DRUG WAR RESOURCES MAY GO TO TERRORISM EFFORT

Critics -- Narcotics Fight Was a Mission Pentagon Never Wanted

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
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.

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, a Florida Republican and 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.

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 counternarcotics 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
"nontraditional" 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 if each "is still a
priority mission. The top priorities now are to defend the homeland and to
win the war on terrorism."

Over the years, Hollis said, the counter-narcotics mission has multiplied
into 179 separate sub-programs, a number he called "surreal." He said his
first assignment when he came to the job in August 2001 was to conduct a
"bottom-up review" that would distinguish what the Pentagon does well in
counter-narcotics from "what we shouldn't be doing, or that didn't need to
be done anymore."

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.

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 for anonymity, said the
counter-drug operations would inevitably get short shrift if forced to
share equipment with anti-terrorism operations.

The Pentagon spent about $1 billion on drug-related operations in fiscal
2002, out of a total federal counter-narcotics outlay of $19 billion. The
Pentagon has a bigger anti-drug budget than the Coast Guard, Customs
Service or the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and accounts for a
significant share of federal money spent to fight drugs abroad.

In its drug interdiction role, the U.S. military acts as the lead U.S.
agency for gathering intelligence on drug trafficking, and uses an array of
aircraft, ships, radar and other eavesdropping tools.

While barred from conducting drug raids directly, troops provide some
real-time technical help - such as communications and intelligence analysis
- - during anti-drug operations being carried out by law enforcement and
foreign military organizations.

Highly skilled special operations troops and other military personnel also
train foreign police and soldiers, as well as U.S. law enforcement
personnel. They teach everything from basic infantry to languages, first
aid, boat handling, swimming and horsemanship.

Hollis said these duties could be scaled back. For example, he said, if
Special Forces are training U.S. customs officials in horseback riding, the
Customs Service should now turn to local ranchers for that. And if the
Border Patrol is learning swimming from Special Forces, "they'll have to go
to the local YMCA."

One high-profile anti-drug operation that may see changes is Joint Task
Force Six, based at Fort Bliss, Texas.

The task force conducts counter-drug reconnaissance missions on the Mexican
border, and provides military training and technical services for local,
state and federal civilian agencies. It has provided training and other
help for 430 civilian agencies, in such areas as intelligence analysis,
language, first aid, canine training, marksmanship and small boat operations.

The task force has been asked to review its programs in light of
Wolfowitz's memo. Hollis said reports that the Task Force "is going to go
away ... are just rumors," but added that while "people are generally
anxious about change, 9/11 changed everything for us. We need to look at
the collective good."

The military's counter-drug efforts have not exactly "won" the drug war,
some experts note. The price and supply of cocaine, for example, have been
relatively stable since 1989.

"They're certainly working at the margins in making a difference," said
Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland economist and former director of
Rand Corp.'s Drug Policy Research Center.

And liberal critics have argued that by training foreign police and
soldiers, the U.S. military has in some cases given new tools to brutal
regimes that often abuse human rights.

Yet the Pentagon's work has led to important drug seizures and arrests, and
has helped build U.S. ties and open doors for U.S. military access in many
countries.

The former defense official said that the key unanswered question about the
shift in plans is how much the administration intends to trim from Pentagon
anti-drug spending in the upcoming fiscal 2004 budget, and whether
officials plan to shift to other areas the intelligence-gathering ships and
planes that have been the backbone of the mission.

Pentagon counter-drug officials have had to struggle to hang on to
intelligence-gathering planes, such as Navy P-3s and AWACs surveillance
aircraft, which the Joint Chiefs have frequently diverted to missions
considered higher priorities.

Top Defense officials are expected to work out the details of the shift in
counter-drug priorities in the next few weeks as they prepare to give
Congress their 2004 budget proposal.