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onigs
Foundering
Audit Urges End
OfJoint Task Force
By Michael Isikoff
Washington Post Staff Writer
When Congress and the Bush ad-
ministration stepped up the drug war
more than two years ago, a reluctant
Pentagon was pushed to the front
lines, named as the “lead agency” for
detecting and monitoring drug smug-
glers from the sea and air.
But
now
questions
are
being
raised as to how useful the military’s
annual $1.1
billion anti-drug
effort
has been. A blunt internal audit of
the
U.S.
Pacific Command's
anti-
drug
operations has found
tens of
millions of dollars in wasted funds,
layers of needless bureaucracy and
the deployment of random ship pa-
trols that have been largely “ineffec-
tive” in finding smugglers and of lit-
tle use
to federal law enforcement
agencies.
Thereport recommends that!
ffiaskTorce'^ a much heralded ren-
^oncommand and intelligence cen-
renffffirneda. CalifTw shut down.
OneoftBreeTask forces created by
Secretary
of
Defense
Richard
B.
Cheney to oversee the Defense De-
partment’s
anti-drug
activities,
the
JTF 5 “duplicates counter-narcotics
capabilities
at
other
(Pacific Com-
mand)
activities and creates unnec-
essary operational overhead. ... We
recommend that JTF 5 be disestab-
lished," according to the July 9 audit
by the Defense Department inspec-
tor general’s office that was released
this week
at
the
request
of The
Washington Post.
Its findings are not entirely sur-
prising, according to some anti-drug
analysts. Commanders
and
budget
- -
.
„
analysts in the Defense Department,
months ago, not d y
.
long have questioned the wisdom of
military participation.in the drug war
and nowhere more so than
in the
Pacific: Trying to use military assets
to
detect
drug
smugglers
in
the
ocean's 100 million square miles was
always
“a
particularly
implausible
effort,” noted Peter Reuter, a Rand
Corp. economist.
Nevertheless,
the
Hawaii-based
Pacific Command last year allocated
$23 million annually through 1995 to
deploy radar planes as well as frig-
ates and other ships on random or
“routine” patrols in hope of finding
drug smugglers plying the Pacific.
Nothing has turned up. A separate
General Accounting Office study re-
cently found that out of more than
200 boardings of ships carried out by
federal
law
enforcement
officials
(usually Coast Guard
officers) who
accompanied Pacific Command anti-
drug patrols, none
resulted
in
sei-
zures
of
drugs
or
the
arrests
of
smuggling suspects.
The inspector general’s audit also
found no seizures and recommended
THE WASHINGTON POST
hard
intelligence
that
a
particular
ship is carrying drugs.
In yet another criticism, the audit
found
repeated
attempts
by
the
multi-service
Pacific Command
to
use the drug war to fund missions
that had nothing to do with drugs.
Out
of
$195
million
in
anti-drug
funds requested more than two years
ago, $152 million was subsequently
ruled “invalid” in part because it was
"unrelated to the counter-narcotics
mission,” the audit says.
The
Pacific Command later sub-
mitted a revised $47 million budget
request that was approved, but the
inspector general still challenged one
item: $4 million for a “secure video
teleconferencing” center for JTF 5.
The audit concluded the task force
could use secure telephones instead.
Michael A. Wermuth, deputy as-
sistant
secretary
of
defense
for
drug enforcement, said JTF 5 pro-
vided important intelligence and de-
fended the Pacific Command's con-
tribution to the drug war as “very
useful.”
“We’re not in the process of mea-
suring our performance on the num-
ber of tons
of cocaine
seized," he
said. He cited recent congressional
testimony indicating that federal law
enforcement agencies were grateful
for the Pentagon’s help.
But Wermuth acknowledged that
the
Pacific Command’s routine
pa-
trols were “not effective" and that a
decision had been made to discontin-
ue them even before the inspector
general’s findings were transmitted.
Although
no
announcement
was
made
of
such
operations
being
stopped,
Wermuth
said
“it
was
But the inspector general’s office
also questioned whether the use of
any naval assets in the Pacific makes
sense. According to the audit, JTF 5
has directed
its efforts against mar-
itime smugglers,
usually
the
oper-
ators of “mother ships” who off-load
their cargo to smaller boats hovering
off West Coats
ports. These
ships,
the audit notes, almost always carry
bulky marijuana, rather than easier
to conceal cocaine or heroin. Those
drugs are usually smuggled aboard
passenger
aircraft
or
concealed
aboard commercial cargo ships.
By directing its operations against
the
maritime
smuggler,
the
audit
concludes, “JTF 5 has, as a
result,
limited
itself to detecting and mon-
itoring marijuana smuggling,” a mis-
sion
that
is "contrary
to the
guid-
ance”
of
the
Central
Intelligence
Agency that the military concentrate
on heroin and cocaine. The CIA had
concluded
that
programs
against
marijuana “do not warrant substan-
tial new
intelligence
investments,"
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