Official: disputed Pa. facility plays vital part in drug war

By DANIEL LOVERING - Associated Press Writer

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. --

For years, the National Drug Intelligence Center has operated quietly on the upper floors of a former department store, with scores of employees authorized at the highest levels of government security.

But the Justice Department facility, which blends into the landscape of this once-thriving mill town 60 miles east of Pittsburgh, has long caught the attention of critics in Washington.

Watchdog groups and lawmakers have blasted it as a pet project of U.S. Rep. John Murtha, whose special funding requests - or earmarks - have sustained the center since it opened in his home district in the early 1990s.

It has been derided as a product of pork barrel spending and an unnecessary outgrowth of the war on drugs that duplicates work done elsewhere. The Bush administration has tried to close it, requesting millions to cover shutdown costs.

The latest salvo came last month, when Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., tried to remove an earmark for the center, drawing Murtha's ire.

But the NDIC has persisted, despite lingering questions about its effectiveness in coordinating the efforts of federal authorities to collect and analyze intelligence on the domestic trafficking of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs.

Acting director Irene S. Hernandez insists the center plays a critical and unique role in the nation's anti-drug effort, and that its mission has evolved from an initial focus on trafficking syndicates to its current emphasis on broad trends.

"We can do an independent assessment of the drug trafficking situation, and we can say this is what's happening," Hernandez told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. "There's nobody else positioned to do what we do."

She said the center differs from other agencies, which may be preoccupied with tactical operations, and informs policy makers.

Over the years, directors have come and gone, in one case under a cloud of scandal. The current director, Michael F. Walther, an army reservist and former federal prosecutor, is currently serving in Iraq.

The center's funding has been precarious - a factor that has impeded hiring efforts, officials say. With a budget of $39 million annually, the center's survival again appears uncertain as a spending bill moves through Congress.

The NDIC conducts what it calls strategic assessments of illicit drug trends. It analyzes evidence for federal investigators and prosecutors, gathers intelligence, trains law enforcement officers and produces a raft of reports. Some of its work is classified.

Its 268 employees have top secret security clearance and include 121 intelligence analysts with backgrounds as diverse as real estate, chemistry, banking and law. It also uses contractors, some of whom are retired federal agents.

In their midst are a small number of analysts from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies.

Hernandez, who joined the agency in 2004 after a 27-year DEA career, points to the center's ability to cull information from seized evidence - including ledgers, phone and real estate records, computers and cell phones - and funnel that data to investigators and prosecutors, helping them build cases against suspects.

The center has developed its own software, including a program currently used by U.S. military investigators in Iraq.

It works with a broad range of law enforcement agencies, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Internal Revenue Service, and supports the National Counterterrorism Center's efforts to sever ties between drug traffickers and terrorists.

The NDIC assisted in an operation that led to the arrest of one of the world's most hunted drug traffickers, Pablo Rayo Montano, and helped detect growing abuse of the painkiller OxyContin, officials said.

Its marquee report, the National Drug Threat Assessment, charts patterns of drug production, availability and demand. Some law enforcement officials and academics praise the report, but former drug officials question its value as a policy instrument.

Gary L. Fisher, a professor at the University of Nevada-Reno, called the report objective and independent.

"It really accurately reflects how futile the (drug) supply control efforts have been," he said. "You'll find the DEA reports are much more biased to fit their agenda."

Another professor, Matthew B. Robinson of North Carolina's Appalachian State University, said he and a colleague used the report to challenge assertions by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the White House agency responsible for the drug war.

The data showed illicit drugs are cheaper and purer today than they were in the 1980s and 1990s, said Robinson, co-author of "Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy."

Some local law enforcement officials lauded the reports, saying they circulated them among their analysts.

But John Carnevale, a former ONDCP official who worked under three administrations and four drug czars, said the center's work was of no value to him when he was in government, though he has since used its reports.

"I had access to the data well before they did," said Carnevale, now a Maryland-based consultant. "So I pretty much ignored them."

Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, an advocacy group based in Maryland, said: "In many respects it seems that their stuff is out of date. ... I would describe it as a tool of limited value."

Critics have also questioned the center's location 140 miles from Washington, citing political maneuvering by Murtha.

"I know what their capabilities are, I know what they can do, but that didn't need to go to Johnstown, Pennsylvania," said James Mavromatis, a former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center, a Texas-based DEA agency.

He said the center could have been housed at the El Paso facility, closer to the U.S. border with Mexico, where most illicit drugs enter the country. The NDIC had considered moving a team there, he said.

The NDIC's document analysis differs completely from EPIC's work, he added, despite criticism they overlap completely.

NDIC officials and others contend that the center's Johnstown address is hardly a hindrance. It may be an asset, they say, as its low cost of living appeals to job candidates.

Asa Hutchinson, a former DEA head and a former Republican congressman, said he was "a fan of folks performing important government services, and not necessarily in Washington." But he conceded the center may need adjustments.

"I think it is underutilized," he said. "I think they can expand their mission, and I think that should be examined."

An activist group, Citizens Against Government Waste, recently chided Murtha for threatening fellow congressman Rogers with legislative reprisals after Rogers tried to strike a $23 million earmark for the center.

"We're not saying there shouldn't be an NDIC," said David Williams, the group's vice president for policy. "What we're saying is, why should one member of Congress be able to set up a field office like this?"

Rogers said he believed the El Paso center was supposed to be the main drug intelligence agency.

"I strongly believe it is not a good use of very valuable intelligence resources," he told The Associated Press, adding that $23 million amounted to the salaries of hundreds of DEA agents.

The Bush administration evidently agrees. Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said the center has "been slow to delineate a unique or useful role within the drug intelligence community."

For that reason, the OMB's 2008 budget request "fully funds all shutdown costs" of about $16 million, he said.

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Associated Press Writer Kimberly Hefling in Washington contributed to this report.