Updated: SWB and the Southern Approaches -- Two Complementary Efforts

Update: This blog post caught Wired's attention and was a point of focus at our budget hearing

On Monday of this week I traveled to Key West with ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske. We visited Joint Interagency Task Force South to discuss detection and monitoring operations by this excellent interagency and multi-national team. Created in 1989 to provide unique Department of Defense capabilities in support of drug interdiction operations by federal law enforcement agencies JIATF South has become the "gold standard" for interagency cooperation and international partnerships. This is accomplished through a unique combination of information sharing, participation by a wide range of US agencies and international partners, and a continual focus on the power of intelligence to queue operations.

This visit was particularly timely. On Friday, Director Kerlikowske, along with DHS Secretary Napolitano and Attorney General Holder announced President Obama's strategy to stem the flow of illegal drugs and their illicit proceeds across the Southwest border and reduce associated crime and violence in the region. Both this new strategy and some of the challenges faced by JIATF-South were profiled in the Washington Post on Saturday. What the Post didn't do was connect these two efforts as supporting strategies, that when you combine their effects will reduce the flow of illegal narcotics, cash and weapons to and through Mexico, reducing the power and violence of the cartels.

Good luck to RADM Joe Nimmich as he departs JIATF South shortly to assume new duties as the First District Commander in Boston. Welcome to RADM Dan Lloyd who will arrrive shortly as the new Director. He has been instrumental in the stand up of the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, MD and was previously the Military Advisor to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

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