Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jun 2006
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2006 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact:  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Curt Anderson, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

TERROR MAY PUSH DRUGS ASIDE

Rumsfeld: Use U.S. Choppers Elsewhere

MIAMI . Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants to end Army 
helicopter support for a joint U.S.-Bahamas counterdrug program, 
raising questions about the future of a decades-long effort that has 
resulted in hundreds of arrests and the seizure of tons of cocaine 
and marijuana.

The Army's seven Blackhawk helicopters and their crews form the 
backbone of Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, which the U.S. Drug 
Enforcement Administration credits for helping drive cocaine and 
marijuana smugglers away from the Bahamas and its easy access to 
Florida's coast.

But in a May 15 letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Rumsfeld 
said it was time after more than 20 years to shift the military 
assets elsewhere. The letter comes as the Defense Department is 
increasingly stretched thin by ongoing conflicts in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and multiple military commitments around the globe.

The Bahamas counterdrug program, Rumsfeld wrote, "now competes with 
resources necessary for the war on terrorism and other activities in 
support of our nation's defense, with potential adverse effects on 
the military preparedness of the United States."

The letter asks Gonzales to help identify "a more appropriate agency" 
to provide the air support. Rumsfeld said he wants to complete the 
military pullout from the program by Oct. 1, 2007.

The DEA is the other major player in the program, but it has only one 
helicopter in the Bahamas. The Coast Guard currently has three 
Jayhawk helicopters assigned to the program, but DEA officials say 
those combined assets would be insufficient to provide quick response 
along the vast, 700-island Bahamas chain.

"We would need some resources to be able to do that," Mark R. 
Trouville, chief of DEA's Miami field office, said in an interview. 
The Miami DEA office oversees U.S. counterdrug efforts in the 
Caribbean and Latin America.

The Justice Department, of which DEA is a part, declined to comment 
Wednesday on Rumsfeld's letter. Trouville said discussions were under 
way regarding which agency might assume the military's role in the Bahamas.

Defense Department officials at the Pentagon and the U.S. Southern 
Command in Miami did not return telephone calls Wednesday seeking 
further comment.

When the program began in 1982, up to 90 percent of the cocaine 
smuggled into the United States from Latin America came into Florida 
through the Bahamas and Caribbean. Now, most of the cocaine moves 
across the U.S. southwestern border, in part because of the pressure 
on traffickers operating off Florida's coasts.

"If we start letting our guard down here now, and we reduce our 
presence here, it will be more economical [for smugglers] to come 
back this way. And certainly the state of Florida is ground zero for 
that," Trouville said.

Since 2000, the program has resulted in the seizure of more than 25 
tons of cocaine, 82 tons of marijuana and the arrests of 786 people, 
according to DEA statistics from April. The Army and Coast Guard 
helicopters operate from three bases in the Bahamas, coordinating 
with Bahamian police vessels and DEA agents to interdict drug shipments.

The program also plays a role in identifying and stopping human 
smugglers, particularly those from Haiti that are often caught on 
old, overcrowded vessels.

Bahamian officials did not return telephone calls Wednesday seeking 
comment. The Bahamas' ambassador to the United States, Joshua Sears, 
was returning from an Organization of American States summit in the 
Dominican Republican and unavailable for comment, said embassy 
officials in Washington.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman