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JIATF-South: blueprint for success
Joint Force Quarterly, July, 2006 by Richard M. Yeatman
Over the last 17 years, the Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-S) has built an unparalleled network of law enforcement, intelligence, and military assets to focus on detecting the movements and shipments of narcoterrorist organizations. With this evolving structure, JIATF-S serves as a model for bringing the most effective assets to bear on complex national policy issues, whether it be illegal drugs, weapons proliferation, or international terrorism.
Fundamental to any task force is a clear mission statement. If the statement, and thus the mission itself, lacks specific goals, agencies may be reluctant to participate for fear they have little to gain. Therefore, JIATF-S must target specific missions and clearly define their objectives, to include detecting, monitoring, and targeting narcoterrorists and the drugs they profit from. Since law enforcement agencies have a vested interest in achieving these objectives, the application of an interagency partnership has been successful.
Integration Promotes Trust
JIATF-S serves as a model that other interagency organizations can tailor to their specific goals. For example, an interagency effort to track military equipment destined for terrorist organizations could include individuals from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Homeland Security, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
For task force participants to feel connected to results, they must be part of the command. Within the JIATF-S organizational structure, representatives from DOD, Homeland Security, and the Justice Department, along with U.S. Intelligence Community liaisons and international partners, work as one team. Interagency personnel are fully integrated within the command structure and serve in key leadership positions. This integration promotes trust and facilitates the sharing of law enforcement investigative information, which is critical for any intelligence-driven organization.
While traditional joint operations focus on efforts among the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, JIATF-S has gone past these traditional boundaries, becoming a fully integrated interagency command. (1) Whereas most organizations count on liaison officers to represent them, JIATF-S takes this concept much further. The top command structure demonstrates total integration, with the Director being a Coast Guard rear admiral and the Vice Director coming from Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Integration also exists through the lower levels of the command: both the Directors for Intelligence and Operations are military officers, but their Deputies are from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Customs and Border Protection. Intelligence analysts from the DEA, CBP, and FBI are located in the Joint Intelligence Operations Center to ensure that law enforcement agencies are involved in daily operations and that information is not stovepiped.
On the operations watch floor, it is not uncommon to see a CBP agent serving as command duty officer, an Air Force captain as the intelligence watch officer, a Coast Guard operations specialist as the intelligence watch assistant, and a Navy lieutenant as the tactical action officer. This diversity of skills boosts the credibility of the organization. For instance, if DEA agents have concerns about sharing sensitive information with allied military partners, they have a certain level of confidence that the DEA Deputy Director for Intelligence will understand those concerns.
JIATF-S incorporates a wide range of governmental and international organizations in addition to those previously mentioned. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Central Intelligence Agency, and liaison officers from the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and a host of Latin American countries all play an important role in intelligence, operations, and planning. They not only increase the task Force's access to information, but they also act as conduits between it and their respective nations' maritime and air assets. Under a single command, these entities produce a unity of effort that is one of the many reasons why JIATF-S continues to enjoy success. While all work toward the common goal of stopping illegal narcotics destined for global markets, the metrics for success differ greatly among the organizations that contribute to the task force.
The primary metric for DOD is the amount of drugs seized, while the law enforcement community closely follows the number of arrests and prosecutions. These different but complementary objectives could raise disputes in a traditional joint organization, but JIATF-S has overcome this issue by recognizing and facilitating the success of all relevant metrics. Such is the key to unity of effort within JIATF-S. Each member relies on the contribution of others. Without the aircraft provided by Customs and Border Protection or the ships and cutters provided by the Navy and the Coast Guard, the task force would be unable to conduct critical detection and monitoring operations necessary for interdictions and arrests. Equally important is the human intelligence information that allows JIATF-S to position its limited assets throughout its 42 million-square-mile joint operating area--5 times larger than the United States--to conduct interdictions. If the law enforcement community limits the flow of information to the interdiction assets, they will be unable to make arrests. If the interdiction assets refuse to react to law enforcement information, they will fail to make seizures. Only by working with each other can all parties meet their respective organizations' goals.
