GAO: Lack of coordination may have 'compromised' US anti-terror efforts abroad Nick Juliano

Published: Tuesday June 26, 2007 Print This Email This A government oversight report has found a lack of coordination among US law enforcement agencies that in at least one case may have "compromised" efforts abroad to fight international terrorism. The report found more money is being spent fighting the war on drugs than the war on terror. The Government Accountability Office found that agencies tasked with combating terrorism had largely failed to implement formal policies that would guide and measure their progress against terror groups abroad. The GAO found that America's law enforcement community shifted its focus to fighting terrorism in the wake of domestic terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, but little has emerged to guide and measure that shift in focus. "While the national strategies have articulated this change in direction and emphasis," the report says, " they have not provided specific roles, objectives, resources or mechanisms for determining success." GAO investigators visited four US embassies abroad, although the countries visited were not disclosed for national security reasons. Embassy personnel told the GAO that "despite counterterrorism being the embassy's highest priority, they received little to no guidance" on how to pursue those goals. "For example," the report notes, "in one country we visited, the lack of clear roles and responsibilities between two U.S. LEAs [law enforcement agencies] may have compromised several joint operations intended to identify and disrupt potential terrorist activities, according to U.S. and foreign nation LEAs involved in these efforts." In the countries GAO visited, the US government was dedicating more money to "combat illegal drugs and criminals than to combat terrorism," according to the report. Between 2002 and 2006, the report found the State Department spent more than $220 million on anti-drug efforts while spending less than $35 million on anti-terrorism assistance in one country visited. The 73-page report from GAO was requested by Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who is the ranking member of a House subcommittee in charge of oversight of national security and foreign policy. A call to Shays office seeking comment was not immediately returned Tuesday morning. The report recommends the National Counterterrorism Center and National Security Council articulate a clearer strategy for cooperation among US and foreign law enforcement agencies and establish a protocol to measure progress in fighting terrorism. US efforts are not having intended effects in fighting terrorism abroad, and the lack of communication and coordination among agencies is sowing confusion in the global terror-fight, CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve observed this morning. "The report concludes that host governments are confused," Meserve says, and they "don't know which one [agency] to turn to when they're dealing with a specific terrorist threat." The following video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast on June 26.



