DEA ADMINISTRATOR TANDY PUSHES NATO ON CN

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 USNATO 000547

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DEA PLEASE PASS TO MR. AL SANTOS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/06/2017
TAGS: SNAR NATO PREL MOPS MARR AF
SUBJECT: DEA ADMINISTRATOR TANDY PUSHES NATO ON CN
INTERDICTION SUPPORT


Classified By: Ambassador Victoria Nuland, for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
Administrator Karen Tandy pushed NATO to do more to support
Afghan drug interdiction efforts during a powerful
presentation to Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer and the
North Atlantic Council (NAC) on October 1. She highlighted
the intertwined relationship between drug traffickers and the
Taliban insurgency, and made a compelling case for embedding
small DEA cells in key PRTs, noting that DEA and ISAF worked
different lines of operation but with the same goal:
security and stability in Afghanistan. Working to sensitize
Allies to this new concept, she asked for a closer
relationship between DEA and ISAF, which would result in DEA
giving vital intelligence to ISAF, and ISAF - within its
existing operational plan (OPLAN) - providing billeting,
limited force protection, and in extremis support to
Afghan-led enforcement operations supported by DEA. In a
lunch with visiting Dutch officials from The Hague to discuss
embedding a DEA team in the Dutch PRT in
Uruzgan, the Dutch were cautious, but interested in continued
dialogue after the Dutch Parliament decides on the future
laydown of Dutch forces in Uruzgan. END SUMMARY.

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Secretary General: "How can NATO be more effective?"

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2. (S) In a bilateral meeting prior to meeting the North
Atlantic Council, Administrator Tandy previewed for the SYG
the themes she would raise with Allies. She highlighted the
added value that small DEA cells focused on interdiction
bring to PRTs, noting the success these cells have had in
Kunduz with the Germans and Nangarhar with the U.S. Each
cell consists of one or two DEA agent-analysts working in
collaboration with specialized Afghan personnel from the
DEA-trained National Interdiction Unit (NIU),and with
authorization from the Ministry of Interior. She told the
SYG that DEA seeks to expand this presence to Helmand and
Uruzgan provinces in cooperation with the UK and the Dutch,
respectively, and would like to cooperate with additional
PRTs throughout the country. Given the nexus between
narcotics and the insurgency, these cells help ISAF through
the sharing of actionable intelligence - often obtained
through DEA's extensive HUMINT and SIGINT networks (run in
collaboration with the Afghan government) - and through the
expansion of the rule of law into provinces where ISAF is
operating. ISAF in turn helps the cells through the
provision of billeting and limited force protection. The DEA
does not conduct eradication, and was not pushing to reopen
ISAF's current, painstakingly negotiated OPLAN. The SYG
welcomed the Administrator's brief and offered his support to
the idea, while stressing the challenge of obtaining
individual Allies' consent.

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NAC: Sensitized, interested, though cautious
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3. (C/REL NATO) In the first-ever appearance of a DEA
Administrator before the North Atlantic Council, Tandy sought
to sensitize Allies to the merits of embedding DEA cells with
ISAF personnel in key PRTs, and the value-added that DEA
collaboration brings to a PRT. She stressed that the DEA did
not conduct eradication, but rather interdiction of
high-value targets, working closely with the specially
trained, fully vetted Afghan units of the Counternarcotics
Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) - the NIU, and the Sensitive
Investigations Unit (SIU) - in operations authorized under
Afghan law and in full cooperation with the government.

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Tandy took the Allies through a slide presentation that
showed the intertwined relationship between the Taliban and
drug traffickers, to include training manuals and significant
weapons caches found during Afghan-led busts of narcotics
labs, as well as transcripts from meetings recorded by
informants that showed active planning and coordination
between drug traffickers and insurgentsof operations against
international forces. Citing the successes in Kunduz and
Nangarhar, she explained that the ability to take out
Taliban-supporting drug traffickers is contingent on the
ability to conduct safe law enforcement operations, and to do
that, ISAF support is needed. ISAF in turn sees benefits
from the removal of destabilizing forces from a district.
She urged greater ISAF support for interdiction and law
enforcement operations against high-value targets, citing
three examples among several where local ISAF forces
(including Germans and Belgians) agreed to provide either
outer-perimeter security or standby in-extremis support.
Such operations last on average about one hour, a small
investment from ISAF for significant returns in the
advancement of rule of law and provincial stability.


4. (C/REL NATO) The Administrator gave Allies an overview of
how the DEA operates in Afghanistan, including its efforts to
build Afghan capacity and judicial infrastructure. She
stressed that the DEA in Afghanistan does not engage in
eradication, target individual farmers, or make arrests under
its own authority, but rather, works with Afghans and
regional partners to identify, target, and bring to justice
major narco-trafficking organizations. As part of the
1500-strong CNPA, DEA has stood up and fully vetted
(including with polygraph) the 160-person NIU, which conducts
enforcement operations, and the 60-person SIU, which engages
in the lengthy, complex process of building the cases behind
enforcement operations, and taking arrests through
prosecution. DEA has worked with the Afghans and the
international community, she briefed, to set up a legal
process for counternarcotics law enforcement. The CNPA only
operates with warrants received from the Counter Narcotics
Tribunal in Kabul. This centralization,
under the aegis of the Criminal Justice Task Force, has
resulted in over 700 operations since 2005, and more than
1000 arrests with a 90 percent conviction rate. The Kabul
location has also enabled the NIU to imprison several
traffickers from the provinces - whom ISAF PRTs are unable to
hold indefinitely and whom corrupt local officials would
release from local jails - keeping them imprisoned with
significant sentences in Kabul, far from their local power
bases.


5. (S) Administrator Tandy closed with a concise list of
numerous areas where collaboration with the DEA would bring
real added value to the goals of individual PRTs and the
overall mission goal of ISAF in Afghanistan. First and
foremost, DEA collects and shares actionable intelligence
obtained through its sensitive sources in Afghanistan, as
well as that obtained during operations. DEA information has
averted at least 19 hostile acts against U.S. and ISAF
forces, and operations have also uncovered significant
weapons caches, and assisted in the development of further
actionable intelligence. Afghan-led DEA operations remove
corrupt officials who are not necessarily military targets,
but whose presence is destabilizing. Eliminating drug
networks and high-value targets also denies a source of
funding for the insurgency and corruption of government
officials. Lastly, she stated that enforcement operations
conducted by Afghans extend the rule of law, and as such,
enhance the sense of security among local Afghans. She cited
a recent meeting with the District Governor of Sangin in
Helmand province, who affirmed this assertion strongly.

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6. (C) During the follow-on discussion period with PermReps,
Ambassador Nuland relayed that during a recent visit to
Nangarhar, U.S. ISAF commanders had expressed great
appreciation for the DEA presence, and were maximizing their
support to Afghan-led CN operations within the limits of
ISAF's OPLAN, sharing intelligence, providing surveillance
assets to support operations, planning operations together,
and providing appropriate security support to Afghan CN
operations. RC-East was leading the way, she stated, and
urged others to follow. She told Allies that the U.S. was
negotiating with the UK to place DEA embeds in PRT Lashkar
Gah (which UK Ambassador Eldon later confirmed and welcomed),
and would begin talking with the Netherlands about Uruzgan.


7. (C) In other interventions, Chairman of the Military
Committee (CMC) General Henault agreed that DEA operations in
Afghanistan were supportive of ISAF's goals, but cautioned
that any expansion of ISAF's responsibilities would require
either a reprioritization of the tasks of existing forces, or
additional troops and equipment. No Allies challenged
Tandy's brief, and the UK, Canada, and Germany spoke in
general support. The UK Ambassador appreciated the
highlighting of the link between narco-traffickers and the
insurgency. The Canadian stated that ISAF operations and
counternarcotics operations cannot be stove-piped, and the
German welcomed the Afghan lead in enforcement operations and
that the U.S. was not proposing to reopen the OPLAN.
Slovakia asked about DEA cooperation with Russia, and Spain
about corruption in the Ministry of Interior. The Italian
Ambassador asked about the role of Pakistan, and he and his
Dutch counterpart both noted more precise information about
the exact role of ISAF's relationship with the DEA,
particularly in non-permissive environments, would need to be
fleshed out.


8. (C) The Administrator underscored that she was not
proposing reopening ISAF's OPLAN, but rather reprioritizing
targets somewhat. DEA could help ISAF by removing actors
that threaten stability in Afghanistan. She cited close
cooperation with Russia, including information sharing
agreements, and Russia's keen desire to stem the flow of
drugs from Afghanistan to Russia. She acknowledged that
corruption in the Afghan MOI posed a challenge, stating she
had raised the issue of CNPA pay with the Minister himself
last week, but assured Allies that NIU and SIU personnel are
fully vetted and re-vetted by the DEA, and DEA agents must
entrust their lives to their Afghan counterparts. She stated
that Pakistan needed to do more - she had passed that message
to her Pakistani counterparts recently - and that the DEA was
working with the Pakistani Frontier Corps and Afghan
authorities to build capabilities and enhance border
cooperation.

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Dutch on DEA PRT Embeds: Let's Keep Talking
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9. (C/REL NETHERLANDS) In a follow-on lunch with Dutch MFA
and MOD officials (see para 11 for participants list) from
The Hague, the Dutch expressed interest in the idea of
hosting DEA embeds at PRT Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan, but
cautioned that a number of sensitivities existed on their
side. U.S. and Dutch participants agreed that further steps
should take place only after the Dutch parliament decides on
the future laydown of Dutch forces in Uruzgan. Administrator
Tandy summarized her briefing to the NAC, and stressed the
DEA's focus on bringing down networks and high-value targets,
the "kingpins." She highlighted the benefits that DEA embeds
bring to the military elements of a PRT, notably considerable

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HUMINT and SIGINT assets, and praised the success DEA had
enjoyed with Germany in RC-North, in Kunduz. Underscoring
for the Dutch that DEA did not engage in eradication, she
explained the longer-term stability gains ISAF PRTs obtained
through DEA cooperation, in exchange for relatively minimal
force protection. DEA Assistant Regional Director in
Afghanistan Vincent Balbo sketched out for the Dutch how
day-to-cooperation would work among DEA embeds and a PRT,
describing daily briefs and full coordination with the PRT
commander (as well as the Regional Command) prior to any
interdiction/enforcement operations, to evaluate both their
political and military ramifications. He affirmed that
Uruzgan was of critical importance to the interdiction
effort, given its poppy cultivation numbers but also
increasing role as a transit point.


10. (C/REL NETHERLANDS) Dutch MFA Deputy DG for Human Rights
and Peacebuilding Koen Davidse acknowledged that the ability
to deal with the drugs problem in Afghanistan will be a large
factor in ISAF's success or failure, and that the Netherlands
has realized the impossibility of doing development and
stability work without addressing the narcotics situation.
He stated he was "acutely aware" of the high value that
cooperation with the DEA could bring, but suggested a careful
approach, highlighting the current sensitive political
situation in the Netherlands as the Parliament considers the
mandate renewal and future laydown of Dutch ISAF forces in
Uruzgan. Davidse appreciated the interdiction focus of the
DEA as opposed to eradication. He expressed interest in
hearing more about the DEA relationship with Germany, and
receiving updates as the DEA-UK relationship unfolded in
Helmand. He cited command and control relationships and
OPLAN considerations as areas that would need to be looked at
carefully, and contrasted the relatively stronger government
in the north and its role in CN operations with a miniscule
Uruzgan police force (only approximately 300 officers, he
stated),and very weak governance. The Dutch DCM clarified
that next steps in moving forward on the dialogue should
occur after the Dutch parliament made its decision. He said
the dialogue should occur between DEA and relevant Dutch
counterparts in The Hague, and DEA should work closely with
the Dutch embassy in Kabul.


11. (SBU) Lunch participants:

U.S.
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Ambassador Nuland
Administrator Tandy
DEA Assistant Regional Director Afghanistan Vincent Balbo
DEA Country Attache The Netherlands Jeffrey Boobar
USNATO notetaker

Netherlands
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MFA Deputy Director General Human Rights and Peacebuilding
Koen Davidse
MOD Afghanistan Policy Department, Mr. Augustus Venendaal
Dutch Deputy Permanent Representative toNATO Johan van der
Werff

Secretary General's rivate Office

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Director Henne Schuwer (NL)


12. (U) Administrator Tandy has cleared this cable.
NULAND