CHANGING DEA'S MISSION

Drugs

THE FBI is about to pull back from the drug war because it has a much
bigger battle to wage against terrorists. Agency Director Robert S. Mueller
III says the shift means hundreds of agents will be moved to anti-terrorism
duties from drug and white-collar crime investigations.

The FBI used to be the cop to call when an interstate crime overwhelmed
local police. The agency is now responsible for handling everything from
bank robbery to pornography. But in recent years nearly a quarter of its
$3.4 billion budget has been spent on combating drug trafficking.

Some law enforcement groups and big-city mayors worry that the fight
against terrorism will shortchange the fight against drug cartels. This
need not happen. In fact, the shift could force the Drug Enforcement
Administration -- another arm of the Justice Department -- to focus on high
priority cases. This could eliminate turf fights and duplicative efforts
between the FBI and the DEA.

Undoubtedly, the DEA will say it needs extra funding with the FBI out of
the picture. That's why Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, among others, is
rooting for a bigger DEA budget. But Congress needs to demand that the DEA
use its resources -- it has 4,600 agents and a $1.8 billion budget -- in
the most effective manner.

Hopefully, the shift will result in a more disciplined and professional
DEA, as well as one with more selective priorities. Over the years, its
reputation has been tarnished by no-knock raids at the wrong addresses and
wasteful spending on informers of dubious credibility.

It's hard to imagine the FBI taking part in the low-level drug
investigation like the one that resulted in the deaths of two unarmed men
at the Jack in the Box restaurant in St. Louis County. Yet the DEA was part
of that inquiry, even though the target hardly represented the type of
big-time drug trafficker to which the DEA should devote its resources.

The county incident presumably was part of an agency program known as IDEA
- -- Integrated Drug Enforcement Assistance -- in which the agency and local
police arrest and prosecute the most significant drug trafficker within
designated communities.

When the DEA puts an agent on a small fry drug investigation in St. Louis
County, it has one less agent to keep track of a really big fish elsewhere.
With the realignment of FBI responsibilities, the DEA may now be forced to
focus on the big fish.