Wright works with the Pakistani government and other international partners to develop policies to reduce the flow of narcotics through Pakistan, primarily the flow of opium and heroin from Afghanistan. This includes helping the Pakistanis develop their law enforcement's ability to catch drug traffickers, enhance their judicial system's ability to prosecute traffickers, and create programs to rehabilitate addicts. The entire program is roughly a 30-to-40-million-dollar-a-year program.

Pakistan's border with Afghanistan stretches 1,500 miles, from the Arabian Sea across deserts and mountains to China, and is populated with many semi-autonomous tribal groups which do not recognize conventional borders.

Wright says the Afghan drug traffickers are creative and persistent, "They move narcotics in every fashion: heavily armed caravans, camels, horses, or walking it over. It doesn't go through just Pakistan. There's flow that goes north; there's flow that goes through Iran. It's coming out of all sides. There's a lot of money involved and that breeds ingenuity." Through Wright's department, the INL provides Pakistan with commodities, like vehicles and communications equipment, to pursue the traffickers entering their country.

"We also do law enforcement reform," says Wright. "That's going in and working with their police, their judiciary, and their equivalent of the FBI. We teach them how to target traffickers, how to collect evidence, crime scene investigation . really some basics."

The program includes a counter-narcotics element, which Wright calls "spillover from Afghanistan." Though Pakistan was completely poppy-free a few years ago, there has been a small resurgence of the crop. Around the year 2000, the Taliban had completely eliminated Afghan opium production, but now 87 percent of the world's opium production comes from Afghanistan, commanding a street value of about $2.7 billion.

Bill Wright '94 (in blue shirt, at left) accompanies U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson (in blue coat) as she talks with Pakistani military leaders.

Wright adds, "That's roughly 33 percent of the economy in Afghanistan and 80 percent of that $2.7 billion goes to the traffickers. The money's not going to the farmer in the fields; it's going to the criminal element."

Wright came to the State Department following law school at DePaul University and a short stint in a Chicago law firm. "I knew that I wanted to come back to Washington and I was really interested in international law enforcement and the rule of law," he says. "I peppered the State Department with my résumé and eventually this opportunity came up." He also got the opportunity to rekindle some Hampden-Sydney relationships once he returned to the East coast. "I have so many great friends whom I get to see regularly, like Tuck Shumack '95 and Joel Velasco '95. As a matter of fact, we were all in Tuck's wedding last week in Nashville."

The skills Wright developed at Hampden-Sydney prepared him for his career in the federal government. He says, "The obvious tool given to me at Hampden-Sydney was the ability to write and to think clearly. As a political science major, I was introduced to the Socratic method of teaching in classes taught by Dr. Marion, Dr. Eastby, and others. Through this method I learned to structure my thoughts better and therefore to become a better writer. Upon entering law school I think that I had an initial advantage with respect to writing. This skill has served me well in my current job, my time as a lawyer, and my time on Capitol Hill."

Wright (center) on patrol with Pakistanis in the Khyber Pass.

Fighting the drug war in South Asia provides Wright with a strong ally: Islam. Islam forbids the use of "intoxicants," which includes drugs and alcohol. Wright says, "There are some traditional uses of opium in Iran, but basically it's against the Muslim religion, and Pakistan, for one, is taking it very seriously. We are just now making some strides on the demand side with the creation of rehabilitation centers. It's kind of a faith-based rehabilitation and so far it seems to have been really successful. Pakistan is coming to grips with its own internal addiction problems, which is something new."

Though he works with many Pakistanis, Wright's primary counterparts are within our own government: the South Asia regional bureau at the State Department and the Narcotics Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad in particular. During his regular trips to Pakistan, Wright works closely with his counterparts in the Pakistani government, such as their police, their paramilitary border security, and their equivalents to the DEA and FBI.

"When I go there," explains Wright, "our Narcotics Affairs people on the ground are working daily with these people, so I probably represent the funding end of things." His trips usually include a series of meetings to monitor how programs are being implemented and how well they are being implemented. He has the difficult task of quantifying and tracking the intangible "rule of law."