U.S. Launches Massive Caribbean Drug Drive : Air, Sea and Land Campaign Will Attempt to Cut Flow From Colombia, Panama, Belize, Jamaica

The United States, using warships, aircraft and land patrols, has launched a “massive operation” to shut off the flow of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs from Colombia and three Caribbean nations, officials said Friday.

The operation, named Hat Trick II and expected to last up to three months, is being carried out with the cooperation of the four nations directly involved--Colombia, Panama, Belize and Jamaica. It is being coordinated by Vice President George Bush’s National Narcotics Border Interdiction System.

“It’s harvest time. It’s total interdiction of the area,” one Pentagon source said.

Operating at sea and in the air, the United States is trying to push its war against smugglers as close to the borders of exporting countries as possible. But Navy units will observe the 12-mile international sea limit off each country’s coast.

All 4 Military Services

Pentagon and other government officials said that units from all four military services--the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines--as well as the Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Administration and Customs Service had been enlisted. But they refused to give any figures for the size of the operation, which was launched Friday.

The operation’s focus is two “choke points”--the narrow sea lanes between Cuba and Haiti and between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula--through which drugs harvested in the Caribbean and South America are shipped to the United States.

“We’re taking the drug war outward from our borders, as close to the source as possible,” said Howard Gehring, staff director of the Bush task force.

Radar Command Plane

Weapons in the operation include such sophisticated equipment as the E-2C flying command post--the type of airplane that last month guided U.S. fighter jets as they intercepted an Egyptian airliner over the Mediterranean while it was carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro.

The airplane carries radar that can track air traffic at a distance of at least 200 miles, then direct jet fighters to intercept suspicious planes.

U.S. officials indicated that anti-drug efforts also are being stepped up along the U.S.-Mexican border and that Army and Marine units are being given a role in detection and transportation. But they declined to specify how the land patrols are being used.

Massive as the new effort is, the history of attempts to interdict drug traffic has not been encouraging. Because potential profits are enormous, possible transportation routes plentiful and the amounts of drugs necessary to meet demand relatively small--only about 40 tons of cocaine are needed to supply the entire U.S. market for a full year--it has been extremely difficult to choke off the flow.

Now ‘Enough Resources’

“Interdiction has always been a hit-or-miss operation because there’s never been enough people or equipment to do it,” one federal law enforcement official said. “That’s what makes this different, because they’re apparently devoting enough resources to it.”

Yet he acknowledged that over the years, interdiction has been able to head off only about one-tenth of the illicit drugs destined for the United States. Nevertheless, he said, it is probably second only to shutting off drugs at their source as an effective law enforcement tool.

While U.S. officials said the target countries all had been consulted on the operation, Colombian Ambassador Rodrigo Lloreda indicated that he knew little of any current acceleration in the continuing effort to cut down the flow of drugs.

“Over the years, we’ve had this type of cooperation,” he said.

Hat Trick I, also coordinated by the vice president’s office, was conducted in November, 1984, along with a Coast Guard operation dubbed Wagonwheel, to interdict the smuggling of cocaine and marijuana in the southern Caribbean.

Hat Trick I, a much smaller operation, received relatively little attention and was regarded as relatively unproductive, one federal law enforcement official recalled Friday night. He said the current operation involves much more military hardware.

14,000 Tons of Marijuana

In all, approximately 14,000 metric tons of marijuana and 40 tons of cocaine entered the United States last year, much of it through the “choke points,” staff director Gehring said.

“This is a massive operation. They’re going to cover the area. They’re going to cause some problems for the people trying to get drugs into this country,” a Pentagon source said. “They’re going to try to stop all drug flow.”

Although Navy ships are being used, he said, they would carry detachments of coast guardsmen or Customs Service agents to board suspected vessels.

Gehring said that Bush, who was traveling in Texas, would announce details of the operation as soon as possible but “without endangering its success.”

Until then, he said, “we’re trying to let the druggers find out we’re out there the hard way.”

Bush’s task force wanted to wait one or two weeks before announcing Hat Trick II “to keep the bad guys from knowing the crush was on,” one law enforcement source said. But word of the operation circulated Friday in Washington. Officials had blamed premature leaks for the low success rate of Hat Trick I.

Ship, Planes Targeted

The current operation is targeting all methods of drug smuggling, including ships of all sizes as well as airplanes that fly from the Caribbean to secluded landing strips throughout Florida.

The National Narcotics Border Interdiction System has been a much-criticized part of the federal anti-drug effort. Congressional critics have contended that it is a confusing appendage to the overall effort, which, by statute, is under the direction of Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.

But Meese has credited Bush’s office with having the clout to coax a once-reluctant military into the stepped-up war on drugs and has stilled criticism by the Drug Enforcement Administration of the border interdiction system.

Hat Trick II came at a time when the Coast Guard suspended routine drug patrols because it was facing a potential $230-million budget cut.