U.S. TO ROLL BACK ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS

War On Terrorism Is Seen As Higher Priority

WASHINGTON - Citing the need to redirect resources to the war on terrorism,
the Pentagon has quietly decided to scale back its effort to combat
international drug trafficking, a central element of the national "war on
drugs" for 14 years.

Officials are still weighing how exactly to pare the $1 billion-a-year
program, but they want to reduce deployment of special operations troops on
counter-narcotics missions and cut back the military's training of
anti-drug police and soldiers in the United States and abroad. And they
want to use intelligence-gathering equipment now devoted to counter-drug
efforts to work for counterterrorism as well.

But the military's counter-narcotics effort is highly popular among some on
Capitol Hill, where the retrenchment plans could run into trouble. The
plans have not yet been spelled out for lawmakers; however, Defense
Department memos and interviews with current and former officials make the
Pentagon's intentions clear.

1988: a sense of crisis

Congress ordered a reluctant Pentagon to enter the drug war in 1988, when
surging cocaine traffic from South America sparked a sense of crisis in the
United States.

"We should not be relaxing our efforts in the war on drugs," said Rep.
Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence
and an important advocate for the effort. "Terrorism is the highest
priority, but drugs are still insidious."

The Pentagon's plans have been couched in indirect terms. They were
signaled this summer in a memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
and distributed to senior uniformed and civilian officials.

'Changed environment'

He said the department had "carefully reviewed its existing
counter-narcotics policy" because of "the changed national security
environment, the corresponding shift in the department's budget and other
priorities, and evolving support requirements." The Pentagon will now focus
its counter-narcotics activities on programs that, among other things,
"contribute to the war on terrorism," he added.

But even before the Sept. 11 attacks, senior officials including Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had bluntly stated their lack of enthusiasm for
the anti-drug mission, which they contend is better handled by civilian
agencies.

Thus, some experts believe the Defense Department may be taking advantage
of the war on terrorism to scale back a mission they never wanted.

Lawmakers who support the Pentagon's anti-drug mission have been worried
for some time by what they view as signs that the Rumsfeld team intends to
scale back the effort.

Early last year, top defense officials asked the Pentagon comptroller to
study whether to continue the counter-narcotics work and other
"non-traditional" missions. The study recommended paring the program,
former defense officials say. And some observers note that Rumsfeld has not
named a permanent assistant defense secretary for special operations and
low-intensity conflict, who is supposed to oversee the anti-drug program.

In an interview, Pentagon counter-drug chief Andre Hollis emphasized that
the Pentagon wants to retain parts of the program that have worked well but
that all the pieces are being examined to determine whether each "is still
a priority mission. The top priorities now are to defend the homeland and
to win the war on terrorism."

In particular, Hollis said, defense wants to reduce the burden on special
operations forces, which are relatively few in number and in heavy demand
for terrorism-related missions.

Doubling up resources

And when possible, he said, the department wants to double up on the use of
intelligence-gathering equipment. If, for instance, a National Guard
helicopter is flying along the California-Mexico border "looking for drug
activity, there's no reason why they can't also be looking for terrorists,"
he said.

But a former senior defense official, who asked not to be identified, said
the counter-drug operations would inevitably get short shrift if forced to
share equipment with anti-terrorism operations.