EXHIBITION LINKS DRUG AND TERROR WARS

A pile of twisted metal girders, scattered shoes and a child's toy taken
from the World Trade Center rubble sits alongside bloody images of Basque
separatist car bombings, a hooded Hamas suicide bomber - and a snapshot of
some gaunt-looking addicts "getting high".

They are part of an emotive exhibition opening this week at the Virginia
headquarters of the US Drug Enforcement Administration that examines links
between terrorist groups and drug cartels through the prism of September 11.

The display highlights a growing debate in government and drug enforcement
circles over how to prosecute the "war on drugs" at a time when the fight
against terrorism has taken precedence over narcotics traffickers.

"We should have the same approach to drugs as we do to terrorism," said
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, at the exhibition last week.
"They are both intended to break the spirit of the American nation."

The DEA is conveying the same thought as it fights to maintain funding for
anti-drug efforts. With the steady redeployment of US resources and
manpower to the war on terrorism, the drug agency and other anti-drug
campaigners are cranking up a public relations campaign that aims to
piggyback on the terrorism fight. Should they play their cards right, the
drugs warriors could end up in a stronger position than before.

The impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the drugs war was felt
at all levels, from street programmes urging children to "just say no" to
high-tech interception operations in international waters. The FBI moved
some 400 agents out of counter-narcotics operations to counter-terrorism
taskforces.

The result has left underfunded local law enforcement outfits trying to
take up the slack, at a time when they were burdened with additional tasks
such as patrolling airport security checkpoints. Centrepiece programmes
such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which sends police officers into
schools to teach children to reject drugs, lost out.

Further up the "food chain", the US Coast Guard, which helps intercept
illegal drug shipments, moved many of its cutters from the Caribbean to
defend ports along the eastern seaboard against terrorists. It plans to
drop the proportion of its budget spent countering drugs from 18 to 13 per
cent.

The DEA, the White House drugs czar and John Ashcroft, the
attorney-general, have been quick to play up the long-recognised links
between drugs and terrorism. Rand Beers, former counter-narcotics chief at
the State Department, even declared under oath last November that Colombian
narcotics traffickers and leftwing Farc rebels had trained at al-Qaeda
camps in Afghanistan.

Mr Beers, now deputy head of counter-terrorism at the White House, has
since retracted the claim, filed as part of an ongoing court battle
involving the spraying of defoliants in Ecuador by a US government
contractor. The government's first public relations strike to link the
anti-drugs effort with terrorism after September 11 was to launch a $10m
advertising campaign - $3.5m of which was spent on just two television
airtime slots during the Super Bowl football game in February. In the
adverts, listless-looking US teenagers admit their drug use helps
terrorists. "I helped a bomber get a fake passport," said one. "I helped
blow up buildings," said another.

Highlighting the campaign, President George W. Bush said the commercials
stressed personal responsibility and morals. But critics of his
administration's drug policy were furious, arguing the commercials amounted
to blaming marijuana-smoking teenagers for global terrorism.

They say the focus on terrorism encourages questionable goals and
operations in a $20bn-a-year drug war to which the public is largely
indifferent, and argue instead for more attention on treatment programmes.

For different reasons, some drug war advocates are also dubious about the
terror slant. "All federal agencies go where the money is," says one
congressional staff member who is pushing for increased DEA funding.
"[Terrorism] is important but it's not the only message. It's important to
keep a distinction because the anti-drug effort is focused on other issues
as well. There are other good reasons not to be doing drugs."

The two "wars" do bear certain similarities - not least an open-ended time
frame - and many argue that melding them is a sound idea. Security experts
note that increased security at borders and airports has had benefits for
drugs interception.

But what of the Afghan heroin trade, the most obvious drugs link to the
September 11 attacks? The country's poppy producers saw a bumper crop this
year, according to the UN. Ironically, it is the one aspect of the trade
the drugs warriors can do little about - the US military has more immediate
objectives in Afghanistan than poppy eradication.

As one source put it: "If they alienate large segments of the population,
the ill-will created towards the US would complicate the political picture."