WAR ON DRUGS ON THE WANE?

U.S. Redeploying Its Resources To Fend Off Terrorist Attacks

WASHINGTON - With the war on terror driving the federal government, the war
on drugs is taking a back seat.

Some analysts warn of gaps in the drug interdiction effort as the Coast
Guard redeploys to protect American ports from potential terrorist attacks.

The FBI is transferring 400 narcotics agents to hunt for terrorists.

Since Sept. 11, the Customs Service has shifted its primary mission from
detecting smuggled narcotics to stopping terrorists and weapons at U.S.
borders.

Some on Capitol Hill are asking whether in the rush to combat terrorists,
law enforcement officials are bypassing the anti-drug campaign.

"More people are killed in drug-related occurrences than have been in all
the terrorist acts combined - not even close," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.,
D-Del., chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Con-trol,
said during a Senate hearing last week. "Now, that doesn't mean we
shouldn't focus on terrorism. What I'm trying to get a handle on here is
whether we're doing this on the fly."

Now, President Bush has proposed putting the Coast Guard and the Customs
Service into the new Homeland Security Department with the main goal of
fighting terrorists. What effect that would have on drug interdiction will
be seen.

The nation's drug czar said Bush's plan to consolidate border control
operations could improve the efficiency of drug control efforts. The Coast
Guard, the Border Patrol and the Customs Service already work closely
together in the field. This plan will enable them to coordinate their
efforts more effectively, John P. Waters said.

Within hours of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the focus of federal law
enforcement agencies shifted dramatically. Ships and planes that had been
searching for drug traffickers patrolled U.S. ports and guarded against
another aerial attack. FBI agents began tracking potential terrorists.

Not all legislators agree with Biden that the war on terror has hurt the
drug war.

"I think it has helped the war on drugs," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "We
have so dramatically increased our border surveillance for terrorism, it
has created an unintended consequence of capturing illegal drugs coming
across the border."

Before Sept. 11, the Coast Guard devoted about 1 percent of its time to
protecting ports. Just after the attacks, that jumped to nearly 60 percent.
While the emphasis on port security has eased slowly, Coast Guard
Commandant Adm. James Loy called homeland defense the service's "new North
Star."

One congressional staff member with expertise in the Coast Guard said
Congress expects too much. Homeland security is supposed to be the Coast
Guard's top mission, he said, but it is told not to dilute the other
missions of drug interdiction, search and rescue, marine fisheries
protection and stopping illegal immigrants.

At the same time, he said, Congress has turned down requests from the Coast
Guard commandant to expand the size of the force. Yet legislators have told
the commandant not to work the force so hard because trained veterans are
starting to leave in greater numbers.

The Coast Guard still confiscates large amounts of cocaine and marijuana,
he said, but it is working on old intelligence information that is
beginning to atrophy.

Bush proposed a $282 million increase in the Coast Guard's 2003 maritime
security budget and promised more help for drug interdiction. If the
president's proposal is approved, it would be the largest budget boost the
service has ever received.

Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas congressman who heads the Drug
Enforcement Administration, sees the shift of FBI agents away from
narcotics as possibly benefiting his work - if Congress gives him more
money to make up the difference.

"We can be more effective in carrying out our counter-narcotics
responsibility if we strengthen the role of an agency that is singularly
focused on the drug mission, and that's the DEA," he said.

He is working with FBI Director Robert Mueller to learn what holes have to
be filled by the FBI's drop in narcotics investigations, he said.

The DEA coordinates with the Coast Guard to intercept drug traffickers at
sea, Hutchinson said. So getting the Coast Guard back to its full
interdiction mission is essential for the DEA to do its job.

In the interim, he said, ships from European allies have "filled a gap that
was critical" by helping the DEA with drug interdiction in the Caribbean Sea.

Hutchinson insists the war on drugs is essential to the war on terrorism
because terrorists fund their operations with drug money.

"The drugs-to-money-to-terror relationship is historic, it is current, and
it is threatening to our future," Hutchinson said. "Armed groups use
illegal drug profits to fund their terrorist activities and to enforce
control over the local population in many parts of the world."

The Taliban, he said, built its financial base from heroin trafficking in
Afghanistan. About 70 percent of the world's opium came from Afghanistan
before Sept. 11. Now, he said, the United States has the opportunity to
eradicate poppy production in Afghanistan by buying up the crop and
offering economic alternatives to Afghans who grow poppies.

Mueller suggested the loss of 400 FBI narcotics agents would not damage the
war on drugs. He said it would be "critically important" to end the overlap
with the DEA. The number of agents serving on anti-drug task forces would
be reduced but not eliminated, he said.

"We believe we could take 400 agents who are currently [investigating]
drugs and reassign them to counter-terrorism," he said. "The FBI will still
be devoting nearly 1,000 agents to drug-related cases."

But narcotics experts on Capitol Hill worry an important link between the
FBI and DEA could be lost. Narcotics traffickers often are part of
syndicates that deal in an array of crimes. The FBI, with its broader
crime-fighting mandate, could pass information to the DEA, whose mission is
focused just on narcotics.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said local law enforcement officials in Florida
are concerned they will be losing the FBI's help not only on drug cases,
but also on white-collar crime and organized crime.

"You can't offload all of that crime investigation onto local law
enforcement," Nelson said. "They just don't have the resources."