ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

DEAJust as marijuana and even cocaine had once beenmainstreamed among the youth culture as a whole, by theearly 1990s one of the most powerful drugs of all, heroin,became a fixture among a much smaller youth segment of“Generation X.” Pundits even spoke of “heroin chic,” agaunt look attended by a lackadaisical demeanor andunkempt clothing, which penetrated fashion and culturein general. This was followed a few years later by thesurge in popularity of methampethamines and other syntheticstimulants, produced in illegal laboratories acrossthe nation.September 11, 2001, and narcoterrorism. The September 11,2001, terrorist attacks heightened popular awareness regardingthe connection between drugs and terrorism: theTaliban, Al Qaeda’s fundamentalist Muslim hosts inAfghanistan, profited from the cultivation of poppies formaking opium and heroin. But “narcoterrorism” was nothingnew: for years, drug producers in Colombia, Peru, andelsewhere in Latin America had either been in league with,or even controlled by, radical or terrorist groups.DEA analysts predicted that the connection betweenterrorism and drugs would only increase, inasmuch asformer state sponsors of terrorism had either ceased toexist or had curtailed their activities. In the 1970s and early1980s, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi had been a prominentsponsor of terrorist groups from Ireland to the Philippines,while the Soviet Union had its hand either directly orindirectly in terrorist activities throughout Western Europeand other regions. Qaddafi became much less involved interrorism after the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya, however,and the fall of Soviet Communism cut off millions ofdollars in terrorist funding. Terrorists now turned to bankrobbery, kidnapping, and drug trafficking to fund theiractivities.Mission and OperationsAlthough it exists to enforce the drug laws of the UnitedStates, DEA operates on a worldwide basis. It presentsmaterials to the U.S. civil and criminal justice system, or toany other competent jurisdiction, regarding those individualsand organizations involved in the cultivation, production,smuggling, distribution, or diversion of controlledsubstances appearing in or destined for illegal traffic in theUnited States.DEA’s job is to immobilize those organizations byarresting their members, confiscating their drugs, andseizing their assets. Among its responsibilities are investigationof major narcotics violators operating at the interstateor international levels; seizure of drug-related assets;management of a national narcotics intelligence system;coordination with federal, state, and local law enforcementauthorities, as well with counterpart agencies abroad;and training, scientific research, and information exchangein support of prevention and control of drug traffic.Liaison with other agencies and countries. The liaisonbetween DEA and other agencies exists at all levels, fromits relationship with law-enforcement in U.S. cities, towns,and counties to its interaction with the United Nations.DEA also works with INTERPOL and other organizationson matters relating to international narcotics control. Itsagents operate throughout the world, with nations whoseek to reduce the flow of drugs, and against those fewrogue regimes—such as the Taliban in Afghanistan priorto the U.S. victory in late 2001—who profit from the sale ofillegal drugs. Exemplary of DEA’s worldwide sweep wasan August 2002 Washington Post report that it was increasingits presence both along the Mexican border andon the other side of the planet, in Afghanistan, where itwas sending 17 additional agents to help control the flowof chemicals used to process heroin.Particularly significant is DEA’s interaction with theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As part of a federallaw enforcement reorganization by the Reagan administration,the FBI in January 1982 officially joined forces withDEA so as to greatly increase federal anti-drug efforts. Upto that point, DEA had reported to the associate attorneygeneral—who at that time happened to be future NewYork City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani—but thereafter it wouldanswer to the FBI director. At the same time, FBI gainedconcurrent jurisdiction with DEA where drug offenseswere concerned. The result was the increase of the federalanti-drug force to some 10,000 FBI and DEA agents. Twodecades later, DEA, a force much smaller than the FBI, wasforced to reorganize some of its efforts in light of a post-September, 2001, FBI redirection of 400 agents from druginvestigations to counterterrorism.DEA intelligence. From its beginning, DEA was concernedwith the collection, analysis, and dissemination of drugrelatedintelligence through its Operations Division, whichsupplied federal, state, local, and foreign officials withinformation. Originally, the agency had just a few intelligenceanalysts, but as the need grew, so did the staff, suchthat by the end of the twentieth century, DEA intelligencepersonnel—both analysts and special agents—numberednearly 700.Along the way, demand for drug-related intelligencebecame so great that the DEA leadership, recognizing howovertaxed the operations division was, in August, 1992,created the Intelligence Division. The latter consists of fourentities: the Office of Intelligence Liaison and Policy, theOffice of Investigative Intelligence, the Office of IntelligenceResearch, and EPIC. The last of these, located in ElPaso, Texas, served as a clearinghouse for tactical intelligence(intelligence on which immediate enforcement actioncan be based) related to worldwide drug movementand smuggling. Eleven federal agencies participate atEPIC in the coordination of intelligence programs relatedto interdiction.314 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security