PENTAGON TO SCRAP ARMED PATROLS ALONG BORDER

WASHINGTON -- Defense Department officials will recommend permanently
canceling armed military patrols along the Mexico border in the wake of a
fatal shooting of a teenage goat herder by a U.S. Marine last year, a
senior defense official said Wednesday.

``It's not worth the legal liability for our soldiers, and the actual
amount of drugs seized throughout the performance of those missions proved
to be modest,'' said the senior defense official who spoke on the condition
of anonymity.

An ongoing study of the military's future role along the border has not yet
been presented to Defense Secretary William Cohen. But that study will
advocate that support services including road building and intelligence
gathering continue, while ground reconnaissance missions in the front lines
of the drug war end, the official said.

The proposed end of the armed patrols drew outrage from Rep. Lamar Smith,
R-Texas, chairman of the House immigration subcommittee.

``Reducing the already overburdened resources at the border opens the door
for drug smugglers who are now bringing 70 percent of their product across
the Southwest border,'' Smith said.

Last year the House overwhelmingly approved a measure that would deploy
10,000 more troops along the border, but the measure died in the Senate.

Less than two dozen troops were involved in armed ground patrols of the
border at any time, so canceling them amounts to no more than ``a minor
adjustment'' to a ``very robust, and we think very successful program,''
the defense official said.

The armed patrols were halted in July, after a U.S. Marine shot and killed
a high-school sophomore in Southwest Texas. The fatal shooting occurred
after the teen fired two shots from an 80-year-old rifle towards four
Marines who were hiding in riverbank brush on an anti-drug patrol.

A Texas grand jury declined to indict the Marine, but a Justice Department
civil rights investigation has not been completed.

The Defense Department's study on the military's role along the border,
triggered by the death of Esequiel Hernandez Jr., 18, will not be released
until the Justice Department concludes its probe, sources said.

The moratorium on ground patrols has not prohibited the military from
continuing to provide various kinds of support to the U.S. Border Patrol,
including document analysis, translation, aerial reconnaissance,
engineering, training and secured transportation of drug evidence, said Lt.
Col. Bill Reichert, a spokesman for Joint Task Force Six, a drug-fighting
military detail based at Fort Bliss, Texas.

National Guard troops also help U.S. Customs agents inspect trucks at U.S.
ports of entry along the border.

Last week the Defense Department revealed plans to send more than 500 Army
soldiers and Marines, along with construction equipment, to South Texas to
build roads and helicopter landing pads along the border.

All of the military activity is aimed at helping to stop drug trafficking,
not illegal immigration. But any information the military activity yields
about illegal immigration is passed along to the Border Patrol.

The deployment of military forces along the border has been controversial
since it began under orders from Congress in 1989. Some critics have said
that use of the military comes perilously close to violating the 1878 Posse
Comitatus law, which forbids the U.S. military from engaging in domestic
police work, such as making arrests.

Others, including many military leaders, say the armed forces are trained
differently than law enforcement officers, and operate under distinctly
different rules. Soldiers learn to fight and kill other combatants on
battlefields, not to detain or apprehend civilians protected by an array of
constitutional rights, the critics say.

Even Barry McCaffrey, the nation's drug czar and a retired Army general,
has said he prefers not to use soldiers in the front lines. But until
Border Patrol ranks can be built up, military help is essential, McCaffrey
has said.

A spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy said he has seen
no plans for future military armed patrols along the border, but considers
the military's current support ``adequate.''

There are generally no more than 125 troops deployed to border-related
missions at any one time, said Maureen Bossch, a spokeswoman for Joint Task
Force Six near El Paso.