U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

62–236 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

LOSING PANAMA: THE IMPACT ON REGIONAL

COUNTERDRUG CAPABILITIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 4, 1999

Serial No. 106–76

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

CARLA J. MARTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman

BOB BARR, Georgia

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

DOUG OSE, California

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

ROBERT B. CHARLES, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

GIL MACKLIN, Professional Staff Member

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member

AMY DAVENPORT, Clerk

CHERRI BRANSON, Minority Counsel

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 4, 1999 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Romero, Ambassador Peter F., Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of

Western Hemisphere Affairs, Department of State; and Ana Maria

Salazar, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Drug Enforcement Policy and

Support, Department of Defense ................................................................. 19

Sumner, Lt. General Gordon, U.S. Army (Ret.); Dr. Mark Falcoff, resident

scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; and

Larry Lyons, former DEA Attache, Bogota, Colombia ............................... 78

Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:

Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 12

Falcoff, Dr. Mark, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute for

Public Policy Research, prepared statement of .......................................... 90

Gilman, Hon. Benjamin A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 9

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 17

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida, prepared statement of .................................................................... 4

Romero, Ambassador Peter F., Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of

Western Hemisphere Affairs, Department of State:

Information concerning coverage with potential FOLs .......................... 58

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 24

Salazar, Ana Maria, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Drug Enforcement Policy and Support, Department of Defense:

Excerpt from State Department Circular 175 ........................................ 61

Information concerning American personnel .......................................... 49

Information concerning cost outlines ....................................................... 51

Information concerning costs to establish a FOL ................................... 48

Information concerning National Guard counterdrug support to New

York ........................................................................................................ 67

Information concerning scheduled flights ............................................... 50

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 35

Sumner, Lt. General Gordon, U.S. Army (Ret.), prepared statement of ..... 82

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LOSING PANAMA: THE IMPACT ON REGIONAL

COUNTERDRUG CAPABILITIES

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Mica, Barr, Gilman, Mink, Kucinich,

and Burton [ex officio].

Staff present: Robert B. Charles, staff director and chief counsel;

Gil Macklin and Sean Littlefield, professional staff members; Amy

Davenport, clerk; Cherri Branson, minority counsel; and Jean

Gosa, minority staff assistant.

Mr. MICA. I’d like to call this meeting of the House Subcommittee

on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources to order

this morning, and welcome to our subcommittee.

We will begin this morning’s hearing with opening statements. I

will provide the first opening statement. Then I’ll yield to our ranking member and other Members as they join us this morning.

Today, the subcommittee will address the situation that I believe

is one of our Nation’s No. 1 national security and social problems,

the problem of illegal narcotics. Our primary focus today is to examine the status of the United States interdiction efforts in Panama and in the Western Hemisphere.

It’s my contention that it is both common sense and cost-effective

to stop illegal narcotics before they end up on our streets. In fact,

every kilo of cocaine or high-purity heroin that is stopped before it

reaches our ports and borders saves lives.

Just last week, General McCaffrey, our Nation’s drug czar, testified before the Senate that drug traffickers in Colombia have discovered a new chemical process that will allow them to slip cocaine

past drug-sniffing dogs and also past the eyes of Customs by manufacturing what is being termed ‘‘black cocaine.’’ This is yet another

example of no matter how strong our efforts are along our Nation’s

borders and on our Nation’s streets, we will not stop cocaine and

heroin unless we have a vigorous interdiction and eradication strategy.

One of the most crucial elements of our interdiction and eradication efforts has been the operations that the United States has

headquartered from our bases in Panama. Unfortunately, failed

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United States/Panama negotiations during the past couple of years,

and due to the terms of the Carter-Torrijos treaty, future flights

from Panama for the surveillance of narcotics interdiction purposes

have been blocked.

On May 1, the United States ceased all narcotic surveillance

flights from Howard Air Force Base in Panama. By the end of this

year, the United States will have abandoned property consisting of

about 70,000 acres and over 5,600 buildings. These assets have an

estimated value somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion.

What President Carter started in the late 1970’s, President Clinton

is finishing in the late 1990’s with this takeover of all of the U.S.

assets.

I would like to spend a moment explaining the importance of

having a strong presence in this region. The United States has

been conducting about 15,000 antinarcotics flights annually from

Howard Air Force Base. These flights are the cornerstone of our

counternarcotic efforts in this hemisphere. These flights make it

possible for effective eradication and interdiction missions in source

and also in the transit zones.

In the past few days, the administration has managed to hobble

together several interim agreements to replace some of these

counternarcotic missions. Interim agreements with the Caribbean

island nations of Curacao and Aruba, as well as an agreement with

Equador, are being pieced together. Reportedly, the administration

is also working out at this time an agreement with Costa Rica.

I look forward to hearing an update on the progress of these matters from DOD today as they provide us with their plan to have

these bases fully operating. Hopefully, we can avoid a near-term

gap and without the damaging loss of critical coverage for the strategic mission.

We also need to hear today from the State Department on both

the handling of the interim agreements and to learn about the

progress on status of long-term agreements with these nations that

will be our host for this mission in the future. Unfortunately, in

both the near term and long term, our interdiction capabilities may

be greatly diminished. By SOUTHCOM’s own admission, the FOLs

in Curacao, Aruba and Ecuador may provide only 70 to 80 percent

of the coverage that we’ve had formerly with Howard Air Force

Base in our operations out of Panama.

I’m also concerned about the costs related to this move. DOD estimates that the costs for upgrade and repair for the four FOLs

will—and this new location effort will cost anywhere from $70 to

$100 million. Additionally, Congress may foot the bill, with estimates as high as $200 million, to complete the upgrades and repairs at the base in Manta, Ecuador.

A full DOD assessment and proposal still needs to be completed.

This assessment, as well as long-term agreements or concrete plans

for filling this surveillance gap, must be completed expeditiously.

Our second panel today will deliver an appraisal of what the impact of the United States departure from Panama will mean to the

citizens of Panama, the safety of the canal, the stability of the region and, most particularly, our efforts to curtail illegal narcotics

production and trafficking in that region.

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At this time, we all know there’s a full-scale guerrilla war going

on, primarily financed by the narcotics trade which is raging south

of Panama in the Republic of Colombia. There have been many

news reports of recent FARC activities in Panama’s southern

Darien region. In fact, the FARC captured three New Tribes missionaries in the Darien province in 1993. They happened to be representatives of the New Tribes Mission which is in my district. So

I followed that case very closely and that situation. These missionaries, in fact, remain unaccounted for to this day.

With guerillas already based in Panama and with the United

States withdrawal this year, we anticipate further incursions into

Panama and additional narcoterrorist activities. In the aftermath

of the United States efforts in Panama 10 years ago to go after

General Noriega who was involved in illegal narcotics trafficking,

we ensured that corrupt—that the corrupt Panamanian military organization was dissolved, and now the security of Panama is in the

hands of an institutionally weak police force. Even as they celebrate the election of a new leader this past weekend, these are

some of the challenges that they face in the months and years

ahead.

I’m frankly concerned that the FARC will move further north

than they previously have and create a more unstable situation in

Panama. I’m also concerned that the United States will be back in

Panama at some time in the future, and possibly at a great cost

and sacrifice, to preserve the sanctity of the canal and protect our

national interests, including what I foresee as potential for more

trafficking in illegal narcotics, more money laundering, more corrupt activities in the Panama region.

With cessation of our antinarcotics flight from Panama this past

weekend and given the history of illegal narcotics trafficking in

that country, we face a serious challenge in the months ahead.

Hopefully, today’s hearing will shed light on where we are in that

region and what’s being done to protect American interests.

I do want to yield at this time to the ranking member of our subcommittee, Mrs. Mink. Mrs. Mink, myself, and other members of

the subcommittee traveled to Panama earlier this year and obtained firsthand a briefing on what was taking place at that time,

and I think that this hearing is a very important and responsible

followup to those efforts in making certain that we have this matter well under control and conduct proper oversight of what our

agencies are doing to deal with this transition.

So, at this time, I’d like to yield to Mrs. Mink. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:]

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Mrs. MINK. I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for yielding. I certainly concur with the chairman’s remarks that this is an

appropriate follow-on from our earlier opportunities to discuss the

issue of Panama and the importance of the transfer of responsibility regarding surveillance of illegal narcotics traffic and the key

role that Howard Air Force Base and our facilities there and our

personnel played in helping the United States to know what was

being trafficked out and where and to whom. The issue that faces

this country and this administration certainly is an appropriate

topic for this subcommittee to ascertain what alternate processes

are in place to take over the important role that Howard Air Force

Base has played.

I concur with the Chair’s observations that it’s unfortunate that

we could not have entered into some interim agreement with the

Panama Government for an interim continuance of these surveillance activities, but that issue is behind us, and what we have as

a responsibility in this subcommittee is to insist upon a full and

accurate briefing in terms of all the government agencies’ concurrent responsibilities as to the important takeover responsibilities

that they now have in the absence of our ability to command posts

out of Panama.

The hearings and discussions that we had in our trip indicate

that these plans are in place, although perhaps not in a final confirmed form. So I hope that today in this subcommittee hearing we

will learn more and gain greater assurance as to our government’s

ability to continue the important work of covering and maintaining

surveillance over these narcotic activities.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentlelady. I’d like to yield now to the— also a member of our panel but the chairman of the International

Relations full committee. I see we’ve also been joined by the chairman of our full committee, Mr. Burton, and without objection, I’d

like to yield to him right after I yield now to Mr. Gilman. Thank

you.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend

Chairman Mica for calling this hearing, and it comes in a timely

period. I’ve refrained from making any public statements regarding

Panama, lest my words be misconstrued within the context of Panama’s electoral politics, but since Panama held its elections on Sunday and we have a new President in Mireya Moscoso, it’s now time

to speak up.

And I’m deeply alarmed, Mr. Chairman, by the administration’s

disjointed and half-hearted response to the impending withdrawal

of our United States forces from Panama. Howard Air Force Base

is a crown jewel in our fight against narcotics in a region that produces all of the world’s cocaine and more and more of the heroin

sold in our Nation and elsewhere. Our Nation should not have put

itself in a position of closing down the Howard Air Force Base on

May 1st.

On April 27th, our National Drug Control Policy Director, General McCaffrey, told the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on

Emerging Threats and Capabilities that we’re not fighting a war

against drugs. The shameful retreat from Panama which we are

now witnessing proves General McCaffrey’s point. The administraVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:40 Mar 22, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62236 pfrm02 PsN: 62236
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tion has been reluctant to wage a full war on drugs. We are all focused on the war in Kosovo. However, very much closer to home,

it’s important to look at the distressing developments in the Andean region which coincide with our withdrawal from Panama.

The administration has underestimated the severity and is illprepared to respond to the growing crisis in the Andean region. In

Colombia, President Andre Pistrana is at a tremendous disadvantage as he tries to negotiate a peace with vicious narcoterrorists

who wantonly kidnap and murder American citizens.

Panama’s Darien province is threatened by these same criminal

narcoterrorist elements. Venezuela’s democracy appears to be in

the process of unraveling. After suffering hundreds of millions in

economic damage from El Nino, Ecuador is now facing one of the

world’s worst economic crises—one of the worst economic crises in

its history.

In Peru, we took our eye off the ball. We cut back on aerial coverage in support of Peru’s shootdown policy. Regrettably, now coca

prices are once again soaring in Peru from $1.50 to $2.40 per kilo

of coca leaf, and the farmers are coming back into illicit drug cultivation.

The entire region is suffering, once again, from all of these

threats. I’m shocked to see our Nation scrambling to conclude

hasty, temporary arrangements with the Netherlands/Antilles and

Ecuador for new forward bases in the region from which to deploy

our military and civilian antidrug forces, and while I greatly appreciate the willingness of our Dutch allies and the Ecuadorian Government to step up to the plate in our fight against drugs, these

improvised arrangements will significantly undercut our Nation’s

counternarcotic efforts.

I closely followed former Ambassadors Ted McNamara’s and Bill

Hughes’ substantial efforts to conclude an agreement for a continued United States presence in Panama. We then traveled to Panama and talked to the Foreign Minister who was initially supportive of our efforts but the election process got in the way. Regrettably, these efforts did not result in the promised multilateral

counter-narcotics center, the MCC, which is supported by so many

of the countries in the region.

On the one hand, these negotiations became entangled in Panama’s internal electoral policies. On the other hand, the Department of Defense, in particular our Air Force, did not provide the

support, the flexibility and the creative diplomacy that were needed

to secure this vitally important continued United States presence

in Panama.

Last October, I introduced H.R. 4858, the United States Panama

Partnership Act of 1998, and the purpose of that legislation was to

signal to the people of Panama the strong interest by the Congress

in continuing into the next century the special relationship that

has existed between our two peoples since 1903.

A 1977 protocol to the Panama Canal Treaties provides that the

United States and Panama may agree to extend the United States

military presence in Panama beyond 1999. When those treaties

were signed, the current crisis in the Andean region could not have

been foreseen.

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H.R. 4858, which I’ve introduced, offers Panama the opportunity

to join Canada and Mexico in forging a new, more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with our Nation. In exchange, this legislation asks Panama to remain our partner in our war against

drugs and other regional security matters by continuing to host the

United States military presence after 1999.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to today’s testimony by our expert

witnesses, and thank you once again for conducting this very important hearing.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman follows:]

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Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from New York, and now, I’d

like to yield to the chairman of our full committee, Mr. Burton.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Chairman Mica. I’m glad that Mr. Romero is here with us today. It’s unfortunate that we had to threaten to use a subpoena to get you here, but it’s nice that you did appear.

For the past 3 years, Chairman Gilman, myself, Chairman Mica

and others have been doing everything we can to equip the Colombian National Police with the proper tools to fight against the

FARC guerillas and the drug cartel down there. After many, many

meetings with the State Department, during which they said that

they would get those Blackhawk helicopters down there and the

super-HUEYS and the mini-guns and everything else, we finally

saw some results last Friday, but it was 3 years.

Now, 4,000 Colombian National Police have been killed, and

many, many more have been injured because of the foot-dragging

and the poor performance, in my opinion, of the State Department

in dealing with the FARC guerillas.

And one of the things that really concerns me is that we have

had a policy in the United States of not dealing with terrorist organizations. That’s been a stated policy of every President that I can

remember. And yet last December, the Clinton-Albright diplomats

did go down and meet with and negotiate with the Colombian

FARC in Costa Rica.

Now, there’s been a little semantic dancing that’s taken place.

They said they weren’t negotiations, they were just meetings. Well,

these people have killed Americans, they’ve taken Americans hostage. We were sitting across the table with them. I don’t think we

were just having tea and crumpets. I think that was a negotiating

session. And you know, Shakespeare said, ‘‘A rose by any other

name would smell as sweet,’’ and I think it’s disingenuous for the

State Department and Mr. Romero to say these meetings were not

negotiations; and, if you like, we could get the dictionary out and

define what negotiations are and what meetings are. I think it kind

of clears things up, and this isn’t the first time the Clinton administration has made a career out of redefining words and phrases

that seem to suit their needs. Their ability to do that just staggers

the imagination.

Even more disturbing has been the State Department’s lack of

respect for congressional concern in this matter. After we called

Phil, the State’s diplomat to the Hill to explain, he’s allegedly continued to keep in contact with the FARC representatives through

e-mail and possible phone conversations, and this has continued

despite the FARC kidnapping and the brutal execution of three

Americans.

The message to the FARC has to be crystal clear, and that is,

that the United States and the Government of Colombia are not

dealing from a position of strength but a position of weakness down

there, hat in hand, sitting across the table, talking to these guys,

even though they’re killing people and kidnapping them.

The Clinton-Albright State Department has gone to great length

to avoid confrontation of any kind with the FARC until possibly

last week when we went up to Connecticut to see those Sikorsky

helicopters. Those six helicopters were going to be delivered down

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there. And it appears as though the State Department’s had an insatiable desire to see peace at any cost. Unfortunately, that cost

has been very high. As I said before, our allies in the war on drugs,

the Colombian National Police and others, have lost over 4,000 personnel.

In the last 5 years there have been 20 Americans taken hostage,

6 have been murdered, murdered by the Colombian narcoguerillas.

Currently, the FARC has held three Americans from Chairman

Mica’s district, Rick Tenennof, Mark Rich, and David Mankin since

1993. They’re the longest-held hostages anywhere in the world.

What my colleagues may not realize is that there have been more

Americans taken hostage in Colombia in the last 5 years than were

taken in Lebanon during the 1980’s, and we weren’t negotiating

with the terrorists back then, but we have been negotiating with

the FARC guerillas, and we need to know why.

And then there’s there one other thing I’d like to mention, Mr.

Chairman, and that is Cuba, the only Communist dictatorship in

this hemisphere, has been working with the FARC guerillas. The

Clinton administration has opposed our embargo against Cuba and

has done everything possible to erode it, and of course, last night,

we saw another manifestation of that. The fact of the matter is the

FARC is linked to the Communist regime in Cuba. Some FARC

leaders have been educated and trained by Castro’s government.

The FARC very well may be laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money through investments in Cuba, and there were

7.2 metric tons of cocaine that the Colombian National Police just

captured recently which was destined for Cuba. Cuba said they

didn’t know anything about it. That is the most ridiculous thing

I’ve ever heard. Obviously, they knew about it. That was going to

be cut to probably hundreds of millions of dollars in street value

and sold in the United States and possibly Europe, and Castro

knows when that stuff is going on in Cuba.

We know for a fact that the intermediary for the United StatesFARC meeting in Costa Rica is Alvaro Lava, a former Colombian

Congressman under indictment in Colombia and under political

protection in Costa Rica, and is a frequent traveler to Cuba. Yet,

we have permitted him to open a negotiating dialog with the

FARC.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, this administration, in my opinion,

has dropped the ball in Latin America. I dare say the policy in

Latin America would be of greater concern to Congress if the Clinton administration had not created crises in other areas of the

globe. I mean, people in this country are very concerned about their

kids dying from overdoses of drugs and the prisons being packed

with drug dealers that are being supplied with narcotics and weapons from Central and South America. Someone needs to keep an

eye on this area of the world, our own backyard, before our country

becomes even more awash in the drugs that these countries are

peddling to our children. And Mr. Chairman, I hope I’m able to

stay here, because I really would like to ask Mr. Romero a number

of questions that I think are very important.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this time, I’d like to

yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kucinich, for an opening

statement.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling

these hearings. I admire your dedication to this issue. I have a

statement I’d like submitted for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection it will be made part of the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. MICA. And I now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.

Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate very much the

chairman convening these hearings today. One wishes that there

was as much interest on the part of the administration as there is

on the part of this subcommittee and the committee chaired by the

distinguished gentleman from Indiana. I think this is a very, very

critical issue for the United States of America and for Panama that

attention be paid to our continuing relationship, our continuing relationship between the United States and Panama and with particular emphasis on mutual security matters and our mutual interest between our two governments and peoples regarding our efforts

to attack the problems of drug trafficking, money laundering, and

narcoterrorism.

As Chairman Burton has already pointed out, there is going to

be an increasing problem with the narcoterrorists in the wake, I

believe, of the complete United States pull-out from the former

Panama Canal Zone. We’ve already seen signs of that with increased guerilla activity in the regions between—bordering between Colombia and Panama.

General Serrano was just up here last week, a very, very distinguished Colombian, who has expressed on numerous occasions his

grave concern about the deteriorating situation in that region and,

in particular, in conjunction with the rise of narcoterrorists in his

country of Colombia.

I have travelled to Panama twice in the last 2 years. I lived there

when I was in high school, and I know that our two countries have

enjoyed, with some interruptions, but overall during the course of

our joint history, a very, very warm and close relationship which

continues today and, I believe, which will be strengthened by the

victory by Ms. Moscoso in the elections over the weekend.

I am concerned, though, with what appears to be a substantive,

or a lack of substantive interest on the part of the administration

with trying to work out a continuing relationship beneficial to and

supported by the peoples of both of our countries with regard to

perhaps some sort of mutual defense organization, some mutual

narcotics control center or whatnot. I know that some of our other

witnesses we’ll be hearing from today, while in the private sector,

have tremendous background in this area and have been speaking

out on this issue.

We had some hearings about a year ago over on the Senate side

which apparently did not strike too much interest on the part of

the administration. I have seen no tangible expressions of interest

or activity on the part of this administration, which is particularly

baffling in light of the continued importance of the canal to us, and

particularly in light of the arrangements, some of which apparently

are not made public but some of which have been made public between the Chinese Government through its commercial arms of

COSCO and Hutchinson-Wampoa to secure a foothold on both sides

of the Panama Canal, and I believe that there are terms of that

arrangement between Panama and Beijing that are contrary to the

treaty of reversion between the United States and Panama which

are of great concern to me. And I’d be very interested to hear today

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whether this is of any concern to the administration, as one would

hope it would be.

But Mr. Chairman, these are matters that weigh heavily on my

mind, and I hope that through these hearings and other hearings,

in the interest that I know is very genuine on the part of Chairman

Burton as well and Chairman Gilman, we can, even though it’s

very late in the game, light some fire under the administration to

try and impress with them and on them the importance of this region of the world and this particular facility to our commercial interests, our antinarcotics interest and our military interests.

So I appreciate these hearings and look forward to the witnesses’ testimony from both panels today.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and at this time,

I’d like to introduce our first panel. Our first panel is Ambassador

Peter F. Romero, who is the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in the Department of State,

and then Ms. Ana Maria Salazar, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support in the Department

of Defense.

I’d like to welcome you both at this time and first say that this

is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress, and

we do swear in our witnesses. So, if you would please stand and

be sworn. Raise your right hands, please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. And the record reflects that the witnesses answered

in the affirmative, and also, for your information, we try to—there

are only two witnesses in this panel, so I don’t think we’ll use the

clock, but we try to ask you to limit your oral presentations before

the subcommittee to 5 minutes. We will take lengthy statements

and without objection make them part of the record, and with those

comments, I’d like to again welcome Ambassador Peter F. Romero

and you are recognized, sir.

STATEMENTS OF AMBASSADOR PETER F. ROMERO, ACTING

ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND ANA MARIA

SALAZAR, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, DRUG ENFORCEMENT POLICY AND SUPPORT, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Mr. ROMERO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I’d like

to thank the members of the committee and Chairman Gilman and

Chairman Burton for their comments. I welcome the opportunity to

discuss with the subcommittee and the chairman the administration’s efforts to retain a capacity to combat South American-based

drug trafficking, following the cessation of air operations at Howard Air Force Base on May 1.

I would like to spend a little bit of time in terms of how we got

to where we are today with the Panamanians, and I’d like to mention at the outset that I and the administration support fully the

chairman’s statement, vis-a-vis concern about counternarcotics operations and counternarcotics or narcotics trafficking in the region.

There were a number of other issues raised that I’d like to get

to, and so what I would like to do is just keep my comments, my

prepared comments as brief as possible and without any objection,

Chairman, submit them for the record?

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Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. ROMERO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

How we arrived at where we are today—and perhaps I’ll take a

few questions on that afterward—administration efforts to preserve

our access to facilities in Panama to support counternarcotics go

back approximately 6 years. In January 1993, the National Security Council approved the policy paper that said that the Secretary

of State should be prepared to enter into negotiations with the Government of Panama regarding post-1999 base rights in Panama.

In September 1995, Panamanian President Ernesto Perez

Balladares met with President Clinton at the White House, and in

a joint statement following the meeting, the two governments

agreed to exploratory talks regarding United States military presence in Panama after 1999, with a view toward possible formal negotiations if exploratory talks appeared promising.

By November 1995, the interagency working group had developed United States positions on the key issues, and then Secretary

or Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Mike Skol, was

prepared to engage the Panamanians on these exploratory talks to

begin—to begin.

The Panamanians then requested a postponement largely as a

result of the fact that a United States military spokesman at the

time had essentially talked about our no-rent policy for a post1999—possible post-1999 military presence, and the Panamanians

decided that that created a difficult atmosphere for them.

But in order to prevent a loss of time, the State Department instructed our then-Ambassador William Hughes to engage the Panamanians, and he did just that. He had informal talks for several

months. It made clear that the Panamanians were concerned about

rent and other significant compensation and that these would be

required for our continued access to any bases in Panama.

In a Deputy’s committee meeting in 1996, in May, it reaffirmed

the quote, ‘‘We will not pay rent or disguised rent or other direct

compensation for the use of current U.S. military facilities after

1999.’’

In response, Perez Balladares, in a meeting with then or present

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot, on the margins of the

OAS General Assembly, put forward an offer centering on the idea

of a multilateral counternarcotics center or an MCC. The MCC

would be based at Howard. U.S. military would have rent-free access to the base. President Balladares called for stationing personnel from many other interested countries in the region at Howard to coordinate antinarcotics activities.

The next month, the Department of State took the lead in an

interagency effort to develop a concept paper to create an MCC

along the lines of the Panamanian proposal. The MCC would have

been a civilian institution with two main functions; one, an information directorate would coordinate the collection, analysis, and

dissemination of information regarding drug trafficking and related

crimes. A training institute would provide training in counternarcotics law enforcement and U.S. military personnel would have

provided unique support to an MCC through specialized skills such

as pilots, aircraft mechanics, radar and communications technicians, et cetera.

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We would have had continued access to Fort Kobbe, to include

Howard Air Force Base and the pier facilities at Rodman Naval

Station. Approximately, 2,500 U.S. personnel would have been stationed at the MCC.

While the various interested agencies worked to develop a concept paper, Ambassador John Negroponte was named as a special

post-1999 coordinator in September 1996 and began informally

with his Panamanian counterpart, Ambassador Jorge Ritter, in November. The idea of MCC began to take shape in several informal

meetings between the two, and quite frankly, in a blow to the process, Foreign Minister Gabriel Lewis, who had been a positive driving force behind the negotiations and a close adviser to President

Balladares, died on December 19, 1996.

Nevertheless, the months of informal discussion led to a first,

more formal phase. With the appointment of Ambassador McNamara, the negotiations began to advance. By December 1997, Perez

Balladares, Panamanian President, announced agreement had been

reached. In fact, we had reached essential agreement on key requirements, though certain provisions relating to privileges and immunities still needed to be worked out.

Beyond using Howard as a platform for counternarcotics interdiction for a period of at least 12 years, those requirements—those requirements included its use for training, regional logistics, et

cetera, search and rescue activities and other related missions as

required. We insisted on these other activities because we could not

otherwise justify the cost of maintaining the base itself and the

personnel, equipment and resources necessary to do only counternarcotics at the base. When you look at the breakdown of the operations of the base, it is approximately $75 million a year just to operate.

As a result of intense diplomatic efforts in December 1997 and

early in January 1998, Panamanian negotiators agreed to the

terms of an acceptable text for an MCC. Ambassador McNamara

traveled to Panama, fully expecting to initial a draft accord. Apparently, however, the issue had not or the accords had not yet been

fully vetted internally within the Government of Panama, but particularly within the ruling Democratic revolutionary party of Panama, and the Panamanian Government declined to initial the

agreement.

At this point, we were still hopeful that the Panamanians would

recognize how beneficial an agreement would be to them. Ultimately, the administration of Perez Balladares was unable to

achieve a consensus among its own political supporters within the

PRD party and requested significant modifications to the original

draft.

In March 1998, the Government of Panama tabled its proposed

modifications. At that point we realized it would be exceedingly difficult to meet them. Among the most onerous of the changes sought

were the insistence that no missions other than counternarcotics

could be carried out at Howard, a rollback of quality-of-life provisions that they had previously agreed upon for our personnel and

their families and, most importantly, a time limit of 3 years on

guaranteed U.S. access. Remember, this versus 12 years in the

agreement we thought we were ready to initial with the PanamaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:40 Mar 22, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62236 pfrm02 PsN: 62236
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nians. Any of these positions alone would have been a deal stopper.

We took the position that changes of a genuinely technical character were possible, but stated clearly we would not, in effect, renegotiate the whole agreement.

At about that time, President Balladares became increasingly focused on preparations for an August 30th referendum of a constitutional amendment which would have allowed him to run for a second term. His party became sharply polarized because of those

strongly supporting and those implacably opposed to an MCC.

The Panamanian side would not move off most of the unacceptable positions raised in March, and after the election referendum

failed, and at the request of President Balladares, we issued a joint

statement ending the MCC negotiations on September 24, 1999.

In essence, our needs for a cost-effective presence, by which we

mean one that—— Mr. MICA. Sorry, sir, excuse me. You said September 1999?

Mr. ROMERO. Correct, September 24, 1999—I’m sorry, 1998.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. ROMERO. Excuse me.

In essence, the essential problem was the cost-effective presence.

Without having more than a guaranteed presence of 3 years, not

being able to conduct any missions out of Howard other than counternarcotics, along with other issues, quality of life, et cetera, we

believe that we were just too far apart to continue negotiations

with the Perez Balladares government.

Before the ink was dry on a joint statement, the Department of

State initiated an effort to obtain alternative arrangements in the

region. The idea was to keep or perhaps increase the level of counternarcotics coverage in the region in a cost-effective way. We decided the best way to do this was obtain rights to use existing facilities as platforms in the regions. To do so would allow us to save

on the high cost of maintaining a fixed base or bases while enjoying

hopefully the same level of coverage. Ideally, if enough of these facilities, called forward operating locations or FOLs, were identified

in strategic locations, our coverage could even improve.

Under a DOD/SOUTHCOM plan, operational/logistic support to

the aerial counternarcotics missions by several USG agencies, to

include DOD, DEA, Coast Guard, and Customs, would be maintained by having authorized access to and the use of existing and

improved airport facilities in selected countries. DOD/SOUTHCOM

identified primary FOL sites to be Manta, the Netherlands Antilles, Curacao, and Aruba. Additional FOL sites, as conditions warranted and as funding permitted, were to be explored.

In February 1999, at DOD’s request, with interagency support,

a Department of State special negotiator and an interagency team

began negotiations with the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the

Government of Ecuador. Interim agreements were concluded with

Ecuador on April 1st and with the Netherlands on April 13th, well

ahead of the May 1st target date for closure of Howard.

These interim agreements form the foundation for more detailed,

longer-term agreements that will permit the expenditure of USG

funds, upgrading certain airport facilities to enable them to accommodate monitoring—counternarcotics monitoring effort. The stationing of 8 to 15 permanent U.S. Government or contract personVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:31 Mar 22, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62236 pfrm02 PsN: 62236
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nel at each site is planned with the temporary influx of up to 300

crewmen and support personnel accompanying U.S. aircraft. We expect to have long-term FOL agreements negotiated before the interim agreements expire—Ecuador’s on September 30th this year

and the Netherlands on April 13, 2000.

I should stress at this point that the FOLs are not military bases

or a form of an MCC. They represent the deployment of limited

numbers of U.S. personnel, equipment and aircraft to host government-controlled airfields for the sole purpose of supporting aerial

counternarcotics missions. These operations are multinational in

scope, requiring the cooperation of other nations in the region as

envisioned by the hemisphere’s Presidents at the Summit of the

Americas in Santiago last year and at the U.N. Counternarcotics

Conference in New York last June.

Members of the committee, that’s where we stand today in our

effort to maintain counternarcotics activities in the region and in

the absence of Howard Air Force Base. Obviously, there’s an entire

spectrum of other counternarcotics activity carried out by the

United States—by us in the region that did not rely on the existence of Howard Air Force Base in the past, and those will continue

now that Howard Air Force Base has closed.

I’d be glad to entertain any questions you might have, Mr. Chairman, and what I’d like to do is wait in hopes that Congressman

Chairman Burton will come back so that I could answer some of

the questions that he posed to me. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Romero follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. I think you’ll have an opportunity to hear

from Chairman Burton before the hearing’s over. He will return. In

the meantime, we will suspend questions until we’ve heard from

our second witness, Ana Maria Salazar, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support at DOD. Thank

you for coming, and you’re welcome and recognized.

Ms. SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Chairman and

distinguished members of the committee, despite the fact that I

have been working on counterdrug operations and counterdrug

policies for a number of years, this is actually the first time that

I’ve had the opportunity to appear before a congressional committee, and I welcome this opportunity to testify before you. And

I have a written statement that outlines in detail the Department

of Defense counterdrug program. If you have no objections, Mr.

Chairman, I would like to introduce it for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, that will be made part of the

record.

Ms. SALAZAR. Thank you, sir. And also if it’s agreeable to you,

I would like to use the time you have allocated for my oral statement to provide you an overview of the Department’s plans to develop a new counterdrug theater architecture that will insure continued detection, monitoring, and tracking support.

As you may know, and as you had stated, one of the most important aspects of this plan involves a series of strategically placed

counterdrug forward operating locations, or FOLs, as stated by Ambassador Romero, around the hemisphere.

I would like to conclude my oral statement with the description

of the FOL plan and an update of the status of our CD operations

upon our departure of Howard Air Force Base, which was on May

1st.

While there is no simple solution to America’s drug problem,

each day, Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines make vital contributions by supporting

the five goals outlined by Director McCaffrey in the national drug

control strategy.

We have finite funds and resources, multiple national security

missions to address and numerous requests for assistance. We try

our best within the Department to prioritize the support to areas

where capabilities will provide the highest impact on the drug

threats.

As you may know, Mr. Chairman, that the five goals outlined in

the national drug control strategy are supported by the Department of Defense, and I’m going to briefly touch on the goals; but

more importantly, I’ll go into some detail on goal four and five,

since this is where this new strategy will be reflected.

Goal one which is—talks about the education of America’s youth

to reject illegal drugs as well as the use of alcohol and tobacco. Actually, the Department of Defense has a very small program and

puts very little funding into this goal, but I went and did some research, and we actually have some type of support for different—

for—in the different States represented by the members of this

committee, and it basically supports programs, mostly by the National Guard, within their communities, and they’re mostly outreach programs.

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Under goal two, which talks about the increase of the safety of

America’s citizens by substantially reducing drug-related crime, it

is under this goal that the Department of Defense provides most

of its law enforcement support, and we provide support—this is

not—we provide support that includes, for example, translation for

Federal and local law enforcement that require translators for either transcripts or they have certain organized crime in their—in

their—within their region that require assistance. We provide supports to the HIDAs. We provide excess equipment to both local and

Federal law enforcement. And more importantly, under this goal

we’ve been able to support extensive training of both local and

State law enforcement under a number of training programs, and

which has resulted in the training last year alone of 70,000 law enforcement individuals.

Goal three, I would like to touch very briefly, but I believe it’s

one of those goals and one of those success stories—unsung success

stories by the Department of Defense. It is under this goal where

we support the reduction of drug use within the Department of Defense in the civilians that work within the Department of Defense

and the services. This policy has resulted in a dramatic decline between 1980 of where we had approximately 30 percent of the services using, or we believe that they were using drugs within the last

30 days, and now, we have a result reduction in 1998 of 3 percent.

Goal four and goal five, as I’d mentioned before, this is where we

reflect more of how we’re going to develop this new counterdrug

strategy in the region.

Goal four addresses the importance of shielding America’s air,

land, and sea frontiers from the drug threat. The Department will

spend $444 million alone under this goal, and what we seek is to

deny air and maritime cocaine smuggling in the transit zone between South America and the United States border. Within the

United States, the Continental United States, the focus of the support will go to the southwest border.

As the lead Federal agency for the detection and monitoring of

illegal drug shipments to the United States, DOD continues to employ a comprehensive air and maritime detection and monitoring

capability, despite the fact that we are leaving Panama. Among the

assets that DOD counts, which includes the operation of two

relocatable over-the-horizon radars—we call them ROTHRs—seven

P–3 counterdrug upgrade aircraft, E–3’s, E–2’s, F–16 fighters,

Navy combatants, and three TAGOS radars which are picket ships

that have been working in—particularly in the Caribbean.

Goal five talks specifically of breaking foreign and domestic drug

sources of supply. It is under this goal that we provide much of the

support that I think is especially apropos and very necessary for

countries like Colombia, Peru, particularly those two countries. The

department will spend, under this goal, $330 million in support of

this goal.

The priority for DOD in reducing the drug source of supply is focused on cocaine production and movement in Peru and in Colombia. The department continues to assist in enhancing these countries’ efforts against the predominantly air transportation route by

traffickers while also supporting them in countering the traffickers’

use of rivers.

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Based on the threat concentration in Colombia, which remains a

focal point at least from the Department of Defense’s perspective,

we have tried to greatly enhance the support to Colombia recently.

And, if you wish, I can enter more detail of these programs if you

wish, especially since Chairman Burton expressed interest to the

type of support we are providing that country.

A major portion of DOD source nation support is devoted to the

use of assets for detection and monitoring and intelligence collection of the movement of cocaine and coca products within South

America. Specifically, DOD supports source nations through such

assets such as AWACs, E–2’s, and other types of assets that both

collect intelligence and provide information to host nations as to

the types of illegal tracks that are flying through their air space.

Last, and a very important part of this goal, is a third ROTHR

that is planned for completion in January 2000 and will be located

in Puerto Rico and will greatly increase the capability to detect and

monitor air smuggling activity in the critical cocaine processing regions in both Colombia and Peru.

Now, in regards to the restructuring of the theater counter-drug

architecture, I have a couple of slides that I would like to present

to you.

The majority of DOD’s interdiction in transit operations in the

Americas, as I have described in goal four and goal five, were supported from United States military facilities in Panama, including

over the 2,000 counterdrug flights per year originating from Howard Air Force Base. The counterdrug capabilities resident in Panama provided significant support to the efforts of United States

Customs Services, the United States Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement, and, of course, the Department of Defense.

As described by Ambassador Romero, the Panama Canal Treaty

of 1977 mandated the withdrawal of United States military personnel from Panama and the reversion of all United States properties to Panamanian ownership by December 31, 1999, and without going very much in detail as to the reason why these negotiations failed, I will defer to the State Department for that.

We clearly are in agreement with you, sir, and other members

of the committee, that our departure from Panama does and has

been and it will be an important—will have an important effect on

our counterdrug operations, and we have been seeking a way to, I

am not going to say go around it, but to find a solution to this problem.

I have been DASD for almost 8 months, sir. A big portion of the

time that I spend, and that my staff spends, is trying to find a way

that we can find a solution that will offset the loss of the basing

rights in Panama and maintain our current level of detection and

monitoring support in the hemisphere and continue, more important, with our regional engagement. It has been difficult and we

have been spending a lot of time and we believe that a number of

important steps have been taken in order to find a solution.

I was talking with SOUTHCOM’s Commander, General Wilhelm

yesterday. I was talking to him about how I was going to come and

testify before a subcommittee, and in talking to General Wilhelm,

he will tell you that he has seen a number of important steps that

will allow us to reach the goal we are seeking so there will not be

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the degradation in the monitoring detection and, more important,

in the engagement in the region that he believes is so important.

[Slide shown.]

Ms. SALAZAR. In this first slide, sir, I would like to give you a

description as to how we reached the decisions to identify the FOLs

and what we are trying to do. I know I don’t have very much time,

but the way we reached and we identified these FOLs had to do

with a number of factors. One of them had to do with location, geography. Location, location, that was probably one of our most important priorities.

One of the areas where we felt a weakness, perhaps since we

were only flying out of Panama, is that we did not have, I would

say, a semi-permanent presence in the source zone which, as you

know and as you understand the threat in the region, was very important to us. We also understand that the Caribbean region,

where 85 percent of the maritime threat is coming from, is also important. And we need to have some type of presence there.

The other aspects we looked at was, for example, the political

will of these countries to have some type of relationship on—this

type of relationship with us on the counterdrug activities, force protection issues, and, more importantly, we also looked at the existing infrastructure.

This FOL plan, what we are trying to develop or have with these

FOLs is a system or the capability of supporting aviation operations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Specifically, any of the FOL sites should possess a suitable runway, sufficient ramp space, and an area for minor maintenance, refueling, servicing capability, necessary force protection, along with

some basic services for support personnel and air crews temporarily assigned to there.

As mentioned by Ambassador Romero, we are anticipating having a relatively small footprint, it would be 8 to 10 people would

be permanently there. And depending on the assets that would be

coming in and out, that could increase on a temporary basis up to

200 people.

Seeking to maintain uninterrupted air coverage report and based

on the above criteria that I have described to you, the Department

of State negotiated interim FOL agreements with the Government

of Ecuador so we would have access to Manta and the kingdom of

the Netherlands so we would have access to Aruba and Curacao.

I do think I would like to take this opportunity to thank those

countries. Not only did they express the interests in working with

us, but they literally were working, the negotiations teams were

working 24 hours a day to ensure by May 1st we would have the

ability to work out of the FOLs, and we are very appreciative of

both of these nations.

Now, SOUTHCOM basically calculated the baseline in the following fashion: In order to establish a template or a baseline for

coverage to select an FOL location, we looked at the average time

on station that we had in fiscal year 1997 and fiscal year 1998. I

say on station, because we are basically talking about the region

within the source zone and the region within the transit zone.

If we had been trying to perform these operations either from

‘‘Rosy Roads’’ in Puerto Rico or other parts of the United States,

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you would see that a majority of the flight time would not have

been over the source zone or the transit zone which we are interested in.

I have to be honest with the committee, sir, we are going to have

a degradation. This is not a surprise. We have been talking about

this in one fashion. We are not going to have the 100 percent coverage that we had in 1997, that we had in 1997 and 1998.

Based on the calculations done by SOUTHCOM and the parameters set, baselines set by SOUTHCOM, we expect in the short run,

with two FOLs, the one we have identified here, more than approximately, or a little—it is going to be more than a 20 percent

degradation until the Aruba, Curacao, and Ecuador FOLs are fully

operational. Once we provide the upgrades that these airports require, we will raise that coverage to 85 percent by fiscal year 2000.

By the year 2000, this is what we hope our AOR is going to look

like with the two FOLs.

Now, I would tell the traffickers that they should not get too

much comfort out of this, because we expect to have a ROTHR

functioning by the end of the year, and the ROTHR, in support

with the two FOLs, will allow us to be able to identify tracks that

will be coming up through the source zone region.

Mr. MICA. As you begin to conclude, could you tell us today what

percentage of coverage today, this day——

Ms. SALAZAR. Right now, as of today, sir, I can give you a description of the flights that were coming out. I am kind of looking

at my experts. I would say 50 percent right now. As of right now,

today, Customs is flying out of Aruba as of a day ago. We are expecting the F–16’s to be flying out of Curacao as of May 6th. We

expect Navy P–3’s to be flying out of Manta as of May 12th. So,

to be honest with you, we are talking, as of right now, I would say

50 percent.

Mr. MICA. Do you have another slide?

Ms. SALAZAR. Yes.

[Slide shown.]

Ms. SALAZAR. The next slide kind of fills the picture. We are in

the need of a third forward operating location within the Central

America region. We are right now in discussions with a number of

countries who have expressed interest in reaching some type of

agreement with us. Nothing has been signed. A lot of these countries—there is nothing definite. But we have looked at setting some

site assessments before reaching this agreement. We at least want

to have a good idea as to what is actually available in terms of airports.

Once we reach an agreement with a Central American FOL and

once we have done the necessary upgrades, we believe that by fiscal year 2001, I think is being realistic, we will have a coverage of

up to 110 percent. The reason we would have perhaps a better coverage than we had in Panama is this FOL right now here. We

would actually have a presence within the source zone, which, as

you know, sir, for us is the focal point of where most of the problem

is coming from.

Could we have the next slide, please.

[Slide shown.]

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Ms. SALAZAR. There is a number of things that need to take place

before we reach this 110 percent, including an area where we are

seeking your help and your assistance. We have, as you can imagine—we did not program within our budget the—we did not establish within our budget this plan. We expected to be in Panama

right now.

In fact, we were talking about being in Panama as of August.

When September hit, when we realized we were going to have a

problem in being able to support the programs for fiscal year 1999,

we went up to the department and the department provided us the

necessary funding, although we have right now before you a reprogramming package that requires action.

The packet has been—the packet is being considered, but due to

the other activities that are taking place right now, they have not

been able to look at it. We are concerned that a number of our

counterdrug operations, especially coming out from SOUTHCOM,

are going to be affected, and our ability to come in and perform

some of the TDYs that are necessary, some of the small type of

maintenance and O&M required in the short-term is not going to

happen. So, sir, I request and we seek your help in this.

The other very important issue that was mentioned by Ambassador Romero is the need to negotiate a long-term asset agreement

with both Ecuador and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. We have

started that process and we hope to conclude before the end of the

year.

The third and very important step that needs to be taken is not

only identify, but basically negotiate a long-term agreement with

the Central American FOL.

The final and very also important step is the ability—well, you

know these FOLs will require upgrading and construction. For this

we will require additional legislative authorities that the Department of Defense and my programs do not have at this moment in

order to spend MILCON funds out of the CTA account, which is the

account from which I work with.

This construction would include, for example, runways, paving,

ramp improvements, construction of operation buildings, aircraft

hangers, aviation maintenance buildings, et cetera.

I am going to conclude my remarks with that, sir. I look forward

to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Salazar follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. I yield my time to the chairman of committee, Mr. Burton.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you. I will try to be brief. I have to get to

another meeting.

I was reading this global terrorism report that just came out this

past month about the FARC and ELN guerrillas. Evidently the

FARC commanders announced in March they would target United

States military personnel assisting Colombian security forces. They

have not acted on those threats as of yet and their heightened attacks against Colombian police and military bases did not target or

incidentally kill or injure United States forces. But that threat was

made in March, and I think we have to take it seriously.

The activities of the ELN, it says they conduct weekly assaults

on oil infrastructure, typically pipeline bombings, and they have inflicted massive oil spills, extortion and bombings against United

States and other foreign businesses, especially the petroleum industry. They anually conduct several hundred kidnappings for profit, including foreign employees of large corporations.

The FARC guerrillas engage in armed attacks against Colombian

political, economic, military, and police targets. Many members

pursued criminal activities, carrying out hundreds of kidnappings

for profits. Foreign citizens are targets of FARC kidnappings, as

well as documented ties to narcotics traffickers, principally through

the provision of armed protection for coca and poppy cultivation

and narcotics production facilities, as well as through attacks on

government narcotics eradication efforts, and began in 1998 a

bombing campaign against oil pipelines.

These are terrorist organizations, according to this report.

So my question to you, Mr. Romero, I presume the State Department still classifies FARC and the ELN as terrorist organizations.

Is the State Department now willing to negotiate with terrorist

groups?

Mr. ROMERO. Chairman Burton, thank you for returning.

First of all, let me say that I continue to be mystified, and perhaps you can tell me something that I don’t know, in terms of your

characterization of this contact as ‘‘negotiations.’’

You submitted a letter to the Secretary of State. We answered

that letter in as complete a fashion as we possibly could. There

were dozens of questions. In each of our dozens of answers, we

started the sentence by saying this was not a negotiation. We offered in that letter to have your staff or yourself read the memorandum of conversation that was drafted from that conversation so

that you would be able to determine for yourself that there was no

negotiation that took place.

I don’t know whether your staff or whether you were able to do

that.

Mr. BURTON. Why don’t you just tell us what they talked about?

Mr. ROMERO. Well, what they talked about—first of all let me

just say that we responded to a Government of Colombia request

to meet with the FARC guerrillas.

Mr. BURTON. What did you talk about?

Mr. ROMERO. We talked, if I can show you a little bit, or give you

a little bit of the sequence——

46

Mr. BURTON. I don’t really care about the sequence. I want to

know what you talked to the FARC guerrillas about.

Mr. ROMERO. Well, as in our memorandum of conversation, our

main concern and our main reason for talking to the guerrillas was

to find out what happened to U.S. missionaries that had been missing for 6 years. We had tried through dozens of intermediaries that

had contact with the FARC to find out what had happened to them

in the intervening years, with no success whatsoever.

Mr. BURTON. Did you ask for their release?

Mr. ROMERO. We asked for an accounting of where they are, and,

if they were alive, a release, absolutely. This was the principal reason for sitting down and meeting with them.

Mr. BURTON. So you asked for the release of them after 6 years.

Now, what did they say?

Mr. ROMERO. They said essentially what we had heard from

intermediaries, that they had been taken by a group that was

loosely affiliated with them somewhere around the border with

Panama, that this group had since broken off its affiliation with

them, and that they undertook to look into the possibility of getting

us information as to where they might be and what their status

might be.

We told them—they told us that they would be willing to form

a working group with us and the Colombian Government. We said

no. We said no working groups. If they were affiliated with you,

you could give us the essential information that would lead us to

discover where they are and what their well-being might be.

Mr. BURTON. You don’t consider that negotiating with them?

Mr. ROMERO. I do not consider that negotiation, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. So you just went down there for informational purposes?

Mr. ROMERO. We went down there to express to the FARC that

if there was any support that we would lend to a peace process,

that they had to have accounted for these American citizens. This

was the primary and the principal reason for meeting with them.

If you look at the memorandum of conversation, you will see very

clearly that that was the major part of what we talked about with

the FARC.

Mr. BURTON. Did you talk about alternative developmental aid?

Mr. ROMERO. What we talked about was the nonnegotiability of

our counternarcotics efforts as passed by Congress in its legislation

last year, and that this would not be negotiable. This was a component of the conversation that the Government of Colombia wanted

us to talk to them about, that if they impeded in any way counternarcotics operations, that the government could in no way enter

into any agreement that would impede those operations, or suffer

loss of United States aid. And the Government of Colombia wanted

us to tell that to them, and we did.

Mr. BURTON. So you didn’t talk about alternative developmental

aid?

Mr. ROMERO. Not to my knowledge, no. But our line on alternative development is that it cannot go to guerrillas in the absence

of a peace agreement or the absence of significant movement toward a peace agreement.

47

Mr. BURTON. Did you talk at all about the ceding of land to their

organization?

Mr. ROMERO. No, that is not our call to make. That is the Government of Colombia. I don’t know where you are getting this, Congressman.

Mr. BURTON. And there was no alternative development aid discussed?

Mr. ROMERO. Not to my knowledge, no.

Mr. BURTON. You know, that is something that is interesting

about this administration. Every time we have somebody before the

committee, they don’t say yes or no, they say ‘‘not to my knowledge’’ or ‘‘I am not sure’’ or ‘‘I can’t be positive’’—I mean, as far as

giving a straight answer, we don’t get it.

Now, who do we have to talk to to get a straight answer to find

out about that?

Mr. ROMERO. Mr. Chairman, if you will give me a second, I have

got the memorandum of conversation here. It is classified. I would

be happy to let you take a look it and read it outside of these proceedings, or, if you would like me to read it, I can read it over and

characterize it in a nonclassified fashion.

Mr. BURTON. I don’t want you to characterize it, because the semantics kind of lose us a little bit. What I would like to do is have

a copy of it, we will read it and then we will get it back to you.

Mr. Chairman, I see that my time is about to expire. I have a

number of other questions. If I can get back here from my other

meeting, I will try to get it on the second round. But in the meantime, I wish you would, Mr. Chairman, insist that we have a copy

of that classified document so we can take a look at it.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, I think that would be made available to you as chairman or members of the subcommittee or committee.

Just in conclusion, I have a few moments left here. I am concerned about the pattern of coverage. I have a report from yesterday in Defense Weekly that actually says, I think General Wilhelm

said it is less than 50 percent of the coverage employed in the region before 1990. Would you concur with that statement?

Ms. SALAZAR. Are we talking as of today, right now, sir?

Mr. MICA. Well, as of yesterday.

Ms. SALAZAR. As of yesterday, that could be the case. We only

have, as I described to you, a number of assets flying out of these

FOLs right now at this moment, so that could be exactly right.

Mr. MICA. Also, you presented to the committee a proposal for

$45 million additional. That is on top of the $73 million in the proposal by the drug czar for this operation, is that correct?

Ms. SALAZAR. That is correct. But that $43 million is coming

from DOD.

Mr. MICA. Where is that coming from specifically in the 1999——

Ms. SALAZAR. Reprogramming action?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Ms. SALAZAR. I can get that answer for you, sir.

[The information referred to follows:]

48

49

Mr. MICA. I think that is very important. The other quick last

question, and I will cede to our ranking member, is Mr. Romero,

you told me you broke off negotiations in September 1998, is that

correct?

Mr. ROMERO. We announced the negotiations had concluded.

Mr. MICA. I believe we were in Panama in February. Before that,

we were notified that basically the administration had made a determination that we were being literally kicked out and that we

were not going to negotiate further. There wasn’t an opportunity

for us to have a presence there. We didn’t conclude these agreements until just recently, the interim agreements, is that correct?

Mr. ROMERO. The interim agreements on the FOLs?

Mr. MICA. Right.

Mr. ROMERO. That is correct, April 1st and April 13th, I think,

were the operative dates.

Mr. MICA. And the Ecuador agreement expires this September?

Mr. ROMERO. Correct.

Mr. MICA. And we have a very unstable situation right now in

Ecuador. Ecuador also requires some—may require some $200 million additional.

Ms. SALAZAR. We are getting differing accounts. $200 million

would be the top line of that. Right now we believe it is between

$80 and $100.

Mr. MICA. If we went to Aruba or Ecuador today, Curacao,

Aruba, or Ecuador, how many folks would we find there, American

personnel?

Ms. SALAZAR. If you give me 2 seconds, I can probably count.

There is a number of teams right now I think in all three sites. I

can’t give you the definite number.

Mr. MICA. Can we get that number as of—— Ms. SALAZAR. As of today, right now, yes.

[The information referred to follows:]

Curacao: 54; Aruba: 49; Manta: 0 *; Total: 103.

* USN P–3 rehearsal April 30 to May 2, 1999, 1 aircraft and 36 personnel. Additionally, a 40 person SATAF visited from May 9 to May 23, 1999.

Mr. MICA. But there would be very few folks there?

Ms. SALAZAR. Depending on the classification of folks, we still

have people doing assessment teams. We are going to have pilots.

We have some maintenance. We have kind of a group of people in

each one of the FOLs. What we can do is provide you a list of who

is actually there today and what they are doing.

Mr. MICA. Finally, who is flying out of each of those locations

today?

Ms. SALAZAR. I can get that.

[The information referred to follows:]

50

51

Mr. ROMERO. Mr. Chairman, in the meantime, if I might address

your issue of concern vis-a-vis Ecuador’s stability, political stability.

I think that for a long, long time, the Ecuador polity has been divided particularly as it relates to reform issues and the effects of

international financial contagion and that sort of thing. They are

on the cusp of reaching an agreement with the IMF. I think it will

provide over half a billion dollars in relief. The country seems to

be going back to a situation of greater normalcy.

But in none of that was the relationship with the United States

in any way threatened. I think most of the major political parties

in Ecuador are very pro-United States and support Ecuador.

Mr. MICA. The Senate held up the aid to Ecuador, I believe, in

their bill, foreign aid.

What concerns me, that is a very short-time interim agreement,

and also we are looking at some substantial costs. First of all, the

drug czar brought to us a $73 million price tag for moving this operation, just in this year’s budget. You are bringing us today an additional $45 million. Then there is a possibility of another $200

million. So I think we have only seen the beginning of the cost to

move this versus the option of possibly paying rent to stay where

we were, which was precluded.

Did you have the answer?

Ms. SALAZAR. Sir, perhaps if you would allow me, what I could

do, I think there is some confusion with the numbers, and in fact

I am confusing myself.

Mr. MICA. We would like to know the number of personnel as of

the date of this hearing that are there in any capacity, and then

the number of flights that took off today and each service that was

involved or any operations. If you could provide that.

Ms. SALAZAR. Yes, sir. If you would allow me, we could also provide a budget sheet that kind of outlines what the costs are going

to be, at least as we have that.

[The information referred to follows:]

FY 99: $17.1 M; FY 00: $83.0 M; FY 01: $131.7 M; FY 02: $44.9 M; FY 03: $44.9

M.

• Figures include projected operating costs and projected construction costs.

• Construction will be undertaken in FY 00 and FY 01, this accounts for large

amounts for those two years relative to the rest.

• FY 02 and beyond assume steady state operations.

Mr. MICA. I want to know specifically where the $45 million is

coming from too.

Ms. SALAZAR. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. With those questions, I have many additional questions, but it is only fair now to yield my time to the ranking member.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The information that we

have received today I find very distressing. The fact of the matter

is from your testimony, Ambassador Romero, the government knew

back in March of last year that there were difficulties in the negotiations and that there was a reasonable assumption that they

could not be concluded satisfactorily.

Then the negotiations were terminated in September. Yet we

don’t have any interim agreements for a takeover surveillance operation that would come anywhere near the capacity offered by our

52

Panama installation until April of this year, let alone the absence

of adequate budgetary arrangements. I find that very disconcerting

in terms of any specific awareness on the part of both the Department of Defense and the State Department of the crucial nature of

these activities.

That is really the function of this subcommittee. It is probably

easy to make observations after the fact, but that is really what an

oversight is, to try to examine what happened and to try to raise

some questions as to future decisionmaking.

It seems to me that the close down of operations or negotiations

by the State Department last March or September was extremely

precipitous. If, as I understand the Ambassador’s statement, it was

largely on the basis that the 12 year agreement suddenly collapsed

to a 3 year agreement.

Given the fact that the interim arrangements you now have for

the two or three FOLs is only for a very short period of time not

to come up to speed until the year 2001, what would have been—

and this is a question to both of you, what would have been the

jeopardy of seriously taking the 3-year reduced agreement so that

our facilities at Howard Air Force Base could have been maintained while at the same time giving our government greater latitude and time to develop substitute operations if the 3-year period

went by without a long term multiple international narcotic center

being fully established?

I think that is a very commonsense sort of inquiry that most people listening to the testimony would come to. So I put that question

to both of you.

Mr. ROMERO. Congresswoman Mink, let me just make one correction. I regret if I meant to imply that things stopped or ground to

a halt a year ago last March and that there was nothing done between that and September.

Quite frankly, what happened in the interim period was that we

were talking to the Panamanians, trying to get them to move off

of the insistence on 3 years, hoping that we would be able to make

progress there and also on other issues.

We waited until August because there was a hope that if President Perez Balladares would have won the referendum and been

able to run for a second term, that he would be able to rethink the

position on duration and also on other missions, and in hopes that

winning that would give him——

Mrs. MINK. My point is not the rethinking of the 3 years to a

longer period, but why the 3 years was unacceptable? I mean, I

think you have to go to the final point and really make a judgment

as to whether you wanted to conclude negotiations because the 3

years was unsatisfactory, when within the 3 year period, you could

have laid the foundation for a stronger development of an alternative policy which we apparently do not have and will not have

in place until the year 2001.

It might not have been a final agreement, but neither is 12

years; 12 years will come very quickly. So what was wrong with 3

years? I guess that is my question, given the fact that we were illprepared to have a complete shutdown on May 1st?

Ms. SALAZAR. Can I just add to Ambassador Romero’s comment?

53

I guess one of the concerns was that the amount of resources and

upgrading that would require even with the MCC, was troublesome

to put that investment if we were only going to be in Panama for

3 years. And, in fact, I know I was not part of the Department of

Defense at the time, but it was my understanding there was conversations with the Hill and with a number of people and there

was concerns that if we were going to make that investment, that

the bottom line should, among the others, should be at least 10

years.

Now, you are absolutely right, Congresswoman Mink, the shortterm agreements and the interim agreements are only interim as

we develop a long-term agreement. We are going to have to find a

number that allows us to justify before you all the investments in

infrastructure we are going to make. It is my sense that if we returned with an FOL agreement that basically allows us only assurances of being in these FOLs for 3 years, and then we kind of request the amount of money we are going to need in order to upgrade them, there would be a lot of questions.

So in part it has to do with the investment and the amount of

money we put in the upgrades and the risk you run that you are

only going to be there for 3 years.

Mrs. MINK. What was the cost that you were working with in

terms of setting up an MCC in Howard Air Force Base, and why

the 3-year stipulation made that investment of cost unreasonable?

Ms. SALAZAR. I will find out for you. I think some of the costs

had to do with DOD. I believe it had to do with some of the other

agencies. But we will provide you that number.

Mrs. MINK. Would you then note the comparative costs of the establishment of the FOLs as now contemplated in your forward plan

for subsequent years so we could see a comparison between the

two?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentlelady. We will have additional questions to submit to both of you.

I recognize now the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ambassador, today’s Panama-America is reporting that our

Ambassador, Mr. Ferro, has publicly ruled out negotiating a continued United States troop presence or antidrug center with the President-elect.

Are those press reports accurate?

Mr. ROMERO. I think that the chances are fairly remote. We have

already closed down Howard. We had a window of opportunity before that drawdown started. The Air Force tells us that now they

have drawed down, it would be exceedingly more difficult, particularly if you were to begin negotiations now, to draw back up again.

Then you have got issues related, I am told, to deferred maintenance and other upgrades that would be necessary to put Howard

back on a good footing.

Besides that, there is no indication that the new President-elect

would be willing to address the issue. In fact, I have got a quote

here from her that basically says, this is public, ‘‘We do not want

those bases in our country, as of December 31, they are finished.’’ This might be campaign rhetoric.

54

Mr. BARR. It may be. So what you are saying is the United

States has ruled out negotiating any continuing presence in Panama with the President-elect.

Mr. ROMERO. Congressman Barr, I wouldn’t rule it out. What I

meant to say was that we have no programs. We wouldn’t rule anything out, but we have no plans currently.

Mr. BARR. Are the press reports accurate or inaccurate?

Mr. ROMERO. The press reports about Ambassador Simon’s remarks, I can’t tell you without reading them myself, but I can say

that we have no plans to engage in them.

Mr. BARR. Let me pose it this way: If, in fact, there are press reports in Panama that our Ambassador has publicly ruled out any

negotiation concerning a continued United States presence, would

those press reports be accurate or inaccurate?

Mr. ROMERO. I suppose they would be, if that is what the press

reported.

Mr. BARR. Would be what?

Mr. ROMERO. Would be accurate.

Mr. BARR. Accurate. It is my impression that the President-elect

has said that she does favor some sort of at least joint programs

and joint operations with the United States. Is that your understanding as well?

Mr. ROMERO. I don’t know that, Congressman, Barr. I would

hope that that would be the case.

Mr. BARR. What has been the substance of our government’s negotiations or discussions with Ms. Moscoso on these matters?

Mr. ROMERO. I don’t think we have negotiated with her. I think

she was apprised with the negotiations as they were related by the

Perez Balladares government. I believe our embassy has had discussions generally, but I don’t believe they have had them exclusively on this point.

Mr. BARR. Well, it doesn’t matter, I am not asking whether they

have sat down and talked exclusively about something or not.

What I am wondering is, has our government engaged in any

form of discussions, official or—I presume they would be official—

with the President-elect concerning the nature of any continuing

relationship between the United States and Panama concerning

joint operations, joint presence, and so forth?

Mr. ROMERO. Not to my knowledge, no.

Mr. BARR. Do we just not do that as a matter of policy with a

Presidential candidate that might be in a position to assume the

leadership of a country?

Mr. ROMERO. I think that for the purposes of the State Department acting as an agent for the Department of Defense in these negotiations, essentially what we are told is once Howard closed

down, it would be too late for the base to be rejuvenated without

a significant increase in funds to get it there and that 3 years was

not sufficient to go to the committees up here on the Hill to make

that kind of case in terms of taxpayer dollars.

That is essentially where we are.

Mr. BARR. Well, we are talking about expenditures of money here

somewhere along the line. I share the ranking member’s mystification at why we didn’t have some contingency planks.

55

When I was last down in Panama very early in 1998, there were

very clear indications at that time that there were problems in the

negotiations, and yet here we are in May 1999 still sort of floundering around, looking for something that might give us some sort

of presence down there.

With all due respect to whoever made up these charts, Ms.

Salazar, they are absolutely meaningless. You have red arrows

shooting all over the place. You have circles all over the place. That

means absolutely nothing because there is no information on them.

I mean, if you say well, we are T2 plus S2 or something equals

100 percent and we are at 50 percent or what not, I have no idea

what you are talking about with those. There are no figures up

there. There isn’t even a radius. That is silly. I think it is insulting

to come forward with that kind of silliness.

What do those mean? How many planes are up? How many

planes are operational? Are the P–3’s, which you sort of glossed

over, did they have the adequate hardware? It is my understanding

that they don’t, that they don’t have the AIP upgrades, for example. F–16’s, that sounds sexy when you talk about F–16’s, but that

isn’t really what we need down there.

We need the P–3’s, we need the on-ground presence. What is the

cost of these? It is my impression the per diem cost of housing our

officials in some of these areas is three or four times what it costs

to house them at Howard.

We have estimates of simply the cost for the initial upgrades and repairs ranging anywhere from $78 million to $125 million, and yet

we say oh, we can’t do anything with Howard because it would cost

money.

I mean, to me, to be honest with you, I think you all were looking

for a reason not to move forward with this. There is a statement,

Ms. Salazar, in your prepared remarks that the lack of political

support by Panama is the reason for this.

It is my impression that there is very, very substantial political

support in Panama for continuing some sort of joint presence down

there. If we simply rely on newspapers—and, I think, again we are

just looking for an excuse. What is the Department of Defense’s position, Ms. Salazar, with regard to negotiations with the Presidentelect? Have you all had any discussions with the President-elect or,

again, is this—we can’t deal with the President-elect or whatnot?

What is the position of the Department of Defense with regard

to any sort of continuing negotiations to try and arrive at an arrangement where we could maintain some form of meaningful joint

presence with the Panamanians? Are there any such negotiations?

If not, why not? If there are, what is the nature of them?

Ms. SALAZAR. Sir, the Department of Defense would not necessarily have conversations with Presidential candidates or now

the President-elect. We would actually defer to the Department of

State to do that.

Mr. BARR. So there have been no negotiations, no discussions?

Ms. SALAZAR. Not from DOD’s position. But that would be the

case regardless of—we just don’t normally do that.

But I would say that—— Mr. BARR. You all just seem to be putting this thing back and

forth.

56

Ms. SALAZAR. No, sir.

I think actually there would be perceived with a certain distrust

if we had a high ranking DOD official in conversations with Presidential candidates.

Mr. BARR. Distrust with who?

Ms. SALAZAR. We normally defer those types of conversations to

the Department of State.

Mr. BARR. So the Department of State would be distrustful of

DOD if you all sat down with some of the Panamanians and talked

about these things?

Ms. SALAZAR. No.

Mr. ROMERO. Let me see if I can clarify here. These issues are

highly candescent in Panama.

Mr. BARR. Highly what?

Mr. ROMERO. Highly explosive in Panama. To have entered into

negotiations or discussions or what have you during the course of

a political campaign would have made it probably even more difficult because they would have been the centerpiece of a political

campaign. Certainly United States uniformed troops in Panama

after the post-1999 handover of the canal would have been a major

campaign issue.

If indeed we do ultimately speak to the President-elect about

this, and I would venture to say that she is not officially the President-elect, the elections were Sunday, today is Tuesday, the electoral tribunal has yet to be announced tomorrow morning.

Mr. BARR. The universe of people we are talking about there is

two. There are two Presidential candidates.

Mr. ROMERO. Correct.

Mr. BARR. One of those will be the President of Panama.

Mr. ROMERO. And one will not; that is correct.

Mr. BARR. It seems to me saying we can’t talk with these people

or whatnot, it just mystifies me, unless things have dramatically

changed since I used to be in the executive branch where we drew

up contingency plans, we talked with different people, we weren’t

constantly blindsided.

Mr. Chairman, if I could just ask one final question in this round

for Ms. Salazar, there is a lot of money that we have been talking

about that would be necessary for these FOLs, whatever you all

call them. How much would it cost to maintain some sort of presence at Howard along the same lines we are talking about trying

to pick up through these other circles that you all had out there?

Ms. SALAZAR. I would venture to say it probably would be similar, except that we would not require the infrastructure. Depending

on what site, if we stayed at Howard, the infrastructure is existent,

we would not need the upgrades.

But I would venture to say we would still have to pay the O and

M perhaps TDY, depending on what happens to some of the buildings. But I would venture it would be very similar to the O and

M and some of the TDY we would be using for some of the other

FOLs.

Mr. BARR. The cost per day per crew would be substantially less

at Howard.

Ms. SALAZAR. It should be, if we had access to those buildings.

I mean, without knowing and without speculating too much, I am

57

not too sure if we had an FOL in Panama, the way programs you

are suggesting, that we would have access to the buildings where

they were staying as of right now. We may have to stay in hotels,

the same way we are, at least initially, doing in Curacao, Aruba,

and in Manta.

Mr. ROMERO. One difference, Congressman Barr, is that we don’t

pay for the maintenance of any of these airstrips, where we would

be paying approximately—I think we paid $75 million last year for

the operation of Howard. We don’t pay operation or maintenance

costs.

Mr. BARR. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. A couple of quick questions, if I may.

First of all, Mr. Romero, the missions that you discussed with

Panama in negotiations, they were for multi-missions or just a

drug presence?

Mr. ROMERO. No, we had been discussing with the Panamanians

multi-missions, to include humanitarian, disaster relief, search and

rescue, logistic support to some of our other embassies, beyond

counternarcotics.

Mr. MICA. And that was one of their objections, and they agreed

just to a presence as far as an antinarcotics effort, with no other

missions; is that correct?

Mr. ROMERO. It was a little bit more complicated than that, Mr.

Chairman. We had allowed them the ultimate say on other than

counternarcotic missions. In other words, the Panamanians could

veto a mission or not. That was written into the agreement.

Mr. MICA. If it had been just antinarcotics missions, they would

have said OK?

Mr. ROMERO. They would have agreed. That would have been one

component that would have been agreeable.

Mr. MICA. When we negotiated with Aruba and Ecuador, do we

have a multi-mission agreement?

Mr. ROMERO. No, counternarcotics.

Mr. MICA. Only counternarcotics?

Mr. ROMERO. Correct.

Mr. MICA. So we really have achieved nothing except incredible

potential costs to the taxpayers for the move and less coverage; is

that correct?

Mr. ROMERO. I am not so sure that it is a greater cost, Congressman. I think I would like to see the breakout here.

Mr. MICA. We just were presented a $45 million price tag. The

drug czar came before us, presented $73 million. There is a potential for $200 million. That isn’t loose change, particularly when it

takes away from the rest of our counternarcotics effort, or if we

were putting in drug education. $400 million, half a billion, would

go a long way in this whole effort.

Would you put up the chart that showed the coverage, please.

[The information referred to follows:]

58

59

Mr. MICA. Would the staff please—where is the chart. Would you

give them copies of this. Mrs. Mink’s staff over here, Mr. Gilman.

This chart that I am showing here, I don’t have a big one of it,

but I provided that to you. Mrs. Mink, myself and others from the

subcommittee went to Panama and—I am sorry, we went to Miami,

met with SOUTHCOM folks there and were briefed and given this

chart in February; isn’t that right, Mrs. Mink?

Mrs. MINK. Yes.

Mr. MICA. We were, again, an oversight subcommittee of Congress trying to figure out where we are and what we are doing.

This is back in February.

We were told, and you can see it here, SOUTHCOM’s estimation.

First of all, where did this chart come from, the information from

there?

Ms. SALAZAR. This is actually a chart from Joint Staff, sir, which

has been approved and is supported by SOUTHCOM.

Mr. MICA. OK. Well, again, we were given this potential operation performance. Again, we see the current level at 100 percent.

We see with agency augment FOLs, May 1st would be 70 percent.

We are told today, at best, we are less than 50 percent. Then with

FOL Curacao, Equador, first of May 1999 with DOS, Department

of State access, 80 percent. So we haven’t met these estimates by

SOUTHCOM; is that correct?

Ms. SALAZAR. No, you are absolutely right, sir. I believe that

when these slides were produced, these are from February, your

trip in February; is that correct?

Mr. MICA. Right.

Ms. SALAZAR. There were some expectations that we would be

able to conclude the negotiations of the FOLs, the interim negotiations, a number of weeks earlier. So the fact that we did not have

the interim agreement until April 1st in a sense, I believe, is reflected in these charts. So our ability to come in with the teams the

way we have in the last 2 weeks was affected by it.

Mr. MICA. But we have a pretty serious gap in coverage that

wasn’t anticipated. Let me ask you a question. Relating to the negotiations, now, for some time, and I am trying to figure out who

was sort of in charge of this. I get sort of conflicting reports. But

the Department of State led the negotiations. That is correct?

Ms. SALAZAR. That is correct.

Mr. MICA. We knew they were going down the tubes. DOD, can

DOD tell DOS how much lead time they would need?

Ms. SALAZAR. Are we talking about the interim negotiations, sir?

Mr. MICA. Well, we had a performance level that was projected

in February.

Ms. SALAZAR. Right.

Mr. MICA. You don’t open these bases overnight. I would imagine

you are still scurrying to get personnel and equipment there; is

that correct?

Ms. SALAZAR. You are actually right. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. But we knew about this in April. Is there a document

that you provided to DOS to tell them how much lead time you

would need to get equipment and personnel and start operating?

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Ms. SALAZAR. Sir, we knew actually earlier in the year the difficulties—the number of difficulties that this could potentially create in negotiating FOLs.

Mr. MICA. Was there a document that said to move this equipment here, we need such-and-such lead time?

Ms. SALAZAR. Yes.

Mr. MICA. Can you get us a copy of that?

[The information referred to follows:]

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Ms. SALAZAR. Of course, sir. SOUTHCOM had produced some

deadlines early last year as to what needed to happen in order to

be able to fulfill the requirements that are outlined here.

Mr. MICA. But State did not perform as far as being able to negotiate those interim agreements.

Ms. SALAZAR. No, I would say in fairness to State, sir, we went

and specifically requested that they appoint an FOL negotiator and

it was a very—he has been excellent.

Mr. MICA. When was that individual appointed?

Ms. SALAZAR. That was some time, when, 3 months ago?

Mr. ROMERO. About 3 months ago.

Ms. SALAZAR. About 3 or 4 months ago. Within that time, they

were able to negotiate relatively fast, I would say, in comparison

to other types of negotiations.

Mr. MICA. Because I think they just started in February or were

starting around that period of time. One other, I am concerned

about the information that has been given us in the past assuring

us that things would be in place today.

Ms. SALAZAR. Right.

Mr. MICA. And we are not here to be bad guys.

Ms. SALAZAR. I know.

Mr. MICA. Our job is—the responsibility is to see that the surveillance, particularly in this counternarcotics effort is in place,

cost effective, et cetera.

What concerns me is, first, that what we were told has not taken

place. It concerns me about the projections for the future, the situation with Ecuador, et cetera.

Now I am very concerned about what has taken place in Panama. I was told, both publicly and confidentially, that the port

tenders that were just recently awarded, one, I guess, to the Chinese majority interest. I guess the Chinese Army has an interest

in one of those, but I was told that those tenders were corrupt. Do

you have any knowledge, Mr. Romero? Are we getting information

that that tender was corrupt?

Mr. ROMERO. I think we spoke out about some deep doubts that

we had during the time of the actual solicitation itself. It seemed

to be more an auction as opposed to a transparent and aboveboard

bidding process.

Mr. MICA. OK. Not transparent.

Well, we have Jose Castrillan Heneo, Colombian drug trafficker,

who was taken to the United States last year, who helped finance

President Ernesto Perez Balladares’ campaign with hundreds of

thousands of dollars, is starting to talk from a Florida prison in

Tampa, not my district, but close by. And he has reportedly detailed corruption at the highest level of the Panamanian Government, including the Vice President’s involvement in some corrupt

actions and a host of others.

I am concerned about the State Department following up on

these allegations. I am concerned about the correct tender. I am

concerned about Howard Air Force Base, 5,600 buildings, huge assets in the operation of a strategic canal that is responsible for a

good percentage of the world’s shipping, particularly in this hemisphere, now also falling into similar hands.

Is the State Department concerned about this?

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Mr. ROMERO. Well, first of all, as part of the treaty, you have a

commitment on the part of the Panamanians for the permanent

neutrality of the canal.

Mr. MICA. I am sorry?

Mr. ROMERO. Permanent neutrality and safeguarding of the

canal.

Mr. MICA. Are you saying, if we had to, we could go back in

there?

Mr. ROMERO. What I am saying is they are obligated legally to

safeguard the neutrality of that canal, in times of both war and

peace, giving preference to U.S. vessels in transit.

Mr. MICA. What about Howard Air Force Base now? That is up

for grabs to the highest corrupt bidder?

Mr. ROMERO. I am told that the Panamanian Government has no

plans to continue that as an airstrip or a base.

The Panamanians established an entity called ARI, and this is

responsible for the sale and use of reverted properties from the

canal, part from the canal operations, canal installations, per se.

They’ve done a pretty good job in selling some of the smaller properties, the residences, some of the smaller warehouses, et cetera,

but have not yet succeeded in doing much in terms of interesting

large investors to invest in the area, and you see some of the buildings and facilities going to seed as a result of that.

There’s an enormous cost in maintaining these after they’re

turned over to the Panamanians. There’s been excessive paperwork

and——

Mr. MICA. Finally, are we monitoring some of the strategic assets

that we helped construct and maintain over the years, falling into

hands that may cause a serious problem. Such as—I don’t know

what’s going to happen with the port quite frankly, but there are

some other strategic assets, this base, airstrips, camps.

Mr. ROMERO. We continue to meet within the context of the intelligence community, and we are also looking at a number of things

post-December 31, 1999, one including the threats to the canal,

what we can do to support the Panamanians in standing up a good

security force to secure the canal and working with other countries,

et cetera, and that process is ongoing, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Yield to Mrs. Mink.

Mrs. MINK. The question that the chairman asked, something

that we were discussing earlier, and that is the nature of the negotiations with the Panamanians with reference to the extended or

continued use of portions of Howard Air Force Base for the narcotics operations, and what both of us don’t quite understand is

who was making the policy, the process determinations, the final

decisions as to whether the counterproposals from the Panamanian

Government were acceptable or not? Was it the State Department

or was it the Defense Department?

Mr. ROMERO. As it related to cost-effectiveness, which is essentially what it all came down to, whether you’re talking about duration or missions or whatever, it was the Department of Defense

and the Air Force which had to make that call because they were

the ones who had to go to the committee to ask for an appropriation.

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Mrs. MINK. Is there a memorandum to that effect, DOD and

State Department, that we would be privileged to have a copy of?

Mr. ROMERO. I’m not aware of one but we’ll certainly look.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we will ask a question to receive that,

if it is available. I’d like to yield now to the gentleman from New

York.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding. I regret I

had to go to a leadership meeting and missed part of the testimony,

but I was reviewing the testimony once again.

Mr. Romero, will the President’s special envoy to the Americas,

Buddy McKay, be traveling to Panama shortly as reported in the

Panamanian press?

Mr. ROMERO. That’s my understanding, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GILMAN. And what will he be discussing with the Panamanians? Are there further negotiations underway?

Mr. ROMERO. He will be going down there to meet with the Government of Panama, presumably the current President and to include the President-elect, and he will be speaking at the commencement ceremonies of my alma mater down there, Florida State University.

Mr. GILMAN. In your opinion, is there still some possibility of reopening these negotiations?

Mr. ROMERO. In my opinion, Mr. Chairman, that would really depend on the cost-effectiveness of them. We’ve been told that the

cost would, particularly as it related to such a short duration, not

bear the kind of laugh test, if you will, in the committee up here

given 3 years. Now, there might be a change of heart. We could

look into it to see if there is, but the words of the President-elect

during the campaign are not particularly encouraging.

Mr. GILMAN. Of course, right up to the campaign they were encouraging. They had all but agreed to sign the treaties and then

I guess a few months beforehand they dropped out of the picture.

Let me ask, maybe it’s the Department of Defense that should

answer this. With regard to cost discussions, the operating costs

differential between P–3 operations in Lima, Peru, and Howard Air

Force Base in Panama for November and December 1997 deployments came to $2,200 per day per 13-man crew of heavier costs in

Peru as compared to Howard. This represents only the M&IE costs

and not the added associated aircraft costs as they relate to flight

hours. So if we were to assume an 8-day deployment, differential

costs could climb to $17,000 per day over an 8-day deployment, and

when projected at a yearly rate, assuming one deployment per

month, a differential source to $211,000. So the total M&IE yearly

budget for the P–3 program then becomes $960,000. So the differential represents about a 22 percent increase in the budget. Can

you comment on that?

Ms. SALAZAR. Yes, and perhaps I should apologize for not being

clearer on that subject. What we’re trying to create with the FOLs

is something of a presence within the region. As you note—as you

can note with the numbers you—as you suggest with the numbers,

flying out of Peru is much more expensive than flying out of Howard, and the reason for that is we do not have a permanent presence in Peru. That means we don’t have people who, on a regular

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basis, are providing maintenance. We don’t have the infrastructure.

It’s just because it is not permanent simply is much more expensive.

What we’re trying to do with the FOLs is create that presence,

that support that we were receiving in Howard for the CD assets

within the FOLs. So, in fact, and it’s something I did not mention

during my testimony, we continue to fly out of a number of airports

with CD assets around the region. It is more expensive, it’s difficult

and we have to request permission on ongoing bases as we go into

these airports. With the FOLs, we will not have to do that. We will

have a permanent presence. It will be cheaper than these temporary arrangements we have with these other airports.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, Ms. Salazar, the facilities in Ecuador and

Manta, for example, will require substantial upgrades.

Ms. SALAZAR. You’re absolutely right, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. How much money is this going to cost and how

much does that compare to the cost of staying in Panama?

Ms. SALAZAR. Well, the difficulty of calculating the cost, at least

from my perspective, is I look at it from a CD perspective. As you

know, the Air Force—Howard Air Force Base was a multi-mission

air base. The cost that I would be incurring within my budget

would be exclusively counterdrugs. So when we look at the overall

cost for Air Force—and I was in conversations with General Wilhelm last night as to how could we compare what he was paying

for just Howard for our CD activities. He could not give me that

number.

Mr. GILMAN. How much will it cost to improve the airport in Ecuador?

Ms. SALAZAR. In Ecuador? We’re talking about—I would say most

of the upgrades will be for Manta, sir, and it could be up to—so

when we’re talking about the $70—between $80 and $100 million,

a lot of that will be for, for Ecuador.

Mr. GILMAN. $80 to $100 million?

Ms. SALAZAR. No, no, I’m sorry. Approximately $40 million.

Mr. GILMAN. $40 million just to upgrade one of the airports?

Current estimates have shown that about 75 percent of the heroin entering our Nation comes from Colombia and that’s smuggled

into the United States through three major ports of entry, one of

which is New York City.

Ms. SALAZAR. Correct.

Mr. GILMAN. In light of the fact that New York has been designated a high intensity——

Ms. SALAZAR. Correct.

Mr. GILMAN [continuing]. Drug traffic area, can you explain why

the National Guard has decided to cut the New York National

Guard’s counterdrug budget for fiscal year 2000 by some $400,000?

Ms. SALAZAR. Sir, I’m going to look into that. I just spoke to the

TAG about a week ago. I have actually a very—I’ve been developing a relationship with the different counterdrug programs within the country and one of them is New York, for the reasons that

you specified. I am not aware that they were going to be cut. I will

look into it.

Mr. GILMAN. I’d welcome that and I’d welcome your submitting

a response to the committee.

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Ms. SALAZAR. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, without objection, if that could be

made part of the record.

Ms. SALAZAR. Absolutely.

Mr. MICA. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. GILMAN. And just one more question, Mr. Chairman. General

Serrano of the CNP said, when we leave Panama it’s going to be

more drugs north to the United States and more arms south into

the region. Do you share any of those concerns?

Ms. SALAZAR. Sir, I had the benefit of knowing General Serrano

when he was Colonel Serrano and had the opportunity to work

with him when I was stationed in Colombia as judicial attache and

we do have those concerns. The ability—our concerns as to the fall

and the spillway that they’ve had in the different borders in the

region has been a concern, not only that we’ve had now, but that

we’ve had in prior years. So, some of the number of expressions

that General Serrano has made lately about Panama, in many

ways we do share.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, you know, with all of these cost considerations

and with the need to do more, there’s trafficking in that part of the

world, it seems to me that the administration ought to take another crack at seeing if we can renegotiate this arrangement. We

came that close to it once before, and it would seem that it’d be appropriate not to give up Howard and let it become jungle once

again with all of these increased costs that you’re going to have to

embark upon to operate out of forward areas.

I’d welcome your comment about what the possibilities are of

moving in that direction, Mr. Romero—Ambassador Romero.

Mr. ROMERO. Chairman Gilman, I’m not sure what the circuits

would bear with the new Panamanian Government, but I will certainly take your sentiments back to the administration and we will

discuss it.

Mr. GILMAN. We would welcome that, and Ms. Salazar.

Ms. SALAZAR. Absolutely, sir, and for us Panama, regardless of

what happens with Howard from the Department of Defense perspective, we understand and we know the importance of having a

close engagement with that country. It’s important to the department and it’s important for the general counterdrug strategy.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for bearing

with me.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from New York. I now recognize the gentleman of our full committee, Mr. Burton.

Mr. BURTON. Before you leave, Chairman Gilman, the costs that

you just pointed out, the additional costs that are going to be involved, plus the locations that are going to not be as good as having

something there at Howard, would certainly, I think, show that it’s

important to rethink that whole issue and try to renegotiate that.

Money talks and baloney walks. It seems to me that we could make

an offer to the Panamanians that would be fairly lucrative, helping

their economy and keep that base there, and it would still be less

costly than what these other locations would cost us.

So I will be happy to join you, and maybe Chairman Mica and

some of the Members of the Democrat side in drafting a letter to

the State Department and the White House to ask them to try to

renegotiate that issue.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Burton. I look forward to working

with you on that issue.

Mr. BURTON. Let me just ask you, both of you, how would the

Panamanians, during a time of war, assuming everything proceeds

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on track, how would they be able to protect the neutrality of the

canal?

Mr. ROMERO. Well, I’m not so sure what the war scenario would

be. It’s kind of hard to answer that question in the abstract.

Mr. BURTON. You have the Chinese shipping company that’s

going to have bases at both ends, and there’s a lot of people that

are concerned about the long range problems that might be faced

with China. I see you smiling a little bit about that, but I don’t

think it’s a very humorous matter because the Chinese have a very

large army. They now have nuclear technology they did not have

before because of Los Alamos and Livermore, and they have rattled

their sabers in the South China Sea, and they have given missiles,

missile technology, to some of the people that do pose a problem

over in that area of the world. The North Koreans have fired a

rocket across into the Japanese Sea.

And so, you don’t know what might happen down the road, and

so what I’m wondering is, the Panama canal has been under our

military control since it was first constructed. Now, it’s going to be

under the Panamanian control. So I think it’s a logical question to

ask how would they be able to protect the canal and the neutrality

of that canal so that shipping could go on from any source in the

world if there was a conflict.

Mr. ROMERO. Mr. Chairman, it’s a legitimate question. It’s an

honest question and I wasn’t smiling about the question. I think

it’s a very serious one that needs to be taken in consideration.

What I was smiling about was the semantical difference similar

to the one that we had on the word ‘‘negotiations.’’ What the Chinese—what the Chinese company Hutchinson has is a contract to

run a port. It is not a base. A base is something exceedingly different, and it is a commercial contract. We expressed our disdain

for the process in which it was awarded, when it was awarded, and

all I can tell you is that we hope, in terms of the neutrality of the

canal, to work closely with the Panamanian Government to set up

a mechanism for them to gather information on threats, subsequent threats perhaps to the canal, for us to share information

with them and to stand up a security force that’s worthy and up

to the task.

Mr. BURTON. Well, I’ve been down to the Panama Canal a couple

of times and I’ve seen the locks and I’ve seen how narrow it is and

I’ve seen how they have to constantly dredge it to make sure it’s

open so that shipping can go through there. It would be a very simple thing for the Chinese, in one of their ships coming into one of

those harbors, to be able to close that operation down in a heartbeat. I think that’s something that ought to be of concern to the

United States militarily, as well as our State Department. I don’t

think there is an answer because I don’t believe right now there’s

been enough thought given to how we could protect the canal in the

event there was a crisis. The Panamanians simply aren’t going to

be equipped to do that. There’s just—there’s just no way without

outside help. I don’t think there is an answer to that question, but

I wanted to see if you did have some idea.

Now, let’s get back to the matter of semantics. In January, we

had a meeting here with Ambassador Leonard, whom I see out

there in his nice yellow tie, looks very sharp today with his blue

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shirt, and Phil Chicola, and during that meeting, alternative development aid, we asked them about that and they said it was discussed with the FARC guerillas.

Now, it surprises me that you say to your knowledge that wasn’t

discussed. Don’t you talk to these folks?

Mr. ROMERO. Mr. Chairman, I didn’t have the cable in front of

me, and I couldn’t verify it, and I don’t like to talk about things

where I don’t have absolute recall in terms of what was discussed.

Mr. BURTON. Do you now have the cable in front of you?

Mr. ROMERO. No, I don’t, because it was classified, and I took it

away from the unclassified materials that we sent to you.

Mr. BURTON. I see. Well, in any event, according to your subordinates, your colleagues, that was discussed and when you start discussing alternative development aid with guerillas who have kidnapped and murdered American citizens and others, that is negotiation. Now, you can shake your head and say it isn’t. It is. You’re

talking about something that they want in exchange for something

that you want. So I think it’s disingenuous for the State Department to come up here and tell us that there wasn’t any negotiation,

that it was just a meeting, because I think anybody that really is

paying attention to what’s going on knows that it was more than

that.

Now, we have been talking about screening, some people would

say, since 1993 for someone to do something about these three ministers, men, who are down there, and it’s fallen again and again on

deaf ears, and now the State Department has started using David

Mankin, Rich Tennenof, and Mark Rich as an excuse to negotiate

with the terrorists and it kind of bothers me. I just don’t know why

we didn’t start looking into ways to get those guys out a heck of

a lot sooner and to use them as a tool for sitting down with the

FARC terrorists who are working and protecting the narcotics cartel down there, the drug cartel. It just really, really bothers me and

I think it bothers a lot of my colleagues.

Now, it’s my understanding that the Government of Colombia

and the United States Department of Justice have four men in the

pipeline to be extradited to the United States on, I believe, drug

charges, and the only agency that’s dragging its feet on these people being extradited, in my understanding, is the State Department. Is the reason that the State Department’s dragging its feet

on this issue is because the State does not want our neighbors to

the south, Mexico, who refused to extradite anyone or work with

us on any drug-related matters, to look bad by letting Colombia

kind of beat them to the punch?

Mr. ROMERO. Mr. Chairman, I’m completely mystified by the

State Department’s standing in the way of a request from the Department of Justice for extradition. I have not known of a case

where this has happened before as it relates to Colombia and I will

look into it.

In terms of the record, Mr. Chairman, I would ask you, before

you make a statement about us doing nothing on MTM missionaries until a meeting with the FARC, to come to the State Department and review the record. We have several years of trying to find

out what happened to those missionaries and it’s a matter of public

record.

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Mr. BURTON. Well, we’ll have to review that public record. You

know, Congressman Mica and myself and Congressman Gilman,

we’ve all been trying to figure out a way to get those people out

and to get an accounting for them and the cooperation from the

State Department has been minimal at best, as far as I’m concerned, and you can ask my colleagues whether or not they concur.

Why did we certify Mexico as a fully cooperating partner in the

war on drugs when our top drug enforcement officer, Tom Constantine of the DEA, testified in front of this committee that he did

not think Mexico was being cooperative?

Mr. ROMERO. I think that it was the administration’s concerted

opinion with all of the agencies, to include the Department of Justice, that there had been significant progress in Mexico to warrant

full certification, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. So the administration disagrees with the head of

DEA, Mr. Constantine?

Mr. ROMERO. I’m not—I don’t have his language in front of me,

but if he did say that he didn’t agree with certifying Mexico, then

the administration disagreed with him.

Mr. BURTON. Well, he said he didn’t think Mexico was being cooperative. They’re very careful when they work for the administration to take issue with the President, but he said Mexico was not

being cooperative and yet we did go ahead and support a continued

relationship with them.

Mr. Chairman, I think that concludes my questions. I would like

to see, as I said before, the top secret confidential information that

you said you had available for us.

Mr. BARR. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are police reports and intelligence reports that have been declassified, a number of which have been reported in the press in Colombia, going

back a few years, that FARC maintains a presence, including base

camps, north of the Colombian-Panamanian border. Are those accurate reports?

Mr. ROMERO. I think they are, Congressman. You’re talking

about specifically the Darien area of southern Panama?

Mr. BARR. That would be.

What steps are we taking, if any, to monitor that situation and

address it specifically?

Mr. ROMERO. Through our ICITAP programs and other programs, we have supported the police in Panama, continued to provide some equipment and training for them. They, of course, abolished their military several years ago and have approximately two

companies of police who are continually being trained in jungle

warfare and who are deployed to the Darien region.

Mr. BARR. From the standpoint, Ms. Salazar, of the Department

of Defense, what is the Department of Defense doing with regard

to the situation in the Darien region whereby, according to the reports, that apparently are accurate, the FARC is operating in Panama’s territory?

Ms. SALAZAR. Yes. As I mentioned earlier, the Department of Defense is not only concerned with the spillover effect that we’ve seen

from the FARC into Panama but the spillover effect that we’ve

seen in other borders that Colombia has with other countries. I believe Colombia’s neighbors have expressed concern about this, and

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of course, from the Department of Defense perspective we’re concerned.

We don’t have—since Panama doesn’t have a military per se that

we can have a bilateral relationship with in the way we have, for

example, with Colombia, we don’t have any specific programs of

training and technical assistance. However—— Mr. BARR. Have these been explored? Is there some legal prohibition on it?

Ms. SALAZAR. No, no, sir. The way that Department of Defense

programs works is that we, with our capabilities, our assets, expertise, support law enforcement. I think the way we address some of

the concerns you’re expressing is the type of bilateral relationship

that we’ve set up with the Colombian military. It’s a recent—I

would say it’s a new, bilateral relationship in the sense that we’ve

set up a specific working group where we sit with the Colombian

military and we directly address with them a number of programs

in training and support that we can provide as Department of Defense.

So, in so much the counterdrug program provides support to the

Colombian military—— Mr. BARR. I’m very well aware of this, the support we provide the

Colombian military. What I’m asking about is Panama.

Ms. SALAZAR. We don’t have—I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have at this

moment any specific bilateral cooperation program from the Department of Defense with the Government of Panama.

Mr. BARR. OK. Is anything along those lines being explored with

the Guardia Nacionale?

Ms. SALAZAR. No, but the way we could do it, if it was in the interest of the law enforcement—of United States law enforcement

within Panama is that they would request from the Department of

Defense some type of training and technical assistance for the

Guardia Nacionale. It’s possible, to answer your question.

Mr. ROMERO. Let me—let me just, if I might add, as I mentioned,

the military was disbanded. It was called the Guardia. Now, they

have a national police, and we are doing a baseline study through

the intelligence community that should be ready in the next couple

of weeks which will hopefully give us a good baseline idea of what

we’re dealing with in terms of the threats and what we’re dealing

with with respect to Panamanian capabilities. From that, what we

hope to do is to make certain offers to the new Panamanian Government in terms of training and equipment, hopefully to bring in

other allied countries, Japan. I have spoken to the Japanese about

this, I have spoken to the British about it and other major users

of the canal so that we can all contribute to the continued security

of the canal.

Mr. BARR. OK. When will that be ready?

Mr. ROMERO. I think we’re talking about June, the study.

Mr. BARR. OK. And we’d be transmitting a copy of that to the

Hill so we can take—to this committee, subcommittee so we

can——

Mr. ROMERO. I will mention that to the national intelligence officer who is guiding that process, yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. With regard to the facilities and the presence of China

through Hutchinson-Wampoa on both sides of the Panama Canal,

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both ports, is there anything about the arrangements between the

Panamanian Government and Hutchinson-Wampoa or COSCO or

the Chinese Government or the Chinese military that is of concern

to our government?

Mr. ROMERO. I think what we see is a pretty straight commercial

deal to run port facilities and that sort of thing. Certainly, these

are pretty public in their nature, and we would, to the extent possible, insure that they would be run in an open and efficient way,

but as far as we can tell, it’s a straight commercial contract that

is being operated on now by Hutchinson-Wampoa.

Mr. BARR. So the U.S. Government has no concerns about these?

Do they believe that they are entirely in accord with the 1977 treaty?

Mr. ROMERO. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. Reports in the press regarding certain powers that

Panama may have arrived at with China and Hutchinson-Wampoa

notwithstanding to the contrary?

Mr. ROMERO. I think there’s been a lot of press speculation about

what this might mean, but in real—with respect to the facts on the

ground, there’s very little that would suggest that this is anything

other than a commercial deal.

Mr. BARR. Well, we did have some concerns about the commercial aspect of it, at one time also, didn’t we?

Mr. ROMERO. We did.

Mr. BARR. That there may have been some other payments

made?

Mr. ROMERO. I don’t know about other payments, but it seemed

that rather than a normal orderly process of submitting sealed

bids, et cetera, that bids and the information from those bids

seemed to be at least given to some bidders, and to—I think with

the intention on the part of Panamanians who are running this to

drive the bids up, and it resembled, I’m told, more of an auction

than a transparent, efficient and aboveboard bidding process.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. Ms. Salazar, does the Department of Defense have any concerns whatsoever with regard to the presence

and the circumstances under which Hutchinson-Wampoa, and

through them the Chinese, now maintain a presence on both ends

of the Panama Canal? Does the Department of Defense have any

concerns whatsoever about that?

Ms. SALAZAR. Sir, I’m not aware of any concerns, but what I can

do is, upon return to my office, I can talk to them.

Mr. BARR. Would you not be aware of them if there were concerns?

Ms. SALAZAR. Probably.

Mr. BARR. Are there any concerns that the Department of Defense has with the relationship between Panama and the Chinese,

specifically with regard to Chinese formal presence on both ends of

the Panama Canal at this point?

Ms. SALAZAR. I think so. As Ambassador Romero mentioned,

there’s a lot of speculations as to what will be the implications for

the canal to have Panama increase their closer bilateral relationship.

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Mr. BARR. Certainly our policies are built on more than speculation. Is there—are there any concerns that the Department of Defense has?

Ms. SALAZAR. Sir, not that I’m aware of right now, but like I

said, I can come back—— Mr. BARR. And if there were, you would be aware of them?

Ms. SALAZAR. Probably, except I can’t tell you 100 percent. I

would prefer to leave a window up for me to return to you if there

is some concerns.

Mr. BARR. I mean, that’s utterly unresponsive. On the one hand,

you say you would be aware of them, and now you say you’re not

necessarily aware of them.

Ms. SALAZAR. The reason why—— Mr. BARR. I mean, there may be some national security concerns

that the DOD has that may not be shared by the Department of

State. I mean, are there any—do we have any military concerns

about this?

Ms. SALAZAR. I guess the reason why I’m so hesitant is, you have

to understand, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Drug Enforcement, my concerns are specifically counterdrug-related. I would— what I will do is approach the DASD that has the responsibility of

Panama Canal, I guess, and Panama as a country and ask some

questions, and I will also talk to the DASD that has responsibility

over China, but as counterdrug supervisor, I would not necessarily

receive that type of information.

Mr. BARR. OK. Well, I understand that and if you would get back

to me on that I would appreciate it.

Ms. SALAZAR. Absolutely.

[The information referred to follows:]

I have discussed this issue with senior Department officials. The Department has

found no hard evidence to suggest that China, through Hutchinson-Wampoa or any

other firm, has the capability, the desire, or the wherewithal to seek to control the

Panama Canal after its transfer to Panama on 31 December 1999. In the judgment

of our analysts Hutchinson-Wampoa’s motivations are strictly commercial, and existing Panamanian Law and Treaties provide the United States ample recourse to

ensure that the Canal remains open and secure for world commerce.

Mr. BARR. Just one final thing to followup on a question that I

had previously with regard to the AIP upgrades for the P–3’s. Are

the P–3’s we have in the region, including in the areas that you

cited over here with the FOLs, are they upgraded sufficient to meet

the needs, the drug threat and to monitor properly?

Ms. SALAZAR. When you’re talking about the P–3’s you’re talking

about—I guess I’m not——

Mr. BARR. I’m talking about the naval reserve and active duty

P–3’s.

Ms. SALAZAR. I believe we do have an upgrade program with

them. I could provide you more details of it, but I do believe we’re

trying to upgrade them. They’re not sufficient.

Mr. BARR. So they are not yet upgraded?

Ms. SALAZAR. No, I believe not all of them.

Mr. BARR. OK. Thank you. Mrs. Mink, did you have any final

questions?

Mrs. MINK. No questions.

Mr. BARR. OK. We appreciate Mr. Romero and Ms. Salazar very

much being with us today, sharing your thoughts and answering

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questions, and we would appreciate the followup materials that you

all will be—Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GILMAN. Just one thing if I might do, could either of the panelists—is Panama without a military head or sufficient professional

police who can handle the FARC along the Colombian border?

Mr. ROMERO. Mr. Chairman, I’m not a counterinsurgency specialist, but the area is exceedingly remote. There are not a lot of

transportation links to it. As you know, it’s the area where the

Panama or the Pan-American Highway is not complete. It’s jungle,

triple canopy, and while they operate there across the border and

probably have some sites in Panama that they visit with great regularity, I haven’t seen the intelligence community express alarm

that somehow that could get translated into a threat that would

move north or move toward the canal. It’s been there for quite

some time. We’re working with the Panamanians to train them to

better root it out, but I haven’t seen any information analysis and

what have you from the community that would suggest that it’s

growing or in the near to medium term could be constituted.

Mr. GILMAN. Ms. Salazar, do you want to comment?

Ms. SALAZAR. I would actually have nothing more to answer.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would also, without objection, leave the record open for 2 weeks for any additional questions that any member of the subcommittee might have to be submitted to you. Thank you very much, and we’d like to wish both

of you well and look forward to seeing you again.

Ms. SALAZAR. Thank you.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. And as soon as Mr. Romero and Ms.

Salazar leave, we’d like to invite our second panel forward, and

while the transition is taking place, I would like to introduce Lieutenant General Gordon Sumner, retired. General Sumner served as

chairman of the InterAmerican Defense force and also served as

Ambassador at large for Latin American affairs. He’s been studying, traveling in and writing about Latin America for over 30 years

and is internationally renowned and recognized expert.

We’re also pleased to have Dr. Mark Falcoff with us here today.

Dr. Falcoff is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute [AEI]. He has authored numerous books and articles about

Latin America, including the volume ‘‘Panama’s Canal: What Happens When the United States Gives a Small Country What it

Wants.’’

We appreciate very much Dr. Falcoff and Lieutenant General

Sumner being with us here today, and as both gentlemen are taking their seats, as the chairman indicated to the previous panel,

this is an oversight hearing, and we, therefore, have all of our witnesses placed under oath. So, if you would, please, both Lieutenant

General Sumner and Dr. Falcoff, raise your right hands—and Mr.

Lyons, I didn’t know you were going to be here.

Mr. Lyons recently retired as the Drug Enforcement Administration’s [DEA’s], country attache in Bogota, Colombia, and also will

be able to answer questions today and provide meaningful insight

into some of the problems that we’ve already been discussing.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Mr. BARR. Thank you. If you will, be seated, and if the record

would reflect that all three witnesses answered that question in the

affirmative.

If we could then, General Sumner, if you would like to make a

brief oral statement and all the witnesses’ remarks, if they do

choose to submit written remarks, will be printed in their entirety

in the record. General.

STATEMENTS OF LT. GENERAL GORDON SUMNER, U.S. ARMY

(RET.); DR. MARK FALCOFF, RESIDENT SCHOLAR, AMERICAN

ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH;

AND LARRY LYONS, FORMER DEA ATTACHE, BOGOTA, COLOMBIA

General SUMNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have

a written statement which I would request be placed on the record.

Mr. BARR. So ordered.

General SUMNER. But you know, sitting here I’ll be 75 years old

in July, and I fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and it’s

de ́ja` vu. What we are seeing here is the disarming of America.

America’s been disarmed conventionally, disarmed from a nuclear

standpoint as witness to what’s going on up at Los Alamos, and our

intelligence. They say we don’t have any intelligence, we don’t

know what’s going on. We’re disarmed from an intelligence standpoint and, particularly, counterintelligence, and we have the moral

disarmament which is—reflects directly on what we have here

today, and the drug problem is part of this moral disarmament of

the country.

I really felt badly about Ambassador Romero and Secretary

Salazar. I have served with Peter Romero, and I—you know, it appalls me that he has to be subpoenaed to be brought in here. It’s

just incredible, and the American people don’t know what’s going

on.

I surfed the Internet last night and I surfed the TV, and there’s

nothing about Panama. The American people should be worried

about Panama, and I have a videotape to demonstrate that later

on, but you know, we’re sort of rolling over and playing dead here.

The American people, if they want to see a catastrophe, economic

catastrophe for this country, I’ll show you what happens when we

close the Panama Canal, and if I were a member of the FARC

narcoterrorists, I would have that Panama Canal right in my

sights, and Congressman Barr, you and I have been there. You

know how fragile, you blow up the dam, it takes years to fill that,

that dam with fresh water. The locks are very fragile.

This whole thing, there’s an unreality about it. The American

people, instead of worrying about Y2K or Kosovo, they should be

worried about the Panama Canal. Yet, I look in the paper this

morning, there’s absolutely nothing about it, and we’re—those

whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Some of this

is just unreal.

I brought up the point about we’re getting out, we can’t reverse

it. As a military person we can always reverse it. At 11:59 p.m.,

on December 31, 1999, if the military is ordered to stay there, by

God they’ll stay. They follow orders, and if they have to dig latrines

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and live in tents, they’ll stay there. This—you know, this is not irreversible.

And what we’ve seen here is the left wing, the extreme left wing

of the Democratic party in this country and the extreme left wing

of the PRD in Panama being able to get together and insuring that

these negotiations failed. Now, I talked to John Negroponte when

he was the negotiator and he was sent to the table with an empty

bag. A week later he quit after I talked to him, and you go down

and you talk—you see what the—what Peter Romero went

through—Ambassador Romero went through a long litany of the

obfuscation. No matter what was being done out front, behind the

scenes, there were people insuring that these negotiations would

fail.

My Panamanian friends, and as you know I spent a lot of time

with Panamanians. Matter of fact I went down and supported Toro

because Endara was such a big crook, the previous President, and

he would be in jail if he didn’t have a diplomatic immunity by

being a member of the Central American Parliament. I thought we

were going to get something better out of the President who’s

known as El Toro.

But the mantra in Panama is always, hey, let’s make a deal. I

think the Panamanians would be delighted to see this thing

worked out. Seventy-five percent of the Panamanian people want

to see us stay, the United States and United States military, and

I think if you took a poll amongst the American people, you’d find

that the majority of the American people want us to keep some sort

of a presence in Panama, and I’ll show that on the tape here because of the economic realities, to say nothing about the drug and

the military realities.

We talked about cost-effectiveness. I went down, and I’m not Jessie Jackson, although when I heard this problem with getting the

hostages out of Colombia, the State Department ought to be talking

to Jessie Jackson, to send him down there, maybe he can get them

out, but the strategy here has always been, look, we’ll send drugs

north and the guns will come south. Right now, we’re seeing the

Caribbean, and if you looked at that map over there that the Pentagon had up here, if I were a drug general I’d be delighted. I can

run circles around that, and I can run through the seams. I mean,

that’s not going to do it.

And you know, when we talk about the money, the hundreds of

millions of dollars—now, I was in Panama and I talked to the foreign minister whose name, to protect the innocent, will remain

unnamed, and he told me for $20 million we can get a deal. Let’s

make a deal. I came back and I talked to my Senator, Pete Domenici. You may have heard of him. He’s Mr. Moneyman over on the

Senate side, and Pete said, at $20 million that doesn’t pass the ‘‘so

what’’ test.

So you know we, we’re talking about this—we’re talking about

what we could have had for tens of millions of dollars. Now, we’re

talking about hundreds of millions of dollars to do something that

won’t do the job.

Now, let me—because I know my time is limited—if they’d play

the video over here, can they do that? Or did everybody—all right.

[Video shown.]

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Mr. BARR. General, if you’re going to speak, you’ll have to do it

from the microphone I’m afraid.

General SUMNER. OK. I can do that.

Mr. BARR. So the court reporter can pick it up.

General SUMNER. All right. The first part of this is narrated.

This comes from Los Alamos National Laboratory. We put—the Department of Transportation put $800 million into putting up a national simulation of our transportation system, and the idea here—

and I have a letter for Congressman Gilman and, I hope, Senator

Helms to send to Secretary Cohen to feed the information from the

canal into this national transportation system, and this shows our

transportation system.

It’s only going to take a couple of minutes, but we cannot only

show in macro terms but we can show it in very discrete terms,

and you’ll see in just a moment where we can take an individual

truck and individual rail car and individual cargo and move it

across the country, and you see going from Los Angeles to Alabama

here, you see where we can take an individual cargo, move it

across the country, keep track of it, and this is the dry canal. Now,

here you see the cargo being moved and going across the country

here, through Dallas, and you’ll see that we can actually, with the

pointer you’ll see here in just a moment we can, we can track the

individual cargo, and this is an $800,000 simulation, which if we

feed the Panama canal information into it, will show, and here we

have a pointer that’s following the individual cargo across the country, that the—it’s an amazing piece of work.

I think the State Department has been and others have been

saying, well, look, if the canal is closed, we have the dry canal.

Well, the dry canal is full and there’s no way when you take—40

percent of all the grain in this country goes through the canal,

we’re talking about hundreds of millions of tons. There’s no way

that this system can handle it, and it would be—if the canal were

closed for 7 days, 15 days, 30 days, 60 days or longer, it would be

an absolute economic disaster for this country, and I don’t think

the American people understand that at all.

And if I were the narcoterrorists, and here’s the chart that shows

the delays that we have built in here now, there’s just no way that

the country can deal with this, and the dry canal is an absolute

phony argument in my estimation. That’s the end, that’s the end

of the thing.

I just wanted to bring that up. I think it’s important for Congressman Gilman and Senator Helms to ask Secretary Cohen to do

this. It costs about $500,000 to go ahead and take that information

and feed it into it, into the national simulation here.

I’d like to come back to Congresswoman Mink’s point, you know,

what we have been doing. This has been a wreck, a train wreck

that we’ve seen for years, yet nothing has happened. Why? Because

there is a—I think—you know, one thing that really amazes. We

talk about defense and we talk about the State Department,

where’s the NSC in this? You know, and in my statement, you

know, Sandy Berger, Secretary Albright, Secretary Cohen, these

people are just not, they’re not focused on anything in this hemisphere.

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And I call it Kosovo—Kosovo is the correct pronunciation— Kosovo West. As we speak, the FARC is going in, killing the young

men, recruiting the children, et cetera, and we have it right here

on our doorstep, yet we’re doing nothing about it, and you know,

I think now is the time. With the new President down there, something should be done, and I think—I say it’s never too late, and I

think for the good of this country we’ve created a vacuum down

there, and we’d better do something about it.

And I see the red light is on, which means I’ve gone over my

time, but I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee, and incidentally, Bill Richardson sent me over to see

Joe Ritter. They wanted me to go down and be the negotiator, and

I volunteered to do it then, and I volunteer to do it now. Thank you

very much.

[The prepared statement of General Sumner follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Thank you very much, General. Dr. Falcoff, if you

have a brief statement.

Mr. FALCOFF. Yes, a very brief statement. Mr. Chairman and

Congressman Gilman, it’s a privilege to share the table here with

a distinguished soldier and patriot, General Sumner.

I want to talk a little bit about Panamanian politics because

that’s the thing that seems to have been missing from this hearing

this morning. Criticisms have been launched against the administration. I don’t happen to belong to the same political party as the

administration, and maybe those criticisms are accurate ones insofar as its management of negotiations are concerned. I don’t know.

I’m a private citizen and an individual scholar, but I do know

something about Panamanian politics, and I think it needs to be

brought to the table here.

I believe the basic reason why we have not been able to reach

agreement is that as chief representative of the party of General

Torrijos, President Perez Balladares could not be seen as betraying

the latter’s nationalist legacy by overturning key provisions of the

treaty, namely, the ultra sensitive subject of U.S. troops. Perez

Balladares tried to come up with a better mousetrap to circumvent

this problem with the creation of the multilateral antinarcotics center.

Throughout the period when we were negotiating or discussing

this, I don’t know how many hundreds of times President Perez

Balladares told his people it wouldn’t be a U.S. base, it wouldn’t

even be a military installation. Ninety percent of the people would

be United States people, most of them would be uniformed, but

they wouldn’t be able to fly under the United States flag, they

wouldn’t be able to fly under the Panamanian flag. There’d be some

kind of fictitious international personality that would govern this

center.

Even this didn’t satisfy President Perez Balladares’ critics, particularly the Arnulfistas and that’s the party that’s soon to govern

Panama. It’s the second largest in Panama. It repeatedly accused

President Balladares of conniving to overturn the treaties and impose a new era of U.S. military hegemony. This view, by the way,

was shared largely by other opposition parties, that is to say, Papa

Egoro and all the others.

Now, even if—the point I’m trying to make, members of the committee, is this—even if the United States and Panama had been

able to reach final agreement, it is more than probable that it

would have failed to win approval in a plebiscite. Why? Not because most Panamanians wouldn’t enjoy having the United States

stay. General Sumner is right. In my book—I don’t know how

many of you have looked at my book. I reproduced any number of

public opinion surveys that show overwhelming percentages, but

when you translate that into active political participation in a plebiscite, what happens? What happens is the government that

convokes the plebiscite loses it. Why does it lose it? Because Panama is a deeply divided society. There’s no such thing as a majority

party. Right now we have three groups that represent like 15 parties.

I remind you, for example, that when President Endara called a

plebiscite to make some minor changes to the Constitution, it

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failed. It failed only because all of the opposition parties gained up

against the ruling party. Why did the plebiscite fail to change the

Constitution to allow President Balladares to run for a second

term? Answer: He represents only 30 percent, 33 percent of the

vote. The other parties lined up against him.

I can assure you that on an issue as sensitive as a United States

military presence in Panama, everybody’s going to be waving the

Panama flag, yelling ‘‘more Panamanian than thou,’’ and I should

add one last comment, and that is, that the President-elect represents the party that has been most consistently anti-United

States or at least opposed to a residual United States military presence. They’re people of principle. I happen to think they’re wrong,

but they’re principled.

The PRD is beyond good and evil, and indeed, General Sumner

was quite right to expect the ‘‘Toro’’—President Balladares—might

indeed have done just what you thought because, indeed, what— he was looking for a gimmick to allow him to say, ‘‘I’m allowing the

military to stay but it isn’t the U.S. military, it’s some multi-national military.’’ So, I think we need to be very sensitive to Panamanian politics.

We have 7 months now in which—well, you say a couple minutes,

I say 7 months—we have to conclude an agreement, it has to be

passed by the Panamanian National Assembly, and then it has to

be put to a plebiscite. Those are very high hurdles in Panamanian

politics.

You might say, well, how can that be if 70 percent of the population of Panama or 77 percent in some polls favor this. These are

the histories of Panamanian politics. I invite you to read my book,

members of the committee, and you will learn a good deal more

about it.

Thank you for your time and attention.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Falcoff follows:]

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Mr. BARR. The mystery is not unknown to us here in this country, about U.S. politics as well.

Mr. FALCOFF. Well, sir, as I say, I am not an expert on what

went on in the State Department, but I have been following Panama for a very long time.

Mr. BARR. Well, we see the same things here. There constantly

seems to be a disconnect between polls and what people actually

care about when you talk to them.

Mr. Lyons.

Mr. LYONS. Mr. Chairman, Chairman Gilman, it’s a pleasure to

be here. I did not prepare a written text, believing that I would be

most valuable in answering some of your questions, but let me offer

to you that whatever the situation is, I believe my value to you as

a committee and to the government is the ability to look at the future and see what we need to do to fix and improve the things that

we are already doing to compensate for history, if you will.

I’m sure there’ll be continued efforts related to Panama in trying

to maintain that base, and in lieu of not having a base there, having other options. I firmly believe, and as I presented to both of you

gentlemen, having been to Colombia and seen the presentations,

that if we are going to be successful at stopping drug trafficking

out of Colombia and Central and South America, the two drugs

have two different solutions.

First of all, on the issue of heroin, which was mentioned this

morning, the eradication of the opium poppies is the only viable solution. I have stated that many times, and quite frankly, I believe

as a result of visits by yourself when you were down there with

now Speaker Hastert, the issue of how to do that then led to the

evolving decisions to go for the Blackhawk helicopters, and I commend you for that and the progress there, albeit slow.

The other issue is cocaine. If cocaine does not get over the Andes

Mountains, in Colombia and/or in Peru it doesn’t get into the transit zone. I have said for many years, one—I believe one of our biggest problems in the United States in the way we do business in

the government, it’s that we have, and using a military term, divide and conquer. We have divided our efforts, and therefore, conquered ourselves. We have yet to fully implement the strategies in

place which focus on the source zone. If we keep cocaine from crossing the mountains, it never gets into containers, it never gets into

the high seas, it doesn’t get onto the ports, it cannot hide under

the economy and the population of everything north of the Andes

Mountains, and until we successfully focus on the source zone and

implement those things necessary, then we are in a state of continuing the efforts that we’re at now, with some degrees of success,

but not the success that we all hope to reach.

One of the things, now that I’m out of government, and retired

and out working in the private sector, if there was anything that

I think you could do to help expedite a lot of the things that had

been put on the table, part of the solutions, would be some type of

mechanism that would enable the U.S. bureaucratic government

contracting process to be expedited. I hear the term ‘‘fast track’’

used in terms of expediting trade negotiations. If there was a way

to be able to write appropriate legislation to create fast track contracting capabilities for those things that are earmarked and deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:40 Mar 22, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00102 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62236 pfrm02 PsN: 62236
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signed for drug support to counter drug operations, we could save

an immense amount of time and be able to implement many of the

things that will make a difference across the board.

With that, I will end my remarks, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Lyons, and I’d like to thank all of the

witnesses for their remarks, and at this time I turn the microphone

over for questions to the distinguished chairman from New York,

Mr. Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want

to commend our panelists for being here today. I regret that I have

to run on to another meeting, but I think you’ve all underscored

the necessity of what we should be doing, and I particularly welcome General Sumner’s proposal. I have your letter here that we’ll

try to pass on to the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Cohen, with regard

to getting an analysis of the dry canal and how it impacts upon the

Panama situation.

And our good DEA representative has underscored the problems

we’re facing with trying to conduct an effective war against drugs.

And Mr. Falcoff, Dr. Falcoff, we appreciate your analysis.

We can’t underscore enough the necessity for the administration

to take another crack at trying to renegotiate the Howard base proposal and the multilateral center that could be properly administered in Panama. The cost savings alone are enough to make an

appropriate review, in addition to the effectiveness of having a

multilateral base right there in the middle of Central America

where we can reach out to all areas.

So, again, I want to thank our panelists, and Mr. Chairman,

please excuse me. I have to attend another meeting, but I think

this—both of these panels have been extremely helpful to us as we

address what has to be done to make our drug war even more effective.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we’re certainly honored to have you here.

General Sumner, could you just describe very, very briefly the

ease with which a terrorist or a group of terrorists could disable

the canal?

General SUMNER. Yes, I can, I can do that. I don’t think I’m telling the narcoterrorists anything that they don’t already know, and

it’s not just the Colombians. If I were a Middle Eastern terrorist,

if I were a Serb terrorist, this is the Achilles heel—someone said,

why, why take terrorism to the United States where the lion is,

when you can go down to Panama and get Bambi.

The canal is a very fragile engineering project. It depends upon

millions of gallons of fresh water to move a ship through the canal.

So the big enchilada here is Gatun Lake. If you blow that dam, it

will take years to fill it up, and the canal would be out of operation

for years. If you want to do it temporarily you can, as has been

suggested, sink a ship in the canal or you can get that ship out in

maybe 30, 60 days. If you blow one of the locks, and these are 70

ton locks about the size of that wall up there, you’ve seen them and

they—the United States no longer has the capability to fabricate

that sort of a lock gate, if you will. There are all sorts of things

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that can be done, and all of them are, one, easy, cheap and extremely difficult to defend against.

In my prepared statement, you know, I have in there that we

had plans to have a division of about 25,000 in there to try to protect the canal, and even that, according to most of my knowledgeable military friends, said, you know, that’s not enough. That was

assuming that we had the PDF, the Panamanian Defense Force,

there. Now, we have no Panamanian Defense Force. We were talking about here years later we’re going to try and train a couple of

companies, and you mean, the whole thing—it just boggles the

mind that we would leave this canal defenseless.

Now, having said that, if I were a god, I would put the InterAmerican Defense Board, which is the military arm of the Rio

Treaty, I would ask them to take over the mission of defense of the

canal and put 21 flags over the canal. At one time I had a plan

to go down there and do that. The 21 countries would bring in a

platoon, a company, and we would have an Inter-American Defense

Force there, all speaking Spanish, and of course, part of that would

be you need a very robust, vigorous, intelligence capability, because

the way you stop a terrorist is not when he gets to the canal. You

stop the terrorist when he leaves home and that’s where our intelligence comes into it.

But they—the defense of the canal is a very difficult thing, and

the impact on our economy, if it is closed, when we were down

there—I don’t know whether I was down there with you, Congressman Barr, but we had a ship—a dredge went down at the Culebra

Cut. Panamanians had no idea how to refloat it. There happened

to be an American engineer there who went over and looked at it

and said, well, this is what you do, A, B, C, D, E, F, and they got

it up and got it out. In the meantime we had 150 ships queued out

there.

Now, Ecuador, we talked about Ecuador. Ecuador puts 80 percent of their exports through that canal, and if you don’t think

that’s a biggy or—when you examine it country by country it’s

just—the impact and the importance of this canal is—it’s almost

beyond description.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

General SUMNER. Long answer, sorry.

Mr. BARR. Well, it’s very important—is a very important one.

Mr. Lyons, from the standpoint of United States antidrug effort,

our counternarcotics effort, what is your assessment of the complete pullout from Panama of the United States presence there?

Mr. LYONS. It will definitely have an impact, a negative impact.

The realities are that in the conversations this morning about this

percentage of reduction of air coverage, you’re talking about a percentage of reduction of less than necessary coverage to begin with.

Unfortunately, the Department of Defense has several assets that

are used that are being decommissioned. They’ve never had, in my

opinion, sufficient assets to begin with, and when you have the

drug issue in the position that it is at in the DOD priority list, it

will never account for enough of the assets that are needed.

Quite frankly, the real hope I see on the horizon is the ROTHR

Puerto Rico installation and potentially ROTHR Brazil. The other

interim solutions could be some aerostats which are fairly expenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:40 Mar 22, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62236 pfrm02 PsN: 62236
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sive, but the aerial support would not be drawn off because of conflicts such as you have now over in the Balkans or anywhere else

from Desert Storm, whenever something happens. United States

Customs used to be operating and based in Colombia. They picked

up and went home. They are law enforcement. They could be there.

They could fly. They could detect. They could monitor, and unfortunately, they’re almost a non-player anymore in the source zone. So

that is an entity that I think could be challenged to return to Colombia to provide the services necessary to be able to fill part of

this gap that DOD just doesn’t have assets for, which actually

United States Customs does.

Mr. BARR. You mentioned the term ‘‘aerostat’’. Could you briefly

describe what that is and how that might change the flight patterns of the smugglers so you could then—you can use that to kind

of push them in certain directions so you can improve your interdiction capability? Can you just describe that system briefly and

how it might work?

Mr. LYONS. Well, the aerostat—and I’m certainly not a technician so I have some layman familiarity with it—the aerostat is a

balloon type of device that holds the radar and its own internal

power system and it is tethered to the ground. My understanding

is they have made some substantial improvements with the aerostat system now to where they have a Teflon cable so it does not

become an attraction for electricity, electrical storms, et cetera. It

can be raised and lowered depending on what the weather conditions are at the time, but what it provides is that invaluable lookdown radar capability.

The traffickers—and we had in the embassy a beautiful photograph of a DC–3, one of the premier smuggling aircraft in Colombia, flying at about 800 feet above the tree tops in the jungle. You

cannot see or find those airplanes without a look-down capability.

We simply do not have enough military detection and monitoring

platforms to provide 24-hour coverage, 7 days a week, for as long

as we need it. The ROTHR will help but the aerostat gives you a

look-down capability, and experts in that can tell you what the coverage would be when it’s at full deployed height. That gives you the

ability then to see anybody flying low.

With some new ground based radars that are in Colombia, you

can see what flies high, but what the smugglers traditionally do is

fly below the radar signature or around it.

Mr. BARR. Lieutenant General Sumner, do you have any concerns about the Chinese presence, and in particular, would you

comment on any of the reports that certain of the provisions under

which Hutchinson-Wampoa was granted the rights for port facilities on both ends of the Panama Canal, whether that might possibly be in violation of the 1977 treaty?

General SUMNER. Yes, I appreciate that question.

The legality of the treaties has been brought into question again

and again, and this brings up another one, this Public Law No. 5

that they passed which is in violation of the treaties. Incidentally,

the treaty is being violated right and left. The treaty mandates

that you—we have these negotiations at the 1977 protocol, and incidentally, when you get looking at the treaties, I mean, this is a

compendium of all the notes and all the protocols that went on, and

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what we’re—what we see here is a constant pattern of duplicity, of

bribery.

The Chinese, because as you know we’re, Bechtel Corp. or any

other American corporation is constrained by the Foreign Corrupt

Practices Act. We cannot go in—well, Mobil tried it and Mobil did

get Rodman Storage there, but they’re being accused now of violating the Corrupt Practices Act, and the Chinese are—well, they’re

very slowly changing the Caribbean into a Chinese lake. It’s a slow

process. The Chinese look at things in terms of 100 years and

that’s not being critical. I think that they have a long-term vision.

They are looking at the choke points of the world, Gibraltar, Suez,

Panama, Malacca Straits, et cetera, and here we’re getting into a

strategic problem.

And they have now—and you can say—and Ambassador Romero

said, oh, well, they’re just operating the ports. Well, they happen

to be sitting there. What’s the difference between a port and a

base? Well, what’s the definition of is? I mean, you know, we’re getting into semantics here, and I think Congressman Burton, the

chairman, brought that point up very, very, very definitely, and I

feel sorry for Ambassador Romero trying to defend an indefensible

policy.

But the Chinese are doing what they see in their best national

interest, and whether it is moving in to get a grip on our canal or

whether it’s getting all of the weapons information out of Los Alamos National Laboratory, another thing that I’m very much involved in, the—and, you know, the Defense Department sitting

here saying that we haven’t even looked at this, that’s such—I

mean, that’s dissimulation of the worst type, I think, for the committee. It’s not honest with the committee, and Secretary Salazar,

I’ve known her for years and she’s trapped.

But the policy of this Clinton administration is the problem, and

until we get a change in the White House, I don’t think anything

is going to work, and I feel very depressed and pessimistic about

anything this government does with regards to Panama now, unless the Congress nails them down and makes them do it.

Now, if President Clinton wants to refurbish his tarnished legacy, this is one thing he could do. He could be the hero of the Western World and go down and see the President-elect of Panama,

Mireya Moscoso, and you know, do it. But why, why isn’t this important to America? I just fail to see it.

That is a long answer to your question.

Mr. BARR. Again, a very important one.

Focusing just very briefly, and I appreciate you all’s indulgence,

Dr. Falcoff, given your extensive background, both in the history of

Panama, as well as the political dynamics of the country, is there

anything that you can suggest that might be done at this point,

even though it is at the 11th hour, to refocus attention with the

Panamanian Government, in particular perhaps the incoming administration of Ms. Moscoso, to focus attention back on developing

some sort of joint presence down there that would give us the capability to continue operating with some degree of assurance our drug

interdiction efforts that, frankly, I don’t think these other scenarios

that were described this morning can hope to do?

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Mr. FALCOFF. May I just make—I have two points I’d like to

make in response. No. 1, as General Sumner said, even with 25,000

troops in the area, we couldn’t assure the defense of the canal. If

we were able to have something like the—whether it was the MCC,

the Multilateral, whatever the abbreviation is for the antidrug center, we’re only talking about a very small number of people and

we’re not talking about infantry-type troops. So their role will be

strictly limited to monitoring the drug flights and such things.

Likewise, such a small presence could do nothing to defend the

southern frontier of Panama with Colombia. That’s just—it’s impossible. I’m not even sure 25,000 troops, whether an Inter-American

force or whether a U.S. force, would be capable of doing this. So

I think it’s important to bear that in mind. There are very limited

things that can be accomplished with, with——

Mr. BARR. But perhaps important symbolically.

Mr. FALCOFF. Well, symbolically, perhaps. One can choose how

one wishes to evaluate that.

The other thing, though, that I want to say is that I’m very

doubtful that we can accomplish this in 7 months if the Panamanian Government doesn’t want to go along and cannot sell the idea

to its own political community. I’m not speaking of the Panamanian people. I’m speaking of the organized political community in

Panama. The National Assembly has to vote on this. The largest

party in the National Assembly is now the PRD, and they are not

likely to give this kind of thing to Ms. Moscoso. They’re going to

make life as miserable for her as possible. They’re going to wrap

themselves on the Panamanian flag, they’re going to call it—sell

out to the great legacy of General Torrijos, and this will have some

impact.

Now, that doesn’t mean, I suppose, that one shouldn’t try, if

that’s what one wants to do, and let me add an additional point.

I believe, the reason the Panamanian Government wanted 3 years

rather than 12 years is quite obvious. They plan to shake us down

at 3-year intervals.

I don’t know how often you’ve talked—I suppose you, Congressman Barr, because you had a personal history in Panama, you’ve

probably talked to more Panamanian politicians than most Members of the United States Congress. I had nine members of the National Assembly in my office the other day, and I could not quite

believe what I was told. I was told repeatedly the United States

had been so terribly selfish in Panama, we’d given Panama nothing, I mean, and that people from other Latin American countries

come to Panama and they’re astounded that there’s poverty in Panama. ‘‘How can there be poverty in Panama when you have been

so close to the U.S. all these years and you had this U.S. presence?’’ This was the mantra that was recited to me.

You see, one other dimension of this is the controversy over the

cleanup of the ranges. You know, it’s actually impossible to get

every last piece of unexploded ordinance out of those ranges, and

if you ask me, it’s a good thing we can’t because that assures some

protection for the environment in the area of the watershed around

Lake Gatun. But in any event, as you probably know, there’s a controversy over this. Does the Panamanian Government really want

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to clean those ranges up? Not on your life. It’s an excuse to shake

us down.

Now, in all defense of the administration, I think a 12-year demand for at least an opening negotiating gambit was reasonable.

Three years means every 3 years we’ll go through what we went

through with the Philippines. Finally, the Philippines raised the

bill too high, and you saw what we did.

So, I mean, there’s a whole politics to this in Panama that we

will have to get over. We can make our approaches. If we go to

President Moscoso—if President Clinton goes to President-elect

Moscoso, we might come out with a deal. It will cost a lot more

than you think it will if we’re the ones who are asking for it now.

Mr. BARR. General.

General SUMNER. But it will cost us less than the hundreds of

millions that it’s going to cost us otherwise, and I agree with my

colleague here, Dr. Falcoff, and his analysis of the political situation down there. It’s going to be difficult, but just because it’s difficult, we should try.

Now, about Howard Air Force Base. I think that—some of the

World Bank people have come to me, and they would, you know,

the last thing Panama needs is another international airport to

come in as underutilized. Now, we’re giving them—and I don’t

know how you’d put a figure on Howard Air Force Base, but it

probably—if it’s not in the billions of dollars, it’s in the hundreds

of millions. That facility is a strategic base and it’s got just—you

know, we just put a $20 million hospital in there, brand new,

which we’re going to turn over to them.

But the World Bank people looked at this in their private capacity, and they said what the United States should do down there is

put in Ellis Island South. We’ve talked about the drug problem,

we’ve talked about the immigrations problems, the customs problems that we have in New York, in Miami, et cetera. Their suggestion was, let’s take Howard Air Force Base and establish an Ellis

Island South and have all the air traffic come in there and have

the INS and the Customs people do their things there and then let

them come on to the United States, use that base, and that would

give us a United States presence there, not military. You know, we

don’t have to have a military presence. It’d be nice, but I think as

Dr. Falcoff has indicated, it may not be possible.

But there are, there are other things that I think—and incidentally, I understand, and I won’t say which Panamanian, but a very,

very influential Panamanian came to the World Bank with this

idea, and there are other things, but you have to have the will, you

have to have the vision and you have to have the security interest

of this country at heart. I don’t see that——

Mr. BARR. Or at least some understanding of it.

General SUMNER. Some understanding. I don’t see that with the

Clinton administration. I think they are—my Panamanian friends

say why doesn’t the Clinton administration want a United States

military presence in Panama, and I say, hey, the Clinton administration doesn’t want a United States presence in the United States.

So, you know, you’ve got a very fundamental attitudinal problem

here.

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And you know, the oligarchy, back to political, the oligarchy, the

Rabi Blancos in Panama, they see this as, you know, I showed you

the dry canal, they’re looking at a closed canal, and they look—you

know, they’re the Phoenicians of the Western World, and they see

their economic well-being going down the drain.

Now, a politician like Mayin Correa, and I assume she was reelected.

Mr. FALCOFF. The mayor of Panama City.

General SUMNER. The mayor of Panama City, she wants—she

understands this, and so we have, we have all these, you know, it’s

the politics of politics here, and it’s something that I hope that this

hearing, and we can get something out to the American people.

Mr. BARR. Well, we hope so. Of course, we’re hopeful that the

hearings over in the Senate almost a year ago would and they don’t

seem to have much impact either. I mean, I think we can all agree

that political situation in each country is unique to a large extent

or there are certain regional cultural aspects that we can identify

in certain parts of the world, but I understand, Dr. Falcoff, what

you’re saying, you know, you have to look in the entire history of

how the United States-Panama relations played themselves out in

the central role of the canal and it certainly complicates it.

I think what’s perhaps most mystifying to a lot of us is the fact

that this whole process sort of went forward without there seeming

to be any sort of commitment to really try and make it work, to

use, as the General said, some vision and understanding of the dynamics of the situation here, and that’s what’s really a shame.

If we found ourselves at this point in time, just a few months

from the complete turnover of all the remaining facilities and we

could look back and say we tried everything possible, we looked at

all the options, we talked with everybody that we could, we didn’t

leave any stone unturned and still there was no way to do it, that

will be one thing. Those things happen in international affairs.

Sometimes you simply cannot reach an agreement.

But I don’t think we’re at that point. We’re at this point now in

the 11.9th hour and we look back and there seems to have been

no commitment to really explore the various options in a way that

if there was some concept by this administration of the importance

of the canal, and very honestly, to some extent, I think it predates

this administration, too, but as with so many things, they’ve sort

of taken it to a new level. There just doesn’t seem to have been

that commitment to try and work things out, and I think there was

frustration on the part of the previous Ambassador who I think I

was very genuinely trying to work something out and get the parties together and so forth. That’s what is very frustrating.

If I could just ask one final question, it’s a little bit off of our

track here, Mr. Lyons, but taking advantage of your being here and

being very familiar with the antidrug efforts, not just in Colombia

but in the entire Andean region. You’re very familiar, I know we

discussed it down there and have discussed it up here, the Peruvian shoot-down policy which had been very, very effective for the

last couple of years, tangibly effective in terms of the cutback in

the amount of raw coca leaving the country.

It’s my understanding that because of a lack of good intelligence

and failure of the United States to provide timely upgrades to

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Peru’s pursuit aircrafts, which I believe are just two A–37’s, the

shoot-down policy has been essentially halted. Is that your understanding, and if so, what are the consequences of that?

Mr. LYONS. Well, the—over the years the intelligence provided,

I believe about 98 percent of it came from intercept operations

managed by DEA and in country with Peruvian National Police,

that provided the early tipoff warning to preposition and stage the

intercept aircraft, and then the in country aerial assets to intercept

and track so they could then vector in the Peruvian interceptors.

That’s the other two components necessary.

Finally, the Colombians, primarily, and some Brazilians, pilots,

that were flying in figured out that this is what is getting them

caught, their communications over their radios. So they have invoked what amounts to as a better OPSEC, operational security,

and are communicating far less. So that early warning is not there.

There are just simply insufficient look-down radar capabilities in

the area to be able to cover that huge area, to be able to provide

early warning based on a track. We don’t know exactly how they’re

operating. I believe the flights are still coming into Peru. They are

most likely landing without communicating, and instead of trying

to time their event to where the cocaine base or, in most cases,

bases is ready for pickup when the plane arrives, they load it and

it leaves immediately, the plane will come in and wait until it’s

ready. This way they don’t have to communicate. They can come

in, get a visual signal that it’s safe to land, and they can stay on

the ground until it’s ready, and then they can leave and it requires

no communications.

That, I believe, is the most likely scenario. We don’t know for

certain, but in any event, the movements, I believe, are still continuing without substantial communications. So, the inability to

have sufficient aerial radar detection platforms, and DOD just simply doesn’t have enough of them.

And in the foreseeable future—— Mr. BARR. When you speak about those platforms, what do you

have in mind in particular? P–3’s?

Mr. LYONS. Well, there’s P–3’s with domes. There’s the AWACs

that are able to look down. There’s tremendously complicated sophisticated systems that get diverted every time there’s a hiccup

some place else in the world and for very good reasons. However,

that leaves you then with less capability.

Mr. BARR. Sometimes there are good reasons, sometimes there

aren’t, but your point is well taken.

Mr. LYONS. In any event, they’re always a competing resource.

Quite frankly, the shift to the ROTHR is a very welcome addition

to this. I just wish that the Puerto Rican ROTHR would come on

line sooner. I understand now it’s projected for January, this coming January, which will help tremendously, but it still doesn’t overcome the need to have a tracker aircraft to be able to go find that

initial blip on the screen, verify what it is and then be able to vector in the intercept aircraft.

And then—I know that there’s work going forward on the upgrades to the A–37’s and the potted radar that will go on that aircraft to be able to assist it in finding, detecting and staying with

the target aircraft, but again, that whole project is held up in the

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contracting process, and it may be a year to a year and a half before you actually see the upgrades on the ground in those two countries, Peru and Colombia.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. Before we break, I’d like to recognize in

the audience Ambassador David Jordan. We appreciate your joining us, Mr. Ambassador. Ambassador Jordan served as United

States Ambassador of Peru in the mid-1980’s and is very, very familiar with and has been a very able and eloquent spokesman for

many of the issues we’re dealing with today. We appreciate your

joining us, Mr. Ambassador.

Did you have a final comment, General?

General SUMNER. I was going to call attention to the fact that

David Jordan, the Ambassador David Jordan was here. In that connection, you know, we had the Committee of Santa Fe which, one,

two, three and now we’re thinking about Committee of Santa Fe

four to lay out policy for the Presidential candidates next year because I think our total policy to include the pseudo-drug war in

that unresourced war, I think this whole policy has got to be reversed, and I would hope that in the new millennium we will see

a reversal of this policy because we’re losing the war, and I don’t

think you can put—you can get into the semantics all you want to,

but we are losing the war. We may lose our economy, and I don’t

think the American people have any idea what’s going on.

Mr. BARR. Well, we certainly appreciate the efforts of all three

of you. We know that you’ve been out there fighting in a lot different arenas. We very much appreciate it. We appreciate you all

being here today to share your thoughts with us. We will leave the

record open for 2 weeks for any additional questions to be submitted, and if you all have any additional materials, your written

statements will be included. Anything else you’d like to bring to the

committee’s attention and make them part of the record, please get

it to us within the next 2 weeks.

We appreciate it very much, and if there are no other questions,

the hearings are hereby adjourned. Thank you, gentlemen.

[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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