The National Drug Intelligence Center…Effective or Ineffective?

By Dennis Lormel

Is the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) effective or ineffective? Does it duplicate the analytical reporting of other government agencies? What does any of this have to do with terrorism?

NDIC was established in 1993 as an independent component of the U.S. Department of Justice. It is responsible for coordinating, collecting, and analyzing drug intelligence with national security and law enforcement agencies. Since its inception, NDIC has been ensnared in controversy. Critics accuse it of being “an expensive and duplicative use of scarce federal drug enforcement resources.” NDIC is also the source of partisan Congressional bickering over funding. My sense is that NDIC may not have a long life expectancy.

I’m not in a position to address the first two questions posed above. However, concerning terrorism, there is a little known fact that warrants recognition. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, NDIC stepped up in a major way to play a significant role in the formation of the Terrorist Financing Operations Section (TFOS) at the FBI. All federal agencies with a nexus to terrorist financing came together in the first few days after 9/11 to participate in the Financial Review Group, which evolved into TFOS within the Counterterrorism Section of the FBI. This interagency group was housed at the FBI. I was the FBI executive responsible for establishing a functional task force focused specifically on terrorist financing. We were confronted with very challenging obstacles to include resources and equipment. Enter NDIC. Virgil Wooley, then Deputy Director of NDIC, offered 40 analysts and data loaders, along with a data base and a computer server. He also offered to train all TFOS personnel to use the data base. Within a day, NDIC provided the resources, equipment and initiated training. I retired from the FBI at the end of 2003. At that time, TFOS still had a team of 12 NDIC analysts assigned. Throughout my tenure at TFOS, I met on numerous occasions with Mike Horn, then Director of NDIC. Their continued commitment was unwavering. I’m biased about TFOS and extremely proud of what we established and accomplished following 9/11. NDIC’s initial support greatly facilitated our ability to establish a functional and operational task force in a very short time frame.

NDIC received little public recognition for their support and contribution to the success of TFOS. The NDIC personnel I had the honor to work with on a daily basis and in extremely challenging conditions were true professionals. Whatever their history and whatever their fate, they deserve our gratitude and respect.

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