Approved For Release 200 SG1J 6 Cittg 3 89R000800100015-7 Pacific War On Drugs foundering Audit Urges End Of Joint 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 fit- tle use to federal law enforcement agetivits. The report recommends thatg e of thre ak forces created by Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney to oversee the Defense De- partment’s anti-drug activities, the JTF 5 “dupticates 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, 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 ta 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- sisstant 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 months ago, not days.” 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 shins. 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,” Approved For Release 2000/08 NE" CHACRDPOS109789 000800100815. 7