COCAINE SEIZURES SET RECORD

MIAMI -- Senior officials with the U.S. Coast Guard, which last year seized
more cocaine in waters south of here than any other year in the agency's
history, say they receive more intelligence on drug smuggling than they can
act on.

"We have a certain finite amount of resources," said Rear Adm. D. Brian
Peterman, commander of the Coast Guard's 7th District, which oversees the
agency's operations in what officials call the drug "transit zone" of the
Caribbean and waters off the coasts of Colombia.

With a higher level of importance placed on terrorism threats since being
shifted to the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, the Coast Guard has
fewer resources to investigate intelligence generated by the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration and others.

Officials say the bulk of the intelligence comes from Operation Panama
Express, a joint investigative effort by the DEA, FBI, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) and others based in Tampa, Fla. The effort
involves analyzing tips and feeding them to U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships.

Operation Panama Express also has led to key evidence for prosecuting major
Colombian drug cartel bosses extradited to the United States for trial in
recent years. Since the operation grew out of an ICE investigation of the
cartels five years ago, it has produced many informants leading to the
increased smuggling intelligence.

U.S. officials say the result has been a steady rise in cocaine intercepted
from speedboats. According to the most recent statistics of the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy, more than 157 metric tons were
seized in the transit zone in 2003 compared with a 113 metric-ton annual
average between 1998 and 2002.

DEA and Coast Guard statistics show seizure numbers are on the rise again
this year. Additionally, Colombian officials, who confiscated 13.8 tons --
upward of $230 million worth -- of pure cocaine in a record-setting single
seizure this month, are showing signs of an increase.

But U.S. officials are split on why.

While the official line from the DEA, ICE and the Coast Guard is that the
increase is a result of their doing a better job through improved
coordination and intelligence gathering, several senior counternarcotics
officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the explanation is
simpler: The drug smugglers have gotten careless.

"They're just wicked sloppy now, that's all it is," said one official,
adding that Colombian drug cartels have in recent years been taken over by
younger, more flagrant, bosses, compared with their predecessors in the 1980s.

The Coast Guard has emerged as a leader for capturing drug-smuggling
speedboats because of its versatile patrol ships and helicopters. The
agency, which is not bound by the same law-enforcement rules as the Defense
Department, also puts small, tactical law-enforcement teams aboard foreign
and U.S. Navy ships to conduct drug seizures.

Like other agencies under the Homeland Security umbrella, the Coast Guard
is receiving more funding -- this year's budget for the agency is about
$7.5 billion, up from $7 billion in 2004. Next year's requested budget tops
$8 billion.

But the shift to Homeland Security also means counternarcotics operations
take a back seat in the overall mission of protecting borders from
terrorist threats. The agency's resources are forced to operate on a
"multimission" basis, said Adm. Peterman.

"When you have a go-fast boat going to the United States, you don't know if
you've got a [weapon of mass destruction] or drugs," he said.