DRUG CZAR SAYS NOGALES TUNNEL WAS POTENTIAL TERRORISM TOOL

NOGALES - John Walters, the White House's drug czar, toured half of the
Arizona-Mexico border yesterday for a sample of challenges posed in the
battle against drugs and terrorism.

Walters, whose official title is director of drug policy, came to listen,
look and learn. He flew from Tucson to Nogales by helicopter and then along
the stretch of rugged, sparsely populated border over Naco and beyond
Douglas, southeast of Tucson.

Walters received a briefing from the Tucson High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area, a federal program that coordinates drug control efforts among
federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

It tracks drug seizures, small-plane flights and smuggling operations by
backpackers and horse, using sophisticated intelligence-gathering and
technology.

At Nogales, Walters checked out vehicle, personal and gamma-ray rail cargo
inspection systems, as well as scanners that read license plates.

U.S. Customs Port Director Joe Lafata explained strategies used to foil or
counter efforts by smugglers.

Walters also viewed the entrance dug beneath a Nogales home to a drug
tunnel found in December.

The house is about 25 yards from the international border where a U.S.
Customs Service-led task force discovered the tunnel nearly four months
after learning it was being dug.

The 85-foot tunnel, the eighth uncovered in Nogales since 1995 but the
first that ran directly beneath the international boundary, was operational
for about a month.

Customs Special Agent Jon Ruttencutter said an ongoing investigation has
determined that an organization or a few individuals paid to have the
tunnel built.

Separate marijuana- and cocaine-smuggling organizations then paid them to
smuggle 840 pounds of marijuana and 956 pounds of cocaine through it, he said.

Agents seized those amounts in four hauls.

Walters said the tunnel could have been a terrorism threat.

"From a counterterrorism perspective, since the owner of this was not
purely a drug trafficker but a tunnel entrepreneur, this could have been a
vulnerability," he said.

Walters last visited the Southwest border more than eight years ago, as an
assistant to the first drug czar, Bill Bennett, and he said much has changed.

"The technology at the border is greater. I think the task is obviously
daunting, given the openness of our border and, frankly, the volume and
size of the trade that's operating on the other side.

"If it's possible to try to create subcontractors to the drug trade with
that amount of ease, it's pretty clear that the market is now operating in
an environment that allows deal making and support services to be connected
up pretty easily."

Keys to success will be better intelligence and information sharing that
allows coordination of federal, state and local agencies, he said.

He said his office is stepping up drug-use prevention and treatment efforts.

Some local law officers joined the tour.

"Our perception of Washington officials is that they don't view life
outside the Beltway very realistically," said Pima County Sheriff Clarence
Dupnik. "It always helps when the top dog gets to see the border problems
firsthand."