ANTI-DRUG OPERATION TO BE BASED IN EL PASO

El Paso will soon be home to the headquarters for a $46 million effort to
bring federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies together to fight
drug trafficking on the border, federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey said
Thursday.

The headquarters of the Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Areas program, now based in San Diego, will be moved to El Paso at an
unspecified date.

McCaffrey, director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy, said that
El Paso's abundance of drug intelligence efforts made the city a better fit.

Officials couldn't say yet how many staff members would be in the
headquarters or exactly where it will be located.

"We need intelligence to support law enforcement more on the border,"
McCaffrey said.

"We had the (El Paso Intelligence Center) in El Paso, military support for
law enforcement in El Paso with Joint Task Force Six, and civilian
law-enforcement efforts with Operation Alliance, so why have the HIDTA
coordinating center in San Diego?"

The Southwest Border HIDTA was one of five such programs created in 1990 to
provide federal funding to areas with high levels of drug trafficking, and
is meant to encourage coordination among the law-enforcement agencies in a
region.

The Southwest HIDTA covers a number of counties in Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona and California. The region has been a focus of drug-control efforts,
with massive increases in funding and staffing in recent years. By 2001,
funding is expected to rise to more than $892 million -- an increase of 48
percent from 1996 levels -- and the number of Border Patrol agents is
expected to rise 59 percent, from the 5,281 agents in 1996 to a requested
level of 8,390 in 2001.

McCaffrey said he hopes the HIDTA reorganization will be a step toward the
creation of what has been called the "border czar" position.

"I sure hope so," he said. "I think the border czar thing frightened
agencies with turf issues. But right now we don't need directive authority.
We need people to sit down at the same table."

Agencies as diverse as the U.S. Customs Service, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service and the El Paso Police Department are brought
together under HIDTA's umbrella. The hope is that drug busts will increase
with increased coordination of efforts and sharing of intelligence. At the
same time, McCaffrey said, efforts to combat any possible corruption in
law-enforcement agencies along the border are also important.

"In my view it's not if there will be corruption, but the question is what
we'll do about it," he said. "There's always going to be a rigorous
counterintelligence effort by the FBI to ensure our democratic institutions
are not infiltrated by drug cartels. They constantly try, whether trying to
influence policy decisions or to influence journalists."

McCaffrey spent Thursday evening in El Paso meeting with representatives
from many of the law-enforcement agencies that are involved in the HIDTA
program. Capt. Robert Almante, the acting deputy chief in charge of the
major crime bureau for the El Paso Police Department, who was to attend a
dinner for McCaffrey Thursday night, said El Paso has an important role to
play in the war against drugs.

"Whenever we take them off the street, it's not only here in El Paso but
across the country," Almante said. "What we do in El Paso has a big impact
across the U.S."

Lou Rutigliano may be reached at lrutigliano@elpasotimes.com