01 May 2006
World's Drug War Intertwined with Fighting Terrorist Groups
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency official Michael Braun discusses global drug threat
By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The world's terrorist organizations often rely on the proceeds from drug trafficking to achieve their goals, says Michael Braun, chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Briefing reporters on the 2006 International Drug Enforcement Conference to be held May 8-11 in Montreal, Braun said that to be successful in fighting terrorism, law enforcement agencies worldwide also must fight the narcotics industry.
The U.S. State Department, he said at the April 27 briefing in Washington, has identified 42 global terrorist organizations, with at least 18 of these groups involved in some aspect of drug trafficking activity to fund their operations. That means, he said, law enforcement authorities are fighting terrorist groups that "tax a farmer who is growing poppy or cocoa or marijuana, [or] perhaps, to the other extreme, a terrorist organization that is involved in virtually every aspect of drug trafficking activity."
Braun said most global terrorist groups are driven by "ideological reasons, whether that be political, religious," or other factors. But, to exist, these groups need to have money for their operations, "to strike out against us," said Braun, who was joined in the briefing by Raf Souccar, assistant commissioner for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Braun said drug trafficking groups use myriad ways to finance their operations, such as smuggling aliens or being involved in weapons trafficking.
"But I firmly believe that there's nothing out there that's going to provide the kind of money that drug trafficking does, that global drug trafficking does at that kind of a scale," said Braun.
He said U.S. citizens spend an estimated $64 billion-$65 billion for illegal drugs. Millions of dollars of that amount, if not more, he said, end up in the "war chests of terrorist organizations that are hell-bent on destroying our way or life and ... the way of life found in any free and democratic society on the face of the earth."
Even with these alarming statistics, Braun said the United States has achieved success in fighting its own drug problem. The official said the United States has between 45 percent and 50 percent fewer people "abusing drugs in our country" as there were in 1979 at the height of the U.S. drug problem.
"There is this notion out there that we're losing the war on drugs, [but] we absolutely are not losing the war on drugs," Braun asserted.
During the briefing, Braun also discussed drug traffickers who operate in such Latin American countries as Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and in the Caribbean and Afghanistan, where 80 percent of the world's heroin is produced, Braun said.
Braun said the United States has achieved some "really phenomenal successes" in working with the Afghan counter-narcotics police to bring heroin traffickers to justice.
The transcript of the briefing is available on the State Department's Web site, as is a related fact sheet.
More information on the 2006 International Drug Enforcement Conference is available on the DEA Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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