DEA's military-training commando teams reveal long reach of U.S. war on drugs

By Charlie Savage
The New York Times
Posted: 11/07/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

WASHINGTON — On a moonless night last March, a plane smuggling nearly half a ton of cocaine touched down at a remote airstrip in Honduras. An armed ground crew was waiting for it — as were Honduran security forces. After a 20- minute firefight, a Honduran officer had been wounded and two drug traffickers lay dead.

Several news outlets briefly reported the episode, mentioning that a Honduran official said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had provided support. But none of the reports included a striking detail: That support consisted of an elite detachment of military-trained DEA special agents who joined in the shootout, according to a person familiar with the episode.

Potential pros and cons

The DEA has five special commando-style squads that it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to Western Hemisphere nations — including Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize — that are battling violent, transnational drug cartels, according to documents and interviews of law enforcement officials.

The program — called FAST, for Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team — was created in 2005 during the George W. Bush administration to investigate Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. Since 2008, it has expanded far beyond the war zone.

"You have got to have special skills and equipment to be able to operate effectively and safely in environments like this," said Michael Braun, a former head of operations for the drug agency who helped design the program. "The DEA is working shoulder to shoulder in harm's way with host-nation counterparts."

The evolution of the program into a global enforcement arm reflects the United States' growing reach in combating drug cartels and how policymakers increasingly are blurring the line between law enforcement and military activities, fusing elements of the "war on drugs" with the "war on terrorism."

Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami professor who specializes in Latin America and counternarcotics, said the commando program carries potential benefits: The American teams could help arrest kingpins, seize stockpiles, disrupt smuggling routes and professionalize security forces in small countries through which traffickers pass drugs headed to the United States.

But there are also potential dangers.

"It could lead to a nationalist backlash in the countries involved," he said. "If an American is killed, the administration and the DEA could get mired in congressional-oversight hearings. Taking out kingpins could fragment the organization and lead to more violence. And it won't permanently stop trafficking unless a country also has capable institutions, which often don't exist in Central America."

Because the presence of armed Americans raises sensitivities about sovereignty, some countries that have sought the assistance will not acknowledge it, and the DEA is reluctant to disclose the details of the teams' deployments. Others — such as Mexico, which has accepted American help, including surveillance drones — have not wanted the commando squads.

Work not without tragedy

Federal law prohibits the drug agency from directly carrying out arrests overseas, but agents are permitted to accompany their foreign counterparts on operations. The Americans work with specially vetted units of local security forces that they train and mentor. In "exigent circumstances," they may open fire to protect themselves or partners.

Each of the five squads has 10 agents. Many are military veterans, and the section is overseen by a former Navy SEAL, Richard Dobrich. The Pentagon has provided most of their training and equipment, and they routinely fly on military aircraft.

The deployments to Afghanistan have resulted in large seizures of drugs and some tragedy: Two of the three DEA agents who died in a helicopter crash in October 2009 were with FAST. Last week, an agent was shot in the head when his squad came under fire while leaving a bazaar where they had just seized about 6,600 pounds of poppy seeds and about 110 pounds of opium. Airlifted to Germany in critical condition, he is expected to survive, an official said.

DEA's military-training commando teams reveal long reach of U.S. war on drugs - The Denver Post

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