ANTI-DRUG OFFICE SPURS DEBATE

Regional law-enforcement officials today will discuss a controversial plan
by U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey to bring to El Paso an anti-drug office
that was abolished earlier this year.

Members of the West Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area executive
committee will take up the issue at their meeting today, said El Paso
County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Apodaca, the group's chairman.

He and Sheriff Leo Samaniego, who's chairman of the Southwest Border area
program executive committee, said McCaffrey's plan will do nothing to get
drugs or drug dealers off the streets.

"It has never done anything to help drug enforcement, and it adds an
unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to our work," Samaniego said.

The West Texas drug-trafficking area, which includes federal, state and
local law enforcement, along with the Southwest Border area, made up of the
chairman and vice chairman of each regional area, had voted unanimously to
do away with the Southwest Border area's headquarters in San Diego.

McCaffrey announced the plan to move the San Diego office to El Paso during
his visit last Thursday and Friday to El Paso and Juarez.

"It's a done deal," said Kurt Schmid, director of the national
drug-trafficking area program in Washington, D.C. "It was a policy decision
by McCaffrey."

Area programs coordinate efforts at drug interdiction.

Samaniego said he plans to raise the issue at the next Southwest Border
executive committee meeting in October.

"This business of sending out a piece of paper and saying that this is how
it's going to be ... , I don't think so," he said.

Since McCaffrey's announcement, Samaniego vented frustration over what he
considers the lack of results from anti-drug organizations, such as
Operation Alliance, the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center and the Southwest
area's San Diego office.

"You can lump them all together, and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes (an alleged
drug lord) will still have a ball in Mexico," Samaniego said, adding that
the organizations do nothing to advance drug investigations.

Schmid said that while the Southwest office won't have a direct role in
enforcement, it will serve to better coordinate the efforts of
drug-enforcement agencies along the border.

Schmid said that details of the structure of the new Southwest area
headquarters will follow later, and that its funding was subject to the
annual budget that Congress adopts for the new fiscal year.

McCaffrey's National Drug Control Policy Office sent out an announcement
about a plan "to reorganize Southwest Border HIDTA" last week, shortly
before McCaffrey met with U.S. law-enforcement officials at a dinner.

Samaniego and Apodaca, who were at the meeting, said none of the regional
programs or the Southwest's executive committee received advance notice
about the plan.

"We heard about it at the dinner, and we haven't heard anything more about
it since then," Apodaca said. "It came as a surprise to everyone."

McCaffrey announced that "this plan will serve as a catalyst for greater
coordination among federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies along
the Southwest border. While drug-related crime rates ... have dropped, as
they have across the nation, vast problems still exist."

Apodaca said the West Texas regional programs already operate with
"excellent cooperation and coordination."

Samaniego said Schmid had attended previous meetings of the Southwest
executive committee when members voted to dissolve the San Diego office.
Members liked the idea of saving the $1.3 million to $1.5 million it cost
to maintain the office, money that wasn't used to fight drug traffickers,
they said.

Although Schmid mentioned before that legal questions might be involved, he
never told them about the plan to keep the headquarters intact and move it
to El Paso, Samaniego and Apodaca said.

In response, Schmid said, "there always was and will be just one HIDTA,"
which is why the San Diego office can't be abolished.

Initially, McCaffrey's plan calls for transforming the five regional
executive committees into state advisory boards, coming up with an annual
coordination plan, and streamlining management and operations to be
governed by one executive committee.

Schmid said that participation in the program is voluntary and that he
hopes members will continue to value its role.

Samaniego said he fears that the Southwest Border office for El Paso could
become "as worthless to drug-fighting efforts" as El Paso's Operation
Alliance and the Drug Enforcement Administration's El Paso Intelligence
Center.

Regarding Operation Alliance, Samaniego said, "they have a group of
well-paid people over there, and the biggest decision they have to make
each day is where to have lunch."

Operation Alliance, which is made up mostly of federal law-enforcement
agency representatives, coordinates requests for military assistance for
Joint Task Force Six. Its director, Michael McLees, would not comment.

Armando Carrasco, spokesman for JTF-6 at Biggs Army Airfield, said
Operation Alliance coordinates all requests from civilian law-enforcement
agencies for JTF-6 support.

Samaniego said the center's shortcoming is that it serves solely as a
repository for information on drug busts or drug cases that have already
taken place.

"They don't provide any intelligence for ongoing investigations," he said.
"It took an act of Congress to get access to the information, but it does
us no good."

Center spokesman Joe Long said "it would be inappropriate for me to comment
on what Sheriff Samaniego said."

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com