ONDCP Excel Seventy-Third Row

United States anti-drug programs in the Source Zone are coordinated through U.S. Embassies within host nations, and the Transit Zone is coordinated by the Coast Guard-led Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S). In the Arrival Zone, although there is an extraordinary amount of effort by Federal, State, and local agencies, there is no comprehensive cross-cutting coordination mechanism. JIATF-S, widely recognized as the “gold standard” for Transit Zone intelligence fusion, information sharing, interagency coordination, and multinational partnering, should serve as a model for an Arrival Zone Task Force. The Interdiction Committee (TIC), chaired by the Coast Guard Commandant and chartered by ONDCP, is an interagency body that strategically coordinates supply reduction activities. For the past year, the TIC has been studying options to apply an operational model similar to JIATF-S to the Arrival Zone under the rubric of a National Task Force (NTF). The NTF, whether virtual in nature or concentrated within an existing multiagency coordination facility such as EPIC on the southwest border, would integrate multiple Federal coordination centers for air, land, and sea with regional and local intelligence and coordination centers to ensure near real-time dissemination of intelligence to task forces and agencies to support rapid facilitation of controlled deliveries or interdiction operations, as appropriate. Thus, TIC is directed to provide ONDCP with an update on the status of a National Arrival Zone Task Force implementation plan with full interagency and state and local participation by November 1, 2010.