Troops on the Beat

very military unit has a mission statement, and Joint Task Force Six is no exception. From its headquarters in a former prison at Fort Bliss on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, the unit coordinates military participation in domestic counter-narcotics operations. In the words of the unit's mission statement: "JTF-6 synchronizes and integrates the Defense Department's operational, training, and intelligence support in domestic law enforcement agency counter-drug efforts in the continental United States to reduce the availability of illegal drugs in the United States." More telling, however, is the clause unit leaders recently added: "and when so directed, provides operational, training and intelligence support to domestic agencies' efforts in combating terrorism."

Nobody has actually directed Joint Task Force Six to expand its mission from counter-drug support to counterterrorism, but military officials are ready for what many inside and outside the Defense Department believe is a logical extension of the unit's mission. The mission statement was amended after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, says Army Brig. Gen. John Yingling, commander of the 160-member task force. "No one really told us to do that-at least I don't think they did-and we have not yet been directed to do that. All our funds come from the assistant secretary of Defense for counter-narcotics. Therefore, all of our missions have to be counter-drug. The operative word here is support."

Military officials emphasize that the role they play in both the drug war and in homeland security is a supporting one. Since the Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878 to preclude federal troops from doing the bidding of local politicians in the occupied South following the Civil War, the military has been prohibited from conducting domestic law enforcement operations. But the law also stipulates that Congress and the president may make exceptions, something both have shown an increasing willingness to do in recent years. Still, despite the expectation among many that the mission of Joint Task Force Six and other military units will expand, Defense officials and military leaders are ambivalent about the military's role in homeland security.

"Our plate is already full," says one senior Army official, who believes Congress and the Bush administration need to improve the counterterrorism capabilities of domestic law enforcement agencies instead of turning to the military for support in fighting terrorism on U.S. soil. "Our role is to defend the United States against aggressors. Of course, we understand that terrorism is a direct threat to the United States-that's why we're in Afghanistan. But in the long run, it won't serve the country well if we become embroiled in domestic counterterrorism operations, traditionally the purview of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. It's a matter of managing national resources most appropriately and in keeping with our national values."

Despite such reservations among many inside and outside the military, the Defense Department clearly is anticipating a broader role in homeland security. Pentagon officials are circulating a draft of a new "Joint Doctrine for Homeland Security." The White House has asked Justice Department lawyers to review the Posse Comitatus law in light of new security requirements in the war on terrorism. And last October, Defense created a military command-and-control structure for operations in the continental United States. Northern Command, as the new organization is called, consolidates all existing military homeland defense and homeland security operations. The 2003 National Defense Authorization Act directed the Pentagon to create a new assistant secretary of Defense position for homeland defense-a change sought by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Former Democratic Rep. Paul McHale of Pennsylvania was confirmed in that post earlier this year and now oversees Northern Command's operations.

From the Defense Department's perspective, homeland defense and homeland security, while both the purview of Northern Command, are two separate concepts. The department defines homeland defense as "the protection of U.S. territory, domestic population and critical infrastructure against military attacks emanating from outside the United States." Defense officials define homeland security as "the prevention, pre-emption and deterrence of, and defense against, aggression targeted at U.S. territory, sovereignty, domestic population and infrastructure as well as the management of the consequences of such aggression and other domestic emergencies. Homeland security is a national team effort that begins with local, state and federal organizations."

Army Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson III, deputy commander of Northern Command, says the advent of the new organization does not necessarily signal a new role for the military so much as it highlights the need for more efficient management of existing resources. "When Northern Command was created, there were no new missions created. In essence, we're consolidating existing missions into a single organization," he says.

THE NEED TO SHARE

From a command post buried deep in Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colo., Anderson and other Northern Command leaders work daily with senior officials across government to anticipate and plan for attacks against and within the United States. Co-located with the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Northern Command also is responsible for coordinating security with Canada and Mexico.

As of late March, command officials said they had established no formal relationships with the Homeland Security Department, and while they've created an intelligence information center, they have not yet figured out how to coordinate the command's intelligence activities with the new CIA-FBI Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

"This is an emerging area and relationships will grow," says Anderson. "Our intent is not to collect information and intelligence but to do analysis. We're going to have to sort out these roles. Obviously we can't have a situation where we have three different organizations looking at three different [intelligence] products for the same event." Northern Command officials expect that now that McHale is on board, Northern Command's relationships with Homeland Security and other federal agencies will be clarified.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Dale Meyerrose, Northern Command's director of architectures and integration, has the unenviable task of establishing effective communication with the various participants in homeland security, so that in a time of crisis there is not only unity of command among all Defense players, but strong communications links between Northern Command and the dozens of agencies it must work with. The challenges are both technical and cultural, Meyerrose says.

Traditionally, agencies have restricted information on a "need to know" basis, but in combating terrorism, they should adopt a "need to share" mentality, he says. One of the barriers between agencies is that they look at information differently, according to their own objectives. Law enforcement agencies, for example, value information according to its ability to withstand legal scrutiny, whereas health agencies look at information in terms of privacy. "Each culture represents barriers for moving data and information," Meyerrose says. "How do you provide motivation to share information without jeopardizing the values and needs of agencies that have the information? Those are the kinds of things we're looking at."

To conquer the technical hurdles of information sharing across agencies, the Defense Department is in the early stages of developing a Web-based system called the Trusted Information Exchange Environment.

'NONMILITARY' APPROACH

Northern Command's role goes far beyond sharing information about potential terrorist attacks. The command coordinates all military support to civil authorities, including the counter-drug work of Joint Task Force Six, and response to incidents ranging from natural disasters to terrorist attacks. That support is provided through a unit called Joint Task Force Civil Support, based at Fort Monroe, Va. Joint Task Force Six and Joint Task Force Civil Support report to Northern Command's Standing Joint Force Headquarters Homeland Security, based in Norfolk, Va.

Army National Guard Maj. Gen. Jerry Grizzle, commander of Joint Task Force Civil Support, has a deep appreciation for the role the military can play during a terrorist attack. Grizzle was the deputy commander of the Oklahoma National Guard's 45th Infantry Brigade when Timothy McVeigh drove a rented Ryder truck loaded with explosives to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Sitting in his home 17 miles away, Grizzle felt the blast. His role in the security operation after the bombing has motivated him and informed his thinking ever since. "It really made clear the importance of interagency cooperation," he says.

Like millions of Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, Grizzle turned on the television in time to see the World Trade Center's twin towers crumble in a terrorist attack that made Oklahoma City pale in comparison. "As the towers came down, you just knew what those people were getting ready to go through," he says. At the time, Grizzle was still with the Oklahoma National Guard, getting ready for an assignment at the Joint Warfighting Center in Suffolk, Va. By the end of October, he had been reassigned to his current position.

"We have a unique mission. In some ways, it's nonmilitary," he says. "It's a strange environment. You find yourself walking down the hall talking about plague and tularemia [a lethal bacterial disease] and things like that," he says. "Weapons of mass destruction, especially biological and chemical agents, those are my biggest fears. It's probably not a matter of if, but when."

Joint Task Force Civil Support has been planning military support to civilian agencies since 1999. The task force's staff of 170 people-about 100 more than were in the unit before the Sept. 11 attacks-assess what might be required for the worst-case scenarios that terrorism analysts produce. The task force routinely sends coordinating cells to major national events, such as the Olympics and the president's annual state of the union address, so that military officials are prepared to move quickly in response to a terrorist attack. "The nature of the event that would cause us to be deployed, well, it would be a bad event," says Army Col. Patrick Murphy, director of operations.

In many ways, Joint Task Force Civil Support is a military anomaly. Its personnel come from across all the services-Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard, as well as the reserve components-and focus a wider range of skills on a common objective than perhaps any other military organization. "I'm from an infantry unit, and I can tell you that there, the surgeon wasn't a major player. Here, the surgeon is a major player," says Army National Guard Col. Tom Haddan, the task force's director of plans and strategy. In developing plans for responding to an attack on the U.S. rail system, for example, Haddan says, the task force needs to analyze not just transportation issues, but environmental, security and medical concerns as well.

Intellectually, it's a challenging environment, says Joint Task Force Surgeon Navy Cmdr. Robert Alonso, M.D. "We have one chance to get it right coming out of the box. By the time we get the call, things are going to be bad."

DRUGS AND TERRORISM

Joint Task Force Six has a different kind of challenge-more calls for help than the unit can support. Last year, the task force coordinated military training and operational support for 404 counter-drug missions and turned down hundreds more. Missions included providing intelligence analysis and surveillance, building roads, conducting refueling operations and training law enforcement groups in marksmanship, interview and interrogation methods, threat assessment and mission planning. Congress created the task force in 1989 to provide counter-drug support along the Southwest border. In 1995, its area of operations was expanded to include the continental United States. Today the task force coordinates missions across the country.

Requests are managed through an interagency group co-located with Joint Task Force Six called Operation Alliance, which analyzes and prioritizes requests for help. Joint Task Force Six commander Yingling then decides which missions the military will be able to support. He is authorized to approve all missions except those involving deployments of more than 400 troops, lasting longer than 179 days, or involving detection and monitoring-the Defense secretary must authorize those operations. Yingling can't compel military units to participate-they must volunteer. Not surprisingly, planning has become especially difficult since the buildup of forces in the Persian Gulf. Of 16 engineering missions scheduled for this year, for example, 11 have been canceled because the units slated to handle them were deployed to the Gulf.

The requests for support far outpace the military's ability to provide it. "I've got a hundred support requests sitting on my desk right now," says Fernando Melendez, an assistant chief patrol agent in the Border Patrol Special Coordination Center in El Paso and a member of Operation Alliance. With drug smugglers inundating the Southwest border, especially in remote areas, the military can provide critical aerial surveillance; build or improve roads to allow agents access to difficult terrain; build and repair fences in urban areas; and complete a range of other tasks that the Border Patrol can't handle because it lacks the money, skilled personnel or specialized equipment, Melendez says.

The Border Patrol, which is now part of the Homeland Security Department, and the Forest Service are the agencies that most frequently seek military support. With the military's sophisticated surveillance and construction equipment and its vast training programs, Joint Task Force Six has been a boon to civilian law enforcement agencies.

The military units that conduct the missions benefit from the arrangement as well. The task force covers all expenses-except the cost of building materials used in engineering projects, which the law enforcement agencies must provide. The training advantages, for little or no cost, are tremendous, says Marine Corps Maj. Paul Fagan, mission commander for a March border surveillance operation involving his reserve Marine Light Attack Helicopter squadron, HMLA-773. When the unit learned it was likely to be called up for deployment to Kuwait later this spring, some of its leaders wondered if they should cancel the mission with Joint Task Force Six. But Fagan, who has participated in numerous missions with the task force, said no.

"This is essential training," he says. He coordinated with the task force to schedule live-fire training at nearby ranges during the course of the counter-drug operation. "The Southwest has some of the best ranges in the United States," he says. In addition, his pilots receive critical experience flying at night without lights. "The FAA doesn't usually allow that, but they will on these missions."

Law enforcement agencies see huge benefits from the participation of military units in counter-drug operations. "Forests are becoming a large haven for drug production," says Forest Service Special Agent Mark Tarantino. About 120 Forest Service special agents and 450 uniformed officers are responsible for policing 191.6 million acres of forest-nearly 10 percent of the land mass of the continental United States. With so few officers and only one single-engine Beaver aircraft, based in Alaska, the Forest Service can't begin to combat illegal drug production in federal forests. "Needle in a haystack hardly defines it," Tarantino says.

"The beauty of Joint Task Force Six is they get great training, we get much-needed help, and the spinoff is a better counter-drug program. They're going to expend money to train anyway. What could be better than to do real-world operations?" he says. What's more, Tarantino believes improving counter-drug support will enhance homeland security. "If you're fighting one, you're fighting the other, especially on the border. It's no secret that organized drug trafficking funds terrorism."

Joint Task Force Six commander Yingling agrees. This past winter, a Marine Corps unit using ground sensors in an operation supporting the Border Patrol detected more than 370 people crossing the border illegally near Douglas, Ariz. Among the mostly Mexican border crossers were 10 Brazilians and 13 Poles. "The Brazilians, that sends up a red flare these days," Yingling says, "and when you start seeing a Polish connection along our Southwest border it is not too great a leap of faith and understanding that 'evildoers,' as the president calls them, could also cross at that location." The tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina is home to a large Muslim population and intelligence officials believe the region could be used as a base of operations for terrorists. In addition, senior al Qaeda operatives have reportedly traveled to the region in the past.

Despite the parallels between drug smuggling and terrorism, the future of Joint Task Force Six is uncertain. The Bush administration's 2004 budget proposal for the Defense Department eliminates the training program at Joint Task Force Six, a situation that would have "devastating" consequences for the Forest Service's ability to combat drugs, says Tarantino.

According to Northern Command's Anderson, the role of Joint Task Force Six is under review. "I have not seen the results of that," he says. "But there's no question JTF-6 has become very skilled at supporting domestic law enforcement." And that's a mission few people expect will go away anytime soon.