WAR ON DRUGS TRUMPED FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM

The Phoenix memo. The Rowley letter. The Oklahoma red flag. All elements in
this true and tragic story of fumbling feds that has more smoking guns than
a Quentin Tarantino movie.

So why did the FBI fail to see them?

In announcing his big reorganization plans, Director Robert Mueller seemed
to consider the FBI's tragedy of errors a question of flawed management
flow charts, nothing a rejiggered PowerPoint presentation couldn't fix. But
there was a much more fundamental problem plaguing the bureau before Sept.
11 - one of deeply flawed priorities. Namely, the agency's crippling
addiction to America's war on drugs.

While Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida minions were preparing for their
murderous mission, the FBI was looking the other way. More than twice as
many FBI agents were assigned to fighting drugs (2,500) as to fighting
terrorism (1,151). And far more FBI money was dedicated to the drug war.

This pathological prioritization of the drug war extended well beyond the
allocation of money and manpower. It was ingrained in the culture.
Counter-terrorism units were treated like the bureau's ugly stepchildren,
looked down on by FBI management because they weren't making the
high-profile arrests that spruce up a supervisor's resume and make the
evening news.

It's now clear that there were terror warning signs aplenty, but that they
were disregarded by FBI officials who had their eyes on a different prize.

In Phoenix, where the now famous Ken Williams memo originated,
counterterrorism agents complained bitterly about their efforts being given
"the lowest investigative priority" by a supervisor who preferred glamorous
drug-fighting investigations. Even though the anti-terror squad was
understaffed, having been assigned only eight of the division's 200 agents,
it had managed to infiltrate groups of terror suspects.

So what was their reward? Regular head-butting sessions with higher- ups
who balked at having to allocate resources for information that didn't lead
to immediate, camera-worthy arrests.

Meanwhile, across the country in Boston, Raed Hijazi, an admitted al- Qaida
member who had become an informant to avoid jail, warned FBI agents about
Arab terrorists and sympathizers. But the FBI wasn't interested in Hijazi's
terror leads - they only wanted to hear what he knew about the heroin trade.

And it wasn't just the FBI. This mind-set infected the entire law
enforcement community, starting at the top. "I want to escalate the war on
drugs," said Attorney General John Ashcroft shortly after being nominated
for the post. "I want to renew it. I want to refresh it." And he was true
to his word. Witness the $43 million the Bush administration gave to the
Taliban just four months before Sept. 11. Sure, there was the small detail
of harboring a guy named bin Laden, but the Taliban had agreed to ban the
production of opium poppies. And so the drug war trumped the terror war again.

So is this kind of thinking finally a thing of the past? I'm not so sure.
Even after last week's highly touted reorganization, which included the
reassignment of 400 narcotics agents to counterterrorism, there are still
2,100 agents spending invaluable time and energy fighting a fruitless drug
war. This despite the fact that combating drugs didn't make Director
Mueller's official Top Ten list of priorities.

We should demand that the White House follow through on Mueller's instinct
and go all the way with the shift, choosing the war against terror over the
war against drugs.

As the soaring budget deficit reminds us, federal coffers are not a
bottomless well.

Everything comes with a price. Sadly, it looks like the price of the drug
war may have included the 3,056 lives lost on Sept. 11.