OPBAT Assessment In Progress

"First we’ve got to find out what’s needed," Mr. Rood said. "Then what’s the best agency. Now, I believe the Army is doing a superb job and, you know, I have a little bit of a prejudice and I’d love to keep them, but whether we keep them, or whether we bring in another agency, we will find the right agency to do that job. You will have the support of the United States."

He assured again that drug traffickers who are looking for an easy route to get into the United States would not be successful.

Mr. Rood was recently in Washington, DC meeting with Department of Defence (DOD) and other officials to discuss the future of OPBAT. He said a final report is expected soon, although he could not give a specific timeline.

Several weeks ago, press reports revealed that US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld was seeking to pull US Army helicopters out of the OPBAT mission. It sparked fears in The Bahamas that it could have been a sign of plans by the Americans to abandon the initiative, but the ambassador reiterated on Thursday that this is not the case.

"We’ve got a situation in our government right now where the Secretary of Defence is trying to focus their mission on the fight against terrorism, and you have to respect that. And so this process is merely a process of looking at what’s the best agency and if we do come out and say the DOD is the best agency, there’s going to be a lot of people trying to convince Secretary Rumsfeld that he needs to look at the bigger picture," Mr. Rood said.

"The war on terror is not always black and white. I’ve said many times that drug traffickers and terrorists, they work together, and so if we open lanes and opportunities for drug traffickers to travel through an area easily, terrorists could also take advantage of those opportunities."

Mr. Rood’s comments came after Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Cynthia Pratt gave him a tour of the new home of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat on East Street and Sands Road in New Providence, which opened earlier in the week.

"I’m really pleased that there is so much attention and so much work going into the National [Anti] Drug Secretariat facility because demand reduction is such a critical part of what we do," the ambassador said.

"So often, our battle against drugs is focused on either fighting them at the source or fighting them at the transit routes, but in reality if we can’t reduce the demand we’re going to be fighting that battle forever."

The deputy prime minister said she was pleased that the ambassador has continued to assure that the United States will not be pulling out of the OPBAT mission.

"Over the years, we have fought as a team, America and The Bahamas, in fighting drug trafficking through The Bahamas into the United States of America. That is still our plan. We continue to work together as a team to eradicate this scourge which affects both countries," Mrs. Pratt said.

Just this week, police reported that officers assigned to OPBAT discovered two marijuana fields that were being cultivated in Congo Town, Andros, uprooting over 10,000 marijuana plants and continuing investigations that could lead them to the perpetrators.