The Forward Edge of Drug Interdiction

LEDETs Extend the Long Arm of Maritime Law Enforcement

By MICHAEL SHELTON

Michael Shelton is a national security analyst with Anteon Corporation's Center for Security Strategies and Operations.

"On the pier behind me is $600 million in drugs that won't be entering this country, thanks to the brave men and women of many law-enforcement agencies," said Vice Adm. Ernest R. Riutta, commander of the Coast Guard's Pacific Area Command, during a May 2001 news conference. Behind him were 460 bales, more than 13 tons of cocaine, that had been seized from the Belizean fishing boat Svesda Maru in an operation that Riutta described as "a textbook example of interagency cooperation." Included in the operation were the U.S. Customs Service, which first spotted the vessel at sea south of Acapulco, the U.S. Navy, which initially stopped the vessel, and the crew of the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Active, who discovered the contraband.

Only two decades ago, it would have been unusual for a Coast Guard admiral to discuss the role of the U.S. Navy--a U.S. Armed Service constrained by Posse Comitatus, the law that limits direct Department of Defense participation in law-enforcement operations--in a major drug seizure. Now, however, Riutta's remarks were right on target, and highlight one of the Coast Guard's most significant "force multipliers" in its war against maritime drug trafficking--namely, the Coast Guard law-enforcement detachments (LEDETs) deployed on board Navy warships.

This combination plays to the strengths of both services. The Coast Guard, which has a limited number of cutters tasked with a broad spectrum of civil and military missions, now has access to Navy warships, usually equipped with sensors and command-and-control systems far superior to the Coast Guard's own, that allows it to cover more territory. For the Navy, the six- to nine-man LEDETs--who as Coast Guard units have the authority to board, search, and seize suspected drug-smuggling vessels both on the high seas and in U.S. territorial waters--allow its forces to take concrete steps against maritime drug trafficking without encroaching on the limits imposed by Posse Comitatus.

The importance of LEDET-Navy operations has grown since the program's modest beginnings in 1982. In September 2000, when Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey--then director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy--and Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James M. Loy announced that the Coast Guard had seized a record 62 tons of cocaine during fiscal year 2000, they credited the "optimal employment of Coast Guard cutters and Coast Guard law-enforcement detachments embarked in U.S. Navy surface ships" as one of the key factors leading to such dramatic results.

As the Svesda Maru seizure demonstrated, the results of this interservice cooperation are critical to meeting the nation's drug-control objectives. Since its inception, the LEDET program has matured and expanded. The Coast Guard provides teams not only for Caribbean and Pacific drug-interdiction missions, but also for maritime operations overseas in support of the international sanctions against Iraq and Yugoslavia. The LEDET program has been so successful, in fact, that the Coast Guard has convinced the administration and Congress to expand it.

From Bare-Bones to Linchpin

The LEDET program was initiated to solve the problem of how the Coast Guard, relatively small in size and with numerous other duties, could monitor the vast expanse of America's maritime frontiers and territorial waters. In August 1982, to help the Coast Guard cope with the growing drug threat, the Department of Defense (DOD) offered its assistance--on a "not-to-interfere" basis--in a program that allowed the first Coast Guard detachments to ride Navy ships transiting such known drug-smuggling waters as the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Congress codified the partnership in 1986, authorizing specific billets for Coast Guard LEDET personnel.

Congressional interest in DOD participation in antinarcotics operations increased in the late 1980s. In 1988, the nation's legislators mandated that Coast Guard law-enforcement personnel be assigned, as and when appropriate, to all Navy combatants operating in or transiting through a drug-interdiction area. The 1989 National Defense Authorization Act designated the Defense Department as the lead agency of the federal government for the detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime trafficking of illegal drugs into U.S. territory, with the Coast Guard designated as the lead agency for the interdiction and apprehension of illegal drug traffickers on the high seas. Melding these statutory requirements together led to the regular deployment of Navy surface ships with Coast Guard LEDETs embarked.

In May 1993, the effort expanded to include the use of foreign naval warships operating in the Caribbean. Coast Guard LEDETs have embarked on combatants from Britain's Royal Navy and the Royal Netherlands Navy. According to Lt. James P. Sutton in the Office of Law Enforcement at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Coast Guard and the Belgian Navy also signed a Memorandum of Understanding in March of this year. "We should have our first joint Belgian Navy/U.S.Coast Guard LEDET deployment in early 2003," he said.

Since its rather modest beginnings, the LEDET program has undergone several organizational changes. In the 1990s, individual LEDETs were consolidated into parent units called Tactical Law Enforcement Teams (TACLETs), two of which were directly under the control of the Coast Guard's Atlantic Area commander, and one was directly under the control of the service's Pacific Area commander. This move helped standardize the operational and administrative procedures. There are currently three Coast Guard TACLETs--based in Portsmouth, Va., Miami, Fla., and San Diego, Calif.

LEDETs also have been used for numerous other missions, including the interdiction of alien migrants, and to support the Navy in enforcing international sanctions. Ten four-person LEDETs were deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield, and the Coast Guard now maintains a continuous presence year-round in the Middle East to help enforce United Nations sanctions against Iraq. LEDETs also were forward-deployed on U.S. Navy ships to enforce the U.N. embargo against the former Yugoslavia, and Coast Guard teams have deployed to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques to help maintain security for Navy exercises.

No matter what the operational objective, Coast Guard LEDETs and their host Navy forces complement one another in their respective missions. On overseas missions, in which Navy crew members can board foreign-flag vessels in support of international sanctions, the LEDETs function in both operational and training roles. "In the North Arabian Gulf," Sutton said, "every ship that goes in and comes out of Iraq is boarded by a LEDET or by a Navy visit, board, search, and seizure [VBSS] team to ensure compliance with U.N. sanctions. The LEDETs are charged with training the VBSS teams in boarding, safety, and security."

On drug-interdiction missions, though, Navy personnel are limited in the support they can provide. Lt. Cdr. Pat DeQuattro, commanding officer of the Coast Guard's Pacific Area Tactical Law Enforcement Team (PACTACLET), points out that the Navy provides the platforms and sensors as well as logistical support and the small boats that carry the LEDET personnel to a suspect vessel. "Navy boarding teams also occasionally augment LEDETs during boarding evolutions to provide extra security personnel and special technical assistance," DeQuattro said in an interview, "but the chain of custody and law-enforcement responsibilities of the mission rest solely with the Coast Guard LEDET."

Filling the Gap

Of all the LEDETs' current missions, drug interdiction is still the most prevalent, and arguably the most important as well. Drug smugglers are constantly searching for new methods and routes to avoid U.S. law-enforcement defenses. The back-and-forth process has been highlighted by the increased emphasis the traffickers are placing on the Eastern Pacific--where the Svesda Maru was seized--and by the traffickers' increasing use of "go-fast" boats. The go-fasts, light 35- to 40-foot long craft powered by two or three outboard engines and capable of carrying up to a ton of narcotics, have become the vessel of choice for many drug smugglers seeking to reach their drop-off points as quickly as possible.

The Coast Guard and its operational partners are constantly adjusting to the smugglers' new tactics, and the LEDET Navy surface warship combination plays a central role in this effort. In fiscal year 2000, LEDETs operating in the Caribbean and Pacific were responsible for 51 percent--or approximately 33 tons--of all Coast Guard cocaine seizures. By the middle of FY 2001 the Pacific TACLET alone had seized more than 40 tons of cocaine.

Achieving and sustaining such successes, however, has required the TACLETs to keep up a grueling operational tempo. The Coast Guard maintains a continuous LEDET presence not only in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, but also in the North Arabian Gulf. A team's typical deployment runs 45 to 60 days, and on average each LEDET will make three or four deployments a year. If all guidelines were met, the "standard" LEDET should be deployed approximately 185 days each year. But during the last few years, as Sutton noted, "the average LEDET was spending 205 to 210 days away from home."

To help reduce this strain on the Coast Guard's personnel and their families, and to ensure that each team has enough time for interdeployment training, the service requested, and Congress appropriated, $1.5 million to establish four new LEDETs, bringing the total number of teams to 27. Three of the new units will be assigned to the Pacific TACLET and one to the Atlantic.

The combination of new LEDETs, the support received from the Navy and the Department of Defense, and the adroit use of the Coast Guard's own cutters, aircraft, and systems has made a small but important dent in the flow of drugs into the United States. The replacement of the Coast Guard's aging longer-range forces as part of the ongoing Deepwater Program will make an even greater difference. But the drug-interdiction struggle is unlikely to end soon.

"The greatest challenge we face for the LEDET program is having enough ships dedicated to the counterdrug operations in the Eastern Pacific," DeQuattro admitted. "We will never have too many." He also commented on the increased sophistication of the opponents that the Coast Guard faces: "Smuggling techniques continue to get more elaborate. It is a great challenge for my teams to board vessels at sea and conduct a very thorough inspection ... to find concealed drugs." Numerous times, he said, LEDET boarding teams have had to take two or three days--and sometimes longer--to search every space where drugs might be hidden on a suspect vessel.

McCaffrey also recognized that "The principal drug-smuggling threat to America is now noncommercial maritime [smuggling] in the Eastern Pacific and the Western Caribbean. It isn't a giant banana ship. It's fishing trawlers, fast boats, you name it." But the people in the Coast Guard's TACLETs are not daunted by this continuing challenge. As DeQuattro said, "The more Navy and Coast Guard ships we commit to counterdrug efforts, the more successful our teams will be--and the more drugs will be seized."