PENTAGON CHANGES POLICY ON USE OF TROOPS IN DRUG WAR ON BORDER

SAN ANTONIO -- The Pentagon has all but ended the use of ground troops
along the U.S.-Mexico border, issuing new rules that require special
permission for armed anti-drug efforts there.

Permission must come from the secretary of defense or his deputy, said
Lt. Col. Mike Milord, a Defense Department spokesman.

The policy change comes well over a year after a high school sophomore
was shot and killed by Marines in the small town of Redford, a hamlet
that straddles the Mexican border just west of Big Bend National Park.

That incident, which claimed the life of 18-year-old Esequiel
Hernandez Jr., prompted Defense Secretary William Cohen to suspend
similar missions.

Troops continue to carry out other anti-narcotics duties along the
border as part of a joint task force with federal authorities,
including civil engineering projects, air reconnaissance and
intelligence analysis.

"The policy change really gives the secretary of defense oversight for
these missions," Milord said. The decision was made in October, Milord
said, but never officially announced.

Hernandez was killed on May 20, 1997, while herding his family's goats
near the Rio Grande. He was armed with a vintage .22-caliber rifle,
which he carried for protection and fired twice in the direction of
four heavily camouflaged Marines.

Marine Cpl. Clemente Banuelos fired the fatal shot from about 200
yards away after he said Hernandez raised his rifle to fire a third
time.

Twice, Presidio County grand juries refused to indict Banuelos and his
fellow Marines. A civil rights probe by the Justice Department also
failed to bring charges against the troops, in part because they had
received permission to fire by radio.

But a Marine Corps inquiry cited "systemic failures at every level"
during the mission. Lamar Smith, a congressman from San Antonio, also
issued a scathing report, saying the Justice and Defense departments
undermined criminal investigations into the incident.

Smith's report concludes that the Justice and Defense departments
withheld information about the inadequate training of the Marines.

The new policy will make the deployment of ground troops along the
border very unlikely, said Timothy Dunn of El Paso, author of the
Militarization of the U.S-Mexico Border. He said that neither the
defense secretary nor his deputy were likely to authorize such missions.

"This is as significant a policy change as we're going to have without
changing the law," Dunn said. But, he added, "It should never have
taken a boy's life to bring that about."