Pubdate: Sat, 15 Jun 2002
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2002 News World Communications, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Jerry Seper

DEA TO SHIFT HEADQUARTERS PERSONNEL TO FIELD

Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson has ordered a 
top-to-bottom review of the DEA as part of a post-September 11 
reorganization aimed at giving field offices additional manpower and 
resources to battle domestic and international drug smuggling.

Mr. Hutchinson, during an hourlong meeting with reporters at DEA 
headquarters, said the agency's renewed anti-drug effort was aimed at 
attacking narcotics smugglers in the country and overseas whose illicit 
profits are used to fund terrorism.

"We are struggling with how to register with the American psyche as a 
reality that drugs do support terrorism," Mr. Hutchinson said, adding that 
he hopes to create "mobile groups of agents" to combat border smuggling and 
to reassign 10 percent of the agents at headquarters in Washington to field 
offices nationwide.

"They can be more effective in the field, and that's where they want to 
be," he said.

The proposed DEA review and reassignments are in response to a 
reorganization plan announced earlier this month by the FBI, which is 
transferring 400 bureau agents with drug-investigation assignments to 
counterterrorism cases.

Mr. Hutchinson, a former federal prosecutor and Arkansas congressman, told 
reporters that the reassignment of DEA headquarters personnel was a 
"starting point" in an overall plan to streamline the agency, which is 
committed to reducing illicit drug use in the country by 10 percent this year.

"Our first responsibility is not to just throw more money at the problem 
but to look at our allocation of resources -- something that hasn't been 
done in 20 years," he said. "Things have changed over the past 20 years and 
we may not have adequately adjusted our resources."

During the press briefing, Mr. Hutchinson also said:

- -- The DEA has assigned 17 agents to Afghanistan to address an ongoing drug 
threat there. Afghanistan, in recent years, has been a major source country 
for the cultivation, processing and trafficking of opiate and cannabis 
products.

He said Afghanistan produced more than 70 percent of the world's supply of 
illicit opium in 2000, but the newly elected Afghan government, under Hamid 
Karzai, had been "extraordinarily helpful" in efforts to reduce drug 
production. He noted, however, that there was "a difference in making 
decrees and having the law enforcement structure to enforce them."

- -- Seizures of drugs coming into the United States from Mexico had gone up 
since the September 11 attacks, a result he attributed to increased border 
enforcement efforts. He said transportation costs for the smugglers are 
mounting, and risk had increased. Also, the price of the products had risen.

Mr. Hutchinson noted, however, that while the DEA had not documented any 
increase in production, it could not say the production had decreased.

The DEA review will seek to strengthen efforts along the U.S.-Mexican 
border, where many of the agents at DEA headquarters are expected to be 
reassigned as members of a border enforcement team. The DEA boss said he 
expects the team to be "mobile" to address Southwest border threats.

Mr. Hutchinson, noting that the DEA is the only single-mission agency in 
the country dedicated to fighting drugs, said the nation "needs the full 
attention, expertise and focus of the FBI on preventing terrorism against 
United States citizens," describing it as "the right priority" for the bureau.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth