DRUG CZAR SAYS HE WILL MOVE DRUG OPERATIONS HQ TO EL PASO

EL PASO, Texas -- The headquarters for a federal program that provides
money and support in the war against drug trafficking will be moved from
San Diego to El Paso.

The Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program has a
budget of $46 million a year and covers 2,000 miles of border between the
United States and Mexico. It focuses on specific counties in California,
Arizona, New Mexico and Texas that have known drug-smuggling routes.

Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, in a written statement provided to The
Associated Press, called the Southwest border "a major drug smuggling
corridor" and said the plan will reduce illegal drug trafficking.

One of the reasons for the move is to put the organization's headquarters
close to other El Paso-based anti-drug groups such as the Drug Enforcement
Agency's El Paso Intelligence Center, which tracks Mexican drug gangs.

"The other principal drug fighting entities are here in El Paso," McCaffrey
said Thursday during an interview. "We need a coordinated and integrated
center."

Another reason for the move, McCaffrey said, is that Texas accounts for
just under 900 miles of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

"Texas is a huge piece of that (border)," he said. "It's a huge piece of
the drug smuggling route."

Testimony this year before a state Senate committee put total smuggler
prosecutions along the border at 1,000 per year.

In June, Jaime Esparza, district attorney for El Paso, Hudspeth and
Culberson counties and head of Southwest Border Prosecutors, said a
two-year-old study found that counties bordering Mexico from Texas to
California spent between $48.5 million and $148.6 million prosecuting
federal drug crimes each year.

McCaffrey was expected to introduce the plan Thursday night at a meeting of
law-enforcement officials in El Paso. On Friday, he was to tour Juarez and
El Paso learning about anti-drug efforts.

From the Mexican border to the streets of New York, 31 High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Areas -- regions with serious drug problems -- have been
selected over the last decade.

In the regions, local, state, federal and military law-enforcement agencies
work together on various projects to oppose illegal drug use and
distribution. After starting with a federal investment of $25 million
shared among five regions in 1990, the program will divide more than $190
million in 2000.

McCaffrey says his plan will streamline the Southwest operation and
increase cooperation among agencies that include the U.S. Customs Service,
the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Border Patrol, and state,
county and city law-enforcement agencies.

"It's generally understood that this area is and has been a major artery
for narcotics smuggling in the United States," said Border Patrol spokesman
Doug Mosier. "It's a valuable, strategic idea to focus on this area as the
headquarters for this operation."

A U.S. Customs Service official in Washington said he wasn't familiar
enough with the plan to comment.

The Southwest Border regions is one of the five original high intensity
drug-trafficking areas. In 1994, the organization was split into five
groups based on historical drug-trafficking corridors, one each in
California, Arizona and New Mexico, with Texas being divided into west and
south.

In his plan, McCaffrey said those groups have been operating independently
to address "local drug trafficking nuances." However, that independence has
resulted in "management inconsistencies that have negatively impacted . . .
operations," he said.

So McCaffrey's plan will centralize operations of the Southwest
high-intensity zone. Five regional executive committees will be revamped
into state advisory boards that will answer to a single executive committee
under the plan. The El Paso-based executive committee will develop a
"unification" strategy and budget for the Southwest program.

McCaffrey said the plan should be finalized within two months.