed to be prepared."

Federal law enforcement officials in Dallas recently began meeting to
discuss the sweeping changes announced by FBI Director Robert Mueller and
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The national plans include a directive to shift more than 400 FBI agents
from drug work to counterterrorism work and another 120 from white-collar
and violent crime enforcement.

The FBI was recruited into anti-narcotics efforts during the crack cocaine
epidemic of the late 1980s, focusing mainly on infiltrating and breaking up
large cartels.

Anti-Drug Cooperative

One concern, according to those who attended one meeting, is what may
happen to the more than 25 FBI agents who play a lead role in the
Irving-based North Texas High Intensity Drug Interdiction Area (HIDTA)
program, a major regional drug-fighting task force funded by Congress three
years ago.

The cooperative, one of 33 nationally, fields officers from more than 40
state, local and regional agencies working to suppress major Mexican
drug-trafficking organizations. The FBI agents have three regional
drug-fighting squads, including the one operating in Denton and Collin
counties.

"The FBI has been a major player here, but if they have to take on this
responsibility, we will probably look to some of the other agencies to fill
in the gap," said Dave Israelson, HIDTA director. "Except for terrorism,
drugs are still one of the major crime problems the nation has to face. I
believe there's going to have to be a continuing serious role in drug
enforcement, both here and in other programs."

Agent Lueckenhoff and other federal law enforcement leaders in North Texas
say they hope the division's FBI drug task forces may be more immune to
reassignment because Texas is part of an anti-drug initiative that includes
all Southwest border states.

New Justice Department data suggests that efforts in Dallas to strengthen
counterterrorism efforts have produced a sharp increase in the number of
new investigations.

Terrorism Inquiries Up

Records compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at
Syracuse University show that the Dallas FBI has referred the results of 11
terrorism investigations to the U.S. attorney's office since Sept. 11. The
Dallas FBI had referred 13 terrorism investigations to the U.S. attorney
from 1997 through Sept. 11, the records show.

Matt Orwig, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, which includes
Collin and Denton counties, said he expected that the changes would have
little impact on FBI drug task forces operating in his district.

Through most of the 1990s, the Dallas FBI division has operated one of the
nation's largest and most aggressive counterterrorism task forces because
of the region's defense, finance and telecommunications industries, former
U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins said.

Former Special Agents in Charge Buck Revell, Jim Adams, Danny Coulson and
Danny Defenbaugh brought extensive counterterrorism backgrounds to their
jobs and gradually turned the division into one known for specializing in
that area, he said.

Before Sept. 11, agents from the Dallas FBI's anti-terrorism squads had
been drawn into the investigations of the 1998 bombings of American
embassies in Africa, the October 2000 suicide bombing attack of the USS
Cole in Yemen and foreign terrorist groups' U.S. fund-raising efforts.

"These guys were doing a lot of work that was not always apparent to the
public," Mr. Coggins said. "I would credit them with some extent of staving
off problems."

After Sept. 11, the Dallas division established three new counterterrorism
squads of 15 to 20 agents. They were formed much as Mr. Mueller proposed -
by drawing agents from white-collar fraud and drug teams, Agent Lueckenhoff
said.

The Dallas Drug Enforcement Agency, the 15th-largest of 22 field divisions
nationally with 111 agents, would try to fill in any gaps as the changes
are implemented in the coming weeks, said DEA Special Agent in Charge
Sherri Strange.