SMARTER CROOKS, FEWER DRUG BUSTS

MIAMI - U.S.-directed seizures and disruptions of cocaine shipments
from Latin America dropped sharply in 2007 from the year before,
reflecting in part a successful shift in tactics by drug traffickers
to avoid detection at sea, senior U.S. officials said in releasing new figures.

Navy Adm. Jim Stavridis, commander of U.S. Southern Command, which is
responsible for U.S. military operations in the region, said seizures
fell from 262 metric tons in 2006 to about 210 tons last year.

"It's difficult to say why that is," he said Monday in an interview
with three reporters who visited his headquarters with Adm. Mike
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who expressed concern
at the shift.

The 2007 figure was the lowest since 2003, other officials said. Last
year's drop broke a string of yearly increases in cocaine seizures
and disruptions dating to the late 1990s. The numbers include
estimates of cocaine thrown overboard or scuttled with vessels -- a
common response by smugglers who are detected at sea.

The biggest dropoff last year was in seizures at sea, which fell from
nearly 160 metric tons in 2006 to about 100 metric tons last year,
according to the figures, which are preliminary but were described by
officials as reliable estimates.

"In any given contest of offense and defense you've got to adjust
your tactics," Stavridis added, alluding to a conclusion reached by
Mullen and others that the drug organizations are nimbler than the
U.S. government. They are finding new ways of eluding detection at
sea, such as shipping drugs in semi-submersible vessels, and are
flying drug routes from sites in western Venezuela that are harder to
stop, officials said.

Mullen put it more directly during an exchange earlier Monday with
several dozen officials at the headquarters of Joint Interagency Task
Force South in Florida, where military and civilian agencies --
including the Pentagon and the CIA -- coordinate the tracking of drug
shipments and drug leaders.

"The bad guy is moving faster than we're moving," Mullen said.

The Joint Chiefs chairman also said he is concerned at how long it
might take to regain the advantage.

"I worry a little bit about how we as a government are able to focus
on this mission," he said, noting that the counterdrug mission is a
lower national security priority now than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In comments later in Miami, Mullen also expressed worry at Iran's
push to strengthen its ties in Latin America.

In September, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Bolivia,
where he pledged $1 billion (euro670 million) in investment, and then
Venezuela to meet President Hugo Chavez, whom the administration of
U.S. President George W. Bush accuses of being a threat to stability
in the region. He also has been to Nicaragua recently.

"I'm very concerned about the Iranian engagement here," Mullen told a
news conference at Southern Command headquarters after meeting
privately with Stavridis and his staff. "I haven't seen any evidence
that Iran has fomented any kind of terrorism in this part of the
world," but there remains a "very disconcerting" possibility that
Iran's growing presence could lead to future terrorist links, he added.

Mullen also was asked about Chavez's statement Sunday urging his
Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe, to recognize the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army
as legitimate insurgent groups -- rather than terrorists -- as a
first step toward possible peace talks.

"My principal concern there is from a security standpoint," Mullen
said. "I've watched Venezuela move in this direction" -- an allusion
to a view among U.S. military officials that Chavez is actively
seeking to counter U.S. efforts in Colombia to help the government
defeat the FARC.

In commenting on the drug war, Stavridis did not indicate that he is
alarmed by the 2007 drop in drug seizures and disruptions.

Among possible explanations offered by Stavridis was that more of the
drug traffic is being directed east across the Atlantic toward Europe
and Africa, where it often fetches higher prices, rather than toward
Mexico and the United States. He also said it was possible that more
of the cocaine is being used inside Latin America by the cartels for
payoffs "for various activities" which he did not discuss in detail.

Another factor that other U.S. officials said is playing a major role
in the drug traffickers' recent success is their increasing use of
semi-submersible vessels that are much harder to detect at sea.

To underscore his concern about this development, Stavridis has
placed on the lawn in front of the Southern Command headquarters
building a replica of a drug smuggling semi-submersible built by the
Naval Research Office in the 1990s to enable the U.S. military to
study ways to detect and track them.