<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:24892.wais]
INTERRUPTING NARCO-TERRORIST THREATS ON THE HIGH SEAS: DO WE HAVE
ENOUGH WIND IN OUR SAILS?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 29, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-99
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent)
------ ------
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHenry, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DAN BURTON, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN L. MICA, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota DIANE E. WATSON, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina Columbia
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Malia Holst, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 29, 2005.................................... 1
Statement of:
Utley, Ralph, Acting U.S. Interdiction Coordinator; Admiral
Dennis Sirois, Assistant Commandant for Operations, U.S.
Coast Guard; Admiral Jeffrey J. Hathaway, Director, Joint
Interagency Task Force South; Charles E. Stallworth II,
Acting Assistant Commissioner, Office of Air and Marine
Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Thomas
M. Harrigan, Chief of Enforcement Operations, Drug
Enforcement Agency......................................... 13
Harrigan, Thomas M....................................... 43
Hathaway, Admiral Jeffrey J.............................. 27
Sirois, Admiral Dennis................................... 21
Stallworth, Charles E., II,.............................. 37
Utley, Ralph............................................. 13
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 9
Harrigan, Thomas M., Chief of Enforcement Operations, Drug
Enforcement Agency, prepared statement of.................. 45
Hathaway, Admiral Jeffrey J., Director, Joint Interagency
Task Force South, prepared statement of.................... 29
Sirois, Admiral Dennis, Assistant Commandant for Operations,
U.S. Coast Guard, prepared statement of.................... 23
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 5
Stallworth, Charles E., II, Acting Assistant Commissioner,
Office of Air and Marine Operations, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, prepared statement of................... 39
Utley, Ralph, Acting U.S. Interdiction Coordinator, prepared
statement of............................................... 17
INTERRUPTING NARCO-TERRORIST THREATS ON THE HIGH SEAS: DO WE HAVE
ENOUGH WIND IN OUR SAILS?
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2005
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:12 p.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, McHenry, Cummings, Brown-
Waite, and Norton.
Staff present: Marc Wheat, staff director and chief
counsel; David Thomasson and Pat DeQuattro, congresional
fellows; Malia Holst, clerk; and Tony Haywood, minority
counsel.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order.
Good afternoon and thank you all for coming. Today we are
going to examine how drugs make their way through the transit
zone prior to arriving in Mexico for shipment into the United
States.
Let me begin by conveying my intense displeasure and
frustration with the manner in which USSOUTHCOM has worked with
Congress and our subcommittee. Similar to the treatment
Congress receives from USCENTCOM, Southern Command has avoided
responding to congressional oversight of its counterdrug
responsibilities. The subcommittee asked five simple questions
for the record after a subcommittee visit to USSOUTHCOM's
headquarters in January.
The answers to these simple questions were known by the
Department of Homeland Security agencies months ago, yet
USSOUTHCOM has not chosen to share these answers with
Congress--perhaps the decision was to wait until 6 months after
today's hearing before transmitting the answers to the
subcommittee questions, perhaps we will never get the answers.
This lack of cooperation, combined with the commitment to
control rather than support Interagency counterdrug efforts
leads me to question DOD's drug interdiction motivations.
That said, this hearing may serve to change the course of
future drug funding to enable the execution of transit zone
drug interdiction operations. But let me say that the big
picture in the transit zone is disturbing. For the first time,
our actionable intelligence exceeds our interdiction
capabilities in the transit zone. In other words, the Federal
Government knows of specific boatloads of drugs heading north
that we cannot intercept because of the lack of interception
assets in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.
The intelligence breakthrough is a recent development
resulting from the very successful Operation Panama Express, an
interagency intelligence-driven program managed by the
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Due to this
impressive intelligence cuing, the Joint Interagency Task Force
[JIATF], South now has improved insight into where, when, and
how much cocaine will be smuggled through the transit zones.
All of our Federal agencies need a special ``well done'' from
Congress for record cocaine seizures in 2004. The hearing today
is not meant to criticize, but rather look to improve on major
successes in U.S. drug interdiction efforts.
Before I detail some more of these concerns, let me just
add, I have been going through this testimony the last couple
of days, part of our frustration, not just here with SOUTHCOM,
with CENTCOM, and multiple other agencies, is we understand
everybody's intense budget pressures and OMB has put tremendous
pressures on every agency. Those of us, like myself, who
supported efforts in Afghanistan, in Iraq understand that the
military is stretched very thin.
But we represent the taxpayers. Appropriations come from
this body and are dependent upon having accurate facts upon
which to make those appropriations decisions; it is not an
executive branch decision. We cannot make intelligence
decisions without correct information. It may mean we just do
not have enough money to do all this.
But that is what we are hired to do. And if we cannot get
adequate information, we do not know how best to allocate anti-
drug resources and what our tradeoffs are; how many are dying
in this area. How can we do that if we do not have adequate
data.
In most cases and in most agencies, bluntly put, we have
not found the problem with the individual agencies. The
question is what kind of systemic problem do we have right now
sitting on information being released to Congress because many
people perceive that releasing the information to us may lead
to increased spending, or pressures for spending, or be used
for partisan advantage. The fact is, I am a partisan for this
administration and I cannot get the adequate data, not only in
narcotics, but in agency after agency, and there is a building
frustration that I have vented already this morning at the
White House.
While the accomplishments of Panama Express should not go
unnoticed, our asset shortfalls in the transit zone raise
serious concerns about our ability to interdict known smuggling
events. On May 10, 2005 this subcommittee held a hearing
entitled, ``2006 DOD Counternarcotics Budget: Does It Deliver
the Necessary Support?'' In the hearing, Marybeth Long, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics, testified
that, ``The Navy's problem with the P-3s, which affects not
only the Department's counternarcotics assets, but the
availability of maritime patrol aircraft worldwide, has been
well documented and discussed.''
Regrettably, the Navy failed to properly anticipate the
inevitable fate of an old airframe employed primarily in a
corrosive, salty air environment. The Navy's P-3 replacement is
not projected to begin service until 2012, with an uncertain
date for employment in counterdrug activities in the transit
zone.
Through the insistence of the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator
and the JIATF-South commander, DHS has stepped up maritime
patrol aircraft flight hours to backfill the loss of DOD
assets. With DHS taking on a bigger role in transit zone
interdiction operations, I would like to focus our discussion
today on the following five topics that will affect future
counterdrug operations in the transit zone.
First, while I support the increased transit zone flight
hours flown by the Coast Guard and Homeland Security's Air and
Marine Operations [AMO], I question whether the extra hours are
sustainable and am interested in the costs for the increased
operational tempo. According to JIATF-South figures, AMO flew a
total of 578 hours in the transit zone in calendar year 2003.
Now we are told that AMO has increased this figure to over 800
hours per month in 2005.
Similarly, the Coast Guard has also significantly increased
their flight hours to meet the loss of Navy P-3 counterdrug
flight hours. Like the Navy, both the Coast Guard and AMO fly
old airframes that have finite lives. The increase of flying
hours significantly impacts the agency's ability to operate in
the future. Yet only the Coast Guard has an improved
comprehensive modernization plan that addresses these future
shortfalls.
Second, Section 124 of Title 10 states, ``The Department of
Defense shall serve as the single lead agency of the Federal
Government for the detection and monitoring of aerial and
maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States.'' The
language for this law was framed in the National Defense
Authorization Act of 1990-91. Federal law enforcement's ability
to engage in counterdrug operations has significantly matured
since 1989, when this legislation was passed.
Since then, DOD's responsibilities have changed, and
Congress formed the Department of Homeland Security, combining
the Federal law enforcement agencies that currently supply the
bulk of the aviation and maritime assets deployed in the
transit zone. Consequently, I believe that it is now time that
the Department of Homeland Security should take on the primary
responsibility for counterdrug detection and monitoring from
the Department of Defense.
Third, the push to make the Joint Task Force North a Joint
Interagency Task Force, another JIATF, will potentially place
DOD as an overseer of domestic law enforcement interdiction
programs. Lack of unity within the interagency has allowed DOD
to take the lead in areas that have traditionally been
accomplished by law enforcement agencies. Therefore, it is
imperative that DHS and the Interagency should become more
involved in the future JIATF process.
In order to have an effective joint interagency program,
Federal law enforcement agencies must be willing to man JIATF
South and any future JIATFs with employees capable of filling
critical command and operations specialist positions.
Conversely, the JIATFs must provide administrative and
logistical incentives for Federal law enforcement agencies to
assign qualified employees to their locations.
Fourth, the transit zone, like the southwest border, lacks
a strategic, comprehensive, layered, interagency plan that
incorporates the operational demands of post-September 11th
operations and the recent actionable intelligence improvements.
Without a national interdiction plan, agency roles and
responsibilities are not properly delineated resulting in a
haphazard way of requesting national air and marine assets.
The U.S. interdiction coordinator laid the groundwork for
this strategy by forming the Interdiction Planning and Asset
Group. Unfortunately, the latest report for Interdiction Asset
Requirements is out of date and does not truly reflect the
current enhanced intelligence capabilities, nor does it take
into account a post-September 11th environment.
Fifth, DHS air responsibilities, like airspace security,
potentially take flight hours away from transit zone
operations. Currently, it is unclear which DHS agency will be
responsible for airspace security in the National Capitol
Region and special security events. Both DHS candidates for the
responsibilities are the major transit zone asset providers;
namely, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Office of Air and Marine
Operations. If the current air assets in the National Capitol
Region were diverted to counterdrug operations in the transit
zone, DEA and DHS could perform interagency interdiction
operations in places like Guatemala, where increasing amounts
of cocaine land from transit zone maritime and air smuggling
ventures.
Today we have a panel of very experienced witnesses to help
answer these and other questions posed by the subcommittee. We
are pleased to welcome Mr. Ralph Utley, Acting U.S.
Interdiction Coordinator at DHS; Admiral Dennis Sirois, we have
met many times and I stumble over your name each time, U.S.
Coast Guard's Assistant Commandant for Operations; Admiral
Jeffrey Hathaway, Director, Joint Interagency Task Force South;
Mr. Charles Stallworth, Customs and Border Protection's Acting
Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Air and Marine
Operations; and Mr. Thomas Harrigan, Drug Enforcement
Administration's Chief of Enforcement Operations.
We look forward to your testimony and insight into this
important topic.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Souder. As I mentioned earlier, I am going to turn the
gavel over to our committee's vice chairman after the initial
statements because I have a markup going on in another
committee and several floor votes; I will be kind of in and out
of this hearing. I will take all the statements with me to make
sure I read it and will be doing plenty of followup. You always
can be assured to hear from our office, probably more than you
want many times.
Mr. Cummings, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Cummings. It will be very brief, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing to
examine the efforts to interdict illicit drug shipments bound
for the United States by way of maritime smuggling routes.
Southwest border States are primary points of entry for
major illicit drug threats, such as Colombian and Peruvian
cocaine, South American and Mexican heroin, Mexican
methamphetamines, and Mexican and Colombian marijuana. Before
drugs from South America reach the border, however, they must
be transported to the United States through maritime transit
zones, which encompass the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, the
eastern Pacific Ocean.
The majority of drugs are transported by sea, by commercial
means, including high speed, go-fast boats capable of carrying
up to 2 tons of cocaine. The detection and apprehension of
these vessels represents a difficult challenge for the Untied
States and international interdiction agencies and requires the
synergistic use of actionable intelligence, interagency
communication, and assets and personnel capable of amounting an
effective response.
The Department of Defense is the lead agency for detecting
and monitoring aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs
through the transit zone into Puerto Rico and the Virgin
Islands and across the U.S.' southwest border into the mainland
United States. Based at the Naval Air Station in Key West, FL,
Joint InterAgency Task Force South conducts counter illicit
drug trafficking operations to detect, monitor, and handoff
suspected illicit trafficking targets, promotes security,
cooperation, and coordinates country team and partner nation
initiatives in order to defeat the flow of illicit traffic.
In addition to DOD, the agencies that participate in the
JIATF-South are the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S.
Customs and Border Patrol, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the
Federal Bureau of Investigations. Cooperation and intelligence
sharing among these agencies through JIATF-South and in other
contexts is critical to U.S. efforts to stop illegal drugs
before they reach our southern border and ports of entry
through the country.
Today's hearing offers a very valuable opportunity to hear
from key officials in agencies that play a vital role in U.S.
interdiction efforts concerning their successes, remaining or
emerging challenges, and the need for additional or upgraded
resources.
With that said, I want to welcome all of our witnesses and
thank all of them for their appearance here today. I look
forward to the testimony. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. Mr. McHenry, do you
have any opening comments?
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly
appreciate you all being here today. I look forward to the
panel discussion and your testimony.
I think it is important that we look at the resources we
have. This is not a moment to necessarily rap you on the
knuckles. It looks as if we have had increased intelligence-
gathering operations and we actually have more intelligence to
deal with, and so we have a better opportunity to catch drug
traffickers in the process. We want to make sure that you have
the resources and infrastructure in place so that we can
actually catch those bad guys when we have the opportunities.
And so I look forward to hearing your testimonies and your
ideas in this regard.
I certainly appreciate your making the time to be here
before us. I am sure, looking at you and looking at your
backgrounds, you have done this a few times before and it
certainly is as exciting as it always is. So thank you so much
for being here and we hope to keep you awake for the remainder
of the hearing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative
days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing
record. That any answers provided by the witnesses also be
included in the record. And without objection, it is so
ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents,
and other materials referred to by Members may be included in
the hearing record, and that all Members be permitted to revise
and extend their remarks. Without objection, it is so ordered.
As an oversight committee, it is our tradition to swear all
the witnesses. So if you will each stand and raise your right
hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
I am now going to turn the hearing over to our
distinguished vice chairman, Mr. McHenry. I will be in and out
depending on how the voting is going.
Mr. McHenry [presiding]. Mr. Utley, you may proceed.
STATEMENTS OF RALPH UTLEY, ACTING U.S. INTERDICTION
COORDINATOR; ADMIRAL DENNIS SIROIS, ASSISTANT COMMANDANT FOR
OPERATIONS, U.S. COAST GUARD; ADMIRAL JEFFREY J. HATHAWAY,
DIRECTOR, JOINT INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE SOUTH; CHARLES E.
STALLWORTH II, ACTING ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF AIR AND
MARINE OPERATIONS, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION; AND
THOMAS M. HARRIGAN, CHIEF OF ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS, DRUG
ENFORCEMENT AGENCY
STATEMENT OF RALPH UTLEY
Mr. Utley. Representative McHenry, Ranking Member Cummings,
distinguished members of the committee, I am honored to appear
before you today as the Acting U.S. Interdiction Coordinator. I
also serve as the Acting Director of the Office of
Counternarcotics Enforcement in the Department of Homeland
Security.
We have achieved record levels for transit zone cocaine
interdiction, vessel seizures, and arrests in each of the past
2 calendar years. Specifically, in the transit zone, we have
removed 210 metric tons of cocaine bound for the United States
in 2003 and 248 metric tons in 2004. Cocaine seizures and
removals in 2004 were approximately twice the seizures and
removals of 1999. Those record levels of removals have occurred
while our Nation is fighting two wars overseas and has taken on
new duties to stop terrorists from entering the United States.
The credit for these achievements goes to the entire
counterdrug community who is working closer together and
synergistically attacking the traffickers where they are most
vulnerable. Let me discuss a few of the key factors that have
improved interdiction.
First, the Department of Defense's leadership through Joint
Interagency Task Force South has been key. In addition, the
rest of the U.S. interdiction community has invested in this
Task force which is producing great dividends. For more than 15
years the counterdrug community has worked to build this Task
Force which has become a worldwide model for joint interagency
and international cooperation. There have been many changes
along the way, the most recent being the establishment of the
Joint Operating Area. The Joint Operating Area has improved
synergy, unity of command, and operational efficiency. Joint
Interagency Task Force South now has total responsibility for
the primary south to north drug trafficking threat vectors from
South America. Establishing the Joint Operating Area makes
sense, and I applaud those who made it happen.
We have long realized the value of actionable intelligence.
For years, our ships and aircraft patrolled vast expanses of
ocean, usually without the benefit of good intelligence. Today
our forces often have real-time, actionable intelligence so
that they may narrow their focus and improve their probability
of detection. The intelligence community, working in close
concert with the law enforcement investigators, has made
remarkable strides toward understanding trafficking
organizations, patterns, and activities.
In particular, Operation Panama Express, a combined OCDETF
task force with representatives from the Departments of
Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense, has become a model of
interagency partnering. Panama Express-led investigations are
developing intelligence leads that support more interdictions.
JIATF-South has become a full partner with founding members
FBI, ICE, and DEA. At the same time, interdictions are leading
to the successful prosecutions of both maritime transporters
and higher level drug traffickers. Enhanced drug intelligence
has allowed interdictions, investigations, and prosecutions to
support each other like never before.
In years past, when we successfully detected a smuggling
vessel, we often could not stop them or find the drugs. Today,
front-line interdictors have better equipment and capability.
The Coast Guard's armed helicopters and over-the-horizon boat
programs have dramatically improved end-game results. The
French and British helicopters are also now armed, and the U.S.
Navy, in conjunction with the Coast Guard, is working to arm
their sea-based helicopters. We have also improved boarding
tactics and equipment that increase the odds of finding drugs
on fishing vessels.
We do not stop with a successful interdiction. In fact,
interdiction directly supports new investigations and
prosecutions. Under the leadership of the Justice Department,
traffickers are being convicted with stiff sentences which in
turn facilitates better intelligence and awareness as to how
the traffickers are operating.
The support provided by our international partners is also
critical to transit zone interdiction successes. JIATF South
has full-time liaisons from 10 countries in the hemisphere and
communicates and coordinates transit zone operations directly
with host nations operations centers. Currently, France and the
United Kingdom deploy and use their surveillance aircraft,
armed helicopters, and surface ships in counterdrug missions.
The British NIMROD, a highly capable four-engine, long-range
maritime surveillance aircraft, has been especially effective
in detecting and tracking drug smuggling vessels. Our Dutch
allies continue to provide strong support in the Caribbean. The
Canadian government is working with the U.S. Southern Command
and Joint Interagency Task Force South to coordinate future
Canadian P-3 aircraft deployments to the Caribbean.
This committed international and interagency effort is
essential to transit zone operational success. International
cooperation also has been critical in eliminating seams that
traffickers once exploited. The United States now has 26
maritime bilateral agreements that have put the smuggler on the
defensive. The smugglers now have less time to react to and
avoid law enforcement, and we are able to board in time to find
contraband and evidence to support prosecutions.
Maritime patrol aircraft [MPA], are key to transit zone
interdiction operations. MPA are currently the only persistent
wide-area surveillance platform that we can covertly detect,
monitor, and track smugglers and support maritime end-game
operations. In calendar year 2004, MPA participated in 73
percent of the cocaine removal events from noncommercial
maritime conveyances in the transit zone. In the fourth quarter
of last year, these figures rose to 91 percent.
Last year we suffered from a reduction in long-range MPA
capability. Available MPA flying hours were significantly
reduced due to unexpected wing corrosion in the U.S. Navy's P-3
fleet and the withdrawal of Netherlands P-3s from the
Caribbean. Today the situation has improved. Customs and Border
Protection P-3 hours have been funded to allow a 400 hour per
month increase to transit zone operations; the Coast Guard has
several initiatives in the President's fiscal year 2006 budget
that will significantly increase C-130 hours in support of
JIATF-South; and the U.S. Air Force has deployed E-3s to
support the Air Bridge Denial program, freeing CBP aircraft for
maritime patrol operations; DOD is supporting British NIMROD
operations in Curacao; the U.S. Navy has improved the
operational on-station time of their P-3s; and DOD is working
to add Canadian Auroras to the effort. Looking forward, we need
strong support from all of the force providers, and I am
encouraged that they will deliver.
Let me conclude by saying that we must sustain the pace of
these past 2 years and find ways to increase pressure on the
traffickers. I have placed a priority on seeking alternatives
that will further increase protection, monitoring, tracking,
and interdiction capabilities in the transit zone. The USIC
will continue to engage the entire interdiction community and
find innovative and aggressive ways to improve our capabilities
and operational effectiveness. We will support those strategies
and operations that are working and keep the pressure on all
fronts. We will continue to asses our efforts and report our
progress to Congress.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to answering your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Utley follows:]
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Mr. McHenry. Gentlemen, just to let you all know, your full
testimony will be entered into the records. Going forward, if
we could try to stick with about a 5-minute time limit and you
can summarize your testimony and hit the highlights.
Mr. Utley, my apologies for not giving you that guidance
before. We certainly appreciate your testimony. I just want to
make sure that the other gentlemen are aware of it as well so
we can get to questions. Thanks so much.
Admiral Sirois.
STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL DENNIS SIROIS
Admiral Sirois. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
Members. It is an honor to represent the Coast Guard men and
women before you here today. I do have a written statement that
I would like to summarize very shortly.
The Coast Guard's counterdrug mission is the interdiction
and seizure of illegal drugs in the transit zone. Although the
Coast Guard seizes annually almost 54 percent of all cocaine
seized by Federal agencies, this record could not have been
attained without our interagency partners and international
partners and the specific competencies each one of those
agencies bring. Working closely with our interagency and
international partners, we provide a continuous, coordinated,
sustained law enforcement presence in the 6 million square mile
transit zone and maritime approaches to the United States.
In fiscal year 2004, the Coast Guard and our partners
seized or removed over 350,000 pounds of cocaine from the
illegal drug trade, plus 108,000 pounds were lost to smugglers
due to jettisoning. This includes the seizure of the fishing
vessel LINA MARIA and its load of 33,000 pounds of cocaine, the
Coast Guard's single event record to date. I would like to note
that as of today the Coast Guard has seized 191,933 pounds of
cocaine, again working with our great interagency partners.
STEEL WEB is the Coast guard long-range strategy to advance
the national goal of attacking the economic basis of the drug
trade and is an important part of the coordinated,
comprehensive interagency effort supporting the National Drug
Control Strategy supply reduction goal. This comprehensive
approach to drug interdiction is summarized in three pillars:
First, effective presence, which is a strong and agile presence
informed by intelligence and law enforcement information;
second, a regional engagement with the interagency and
international law enforcement partner nations which has
resulted in 26 bilateral agreements and a number of combined
operations with these countries; and third, an end-game must
exist. The phenomenal success of our HITRON helicopters in
stopping the go-fast threat is key, but the smugglers are
flexible and adaptive. To have an effective end-game, the Coast
Guard must obtain and field the latest technologies, and
develop new techniques to counter this ever changing threat.
What is troubling to the Coast Guard is the recent House
Budget recommendation for the Coast Guard. Any reduction in
Deepwater funding jeopardizes the Coast Guard's integrated
recapitalization strategy by not providing adequate funding to
recapitalize or modernize the Coast Guard's aging and obsolete
cutters, aircraft, and command and control, information, and
surveillance and reconnaissance systems while sustaining legacy
assets in the interim. At a minimum, the recommended funding
levels will delay delivery of new assets. If held to the House
recommended funding levels, operational capacity will go away
faster than it can be replaced, and this resource problem will
persist. If held to the $500 million funding level, the Coast
Guard cannot complete necessary legacy asset sustainment which
is necessary to reverse the downward trend in readiness and
availability of our assets.
The Coast Guard appreciates your support over the years and
we ask for your continued support as our funding is discussed.
We are working our assets and our crews harder than ever, and
the wear is beginning to show. The President addresses capacity
and capability improvements for the Coast Guard in his budget
request which includes maritime patrol hours for counterdrug
operations, which I ask you to support. Deepwater, our plan for
major asset recapitalization has never been more relevant, and
I ask for your funding support for the President's request.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Sirois follows:]
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Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Admiral.
Admiral Hathaway.
STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL JEFFREY J. HATHAWAY
Admiral Hathaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cummings,
good to see you both again. I am Rear Admiral Jeff Hathaway. I
have the honor of presently serving as Director of JIATF-South,
the Joint InterAgency Task Force South in Key West, FL. I am
here representing U.S. Southern Command and, more importantly,
the 450 men and women that comprise Joint Interagency Task
Force South, which I will add, I truly have become a believer
that it is the best of joint DOD interagency and international
cooperation that I have seen and, quite frankly, a great
example of good governance.
Chairman Souder mentioned that in 1991 DOD was given the
lead for detection and monitoring in the transit zone. I would
submit I believe that was a very good decision on the part of
the Congress to cause that to happen. What it did was it
brought core competencies from DOD into the counterdrug game.
They are just as germane today as they were then. JIATF-South's
heartbeat is driven by three core competencies that are DOD
core competencies.
The first one is the ability to fuse vast amounts of all
source intelligence. We have built the systems primarily on a
DOD background, we have the analysts, most of them DOD but lots
of them from our interagency partners, most of which are
represented at the table with me. Most importantly, that
backbone allows us to fuse, analyze, and push that intelligence
out in a tactically actionable way so that it can be used.
No. 2 is, again a core competency of DOD, to exert command
and control across vast distances. Our joint operating area is
42 million square miles. It is only DOD systems that have
allowed us to fuse together DOD assets, U.S. interagency
assets, and our international partners into one team and be
able to talk with them real-time and to coordinate across those
vast distances. Again, as germane today as it was many, many
years ago.
And finally, again a core competency of DOD, is deliberate
planning. We brought deliberate planning to the counterdrug
game. We are able to synchronize operations in a way that the
Department of Defense has been able to do for years and years.
Again, we make that work for us on a daily basis.
We have put together in JIATF a standard operating
procedure. Everyone leaves their own standard operating
procedure at the door when they become part of the JIATF team.
Everyone was part of building today's current operating
procedure and it continues to renew itself on a daily basis.
This weekend was a great example. We had intelligence from one
of our allies, I cannot mention the country, we were able to
use that information, fuse it with some of our technical
reporting, and it cued us to a Sao Tomean vessel, a small West
African country. Sao Tome finally refuted the claim of registry
for that country.
But most importantly, we were able to take a Dutch frigate
working for JIATF at the time with a U.S. Coast Guard law
enforcement detachment on board, move them into an intercept
position, hand the case over to the Coast Guard, board the
vessel, with the special intelligence we had, it allowed the
Coast Guard to very quickly find the secret compartment on
board, find 1.8 tons of drugs, seize the drugs, arrest the
crew, and it all happened within our standard operating
procedures.
Everyone knew exactly what was going to happen across the
interagency, across DOD, with our international partners. It
happens every day. Unity of command, a common vision, and unity
of effort is what we strive for in JIATF.
Finally, I know this hearing is all about level of effort
in the transit zone. I will be very honest with you, I look at
this as a cup half full at this point. Last year, I will be
very honest, we saw 331 go-fast cases, most of them in the
Western Caribbean. Three years ago my predecessors could not
have sat here and told you that we had the granularity of
intelligence to know that we had that number of go-fast
smuggling events. Mr. Cummings, you said each one of those
carries about two tons. That is exactly right. The fact of the
matter is, out of those 331, we only interdicted slightly less
than 100. Out of those we interdicted, three out of four we
were actually able to stop. Do we want to do better across this
table? Absolutely. Do we have the resources today across the
administration? I think we are working on them. So from a cup
half full, we know where the enemy is, we know where we have to
go to engage him, and all of us I know want to do that more
robustly.
Let me just say that our counterdrug ship is sound, it is
well-built, it has the right mix of crew, they are well-trained
and motivated, and they are making the best use of the wind
that they have in their sails today. But we are very confident
that we could make even more effective use of greater winds, if
they come. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Hathaway follows:]
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Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Admiral Hathaway.
Mr. Stallworth.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES E. STALLWORTH II
Mr. Stallworth. Good afternoon. Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Cummings, and distinguished members of this
subcommittee, it is my honor to appear before you today to
discuss U.S. Customs and Border Protection interdiction efforts
in the transit zone. My name is Charles Stallworth and I am the
acting Assistant Commissioner for the CBP's Office of Air and
Marine Operations. In the interest of time, I would like to
summarize my prepared remarks which have been submitted for the
record.
CBP is the Nation's unified border agency and as such is
responsible for interdicting all people and conveyances that
seek illegal entry. Our priority mission is preventing
terrorists or terrorist weapons from entering our country, and
includes our efforts to close our borders to illegal activity
such as the smuggling of people and drugs. We do this while
simultaneously enhancing the legal movement of people and
trade. Our strategies reflect the operational reality that for
the purpose of the border security the threats are converged
and have converged.
AMO supports these homeland security and counterdrug
efforts with more than 1,000 personnel who support and employ
our fleet of advanced aircraft, marine vessels, and sensors. We
tie this system of systems effort together at our Air and
Marine Operations Center in Riverside, CA. Created by the 1994
National Interdiction Command and Control Plan, the NICCP, AMOC
is a home to the Department of Homeland Security's common
operational picture for air.
Our contribution in interdiction in the transit zone
continues to increase. Since January 1, 2004, CBP is the single
largest contributor of on-station flight hours in an effort
that includes the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Air
Force, and our international allies. From a contribution of 200
hours per month in recent years to a commitment of more than
600 hours per month, averaging over 700 hours per month this
year, CBP's fleet of dedicated P-3 aircraft continue to score
impressive interdictions against a maritime threat, made
possible because of the outstanding cuing and intelligence
support that we have heard about here earlier, most of it
contributed by our interagency partners.
We support this effort with a capable but aging fleet of P-
3 aircraft that is increasingly costly and difficult to
maintain. We are rapidly approaching a decision point in the
lives of these aircraft. Specifically, to maintain this level
of effort in the transit zone, we will either have to
significantly overhaul these planes or replace them altogether.
In the interim, we are trying to make them as effective as
possible by equipping them with sensors that will help boost
the detection in maritime surface targets at greater ranges.
Throughout our 2003 departure from the U.S. Customs
Service, our 2004 tenure as U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, and our move in 2005 in integration with CBP, the
men and women of CBP's AMO have continued to deliver
interdiction results against the drug trade and other threats
to our borders. On behalf of them and our Commissioner Robert
C. Bonner, thank you for your support and interest in our
mission.
I would be pleased to answer your questions when the time
comes.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stallworth follows:]
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Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Stallworth.
Mr. Harrigan.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS M. HARRIGAN
Mr. Harrigan. Good afternoon, sir. Chairman McHenry,
Ranking Member Cummings, on behalf of the Administrator of the
DEA Karen Tandy, I wish to thank you for your continued support
for the men and women of the Drug Enforcement Administration as
well as the opportunity to testify today to discuss drug
trafficking throughout the transit zones. As DEA's Chief of
Enforcement Operations, I am acutely aware of the challenges we
face in combating drug trafficking organizations throughout the
region.
DEA's primary function as an investigative law enforcement
agency is to identify and dismantle the world's most
significant drug trafficking organizations. DEA's role in
interdiction efforts is crucial since the intelligence gained
from these operations often provides information needed to
unveil the depth and magnitude of a drug trafficking
organization's abilities and intentions. Law enforcement,
intelligence, and interdiction agencies all play an integral
role in disrupting the most sophisticated drug trafficking
operations.
As you know, most of the major illegal drugs abused in the
United States are produced in Latin America. While production
levels have generally declined over the last few years,
traffickers continue to use a variety of smuggling methods to
move their product out of Latin America, including maritime and
air conveyances. When focusing on those drugs destined for the
United States, two general corridors stand out--Mexico/Central
America and the Caribbean.
Historically, Colombian drug traffickers have utilized the
Mexico-Central American corridor as well as the Caribbean
corridor as a transshipment route to smuggle cocaine and heroin
into the United States. Cocaine is smuggled into Mexico via
maritime, land, and air conveyances, and over the years
Colombian traffickers have exploited the Caribbean corridor for
their smuggling purposes as the region provides them with
increased flexibility and anonymity because of its vast
geographic territory, numerous law enforcement jurisdictions,
and fragmented investigative resources.
Through interagency collaboration, DEA has taken part in
developing a multifaceted investigative strategy that is
designed to combat the trafficking problem by employing a
coordinated regional attack on the entire trafficking
organization simultaneously, from the sources of supply in
Colombia, to the transportation cells in the Caribbean
corridor, to the distribution cells throughout the United
States, and finally on to their financial operations. Perhaps
no better operation exemplifies the level of the interagency
cooperative effort evident in both corridors as the Panama
Express. Panama Express represents a multi-agency Organized
Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force [OCDETF], investigation that
began in the mid-1990's with personnel from DEA, ICE, JIATF,
FBI, IRS, and the U.S. Coast Guard. JIATF-South, in particular,
utilizes the information shared to better direct air and naval
assets toward the goal of interdicting vessels smuggling
cocaine through the transit zones.
The multi-agency El Paso Intelligence Center [EPIC], also
participates in sharing information that increases the
effectiveness of Panama Express. By passing real-time,
actionable intelligence information on smuggling operations to
JIATF-South, transit zone interdictions can be made more
precise. As Assistant Administrator for Intelligence Anthony
Placido testified to this committee on June 14, 2005, the
cooperative efforts of EPIC, JTF-North, the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection's Air and Maritime Operations Center, and
JIATF-South contribute greatly to our interdiction
effectiveness.
In conclusion, drug trafficking organizations today have
the capacity to overwhelm the defenses of individual nations.
These traffickers have adopted a global approach to their
operations, consequently amassing billions of dollars in
illicit profits, weakening national economies and democratic
institutions, spreading violence and destruction, and producing
some of the most powerful and corrupting organizations in the
world.
The DEA recognizes that interagency cooperation and
coordination is fundamental to increasing the efficiency of our
operation in the transit zones. The DEA is committed to
maintaining an effective relationship with its partners in
domestic and international law enforcement, as well as its
operational counterparts in other agencies. Having said this,
we must and will continue to synchronize the resources and
capabilities of operational enforcement agencies to
collectively put forth the strongest effort to combat drug
trafficking in the transit zones.
Chairman McHenry, Ranking Member Cummings, I thank you once
again for the opportunity to testify and look forward to
answering any questions you may have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harrigan follows:]
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Mr. McHenry. I thank the panel for your opening statements.
At this time, I would like to recognize Ranking Member Cummings
for his series of questions.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First of
all, I want to thank all of you for your efforts in what you do
everyday to make our world a safer world.
I want to go to you, Admiral Hathaway, and something that
you said that I just found very interesting. When you were
talking about the resources needed and the fast boats, you said
we are working on it. I am just wondering, explain exactly the
process. In other words, we know about a certain number of fast
boats, we cannot catch up with them.
Can you just elaborate a little bit on that, and then tell
me what resources you would need to get to the level that you
would like to. It sounds like there may be a level of
frustration. I am trying to picture this fast boat going past
me and I am not able to catch up with it. I am just wondering
what is it that we need.
Admiral Hathaway. The greater intelligence that we have
today, and much of that comes from the Panama Express operation
that has been described to you by some of my colleagues, gives
us better knowledge on departure times, departure locations of
drug movements. Many of those are interdicted by host nations,
primarily Colombian forces, and many, many are not.
We do not have precise data that allows us to track those
vessels, these go-fast vessels that sometimes move at 30, 40
knots depending on weather conditions. What we need is to put
eyes on them and we have to have surface assets to get in place
to be able to effect an interdiction.
Not having perfect knowledge, you need some sort of
maritime patrol aircraft to find the target, you need a surface
asset and most ideally equipped with an armed helicopter to
stop that asset so that it can be compelled to have law
enforcement come on board and to find out if, in fact, they are
committing an illegal act. Because of the great knowledge that
we have, we know that there are many events that occur that we
are not able to physically get either the aircraft or surface
assets on scene. We have a terrific track record of being able
to effect an end-game, get what we call in JIATF a disruption,
either seize the drugs or cause the drugs to be jettisoned,
they never get to a world market. That is great news. That is
the cup half full. But we also know that the level of
information and detail that we have today would allow us to do
better.
What would it take, quite frankly, today is a greater level
of aircraft support, maritime patrol aircraft, as we call it,
persistent coverage in those areas. What we have to do today is
I have to go at risk. In order to go after intelligence in one
area, I have to vacate another area of the ocean, quite
frankly, most often. We go where we have the best intelligence
and I can make the best use of the assets that I have. I think
working collaboratively we have come up with estimates of what
it would take to be able to interdict certain percentages of
drugs. We do not have a national goal in terms of what we
should be doing in the transit zone; we try to do the best that
we can with what we have. But we also have some very good
estimates of what it would take to perform even better. What I
do know is we can make much greater and effective use of the
assets that we have assigned to us today than we could have 5
or 6 years ago.
Mr. Cummings. How many would you estimate that we are
missing, the go-fast boats?
Admiral Hathaway. Well, sir, our estimates are, as I said
in my opening statement, I used as an example the interagency
documented 331 go-fast events in 2004 through our primary
operating area. Most of those were transiting in the Western
Caribbean but some were in the Eastern Pacific, some were in
the Eastern Caribbean. Out of those, we actually were able to
put eyes on about 93 of those, and three-quarters of those we
were actually able to get an interdiction, which meant people
were arrested, drugs were disrupted and were taken out of the
system.
Mr. Cummings. So we know pretty much that drugs are on
those boats?
Admiral Hathaway. The intelligence we have is, yes, they
were drug movements.
Mr. Cummings. Just one other question. Do you think that
the administration's budget request is sufficient for you to
accomplish what you want to accomplish? I wish the people in my
neighborhood could understand the difficulty that you all have.
Because a common question that I am asked in my neighborhood,
which is only about an hour away from here in the inner-city of
Baltimore, is that we don't have any boats, no planes. People
have this feeling, because they do not know, they think that
this is a very easy task to keep the drugs from coming in. I
try to explain it to them as best I can that there are a lot of
folks who are trying to get these drugs in. So what you are
telling me then is that we have a whole slew of fast boats
coming through at one time. That is a major, major problem; am
I right? You just said you had to take resources from one place
and take them over to the other. So I imagine that if they had
some kind of coordinated effort, there would be a real big
problem.
Admiral Hathaway. Well the effort that we have in
coordinating what we have----
Mr. Cummings. I am talking about if these drug smugglers
had a coordinated effort.
Admiral Hathaway. What we do know about the transportation
industry is there is a vague amount of coordination amongst a
variety of those who transport drugs through our primary joint
operating area. The fact of the matter, if you have 331 go-fast
events, that is slightly less than one per day moving through
our joint operating area. Trying to figure out whether it is
leaving from Venezuela, the North coast of Colombia, the west
coast of Colombia, or out of Panama is the trick. The
intelligence we have allows us to do a much better job at that.
It is a vast, vast area and obviously we could do a better
job. My job is to make the most effective operation out of what
we have. And we are very proud of the effectiveness that we do
have given the level of assets that we have. The
administration's budget takes us another step down the road,
quite frankly. Cooperation with our international partners, our
traditional allies, we know that some of these drugs are coming
over to Europe, has never been better. I think they are going
to step up to the plate in even greater numbers, although they
suffer from some of the same problems that U.S. military does
in that the high usage rate of their assets is causing them in
many cases to have to retire them earlier than they hoped for.
That has been the case with the Navy P-3 aircraft, for example,
which was a backbone for a long time for JIATF-South maritime
patrol ops.
As it has been pointed out, the Coast Guard and CBP have
been able to step up to the plate. DOD has been able to provide
E-3s, our most sophisticated AWACS aircraft that I will be able
to use in air bridge denial operations over Colombia and free
up Customs and Border Protection P-3 domes to move into the
maritime world. So we will be able to plus-up a very capable
asset in the maritime world while the Air Force takes over the
air bridge denial role for us, which is very good.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. If I may take my time
now. Admiral Hathaway, I want to continue with Mr. Cummings
line of thought here. You said 331 known go-fast events, that
is known. Those are actually hard numbers that we are aware of
of these events. Of those, 238 were not detected. Now can you
describe the difference between known and not detected? We know
that it is leaving Venezuela, we cannot detect that it has left
Venezuela. Can you explain the measurement tool there?
Admiral Hathaway. The interagency group that documented
those 331 cases have a level of reliability that they adhere to
that a smuggling event occurred, each one of those 331, it is
more than single source reporting. In many cases, we may not
have even known the event was occurring until after the drugs
arrived but sources told us that, in fact, the drugs arrived.
So that is where we get the 331 number. It is intelligence.
Not detected means that we never saw those events as they
occurred. We never had laid eyes on them in a detection and
monitoring mode. I never had the opportunity to be able to----
Mr. McHenry. So you know they arrived, for instance, you
know they arrived or you know they departed, the two events you
know.
Admiral Hathaway. Correct.
Mr. McHenry. Maybe I am not directing this in the right
way, but Mr. Cummings had this line of questioning to you and I
thought it was interesting. Maybe Mr. Stallworth or if anyone
else would like to chime in. So you know that it left, or you
know that it arrived, and perhaps some you knew both that it
left and that it arrived, and others you just knew one side or
the other. All right. Now you said 93 detected. That means you
saw it move; which is it left, it is in transit, it arrives. So
93 you saw in transit, detected. Of those 93, you caught 73.
Pretty good when you actually see it move. OK.
First, let us commend you on actually having good
intelligence. If it is 331, there had to be many more out
there. Now that is another question. But it seems to me that if
you are detecting 331 events yet you are only seeing in action
93 move, we have a real issue of actually seeing it move. I may
be new around here, but it seems like a very basic concept that
something is missing. Is it boats, is it airplanes, is it
technology; what is the problem?
Mr. Utley. May I jump in on that because I own the data
base. It is a CCDB, consolidated counterdrug data base. The
point that Admiral Hathaway was making is that we have a pretty
good idea that this event took place because we knew it left
and we knew it arrived, but we might not know, I am going to
reiterate what Admiral Hathaway said, that the event took place
until after it took place. So there is another dimension and it
is a time dimension in there, that had he known he may have
been able to do something.
Mr. McHenry. This sounds like back to the future, time
travel.
Mr. Utley. Well, not really. It is actually just a matter
of a lot of times you do not know about an event until after it
has taken place. I guess that is what I am trying to say.
Mr. McHenry. What I am asking for is this is an opportunity
to say what are we missing. Admiral Sirois, I certainly
appreciate your stepping forward and saying the Coast Guard may
need some better equipment to compete with the go-fast. I
certainly appreciate you stepping forward on that. Mr.
Stallworth, you mentioned aircraft, we have to make a decision
on are we going to keep repairing these aircraft or are we
going to move forward with technology. I appreciate that
instead of like being in la la land and not actually taking on
the meat of the issue, the center part of this is the
interdiction part, the actual catching those people in action.
I certainly appreciate the time issue. But it seems to me that
if know it left and you know it arrived, where is it in the
middle? What can we do to catch the middle? Am I making any
sense to you all? Everybody seems quiet.
Mr. Stallworth. Let me help you out a little bit here with
the dynamics so you will understand a little bit better that it
is not just a straight line, two points and it is a straight
line between those. We have about 6 million square miles
between us and the source. So we may know something is leaving
Cartagena but you do not know necessarily what its destination
is. So there is a little bit of time that you can use Colombian
forces in their territorial waters to try and intercept that,
find something that matches the description that you have. You
may not have a direction, you may not know where it is going.
Let me give you a little bit of the life of a logistics
move of drug trafficking. We get intelligence from people that
may know about the time that it is leaving, the method that it
is going, etc. Sometimes you do not know when but you know what
the name is. But sometime between its departure and its
arrival, that is where you have to do a detection, monitor it,
find out if it is the right one, sort it out, and then put
something on the surface down there. We do not have airplanes
with grappling hooks to reach down there and just pull a fast
boat out of the water, so we have to get someone down there. So
sometimes we will observe something but none of the good guys
are in a position to catch it or intercept it. So now you give
information out to those people that may be at the port that it
is likely going to, etc. And at the same time, Admiral Hathaway
has international forces and our own domestic forces that are
out there positioned as best they can be geographically, none
of them sitting still, some do sit still, but most with an area
of operations to try and cutoff a corridor.
So even if you knew, even with the 331, if you had time to
do it, you are still going to have to sort through those. The
numbers that he gave you, out of the 93 there were 73 that
actually were real, it is just like being a policeman and there
are speeders out there, here are 93 of them, how many are
actually speeding. Well you can do that with an indicator. For
us, you have to stop them, get inside, and then try and find
it. These people are in business and their business is to get
their product to market. It is very difficult for us, and that
is why the cooperation is necessary throughout the interagency,
both from the intelligence all the way through the
investigation once you do catch someone, trying to feed the
intelligence so that we can go back into the infrastructure and
the organizations and the financial underpinnings of the drug
trafficking.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Admiral Sirois.
Admiral Sirois. Mr. Chairman, I know you are looking for a
solution, and I can give you a short-term and a long-term. The
25 percent of the go-fast boats, and there is more than just
go-fast, there are sailboats and merchant ships, fishing boats,
but the 25 percent of the go-fast boats, if we had armed
helicopters on every ship we could catch that 25 percent of the
boats that we see go by. We have a plan that is in the budget
to arm all Coast Guard helicopters so every ship will be
deploying with an armed Coast Guard helicopter. So that will
take care of that 25 percent. We hope to complete that over the
next 3 to 4 years.
Also in the Deepwater plan, many of our legacy assets are
being upgraded--better sensors, better communications suites,
our new Deepwater cutters, for many, it is 2, 3 years before
they come off the waves, but we can leverage better
capabilities on our old cutters that will provide Admiral
Hathaway with better assets in the fight down in the transit
zone.
We have a large initiative, supported by the President, for
maritime domain awareness, which is knowing what is going on
out there, and it is an integrated network system of sensors,
satellites, communications, unmanned aerial vehicles, all these
things that will be networked in the system. When they come to
full production that is when I think we are really going to
show some successes in the transit zone.
Mr. Harrigan. Sir, if I may followup also just to sort of
close the loop I believe on this. To give you a little
background, we keep alluding to Operation Panama Express and
that is based upon we have a cadre of sources of informants
throughout the region, throughout the transit and the source
zones. We obtain information from these sources of information.
It may not be specific but we go with it. Again, just solely
based on any information they may have, they feed back to
Panama Express, we then feed it to JIATF, and obviously JIATF
does the best they can with the available resources they have.
Mr. McHenry. I have gone significantly over my time. I
guess that is the luxury of having the gavel at the moment. But
I certainly appreciate you all going through this range of
thought here. The idea of this hearing is to actually get ideas
to help you do your jobs better. And I certainly appreciate
your willingness to come forward and explain this process so we
can look at ideas to actually do what we are supposed to be
doing, and that is to give you all the resources to achieve
those goals. That is why we have these hearings on a regular
occasion is to keep driving that process forward.
It seems to me that we need to make sure we have the
resources and the technology in place so that we can actually
do the job on the ground, in the water, and make this process
easier for you. And if it is a question of resources, we would
like to hear that. If it is a question of policy, we need to
hear that too. That is the purpose of this committee.
Furthermore, we actually had a hearing back in January I
believe, Admiral Hathaway, and I think Chairman Souder had some
questions that he submitted and is still looking forward to
receiving your response from that. We are now about 5 months or
6 months after that hearing, so we would like to hear from you
on that.
At this time I will yield to Mr. Cummings for a second
round of questions, and yield the Chair to my good friend, the
gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Brown-Waite.
Mr. Cummings. Gentlemen, I want to reiterate that we do
appreciate what you do. I want to just go on that subject of
appreciation. Admiral Sirois, you just talked about bringing
some new equipment to certain Coast Guard vessels; is that what
you were saying?
Admiral Sirois. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. What did you say? Say that again, please.
Admiral Sirois. Our legacy fleet, our older cutters, we are
putting new sensors on them, communications suites so that they
are more effective in the job they are doing.
Mr. Cummings. OK. And when we interdict, how dangerous is
it? What do we usually find with regard to weapons?
Admiral Sirois. Fortunately, very few weapons. We do find
them from time to time. Most of the time we find that the crews
will dispose of the weapons before our boarding team goes
aboard. It is pretty imposing to have a large Navy ship or
Coast Guard ship in close proximity to a 50 foot boat and that
presence there dissuades them.
Mr. Cummings. So going back to what you said, Mr.
Stallworth, the whole thing of timing. I take it that the
timing is very significant in that if you get the information--
in other words, I am not trying to figure out who your
informants are, but I imagine sometimes they can have some
difficulty getting the word to you all in a timely fashion. Is
that a reasonable assumption?
Mr. Stallworth. Sometimes. And I defer to the DEA on that.
Mr. Harrigan. Absolutely. Yes. That is an accurate
assessment.
Mr. Cummings. And that can be a real problem.
Mr. Harrigan. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. So it could be some guy down at the docks
somewhere and he sees something happening and then he has to go
through 50 million changes, he has also got to protect his own
safety and make sure he is safe and does not want to give away
the fact that he is a source or he will not be a source very
long. Is that reasonable?
Mr. Harrigan. Yes, sir. It sounds like you could give the
Panama Express briefing, to be quite honest. You hit the nail
right on the head.
Mr. Cummings. So then you get the word. But the interesting
thing is it sounds like most of the time this information is
pretty reliable. Is that safe to say? In other words, reliable
that there are drugs on the vessels.
Mr. Harrigan. Suffice it to say that the information that
we receive is typically--again the cadre of sources that we
have out there are fairly reliable, we have worked with them in
the past, and they know exactly what to look for: the types of
ship, the types of different maneuvers that they may employ,
certain dock hands, that type of thing, sir. So this cadre of
sources that we have are pretty well-versed in watching out for
specific things.
Mr. Cummings. OK. So I guess what I am trying to figure out
is that let us say we see the go-fast boats and one of you all
implied there are instances where we get there but maybe we do
not have the necessary equipment at that moment. Was it you,
Mr. Stallworth?
Mr. Stallworth. Yes. There are a number of dynamics as
opposed to doing operations on land and a policeman pulling you
over to the side of the road. It is called the end-game. For
us, we can detect a suspect vessel, but if we do not have
anyone on the surface in a position to actually stop them, go
inside the vessel, and then inspect to see if there is a
concealed compartment or if there are drugs there, we do not
know. Sometimes we will se an open boat, a fast boat, but there
is no one in the region on the surface that is going to be able
to take them down. We just have to document the fact that it is
there and where it is and give information and a heads-up to
the local authorities of the areas that it may go to.
Mr. Cummings. Would any kind of aerial operation help with
that, like helicopters or----
Mr. Stallworth. Sure, if you had land-based helicopters
that were on the islands, for instance, in the Caribbean. But
you have a lot of water out there and the range of a helicopter
and even the vessels that you put helicopters on have to be so
close to that target vessel before the helicopter can take off
because it has to have the ability to go out there, stop, if
the vessel stops the helicopter has to stay there and monitor
it until the ship or other surface assets get there. So there
is a lot more to being successful with the end-game than just
you see them, you know they have drugs, and now you got them.
You actually have to catch them.
Mr. Cummings. Were you going to say something, Admiral
Sirois?
Admiral Sirois. Just that the area that we operate in, the
transit zone, it is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Thank you all.
Ms. Brown-Waite [presiding]. The gentleman yields back his
time.
I have a question for Admiral Hathaway. I understand that
the chairman and staff came down to visit you and see the
operation and posed some followup questions. Those questions
were submitted--the visit was January 13th, and the questions
were submitted January 28th.
Chairman Souder is much more patient than I would be. The
questions were submitted in writing and then told that the
questions would only be answered if they were under the
chairman's signature. The bureaucracy in getting a Member of
Congress' questions answered seems to me an offense. I find it
offensive, I am sure the chairman found it offensive, and I
would like to know why it takes 6 months to get some answers to
some questions that a Member of Congress who Chairs this
subcommittee asks.
Admiral Hathaway. Madam Chairman, I certainly apologize for
the tardiness of the answers to those questions. I have seen
the questions, they were worked on diligently in JIATF, they
were very good questions, and I will take back to the
administration the subcommittee's dismay that they have not
received the appropriate answers.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Well, taking that back is real good, but
the question is how many more 6 month periods are we going to
have? I understand that the answers were actually submitted and
then taken back this past Monday. Is that accurate?
Admiral Hathaway. I am not sure exactly where the answers
to the questions are within the administration in terms of the
clearing process.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Sir, I think the questions were directed
to you.
Admiral Hathaway. The original questions were directed to
myself as the Director of Joint Interagency Task Force South.
Ms. Brown-Waite. So therefore you are the administration,
sir.
Admiral Hathaway. Yes, ma'am. And as you know, at my level,
when those questions are answered, they are ultimately
transmitted to Congress but via my chain of command. And so I
will find out where they are and certainly convey the dismay of
the subcommittee. We will try to expedite getting those to you
just as quickly as possible.
Ms. Brown-Waite. I think perhaps even more interesting is
why they were submitted and then withdrawn. I think an
explanation needs to be given for that also. I believe in
deadlines, sir.
Admiral Hathaway. As do I, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Brown-Waite. I do not think a 6-month delay is
acceptable. So how about within 3 weeks, because you already
will have had the questions for almost 6 months. So how about 2
weeks? Could we have a commitment on that? I am sure those
bureaucratic wheels can move a whole lot faster.
Admiral Hathaway. I will certainly take that back and try
to expedite getting the answers to you. And if this
subcommittee desires those within 2 weeks, I will make sure
that everyone is aware of that. I can promise you that.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you, sir. I have a couple of
questions for the representative from DEA. First, thank you all
for being here. I apologize I was not here earlier. It is very
frustrating when you serve on the Veterans Committee and they
simultaneously are holding a hearing and you run from hearing
to hearing.
I apologize, I did read part of the testimony though
earlier in the day, but I apologize for not being here earlier.
I want you to know that any other Members who are not here are
facing the exact same situation of committee meetings being
held simultaneously and/or constituents, because this is the
time to visit Washington, DC, constituents being in their
office. So I apologize for not being here sooner.
Mr. Harrigan, I just have a question for you. Despite the
good drug movement intelligence in the transit zone, we lack
apparently similar knowledge in Mexico and Central America. So
what agency has had the lead in developing logistic support
bases that are located near the transit zones? And second, has
DEA considered renewing operations in Guatemala?
Mr. Harrigan. It is probably very good timing, ma'am. The
Chief of Operations Mike Braun, who I am sitting here in place
of, is actually in Guatemala as we speak meeting with
Ambassador Hamilton and the president of Guatemala over that
issue. So hopefully we will have our bases covered down in
Guatemala.
As far as the initial question, ma'am, you are correct. The
problem when we see these go-fast boats and fishing vessels
leave from the source countries, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, once
they get into Mexico/Central America, to be quite honest with
you, we are not quite sure what happens. It is literally once
it goes into Mexico they break these loads down to considerably
smaller loads and it is almost like an army of ants coming
across the Southwest border. I believe CBP puts estimates of
seizures average about 20 kilos per seizure along the Southwest
border.
So we are in the process of developing, along with the
other gentlemen here on the panel, DEA has a drug flow
prevention strategy that we are turning into a plan. We are
looking at targeting the vulnerabilities of these drug
organizations and certain choke points where we will be able to
identify them before they get to Mexico and Central America. It
is certainly an issue.
We have several offices in Mexico, ma'am, our main office
in Mexico City, and we are doing what we can with the resources
we have down there. We have a good relationship with the
Mexican police, with some of the vetted units, and we are doing
the best we can to try and identify those areas where these
huge loads are coming into both Mexico and Central America.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Let me ask you two other questions. First
of all, were you with Customs before it was taken over by
Homeland Security?
Mr. Harrigan. No, ma'am. No. DEA, Department of Justice,
yes.
Ms. Brown-Waite. OK. We have heard about the tremendous
success of the Panama Express intelligence cuing. Our reliance
on this kind of intelligence sources should not be our only
avenues of information on the drug trade. What other
exploitable sources on this kind of information do you have in
the transit zone operations area?
Mr. Harrigan. Right now, ma'am, we rely almost exclusively
on human intelligence. That is the bread and butter, to be
quite honest with you. We have some great assets out there,
whether they be technical in nature, but again, as Admiral
Hathaway and Admiral Sirois alluded to earlier, we may have
particular information they may be out in a particular zone,
but it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
So without human intelligence, it is an uphill battle. So
it is with that human intelligence that we can perhaps sort of
close the area a bit more for the JIATF and DOD assets to
interdict those ships before they get to Mexico and Central
America.
Ms. Brown-Waite. So you are really relying a lot on the
human intelligence?
Mr. Harrigan. Absolutely.
Ms. Brown-Waite. On a scale of 1 to 10, how reliable is the
information that you get?
Mr. Harrigan. It depends, obviously, on who it is coming
from. But the success of Panama Express again is based on human
intelligence and our sources in the area. So for the most part,
if we get information, if it is gleaned through the Interagency
folks, we take a hard look at it, as does every other agency
sitting at this table, and we have a pretty good idea if there
is a certain movement that is going to occur.
Ms. Brown-Waite. One other question, and that is, does the
DEA feel that the Joint Interagency Task Force South has
optimized their airborne and maritime patrol efforts?
Mr. Harrigan. I would have to defer, ma'am, to Admiral
Hathaway. But we have an outstanding relationship. We have
agents and intelligence analysts as well as support personnel
assigned to JIATF-South. They have every request that has come
from DEA, any tasking, it has always been acted upon. Other
than that, I would really have no comment to that particular
question.
Ms. Brown-Waite. So you are not at liberty to say whether
you believe that they have optimized the airborne and maritime
patrol?
Mr. Harrigan. I believe they have. I believe they have.
From the information that we pass along to them, absolutely.
Ms. Brown-Waite. OK. Is it true that about 90 percent of
all drugs come into the U.S. through the Mexican border?
Mr. Harrigan. Those are the estimates, ma'am. Right now,
the IACM, Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement, put the
figures in 2003 at approximately 77 percent of the cocaine
coming into the U.S. transited Mexico/Central America, and they
had the remaining 23 percent going through the Caribbean. In
2004 there was tremendous movement, where estimates put it at
92 percent of the cocaine coming from South America would
transit the Mexico/Central America corridor, while 8 percent
would transit the Caribbean. OK. Now again, these are estimates
that this IACM put together.
Ms. Brown-Waite. When I first moved to Florida, I moved to
a coastal area and kind of the local chatter was that there was
a lot of drug smuggling going on through the fishing boats,
small fishing boats. Tell me, has that changed? Has it gotten
better? Has it gotten worse? This is along the west coast of
Florida.
Mr. Harrigan. I will answer in part, ma'am, and then I will
defer to perhaps Admiral Hathaway. Again, we have seen a
decline over the last year or so of shipments going through the
Caribbean. Again, they are simply estimates, nothing more,
nothing less. We do see the vast majority of the drugs that are
smuggled into the United States obviously come via maritime
vessels, whether it be go-fast, whether it be containerized
vessels, whether it be small fishing vessels. So based upon the
IACM, we have seen a decline in the Caribbean.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you. Anybody else care to respond to
that? Admiral Hathaway. Mr. Stallworth.
Mr. Stallworth. Yes, ma'am. To answer your question
specifically about the west coast of Florida, it is difficult
to say specifically. What I can say is regionally in South
Florida, especially with the post-September 11th Department of
Homeland Security's efforts down there in south Florida, where
the Coast Guard, Air and Marine Operations, and the Border
Patrol essentially produce one flying schedule so we deconflict
all of our assets and we utilize them in probably the most
effective and efficient way possible with the assets that we
have, and with some of the operations down there, which
included taking back the Miami River which was a Joint
Interagency, investigative, etc., State and local, and Federal.
That operation has been I think very successful, and what
happens is it has a tendency to impact the whole region. So
when law enforcement and the Department got our act together
down there and started acting in a cooperative manner, what we
did has really had an impact on the total of south Florida,
both maritime and air.
So I think the impact has been there. The focus on the
Miami River project, and the focus in the other regions down
there, the threat of mass migration from Cuba and other areas,
has resulted in team work that has resulted in a much safer
environment down there for south Florida. I think what you are
seeing is just that.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you. Anyone else wish to comment?
Yes?
Admiral Sirois. The area along the coast we call the
arrival zone, and that is the responsibility of CBP, Coast
Guard, and many other State and local agencies. You mentioned
the fishing fleet, certainly fishing fleet is suspect. I would
have to ask my local folks in Florida what information they
have, but any conveyance, and of course there are hundreds of
thousands if not millions of boats in Florida, are
opportunities.
The problem off the coast of Florida or any coastal area is
those small boats carry small amounts of drugs. That is why it
is most important that what JIATF-South does is get the large
loads. As difficult as it is to get the large loads, it is much
easier to do that than get the small loads in close to home.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you. Mr. Cummings, I believe you
have some questions?
Mr. Cummings. I will be very brief, Madam Chairlady. I just
was wondering, to you Admiral Hathaway, is there a diversion of
assets when the code levels go up? In other words, are we
seeing a movement with regard to trying to deal with other
priorities, particularly after September 11th and what have
you? And if there are, does that call for a movement of your
forces? And how does that affect what you do? Do you follow me?
Maybe somebody else can answer that too.
Admiral Hathaway. Yes, sir. I will provide a comment and
then I would turn to both my Coast Guard and my Customs and
Border Protection colleagues. In the aftermath of the September
11th attacks, there is no doubt that at JIATF-South both Coast
Guard and what is now Customs and Border Protection assets were
pulled back in fairly large numbers. Both of those
organizations have matured greatly since that time.
As security levels go up in the United States, our
assessment today as today's JIATF-South Commander, is that both
the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection are able to
handle both missions almost simultaneously. I no longer see a
wholesale movement of assets from those two Interagency
partners away from JIATF-South. We are able to maintain our
level of operations while both these organizations flex in
their homeland security duties. That is my assessment from the
JIATF-South perspective. But I will ask both of them for
theirs.
Admiral Sirois. After September 11th the Coast Guard did
draw back many of its major cutters in close to our ports and
shores. Since that time, with the administration's budget and
the support of Congress, we have added hundreds of new boats
and patrol boats to our inventory. Those boats are doing things
along our coastal ports that the major cutters were doing after
September 11th. So now if the threat level is increased, we are
pretty much able, as Admiral Hathaway mentioned, to do that
mission without calling cutters back from his mission.
However, having said that, there are other things that we
do that could cause us to pull back our cutters--mass migration
from Cuba, mass migration from Haiti. All our cutters are
multi-mission, so there are more things than the elevated
Homeland Security threat alert level that could cause a
disruption in the allocation of assets.
Mr. Cummings. Anyone else? Mr. Stallworth.
Mr. Stallworth. Yes, sir. From the perspective of CBP, our
counterterrorism mission is just as important as our
counternarcotics, you almost cannot separate them. The
Commissioner of Customs has a defense in depth strategy that
includes the transit zone. So we would look at the facts and
what the issue is because we know that the threat vector can
come from the South just like it can from the North. So the
decision is based on the threat and the situation as it is.
There would not be just an immediate withdrawal of assets.
Mr. Cummings. To Admiral Hathaway, I was just sitting here
thinking about all you have been through today. I would imagine
that if I were trying to put together one of those Southwest
Airlines commercials, this would be the ideal time for you--you
just want to get away. [Laughter.]
But I wanted to say, I hope you can understand the urgency.
Believe me, I am not going to pile on; believe me. I understand
Chairman Souder's concern about getting the information. I am
assuming, based upon what you have said, that if it were up to
you, and you do not have to answer this because I know you have
a chain of command and all that kind of thing, that I guess we
would have these answers.
But I am just asking you, as the Chairlady has said, and I
agree with her, that we only have a limited amount of time to
operate in this Congress and we do have a sense of urgency.
Sometimes the public may not believe that, but we do. We have a
limited amount of time to get some things done.
So I would hope that you would do the best you can. It is
simply not good enough to say you will try. We kind of need
answers. And if there are problems, you need to let us know. We
are human beings and we understand problems.
So I just could not leave this room without saying that to
you because I want you to have a decent evening, and I really
mean that. I have sat on the general committee for now 9\1/2\
years and I have seen people come before this committee and
leave just simply devastated. I do not want you to leave
feeling that way, and I am saying that very sincerely. You all
do so much for us and you affect all of our neighborhoods and I
know you do the best you can with what you have.
I know that when you are a military person there are
certain things that you just do not say because there are
chains of command and all that kind of thing. But I hope you
will give it everything you have. I think the Chairlady asked
for it in 2 weeks, if you could do that for us, please do that.
And if for any reason that is in any way impossible, and I am
sure it is not impossible, but if it is, please let us know. I
hope that my statement helps you get through the evening. We
thank you for your service, we really do. Thank you.
Ms. Brown-Waite. And I thank Mr. Cummings for that
question. One of the things that he said is I think he said he
wants you to do the best you can with what you have. The reason
why the chairman wanted those questions answered is to see what
the shortfalls are, what additional equipment you need to
better do your job to help interdict the drug trafficking to
make our streets safer and our children safer. I do not think
that there was any hidden agenda. It was not going to be a
gotcha. It was how can we help you get better equipment, more
equipment, whatever you need.
Sometimes in any administration their priorities are not
always the priorities of the Members of Congress. Like Mr.
Cummings and the other members of this committee, I go home
every weekend, I see the broken-hearted parents whose kids are
hooked on drugs. I have taught in college the caseworkers who
work with those who are addicted to drugs. I know the
heartache. I know the broken families.
So the chairman's intentions were to help you. As you know,
the appropriations process is speeding along much quicker than
ever before, and that was his goal, to help you get what you
need, to make sure that what you got is a lot better to do your
job better.
Before we end the meeting, I would like to hear from
everybody here on the panel, and I want to thank you for being
here today. Do any of the agencies represented here today
support the idea of a maritime oiler to refuel interdiction
assets in the Eastern Pacific? How about if we start down here
with Mr. Utley.
Mr. Utley. I think it would be an excellent idea. It is
having to do with the art of the impossible. Right now, the
Navy does not have a spare oiler to donate to the Eastern
Pacific, unfortunately, and it would be cost-prohibitive, it is
somewhere around $25 million, to bring one out of mothballs.
I will let some of my colleagues obviously talk about this,
they have more granularity than I do. Approach other countries
in the region, it is almost like a bridge too far away, with
the Colombian ones in pretty bad shape, the Peruvian is in
pretty bad shape, Chile is too far away. So, oh, yes, that
would be really great. But it is the getting there that is very
difficult.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you. Admiral Sirois.
Admiral Sirois. Definitely. The number of days lost to
cutters and Navy ships transiting back and forth to get fuel is
troubling. I think last year one of our commanders estimated
that in the Pacific we lost 100 patrol days because the ships
were transiting back and forth.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you.
Admiral Hathaway. In U.S. Southern Command, we have been
working with our partner nations, as Mr. Utley noted, Peru,
Columbia. We have been aggressively pursuing options other than
U.S. assets.
The frustration to me I can tell you, and this is the
granularity of information we have today, that an on-scene day
for one of our ships in the Eastern Pacific, whether it is
Coast Guard, whether it is U.S. Navy, is worth about 100
kilograms of cocaine seized. When we lose that ship off-
station, that is an opportunity lost. As Admiral Sirois simply
said, by some estimates we lost about 100 ship days last year
because we had to send cutters and U.S. Navy ships to shoreside
refueling.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you. Mr. Stallworth.
Mr. Stallworth. Yes, ma'am. From the air and Marine
operations perspective, we are the guys who go out there and
detect them. We would like for somebody to be on the surface to
do the end-game so that the time that we spend out there flying
comes to fruition and we protect our neighborhoods. So I am in
support of that.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you. Mr. Harrigan.
Mr. Harrigan. Well, ma'am, that is a bit out of the area of
DEA's expertise. But for what it is worth, I fully concur with
my panelists. [Laughter.]
Ms. Brown-Waite. You know, I am from New York and it is so
good to hear a New York accent.
Mr. Harrigan. How did you guess?
Ms. Brown-Waite. Because I am from New York.
I want to thank each and every one of you for being here.
We appreciate your testimony and certainly look forward to
having a copy of the response to the chairman. Like you, we are
from the Government; we are here to help, we really are. I want
to thank you all for being here.
This meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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<all>