DEA CHIEF URGES EXTRA EFFORTS IN SOUTHWEST

Despite recent progress, the Southwest border still needs more
resources to halt the flow of drugs from Mexico into the United
States, the nation's chief drug-law enforcer says.

El Paso is the second-largest gateway for drugs in Texas, after
Laredo, and 70 percent of drugs coming into the United States enter
through the Southwest border, Asa Hutchinson, administrator of the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said Tuesday in El Paso.

"This is a principal point of entry for drugs in the United States,"
said Hutchinson, whom President Bush picked three months ago to lead
the DEA. "Clearly, the DEA needs more resources in the Southwest
border. We have a great investment in the Caribbean area. ... We've
beefed up in the Southwest border, but I don't think we've done it
sufficiently. Of course, we will never outman the opposition, and
that should not be our goal."

In an interview with the El Paso Times, Hutchinson said he was
touring the border to get a handle on the agency's needs. He
concludes a two- day visit to the El Paso area today. His schedule
included a helicopter flyover of the border, as well as meetings with
local law officials and U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

He said he wants to add technology and other resources at the El Paso
DEA division, headed by Sandalio Gonzalez.

In response to police reports that white heroin, possibly from
Afghanistan, recently was detected in Mexican staging sites used by
Mexican drug cartels, Hutchinson said, "It wouldn't surprise me. ...
Less than 10 percent of the heroin that's in the United States, and
it would be very limited, comes from the Middle East and that part of
the world."

He said most of the rest of the heroin, known as brown tar, comes
from Mexico and South America.

U.S. officials say Afghanistan is the world's top producer of heroin,
and that the Taliban and the terrorist network al-Qaida have used the
profits of heroin sales to finance their operations.

"The DEA has a strong plan for the post-Taliban era in Afghanistan,"
Hutchinson said. The agency has 9,000 agents assigned to posts
worldwide. Overseas, the agents work with law enforcement officials
in host countries by providing training and technical assistance.

Travis Kuykendall, director of the West Texas High Intensity Drug-
Trafficking Area office, said it's possible for white heroin from
that part of the world to turn up in El Paso through independent
couriers.

"In the 1980s, we saw heroin from Colombia brought here by people who
didn't know anyone in Juarez or El Paso," he said. "Sometimes they
tried to bring it in by swallowing it" in balloons.

Kuykendall said that unless the couriers have an arrangement to split
the profits with the Juarez drug cartel -- for permission to use its
territory to transport the white heroin -- they can be killed on the
spot by the Mexican drug dealers.

According to an FBI report, the Juarez-El Paso area is considered the
base of the Juarez drug cartel headed by the Carrillo Fuentes drug-
trafficking organization.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, government officials have
suggested that the FBI cut back on its drug investigations to focus
on anti-terrorist efforts. However, unlike the FBI, the DEA -- whose
sole mission is to enforce drug laws -- does not have the authority
to investigate drug-related homicides or abductions.

Hutchison said he doesn't expect the DEA's role to change much as a
result of changes within the FBI and other federal law enforcement
agencies.

The DEA chief also said "he is very concerned about recent court
decisions in Mexico that block the extradition of certain drug
traffickers."

Hutchinson said the U.S. government was willing to waive the death
penalty in certain drug cases, but Mexico's highest court is
reluctant to extradite Mexican drug lords who face life imprisonment
in the United States.

None of Mexico's top drug lords has been arrested since Juan Garcia
Abrego, former head of the Gulf drug cartel and a U.S. citizen, was
extradited to Texas in 1996.

Mexico also has yet to account for nearly 30 U.S. citizens, most of
them El Pasoans, who were reportedly kidnapped by drug dealers and
their associates during the past eight years.

(SIDEBAR)

El Paso Seizures

Drug Enforcement Administration arrests and drug seizures from Jan. 1
to Oct. 31 in the El Paso area:

Arrests: 1,219.

Heroin: 18.5 pounds.

Cocaine: 459 pounds.

Marijuana: 133,166 pounds.

Methamphetamines: 199 pounds.

Source: El Paso DEA