U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

65–738 CC WASHINGTON : 2001

THE NARCOTICS THREAT FROM COLOMBIA

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

AUGUST 6, 1999

Serial No. 106–132

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

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

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

GILBERT A. 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 August 6, 1999 ............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Beers, Randy, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and

Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State; Brian E. Sheridan,

Assistant Secretary, Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict,

Department of Defense; William E. Ledwith, Chief of International

Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration; and Michael Shifter,

senior fellow, Inter-American Dialogue ....................................................... 104

McCaffrey, General Barry, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy ................................................................................................................... 65

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

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Maryland, prepared statement of ................................................................ 153

Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana:

Letter dated October 2, 1997 .................................................................... 17

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 22

Hutchinson, Hon. Asa, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Arkansas, prepared statement of ................................................................ 60

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

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 150

Ledwith, William E., Chief of International Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of ............................................. 118

McCaffrey, General Barry, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement of ............................................................................ 71

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

Florida:

Article dated November 29, 1997 ............................................................. 5

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 147

Rohrabacher, Hon. Dana, a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 152

Sheridan, Brian E., Assistant Secretary, Special Operations and Low

Intensity Conflict, Department of Defense, prepared statement of .......... 106

Shifter, Michael, senior fellow, Inter-American Dialogue, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 130

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THE NARCOTICS THREAT FROM COLOMBIA

FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 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 9:10 a.m., in room

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

Present: Representatives Mica, Barr, Gilman, Souder, Hutchinson, Ose, Towns, Cummings, and Kucinich.

Also present: Representatives Reyes and Schakowsky.

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

Gilbert A. Macklin and Sean Littlefield, professional staff members; Cherri Branson, minority counsel; and Earley Green, minority

staff assistant.

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I would like to call this meeting of the

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

The subject of the hearing this morning is the narcotics threat

from Colombia. As our regular order, I would like to start with an

opening statement and then yield to those Members that are with

us. We will be joined by some other Members, but we want to get

started as we have several panels to hear from today.

This is a very important hearing since our hemisphere in the

United States is facing one of the greatest challenges to regional

and national security as the situation with Colombia continues to

deteriorate. During the past few days, the United States military

lost five American lives in the war on drugs being waged in Colombia. The influx of illegal drugs to the United States is our Nation’s

No. 1 social challenge and the most insidious national threat we

have faced. Because three-quarters of the heroin on the United

States streets and virtually all of the cocaine comes from Colombia

today, this subcommittee is once again investigating and conducting oversight of our administration’s counterdrug activities in Colombia.

For the record, I have been to Colombia several times over the

past few years, most recently in February. I have seen firsthand

the enormity and complexity of the drug insurgency problem there.

Even since February, the threat has grown substantially. Events in

the country appear to be spiralling out of control. Colombia is now

what military officials call situation critical. Many of us on the Hill

saw the situation coming years ago as this administration repeatVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:44 Jan 22, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\65738.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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edly ignored the problem. As a result, Colombia now supplies 80

percent of the cocaine entering the United States.

More disturbing, in just the past 5 years there has been an absolute explosion of poppy cultivation in Colombia. High purity Colombian heroin in tremendous quantities is now flooding our communities. Heroin overdoses have doubled in the past 2 years, and that

is those ending in fatalities. Since 1992, heroin use by our teenagers has soared 825 percent.

Our DEA heroin signature program indicates that 75 percent of

the heroin seized in the United States originates in Colombia. This

chart was provided to us by Tom Constantine, the former DEA director. If you took this chart several years ago, it would be almost

zero. Most of it would be coming in from southwest Asia, Asia, and

Mexico wasn’t even on the charts.

Cocaine was merely processed in Colombia some 5, 6 years ago.

Now, Colombia is the major producer of cocaine in the world.

Compounding the problem, Colombia faces a full-scale guerilla

war, one that is financed almost entirely by narcotics trafficking.

By recent accounts, the armed conflict is now raging out of control

in Colombia. Rebel insurgents are becoming more and more aggressive and killing people indiscriminately. In fact, more people have

been displaced in Colombia than in Kosovo even at the height of

the recent conflict, and there are indications of a potential mass exodus from Colombia. More than 300,000 Colombians were internally displaced just in 1998, compared to 230 in Kosovo during that

same period of time. In short, despite 5 years of congressional pleas

for assistance to Colombia, countless hearings and intense congressional effort, resources approved by Congress have failed to be provided to Colombia.

Two weeks ago today, five American men and one woman from

the United States Army were killed in the line of duty in Colombia

when their United States reconnaissance plane crashed on a mountain on a counterdrug mission into narcoguerrilla territory. This

marks the first time in United States history that American military personnel have been killed in action in Colombia’s drug war.

American blood has also been spilled on Colombian soil in other

ways. In addition to these five Americans, three contract pilots

have been killed in Colombia over the past 2 years. Three Americans were abducted and brutally murdered by the FARC, still not

brought to justice. We will show some tape in a few minutes that

raises questions about why the murderers of these Americans have

not been captured. They were killed by Colombia’s largest group of

drug trafficking guerrillas earlier this year, and numerous Americans have been kidnapped by Colombia narcoguerrillas.

The longest held U.S. hostages are three American missionaries

from my district, which have been unaccounted for since 1993. Additionally, nearly 5,000 Colombian policemen have been killed by

narcoguerrillas, and nearly 40,000 Colombians have been murdered

in this conflict over the past decade. In fact, more deaths occurred

in Colombia last year from the drug war than in Kosovo during the

recent inhumanity we saw in that country. Yet, this war is not recognized by the United States and has been largely ignored by this

administration.

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Our U.S. drug czar recently confirmed that the dual threats of

narcotic trafficking and the rebel insurgency have become indistinguishable. While the administration grasps for an effective policy

to deal with what they have now termed an emergency, Colombia’s

narcoterrorism now poses the single greatest threat to the stability

of our entire hemisphere.

What brought about this situation and what brought us to the

brink of this disaster? Today, we will examine this question along

with a series of other critical issues, including this administration’s

inability or unwillingness to deliver drug fighting support and

equipment even today to our trusted allies in Colombia. Time and

again, this administration has ignored the emerging situation in

Colombia despite congressional oversight hearings that have tried

repeatedly to call attention to the impending crisis.

In February and July 1997, the subcommittee held oversight

hearings on the counterdrug problem in Colombia. In March 1998,

the subcommittee held an oversight hearing on regional

counterdrug efforts. At the same time, the House International Relations Committee held a hearing on Colombia’s heroin crisis in

June 1998. They also held a hearing on the implementation of the

western hemisphere drug elimination act in March 1999, and recently they also held hearings on Colombia and Panama and the

situation there.

By contrast, this administration has compounded the situation in

Colombia by reversing course on important policy issues. Just recently, this administration issued a policy reversal on information

sharing with the Colombian military.

In 1996 and 1997, when this administration decertified Colombia

without a national interest waiver, it severely undermined the legitimate drug fighting efforts of General Serrano, who heads the

Colombian National Police, and also cutoff IMET training and critical equipment so badly needed in that country at that time.

Executing any effective antinarcotics program has been fatally

handicapped by the absence of United States’ intelligence sharing

due in part to the reduced air coverage after the forced closure of

Howard Air Force base in Panama. It wasn’t bad enough that we

did not give them information that we should be sharing. We now

have a situation, with the forced closing of the Panama Air Force

base and the United States being kicked out of Panama, in which

our forward surveillance flights are down to almost nothing. This

gap in surveillance capability has put the entire region at risk now

and for many months to come.

This administration has also displayed a schizophrenic approach

to providing aid to Colombia. While very publicly calling for $1 billion in emergency aid last week, the same administration requested

only $40 million for Colombia just 6 months ago and blocked assistance—all assistance there 2 years ago. Indeed, in a bold display of

hypocrisy, the administration’s fiscal year 2000 budget request did

not include a single dollar of the $280 million authorized by Congress for Colombia under the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, an emergency congressional appropriation which was

initiated by the former chair of the Drug Policy oversight Committee, Mr. Hastert, in the last Congress.

4

Yesterday, I found that Mr. Hastert, now Speaker of the House,

again chaired this responsibility in the previous Congress. Saturday, November 29, it is an op-ed, Voice of the People, in the Chicago tribune. It is 1997, and this is just two sentences out of his

statement: With 60 percent of all heroin seizures being Colombian

dope—now, I showed you the chart that we got. We are up to 75

percent, but this was at that particular time—what has the Clinton

administration done to combat this latest craze? The short answer

is nothing but vacillate.

Then he also went on to say, the White House and its drug czar,

Barry McCaffrey, must develop a strategic plan for combating the

looming heroin problem. He asks why helicopters that are Huey

helicopters, which can operate safely at altitudes, and ammunition

must get to Colombia. These are questions that he asked in 1997,

why they were not getting there.

Without objection, I would like to make this part of the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

5

6

Mr. MICA. This administration has resisted congressional efforts

to ensure that needed drug fighting equipment makes its way to

Colombia in a timely manner. The administration has fought us on

Black Hawk utility helicopters getting to Colombia for the past 3

years and to date not a single Black Hawk helicopter has yet made

it to Colombia. Notably, there is one sitting right now on a tarmac

in Stanford, CT.

Likewise, this administration fought us on upgraded Huey II helicopters for the Colombian National Police. Again, to date, only 2

of 12 upgraded Huey II helicopters have made it to Colombia despite the fact that right now 4 Huey II helicopters outfitted and

ready to go are sitting on a Tarmac in Ozark, AL. These Huey II

helicopters are vital to protecting planes which conduct crop eradication in Colombia and vital to getting the cocaine labs and vital

to eliminating high altitude heroin poppies.

I will show a tape in a few minutes, and you will also see the

results on the Colombian forces and what has happened by not getting the adequate equipment there.

Today, there are reports of increased activity by the 15,000

Marxist narcoterrorist guerrillas also known as the FARC. This

army of insurgents, heavily financed by the drug traffickers, controls nearly one half of Colombia and now actually threatens the

hemisphere’s second oldest democracy.

As chairman of this subcommittee, I am deeply concerned that

the FARC army has gone largely unchecked and is expanding now

beyond Colombia’s borders. The United States can ill afford further

instability in this region. With 20 percent of the United States’ daily supply of crude and refined oil imports coming from that area

and with the strategically important Panama Canal located just

150 miles to the north, the national security implications of Colombian rebel activity spilling over into neighboring countries are now

enormous.

I just spoke about 20 percent of our oil supply. I obtained some

tapes from a private firm, videotapes, and with permission, I would

like to show them. It takes approximately 31⁄2 to 4 minutes. This

graphically displays what we are facing.

Could we play those tapes, please?

These are private tapes by a commercial. Can we advance that

a little bit? I think they didn’t start it at the right point. I just

want to show 31⁄2 minutes of it.

These tapes were taken by a private firm that was hired by the

oil pipelines to try to protect the oil pipelines there, but it shows

the kind of equipment that we have been attempting to get to the

national police, which they don’t have. It is absolutely incredible

that a private firm can get this equipment—has gotten this equipment down there. These pictures were taken in 1997 and 1998.

[Tape played.]

Mr. MICA. Again, we did not get the helicopters that they requested there.

[Tape played.]

Mr. MICA. These pictures were all taken with night vision equipment. Everything you see is at night, and they have never been

shown before. Again, this is all commercial equipment.

[Tape played.]

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Mr. MICA. This is a commercial firm identifying the murders of

three American citizens. Again, all infrared at night.

Mr. REYES. What kind of infrared is being used here?

Mr. MICA. Just a sophisticated infrared, but it is commercial.

This gives you an idea of what is going on there, the difficulty

we face. The helicopters that were requested by Chairman Hastert

when he was chairman were not there. The equipment is not there.

The insurgency that we face, the inability of us to even go after— provide equipment to go after the murderers of Americans, and yet

a commercial firm can easily identify them.

Finally, the ecological damage that is being done to that country

and the attempts by the Marxist guerrillas to cutoff the oil supply,

which certainly is in the vital interest of the United States.

In conclusion, with drugs flooding our borders and this pending

regional turmoil, our vital national interests are undeniably at

stake in this situation. We face a very serious and growing challenge. The question is what policies and strategies our country and

our executive agencies in this administration will adopt to meet the

threat and protect the vital interests of the United States in this

region.

Excuse me for taking more than my time, but we wanted to provide the subcommittee with that information.

I am pleased at this time to yield to Mr. Towns, who is acting

as our ranking member this morning.

Welcome, and you are recognized.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. When you are

the chairman, you can use a lot of time.

Mr. MICA. I learned that from you, sir.

Mr. TOWNS. Let me begin by first thanking you Mr. Chairman,

the ranking member, Mrs. Mink, and the members of the committee for the work that you are doing in this area. Mr. Chairman,

thank you for holding this hearing on the narcotics threat from Colombia.

Between 1990 and 1998, Colombia received about $625 million in

United States counternarcotics assistance. In addition, the United

States military provides 160 United States service personnel as

military advisors to the Government of Colombia. This infusion of

aid has made Colombia the third largest recipient of United States

military assistance in the world.

Despite this commitment of money and manpower, the GAO estimates that coca production in Colombia has increased by 50 percent since 1996. In a June 1999, report, GAO estimated that Colombia currently produces 80 percent of the world’s cocaine and 60

percent of the heroin used in the United States. Given our level of

support and our level of effort, these results call our current policy

into question. What they would say in my neighborhood back in

Brooklyn, it appears that we are hustling backward.

It is my understanding that recently there have been calls for an

additional $1 billion in assistance for Colombia. However, given the

dismal results we have seen for the money we have spent thus far,

I am not sure that more money is the answer to this question. Additionally, many aspects of the situation in Colombia seem to require our reexamination. There is a civil war in Colombia that has

been going on for approximately 40 years. The Government of CoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:44 Jan 22, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\65738.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lombia has lost 40 to 50 percent of the country’s territory to left

wing rebels. The State Department and numerous human rights

groups have reported that paramilitary groups aligned with the

army of Colombia murder and kill civilians because of their political beliefs. And drug traffickers may have corrupted every side of

this conflict by supplying vast amounts of money and means to continue the kind of chaos that allows the traffickers to continue their

illegal operations.

Mr. Chairman, there are many problems in Colombia. It seems

to me that additional military spending will only exacerbate the

chaos in Colombia. Unilateral United States action is not the answer, and I am convinced of that. The Colombians need to reignite

the peace process. The United States needs to involve the international community and especially other Latin American countries

in a peacekeeping effort. We need to provide humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Colombia. I think that is important, but, most of all, we need to address the cocaine threat

here at home by increasing our prevention and treatment efforts.

We need to have more slots for treatment of people, and we need

to have a stronger education and prevention program.

Again, Mr. Chairman, let me thank you for holding this hearing

today. It suits you for all the work that you do in this area, and

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I see we have two

outstanding Members of Congress who have visited that country

many, many times, Congressman Gilman and Congressman Burton. I look forward to hearing from them as well.

At this time I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I would like to recognize our vice chairman, Mr.

Barr, the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just heard one of the most amazing statements I have ever

heard, that we are here trying to assist against the narcoterrorist

war down there, and we have had somebody say that trying to provide additional U.S. military assistance, much of which has been

promised and not delivered for many years, will exacerbate the situation.

I don’t know how to respond to that sort of statement. In looking

at the crisis in Colombia and trying to think up an analogy that

fits it, I thought of several—the tail wagging the dog for many

years, where our State Department zooms in with an electron microscope and looks at some allegation of human rights violation,

never mind the vast human rights violations perpetrated by the

FARC and the other groups.

I have also thought of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, except

Nero was replaced by the State Department; or what many have

tried to do in the State Department over the years and that is simply hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and refusing to acknowledge for years until, apparently, today. I see at least the State Department representative will acknowledge that there is indeed a

narcoterrorist problem facing this hemisphere in Colombia.

But the situation is far beyond trying to find ways of describing

the mismanagement of the U.S. State Department in responding to

this threat to our hemisphere. The only bright spot is it could be

9

much worse were it not for the work of DEA and our military in

trying desperately to assist our allies in Colombia, most notably the

heroic General Serrano, in meeting this tremendous threat,despite

what seemed to be deliberate efforts recently by the State Department to thwart the efforts of DEA, refusing to fill billets authorized

by Congress for additional DEA slots, refusing to allow the provision of additional helicopters and gun mounts, and even today helicopters that were promised to be down there by the end of last

month are still sitting stateside somewhere.

It indeed is a crisis made worse by the fact that the United

States is going to completely withdraw its forward military operations, which have been very important in the counternarcotics efforts,from Panama,turning the Panama Canal and all of its military assets that we have shared and operated with the Panamanians in a very successful effort over the years back over to Panama without any provision for continuing that very, very strategically important base of operations.

It will be very interesting to hear from General McCaffrey, who

has just recently returned; and of course I suppose we should

thank the State Department for,at least now,recognizing that there

is a narcoterrorist problem in Colombia. But there is indeed a crisis

down there, and rather than turn a blind eye to it and say our military assistance is causing it, the most preposterous statement I can

imagine, we ought to be desperately searching for ways to assist

our allies in Colombia. Because this indeed is a serious problem

that is not just a problem for the people of Colombia, the people

of Latin and Central America,and the United States,but the entire

hemisphere. I appreciate our colleagues being with us today to

share their extensive knowledge on this and look forward to the additional panels.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. With the indulgence of the subcommittee, I am going

to recognize one person from the minority and then recognize our

two chairmen. have the chairman of the full committee and a member of our subcommittee.

Mr. Cummings, did you want to make a brief opening statement?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Of course, Mr. Chairman. I certainly do.

First of all, good morning to everyone; and I am certainly pleased

to be here.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have, serving on this

subcommittee, tried to address the problems of drugs throughout

the world and certainly this country; and I am sure that you are

well aware that I am a strong advocate of sound counternarcotics

efforts; and I will say it every single time I have an opportunity.

Sometimes I really just think we don’t get it. This morning I left

my community of Baltimore, a drug-infested area where a lot of the

drugs that we are talking about today have already taken the lives

of so many children, the same children that I watched 14 or 15

years ago as they grew up now walking around like zombies. This

is only 40 miles away from here. I am very concerned about what

is happening in Colombia, and I think we ought to do everything

we can to address this issue.

I come here today to speak for the dead; the ones who don’t even

know where Colombia is; the ones who, like I said, a few years ago

10

had hope; the ones who had become victims. And I call them victims because every time I see one of them standing on a corner like

a zombie, the pain—I cannot begin to tell you how painful it is because I know they are in so much pain that they don’t know they

are in pain. And that is why it is so important to me and to my

district that we concentrate more of our efforts on treatment.

I think Mr. Towns said it quite nicely. He used the term ‘‘hustling backwards.’’ Let me tell you something. If you don’t have a demand, you don’t

have to worry about Colombia. You don’t have to worry about it.

But neighborhood after neighborhood throughout this country—and

if it has not hit yours, it will. Neighborhood after neighborhood.

People who cannot afford these drugs right now as we speak are

breaking into houses to get $5, $10 or whatever for crack cocaine.

What are answers? We have one level of sentences for powder cocaine, another for crack. In Baltimore, our jails are filled with

black men and black women rotting away.

And so it is that today you say that we come here to address this

whole issue of Colombia. And sure it is Colombia, but there is a

direct link—and I admire you, Mr. Burton, and I admire you, Mr.

Gilman, but I want you to do me a favor. I want you to come to

my neighborhood and understand why I push for treatment so very

hard. There are not enough treatment slots. We probably have—for

every treatment slot that we have, we probably have a demand for

100 people who want to get off of drugs.

The chairman said something that I agree with. He said, we

must look again, in his opening statement, we must look again at

our strategies and policies and protect the vital interests of the

United States. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you 100 percent. We

must look at them and reevaluate them. Because as I see this Colombian war with these rebels and folk going against each other,

I don’t know how much we can do there, but I know what can be

done in my neighborhood when some high schools have 80 percent

of the young people dropping out between 9th grade and 12th

grade, many of them standing on corners going nowhere fast. And

so if we are going to reevaluate, let us make sure we reevaluate

to provide more treatment.

Sixty percent of the heroin used in the United States is from Colombia. The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

has estimated 55,000 heroin addicts are in the State of Maryland

and 71 percent of them live in Baltimore city. Keep in mind, Baltimore only has a population of 674,000. I have a serious crisis in

my district.

Although I have some concerns regarding the large amount of

funding requested to address the complex problems in Colombia, I

am eager to hear from the witnesses today as to how we can work

together to get these drugs off of our streets. And I thank you, and

I look forward to the testimony.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from Maryland.

I am now pleased to recognize a gentleman who serves on our

subcommittee and also chairs one of the most important committees in the House of Representatives, the chairman of the House

International Relations Committee, Mr. Gilman.

Mr. Gilman, you are recognized.

11

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank our colleagues on our subcommittee for holding

today’s very important and timely hearing on the narcotics threat

from Colombia and also what we should be doing in reevaluating

our drug strategy. I appreciate what Mr. Towns and Mr.

Cummings have said with regard to their concerns and criticisms

of our existing strategy.

I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman, for your continuing efforts through this committee giving attention to the effectiveness of

our drug war and focusing the Nation’s attention on what we

should be doing. The presence this morning of two full committee

chairmen with oversight responsibility in the international fight

against illicit drugs I think is indicative of the seriousness of this

problem, especially as related to Colombia.

You have pointed out some very important statistics, Mr. Chairman. We all recognize that Colombia is probably one of the most

significant drug-producing nations in the world, producing some 80

percent of the world’s cocaine. As if that were not bad enough, in

the last 6 years and while the administration seemed to be looking

in another direction, Colombia captured 75 percent of the American

heroin market. It is now producing 80 percent of the world’s cocaine and capturing 75 percent of our heroin market.

Colombia is in our own backyard. It is not over in Asia. It is not

thousands and thousands of miles away. Its capital city, Bogota, is

just 3 air hours from Miami. What happens in Colombia is immediately effective in our cities and our streets, in our school yards

and our communities. The deadly drugs it produces and exports

and the sophisticated drug-dealing organizations that are in charge

of the world’s trafficking of drugs impact our Nation.

Illicit drugs are directly linked to the growing strength and aggressiveness of the narcoguerrillas who today threaten Colombia’s

very survival as a democracy. Congressman Rangel and I, when we

were working on the Select Committee on Narcotics, stood in the

plaza of the capital city of Colombia and saw how the drug traffickers had invaded the Supreme Court of that country and taken it

over and held the judges hostage. I don’t know if Mr. Towns was

with us at that time. It was appalling to see how the drug traffickers had their impact on the very core of the government of that

country. The narcostate status, is a term used today very often

when they discuss Colombia. Columbia is on the verge of becoming

a narcostate.

Our Nation’s response under the current administration to both

the increasing drug threat and the growing insurgency menace in

Columbia has been benign neglect at best and I venture to say

gross negligence at worst. We have been providing significant funding in many areas, but we have not been providing an effective

strategy and effective resources.

The response to the contention that the answer to all of this is

to reduce demand I think leaves something to be desired. I think

those of us who have been involved in the drug problem—and I

have been involved since my coming to Congress some 27 years

ago—I think we all recognize in examining various strategies that

you must not just reduce demand, and that is important, but you

must also reduce supply, and you must do both simultaneously.

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And you reduce supply by going to the sources, by eradicating. And

then when it gets into the mainstream of distribution you interdict,

and then when it gets to our shorelines you convict and make sure

that our police agencies have the wherewithal to do that, and then

associate that with reducing demand through education through

our curriculum in our schools and then also to treat and rehabilitate. But we can’t take money from one to give it to the others.

I mentioned to Mr. Cummings, the mayor of Baltimore had

thought that legalization for a long period of time was the way to

go. I don’t think legalization is the way to go. It only proliferates

the problem. I think some of the countries overseas such as Netherlands and Great Britain tried that and found it not to be effective.

We must bear in mind that we have to focus our attention on all

of these areas and do it simultaneously and not take the funds

from one to give to the others as we regrettably have done by our

present administration. The lives of thousands of our children have

been affected by the administration’s neglect on the source side.

Mr. Cummings, I went to Baltimore. Kweisi Mfume took me

there to examine some of the problems years ago. And we recognized that there are problems in each of our major cities and we

have to do a better job of educating but also we have to cut down

the supply that goes to those cities, especially a failed one-dimensional drug policy based on treating the wounded from drug use

here at home. It has not been effective. Recognizing that burgeoning Colombian heroin problem in our Nation and an absence of an

effective strategy by the administration, a number of us in the Congress as far back as 1996 pushed for more aid, more resources to

try to stem the flow from Colombia. We called for better helicopters

for the hard-hitting antinarcotics police in Colombia to pursue the

opium poppy and its source and to get to the higher Andes plateau

where a good deal of the opium for heroin was growing.

It has long been our United States’ law enforcement consensus

that getting the Colombian poppy before it is processed into heroin

was the most cost-effective strategy, particularly with the limited

growth of some 6,000 hectares of Colombian opium. It is a plan

that would most likely succeed. Geographically, Colombia is bigger

than the States of Texas and Kansas combined. Its rugged, highaltitude terrain makes operations difficult for the law enforcement

community. Accordingly, air mobility for antidrug operations is

critical.

The courageous Colombian National Police, have lost over 4,000

in fighting this war. Through the drug eradication program, they

estimated they have a need for 100 helicopters to be able to do the

job properly and that they could eradicate if they had that kind of

equipment; 90 percent of their antidrug operations requires helicopters and 40 percent of their time, they face hostile fire. You saw

what happened to one of the helicopters under hostile fire in that

short video we just saw.

Today, the drug police in Colombia have less than 25 helicopters

operating. Only two of the six twin-engine helicopters the State Department provided them for opium eradication last year are flying

today. The rest are ‘‘hangar queens.’’ You might examine some of

the photos over here of what they look like. They are sitting in the

hangars, incapable of conducting the kind of operations that are

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needed. Is there any wonder then why the drug battle at the source

has been so ineffective in Colombia?

Yes, we are spending money, but we are not doing it effectively

or in the right direction. We in the Congress have appropriated sufficient money to purchase and directed the delivery of over 30 new

high-performance, long-range, high-altitude-capable helicopters to

the drug police in Colombia to eradicate drugs at their source; and

we have continuously urged an increased mobility approach since

1996. And, to date, despite our continuous urging, regrettably the

administration has delivered only two of these new helicopters to

the drug police flight line in Colombia. Regrettably, both of those

choppers were ill-fitted, ill-equipped, and one was damaged on arrival.

As a result of these kind of failures, the Colombian heroin availability in our Nation has been extremely high. The price of this

deadly Colombian heroin on our streets remains low while the purity is higher than we have ever seen, and that results in the

deaths and overdoses in our communities unabated from Colombian heroin that could have and should have been eradicated of the

source in the high Andes years ago. Yes, reduce demand, but also

reduce the kind of supply that is increasing the demand.

Mr. Chairman, the administration’s failure to get to the opium

poppy fields of the high Andes in Colombia is directly responsible

for the massive heroin crisis on the East Coast and the United

States, and it is not just Baltimore. Our cities in New York State

are facing a severe heroin impact as well as cities across the country.

If the administration were to devote the same amount of effort

to the real war on drugs in Colombia as the State Department does

in explaining to our committees and yours why already paid for

helicopters have not arrived to Colombia, I think we would have

won that war by now. If the administration was serious about stopping drugs at its source, those high-performance helicopters would

have been in Colombia long ago doing the job that Congress intended to do, eliminating hard drugs at their source before they

reach our shores and before they get into cities like Baltimore and

elsewhere.

Accordingly, Mr. Chairman, I urge that when we hear these new

pleas on some in the administration for massive amounts of emergency aid to Colombia for the fight against drugs, let us ask why

anyone should take them seriously based on the abysmal track

record of providing aid to date.

We will hear today about the massive increase in coca production

in Colombia. That, too, is partially the result of this failure to deliver the kind of equipment that is needed by the Colombian National Police [CNP].

Mr. Chairman, Colombia’s development as an expanding

narcostate is not new. In 1997, Colombia overtook Peru as the

world’s No. 1 producer of cocateal. We in Congress pleaded with the

administration for immediate action, and all we got was more

dithering. Peru’s willingness to take the steps necessary to drastically reduce coca production forced producers to move across the

border into southern Colombia. There the CNP is unable to reach

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the numerous remote coca fields without the armed long-range

choppers that Congress has demanded.

There are fundamental differences in philosophy between those

of us in the Congress who monitor the Colombian situation closely

and the administration. The administration, without a significant

counternarcotics strategy of its own, has been willing to sit back

and has become a cheerleader for President Pastrana’s fizzling

peace process without backing it up with aid and support to get at

the heart of the problem, the illicit drugs financing the growing insurgency in Colombia. President Pastrana, Colombia’s President,

though well-intentioned cannot achieve peace from a position of

weakness.

Regrettably, our State Department has contributed to the current confused policy of Latin America’s oldest democracy. That confusion has flowed from meeting with FARC leaders last December

in Costa Rica and failing in providing this basic antinarcotics aid

to take away much of the source of the insurgency’s strength the

illicit narcotic moneys; and they are substantial, in the billions of

dollars.

Let us make no mistake that we in the Congress want peace in

Colombia but not on the terms of the narcoterrorists. I think that

is the direction in which Colombia is heading. The actions of the

FARC have demonstrated that it has no intention of peaceful resolution. It is still kidnapping people, still killing people, some of

whom are Americans. The future of Colombia and the issue of illicit drugs are intimately related.

The tragic loss of five American servicemen and their two Colombian Air Force partners not long ago on a counter- narcotics mission in the high Andes shows us that the fate of that troubled nation and ours are closely linked. We ignore events in Colombia at

our own peril, and I hope the alarm bells that General McCaffrey

has recently sounded are not coming too late, and we thank General McCaffrey for sounding that alarm.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman, member of our subcommittee,

chairman of the International Relations Committee.

I am pleased to recognize at this time the chairman of our full

committee, also an ex-officio member of our subcommittee, for his

statement.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Mica.

I would like to preface my remarks by saying to Mr. Cummings

and Mr. Towns that I share their concern about making sure that

the people that have become addicted have an avenue for returning

to society, but I would like to point out to them that the administration’s counternarcotics budget in fiscal year 1998 was $16.5 billion for treatment and prevention and only $1 billion for overseas

eradication. That is not to say we should not do more. Maybe we

should do more, but we should certainly provide more resources to

fight the producers and the drug cartels around the world.

There are a number of reasons why Colombia is important. One

of those is because, should democracy fall there and a narcostate

prevail, where a Marxist-led government run by the FARC

narcoterrorists succeed democracy, we are at severe risk here in

the United States. Colombia is the oldest democracy in Latin

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America. It has vast oil reserves and plenty of untapped natural

resources.

The strategic importance of Colombia to the United States is that

it controls access to the Isthmus of Panama, which will control the

Panama Canal in just a few months. The world’s economies rely on

access to the Canal. Should Colombia’s democracy fail, the result

could be a domino effect through all of Central America.

Is all this likely to happen? Probably not. But could it happen?

You bet. It could happen.

Back in the 1980’s, we had a real problem in Central America

with the Sandanistas and the FLMN in El Salvador, so Nicaragua

and El Salvador and Guatemala and Honduras were all at risk. We

thought we had put all of those problems behind us, but, in my

mind, they have been resurrected by the narcotraffickers in Colombia. Because if they succeed there and Colombia becomes a

narcostate, then the Panama Canal right next door, right adjacent

to it, is likely to be imperiled, and they can move up right through

the Central American region, and we are going to have an immigration problem that you wouldn’t believe as well as more military

problems.

The time for action has been upon us for some time. I am encouraged that there is finally some concern by the administration. They

are finally recognizing the need for a source country strategy in response to the influx of hard drugs on American streets and American school yards.

Chairman Gilman, Speaker Hastert and Chairman Mica and myself have been writing letters and holding hearings for nearly 3

years trying to get someone in the White House to pay attention.

Instead of a source country strategy, we have gotten an unbalanced

approach, heavy on domestic treatment and prevention, which statistics show has failed, and light on interdiction and eradication,

which is the preference of law enforcement.

It is unfortunate that it took the tragic deaths of five Army personnel in Colombia to enlighten this administration that there is

a problem down there. A blind person could have seen there is a

problem.

Colombian President Pastrana has underestimated the FARC’s

capabilities. He has overestimated his own ability to hold together

a shaky democracy marred by four decades of civil strife and supported by a false economy based in large part on money from

narcotrafficking. By capitulating to the FARC demands in the

peace negotiations, President Pastrana and Colombia’s democracy

are in worse shape now than when the peace process began.

If we haven’t learned anything throughout history, we ought to

learn this. Appeasement does not work, and giving the

narcotraffickers an inch is going to encourage them to take a mile.

Someone needs to ask, what does the FARC gain from peace?

And the answer is, they do not gain a darn thing. Currently, the

FARC has an estimated income of $100 million a month from facilitating narcotrafficking, kidnapping and extortion. They have a demilitarized zone the size of Indiana where guerrilla-style, cowardly

attacks are planned and launched and where attackers can vanish

back into oblivion. They have the Pastrana government exactly

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where they want it, hunkered down, absorbing repeated attacks

with little ability to respond.

Clearly, the FARC has no incentive to reach peace, and Colombia

has endured a year’s worth of escalated violence just to prove it.

Absent a peace strategy of its own, the U.S. State Department has

blindly backed Pastrana’s fledgling peace efforts. At Pastrana’s request, American diplomats negotiated with and legitimatized FARC

leaders last December. This is the same FARC that the State Department placed on its own list of world terrorist organizations. It

has been a policy of this government for years and years and years

not to negotiate with terrorists, and yet our State Department went

down there and met with them and, as far as I know, are still negotiating with them in one way or another. Despite this, one American diplomat continued to contact the FARC leaders even after the

murder of the three Americans in March.

The lack of counternarcotic strategy by the Clinton administration has never been more evident than in drug czar Barry

McCaffrey’s $1 billion aid package. This is less than 1 year’s income for the FARC guerillas. Think about that, less than 1 year’s

income to the FARC, this money targeted the Colombia Army,

rampant with allegations of human rights abuses. In Colombia in

1997, General McCaffrey said he supported Black Hawk helicopters

for the Colombian National Police [CNP], known as the best counternarcotics police in the world.

However, days later in Washington, General McCaffrey opposed

counternarcotic aid to Colombia, the world’s top drug-producing

country. He wrote that the Black Hawks ‘‘would threaten to undermine the objectives of the United States international counterdrug

policy.’’ Two different opinions, and I would like to submit these

letters for the record, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Without objection. So ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. How could Black Hawk helicopters hurt our

counterdrug effort?

He then complained that Chairman Gilman and myself were trying to ‘‘micromanage the war on drugs.’’ Simply put, there’s no war

on drugs being waged by this administration, unless you count the

nearly $200 million General McCaffrey spends annually for

ONDCP television ads and these frisbees, on these frisbees and key

chains that are up on the easel up there in front.

This is more than we spend our counternarcotic efforts in Colombia, the source of more than 80 percent of the cocaine and 75 percent of the heroin in the United States. Counternarcotics aid to Colombia has been abysmally low until this year, when Chairman

Gilman and I were successful in getting Black Hawks funded for

the Colombian National Police, which I want you to know has not

yet been delivered.

General McCaffrey should have been developing a heroin strategy, but the fact of the matter is there has been no heroin strategy

from this administration. The Republican Congress has been forced

to do the administration’s job and then fight to get the necessary

equipment down there.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter several op/ed pieces into the

record to clearly establish that Congress recognized the heroin

problems several years ago and has attempted to force a reluctant

Clinton administration to even address the issues.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. BURTON. General McCaffrey has just returned from Colombia, and surely he will present you with his firsthand account of

the situation. News reports quote him as proposing a $1 billion

course of action, which will help save Colombia from both the

narcotraffickers and the FARC terrorists. $1 billion is a lot of

money, but as I said before, it’s less than the estimated $1.2 billion

the FARC takes in every single year from drugs, kidnapping and

extortion.

General McCaffrey’s proposal undoubtedly includes funds to

stand up a Colombia Army capable of counternarcotics operations,

which sound good on the surface, but given the tainted human

rights record of the Colombian Army, even in vetted units, it is unlikely aid to them would pass the administration’s litmus test for

the ‘‘spirit of Leahy.’’ This, of course, is the law named after the

Senator from Vermont prohibiting lethal assistance without cutting

through a mountain of bureaucratic red tape.

This is the favorite first obstacle that the State Department usually places in front of any assistance to Colombia. The Colombian

Army, while understandably a pet project for a former CINC

SOUTHCOM is in tatters, and even the Pentagon estimates it

would take a Herculean effort and more than 5 years to vet, train

and equip a Colombian Army capable of handling this mission. Regrettably, Colombia may not have 5 years of democracy left.

The good news is there’s a group in Colombia who is already in

place, are well trained, and are willing to do what needs to be done

to fight our war on drugs. They’re the Colombian National Police,

headed by the legendary General Jose Seranno. In a poll in last

week’s Colombian newspaper, El Tiempo, Seranno’s popularity, 71

percent, is second only to the Catholic Church with 77 percent. CoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:44 Jan 22, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\65738.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lombians proudly say, after my God, my General Seranno. General

Seranno’s men have a clean human rights record and the desire to

do the job. All they need is the equipment.

Mr. Chairman, actions speak louder than words. This administration has promised Chairman Gilman and myself more than 40

new helicopters for the Colombian National Police since 1996. As

of this morning, only 2, only 2 of the 40 are on the flight line in

Colombia. Why can’t the State Department get these helicopters to

General Seranno?

Mr. Chairman, out of curiosity, I checked with the Indiana Army

National Guard. They have 32 Hueys and 7 Black Hawks. Today

General Seranno has only 23 operating helicopters to cover his entire country, where 95 percent of his missions require helicopters,

and that’s the size of Texas and Kansas combined.

Before Congress embraces or considers General McCaffrey’s $1

billion aid package, shouldn’t the administration be forced to make

good on its commitments to General Seranno and the Congress regarding helicopters for the Colombian National Police? Congress

has many questions, but General Seranno has more than 4,000

questions, which represents the lives of the men he’s lost fighting

our war on drugs.

The State Department’s record on delivery of assistance to the

CNP is abysmal at best. Even if we pass this proposal today and

work every day for the next year, General McCaffrey knows there

are no way that that aid could reach Colombia next year either due

to incompetence or lack of will at the State Department. Clearly,

this is an effort to say the Clinton administration finally did something about drugs before next year’s election cycle.

It is coming way too late. This chart shows the string of unkept

promises by the administration. It could be much longer, but we

chose only to highlight the helicopter situation.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to insert a stack of unkept State Department promises, including dozens of letters on everything from

ammunition to weapons to helicopters, into the record at this point.

Mr. MICA. With objection, so ordered.

Mr. BURTON. I will turn my attention to the State Department’s

insatiable desire to mislead Congress on what is actually happening in Colombia. The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law

Enforcement has a history of incompetence and inability to deliver

counternarcotics assistance, which is its job. Every new Assistant

Secretary who comes in, Secretary Beers included, says they cannot

be responsible for the actions of the previous Secretary. Secretary

Beers, the buck stops here. You have told me and my staff on a

number of occasions that the first tranche of 35 new Huey II helicopters would be in Colombia last fall, then you said in March,

then April, then June, then July. Now it’s August. When are they

going to get there?

I was told by Ambassador Robert Gelbard in September 1996

that 10 of these were going to be delivered. That was 3 years ago.

There was only two on the flight line this morning. There have

been four Hueys, Huey IIs, ready for shipment from Alabama for

a number of weeks. Why haven’t they been delivered?

Your department dropped the ball on this, and it is not the first

time. In June of last year, you sold Mr. Hastert, Mr. Callahan and

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Mr. Souder on trading three Black Hawks for six Bell 212’s and 10

Huey II helicopters. Chairman Gilman and myself reluctantly accepted your compromise because you gave us your word.

Today, I’m told by narcotics affairs section personnel in Colombia, four of those six Bell 212’s are not flying. Secretary Beers, despite your testimony at the International Relations Committee in

March, they have never had more than four in the air at any one

time. Chairman Gilman, I am sure, remembers it very vividly as

well. You told us, ‘‘Congressman, I can assure you these will not

be hangar queens.’’ And as Chairman Gilman pointed out, they are.

I don’t know that we have those up there again, but I hope before this hearing is over, we will once again be able to look at the

condition of the helicopters that were in when Secretary Beers gave

them to the CNP. They spent several million dollars to repair these

aging helicopters. Further INL got rid of these helicopters just before they were scheduled to go down again for 6 more months for

the mandatory 5-year checkup. So we are sending them junk. Will

these piles of metal ever be of use to General Seranno?

So it is a facade, it’s a facade. General McCaffrey would have to rely on this same State Department crowd to get this $1 billion aid

package delivered. By the time this assistance would arrive in Colombia, we would be trying to figure out who is going to be the

last—who is going to be in the last helicopter off the roof of the

American Embassy in Bogota. Because of inaction by this administration, the risks to freedom we helped eliminate in the 1980’s in

Central and South America could very well reemerge, and reemerge with a vengeance.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I am glad Colombia is finally on

the radar screen of this administration. Maybe someone at the

White House will finally hear our pleas to get General Seranno the

helicopters and the equipment he needs. I just hope the 4,000 CNP

officers have not died in vain and that democracy will prevail.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton and the information referred to follow:]

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Mr. MICA. I would like to recognize Ms. Schakowsky from Illinois.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the opportunity to hear the testimony of these two

esteemed chairmen and my colleagues.

I want to take a moment to make a statement which actually is

more in the way of a series of questions. The recent call by General

Barry McCaffrey to increase spending on drug enforcement in Colombia puts the United States at a crossroads. Do we invest in a

militaristic drug war that escalates the regional conflict, or do we

attack the drug market by investing in prevention and treatment

at home and seek to assist in stabilizing Colombia?

According to the GAO, ‘‘Despite 2 years of extensive herbicide

spraying, U.S. estimates show there has not been any net reduction

in coca cultivation. Net coca cultivation actually increased 50 percent,’’ and this 50 percent increase in coca cultivation comes after $625 million in counternarcotics operations in Colombia between

1990 and 1998.

Considering the demonstrated failure of militarized eradication

efforts to date, why should we believe that investing even more

money in this plan will achieve a different result? And what will

it take to achieve total victory in Colombia? Are we prepared to

make that type of investment in dollars and in lives? And if not,

what is the purpose of this aid?

Considering the fact that more than 100,000 civilians have died

in Colombia’s civil war and five servicemen recently on a reconnaissance flight, is it ethical to escalate the war in Colombia in order

to prevent Americans from purchasing cocaine? Will the aid

achieve a 10 percent reduction or a 20 percent or 50 percent reduction in drugs? What is the target amount, or is the purpose to degrade the military capability of the FARC or bomb them to the negotiating table?

Exactly what is it that we believe this aid will accomplish? Is it

the first in a series of blank checks for a war that has no foreseeable end game? What is the exit strategy? With the continued failure of a military solution to drug production in Colombia, why

shouldn’t an innovative alternative development approach be used

instead? Why not spend half or all of the money on crop substitution or development?

A landmark study of cocaine markets by the Rand Corp. found

that providing treatment to cocaine users is 10 times more effective

than drug interdiction schemes and 23 times more cost-effective

than eradicating coca at its source.

If decreasing drug use in America is the ultimate goal, why

aren’t we putting equal resources into domestic demand reduction

where each dollar spent is 23 times more effective than eradication? Today, we’re discussing $1 billion for Colombia, but yesterday, we cut $1 billion from the COPS program here at home.

A recent study by researchers at SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse

and Metal Health Service Administration, has indicated that 48

percent of the need for drug treatment, not including alcohol abuse,

is unmet in the United States. Why is it that we can find emergency funds for overseas military operations while continuing to ignore the enormous lack of drug treatment here at home?

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Mr. Chairman, before becoming entangled in a foreign war, it

seems to me that the Congress should use its oversight authority

to require the administration to explain how this escalation will reduce illicit drug use at home better than investment in prevention

and treatment in the United States. The administration should

also explain how increasing funds for a policy will change the result when past increases in support have not changed the outcome.

These troubling strategic issues need to be resolved in a satisfactory manner before we increase our involvement in Colombia.

I appreciate the opportunity to make this statement.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentlelady for her statement.

I would like to recognize the gentleman from Arkansas Mr.

Hutchinson.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate this hearing, and I want to express my thanks to

Mr. Burton and Mr. Gilman for their testimony today and their

leadership on this issue. After Mr. Burton’s testimony, I certainly

am looking forward to hearing the testimony of the State Department in reference to those helicopters.

And, Mr. Gilman, I couldn’t agree with you more in regard to the

balanced approach that we have to maintain, reducing the demand

for cocaine in this country, the demand for drugs, while also going

after the source countries.

I, as many members of the subcommittee, have been to Colombia

and met General Seranno and appreciate the work that he’s doing

there, and they do need our assistance. And I respect the questions

that have just been raised by the gentlelady from Illinois, very appropriate questions as to what our strategy is. Hopefully, we can

answer some of those questions today. I thought for a moment she

was speaking of our intervention in Kosovo, what our plan is for

an exit stategy.

And this region is very, very close. When you look at the New

Tribes Missionaries that have been captured, perhaps killed by the

FARC guerillas there, and then you look at the servicemen that

we’ve lost, this impacts the lives of Americans. And so I think it’s

appropriate that we address our role there and our commitment

there. And I’m delighted with this hearing.

While this hearing is primarily designed to highlight the precarious situation in which Colombia finds itself, I want to take a moment, Mr. Chairman, to honor an Arkansan who was on the front

lines of our war against drugs in that country. Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Moore, a fellow Arkansan, has paid the ultimate price

for the defense of his country. In a little noticed incident last

month, Moore and four of his compatriots lost their lives to keep

our kids safe from the scourge of drugs.

On July 23rd, Moore and his fellow air crew took off for a routine

intelligent mission over southern Colombia. The crew was tasked

with gathering information to support Colombia’s counterdrug efforts. The craft disappeared from radar screens while over rebelcontrolled territory and later was discovered in the mountains

along Colombia’s border with Ecuador. There were no survivors.

Moore joined the Army in 1988 after attending the Air Force

Academy. In 1991, he served with distinction in Southwest Asia

during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. After 4 years of enlisted

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service, Moore was selected for the warrant officer program. He

graduated from flight school in 1993 as a scout helicopter pilot, and

in 1996 was selected to attend a fixed wing qualification course. He

graduated and joined the 204th Military Intelligence Battalion, and

as a result of his excellent performance was selected to fly the RC7,

the Army’s premier reconnaissance plane. Moore had deployed several times on missions to South America from his post at Fort

Bliss, in El Paso, TX.

His awards include the Kuwait and Saudi Arabia Liberation

Medals, the Army Achievement Medal and the Army Commendation Medal.

Moore is from Higden, AR; and is survived by his wife and two

children.

Mr. Chairman, this happened 1 month ago. And I do not believe

it has captured the attention, the recognition that is deserved for

these brave soldiers who have really committed themselves to serving our country.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for this opportunity to pay

tribute to Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Moore and his fellow soldiers. They embodied the spirit that undergirds our determined efforts to fight narcotraffickers wherever they seek to ply their poisonous trade. They are indeed unsung heroes.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman for his statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Asa Hutchinson follows:]

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Mr. MICA. I am pleased now to recognize Mr. Reyes, who has

joined us. He’s a member of the Armed Services Committee. We

thank you for joining us this morning, and you’re recognized, sir.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to participate as part of your committee. I want to tell you

that I hold both chairmen in the highest esteem. I know they

worked very hard on this and many other issues, including annually on the issue of certification of Mexico, which I think is one of

the most important things that we do in this Congress is recognize

the efforts that other countries are making on behalf of fighting

drug traffickers and international drug smuggling.

It occurs to me that in the context of what we’re doing this morning and what your committee does, it’s very important that we

have a clear understanding of what the challenges and what the

accuracy is. I came to Congress after 261⁄2 years service in the U.S.

Border Patrol, part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service,

and I will tell you that Border Patrol agents as part of Operation

Snowcap have been at the forefront of this Nation’s war on drugs

since the early 1980’s.

I had the opportunity to travel to Colombia and observe the activities of the Colombian National Police, as well as the participation by DEA and by the United States Border Patrol as a result

of Operation Snowcap, so I have a good understanding of the issue.

I have a good perspective based again on experience of what is

going and what has been going on in Colombia for literally several

decades. I have experience under the Reagan administration, under

the Bush administration, and obviously under this administration,

and it occurs to me that we in Congress do a lot of political jousting, and part of what I think is important is that we be accurate

about framing the argument and not allow politics to interfere with

what is very dangerous work for our men and women fighting both

in this country and internationally to stop narcotics trafficking.

I would tell you that the loss of five soldiers. I represent the 16th

District of Texas, which includes Fort Bliss, and the loss of five soldiers occurred not a month ago, but literally less than 2 weeks ago.

They included Captain Jennifer J. Odom, Captain Jose Santiago,

Warrant Officer Thomas Moore, as my colleague from Arkansas

has already mentioned, Specialist Bruce Cluff and Specialist Ray

Kreuger.

I would also remind this committee that of all of the five soldiers,

we have actually only recovered the remains of three, two are still

on that mountaintop in Colombia. And I mention that because it’s

important that we keep in mind why we’re here. It’s important that

we understand that in order to overcome and to be successful in

fighting narcotics trafficking and the scourge of narcotics in our

neighborhoods, and we go through this every year when the issue

of certification comes up.

I heard mention this morning where the administration was

being criticized because they decertified Colombia on two separate

occasions. Members here this morning want to see Mexico decertified. So it brings to my mind that there’s an issue here of either

confusion or hypocrisy at play, and it’s not helpful to the efforts

and the sacrifices that are being made not only by the five soldiers

who already have lost their lives, but by the efforts of the U.S. BorVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:44 Jan 22, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\65738.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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der Patrol as they participated in this endeavor in past years, by

DEA today, by members of the military even as we speak here this

morning.

Part of the challenge is, as I see it, is to work together. And,

again, I get back to accuracy. I asked you what kind of infrared

system was on that video, because from my experience, that looked

more like daylight video than infrared. You cannot see smoke from

a helicopter after it’s been shot and flames coming out in the way

that that came out in terms of infrared.

So, again, I make mention of these things so that we can work

jointly, both as Democrats and Republicans, both as liberals and

conservatives, both as those that have an understanding of the

issue not only locally in our neighborhoods, but internationally in

scope, as I do, and bring forward people that understand in order

for us to succeed in fighting international drug trafficking, in order

for us to succeed in being able to come up with a solution, we have

to approach this thing from the proverbial three-legged stool, and

that’s with education, with treatment, and with interdiction, law

enforcement, however you want to phrase it.

All three are important; all three are critical. And it doesn’t do

us any good to sit here and nitpick when there are the lives of our

men and women both in the military and in law enforcement at

risk both in this country and internationally.

I hope that, and I am willing to lend my expertise, Mr. Chairman, in any way that I can and that if you see fit, to help us frame

the larger issues, to help us frame the challenge that we face so

that together we can reach a successful conclusion to the scourge

that frustrates all of us in our neighborhoods and all of us in our

capacity as representatives of the people of this country.

And I thank you for the opportunity.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman for joining us.

Now, last but not least, the gentleman who has been very active

on our subcommittee on this issue, Mr. Souder, the gentleman from

Indiana. You’re recognized.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also want to, before I make a statement here, pay tribute to Chairman Gilman for

his leadership in the Narcotics Select Committee, as well as International Relations Committee; to Chairman Burton not only for his

work in Government Reform, but also in International Relations in

Central America, because it’s the committed efforts of both of you,

in addition to your work on this subcommittee, but particularly

with your leadership at the full committee chairman level and

being able to keep the focus on, or we would really be in bad shape,

probably be gone by now in the sense of what’s been happening not

only in Colombia, but Peru and Bolivia and Central America.

It was very disturbing to me to hear somehow that we haven’t

somehow totally wiped out the drug problem is grounds that we

should back up. General McCaffrey frequently compares the drug

battle to cancer. We spent billions in fighting cancer in America,

but we haven’t stopped cancer. So should we cut all of our funding

out and give up on fighting breast cancer and other forms of cancer

in America? It’s an absurd argument that we heard just a little

while ago.

63

If you want to try and focus on the treatment problem, then

focus in addition to the other things on the treatment problem.

Congressman Ramstad has an access bill that I’m a cosponsor of,

and we need to move access for drug treatment.

Nobody here today is against drug treatment. We have the safe

and drug-free schools bill moving through the committee and many

other things that will be in the Labor-HHS bill, and we’re moving

those this Congress. We heard, oh, we’re spending far more on the

domestic side than in targets.

But my former boss, former Senator Dan Coats, used to have a

story that he liked. I would like to paraphrase here, and that is

that people—it would be similar to coming up to a river where the

babies are drowning, and then you’re busy pulling these babies out

like crazy trying to save their lives, and somebody says, I wonder

how the baby is getting in here. I wonder what is happening

upriver. Well, Colombia is the source of the river. It’s coming from

Colombia.

We’re sitting here how we’re going to help our communities, how

we’re going to get the drowning babies out. We ought to look at the

source, too, because if we do not get to the source, we cannot handle it in Fort Wayne, we cannot do enough in our schools, we cannot do enough in our streets, we cannot build enough prisons, because it is both a supply and a demand problem.

One other thing that really has disturbed me, and I was interested if Chairman Gilman has any comments on this, too, because

you said you had been in Congress 27 years, and that means at the

start you were there as we were coming out of Vietnam. And one

thing we seem to be fighting here is this Vietnam phobia that we

have in this country of everything is like Vietnam, is it like Vietnam, and there are several clear things here that are not like Vietnam, in my opinion.

One, it’s in our hemisphere; Colombia is 2 hours from Miami.

This is not something that’s overseas or far away. Second, it’s not

Vietnam in the sense that drugs that are coming in from Colombia

are coming in to my hometown, into my district and into every

other area of America, threatening the lives of all of us in this

country. It’s not a hypothetical battle which I feel it is important

to fight around the world. But it is also one that’s of direct, clear

compelling national interest in the United States.

It’s also not Vietnam in the sense that the CNP, as we heard

from both of your testimony, wants to fight. They are trained to

fight. We just aren’t giving them the materials with which to fight.

And in the military, certainly General Wilhelm on the ground

working now, they’re trying to clean up what has been a weakened

military, but they want to do it, and they want to be helped. That

is not like Vietnam.

But my concern about how it is like Vietnam is that we will give

them just enough to never quite win, to never quite succeed, and

possibly fail. But we will never give them enough early enough to

get the jump on those that are fighting.

That’s the parallel to the Vietnam is that we don’t have the courage to get in at the front, and then, in effect—then say, oh, well,

they can’t win. And I would like to hear in particular Chairman

Gilman’s comment, because you’ve seen now both ends of this, and

64

it is one of the stories that we’re clearly fighting in the media, is

this turning into a Vietnam, and, oh, we need to back up. And we

heard it here just a little bit ago.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, if I might, Mr. Chairman, just a brief response, let me note that between 1985 and 1992 with a balanced

drug-fighting strategy on both supply and demand at the same

time, along with Mrs. Reagan’s excellent public relations campaign

of ‘‘just say no,’’ we were able to reduce monthly cocaine use by

nearly 80 percent, which is a demonstration of the fact that by applying an effective strategy, we can make progress.

And this is not the time to retreat. We have, as you so forcefully

mentioned, an effective drug-fighting force in Colombia that has

the will and the wherewithal that they lack—they lack the wherewithal, the ability to do the job. All they’re asking for is some support from our Nation, so let’s give them the support that they need.

And General Seranno, who is an outstanding drug fighter, has

said that with proper equipment, he could eliminate the opium

supply for the heroin within a 2-year period. All we say is, the administration people, our DEA and our State Department working

together can be very helpful to him in providing resources he

needs, and he would eliminate that source.

We must not take from one to give to the other. We have to fight

these on several fronts at one time of both reducing demand and

reducing supply. And I thank you for your supportive remarks.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. And Mr. Chairman, this is a war in Colombia we cannot, nor the world cannot afford to lose. Whatever it

takes, it must be one that cannot be a narcotic state.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

I think we’ve concluded all of the opening statements—oh, I’m

sorry. I beg your pardon. I apologize deeply, Mr. Ose, the gentleman from California, I didn’t see you at the end. You’re recognized.

Mr. OSE. I’m a Stealth helicopter down here. Mr. Chairman, I

don’t have an opening statement.

Mr. MICA. You’re very kind, because we have taken quite some

time to hear from these Members.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I would like to excuse our witnesses who are also

members of the panel, ask them to join us if they would.

And now if we could call our second panelist. The second panel

and only witness on this panel is General Barry R. McCaffrey. Mr.

McCaffrey is the Director of the Office of National Drug Control

Policy. He has testified before us before, and he is back with us.

General, you know, I think, the protocol. If you would stand, sir,

and raise your right hand. [Witness sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

General, we’re not going to run the light on you this morning.

You’re the only witness on this panel, and I know many are anxious to hear from you. So we welcome you back. We salute you for

your efforts. You are recognized, sir.

65

STATEMENT OF GENERAL BARRY McCAFFREY, DIRECTOR,

OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY

General MCCAFFREY. Well, Mr. Chairman, let me thank you, you

and your colleagues for the chance to come down here and testify.

I was able to listen to the opening panels and all of your opening

comments, and I really must applaud you and the other members

of the committee for drawing the attention of the country to what

I would characterize as an emergency situation.

And I think it’s going to require a very careful analysis by the

administration and the Congress in the coming months to sort out

exactly how do we take on these enormous dilemmas that President Pastrana and his colleagues face in confronting a problem of

gigantic dimensions that is worsening over time.

And specifically I would say there are three elements of that

problem. The one that very directly affects my own portfolio, of

course, is drugs in which we have seen a doubling of coca production in the last 3 years. And so poor Colombia, these 36 million

very brave people have now become the No. 1 country on the face

of the Earth in terms of undercultivation for cocaine, and indeed

in a very short period of time have now become, as has been previously commented on, some 6 metric tons of heroin drug dimension that is simply astonishing.

And I might add it’s not just affecting United States citizens, this

is affecting Colombians, and the drug abuse problem in that country is skyrocketing, and it’s spilling over into their neighbors.

Now a second problem that Colombia faces, however, needs to be

taken into account, is a huge economic crisis. It’s also clearly linked

to the lack of security, which in most ways is fundamentally driven

by this explosion of drug production. We’re seeing astonishing 20

percent unemployment rate and 45 percent devaluation of the peso

and massive economic flight of investor capital.

Who in his right mind would invest in Colombia at this moment?

And indeed, not just in terms of foreign capital, but domestic also,

how can you try and do cattle ranching if you’re fearful of leaving

the confines of the major cities?

Then finally, as has been accurately pointed out by some of your

earlier witnesses, President Pastrana—and I think this is the will

of the Colombia people—is trying to bring to an end 40 plus years

of the most mindless violence imaginable, and it’s a dynamic process, you know. The FARC and the ELN and the other guerilla

groups may have originally had an ideology, and it’s not clear to

most of us that they have become anything more than terrorist organizations which are fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars of

drug-created money.

Now, I heard 1.2 billion mentioned by Chairman Burton. That’s

the highest number I’ve heard; the minimal numbers, 215 million

a year. Clearly, it’s resources on a level that have allowed them to

have double the number of automatic weapons and a FARC battalion as the Colombia Army and to pay their narcoguerilla fighters

in some cases up to $1,000 a month, while the Colombian Army is

paying their kids $200 a month.

The peace process is an important one not just to Colombia, but

to all of us. It’s a regional problem, and it’s going to require a very

66

multifaceted approach, clearly one aspect of which may well be enhanced support for the security forces at Colombia.

Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I have tried to pull together in writing in the statement our own views, not just of

ONDCP, but obviously those of the Attorney General, Secretary of

the Treasury, Defense, and State. And I offer that for the record.

And then I put together some charts that I will run through very

quickly that I would like, with your permission, to offer for the

record.

Mr. MICA. For the record they will all be made a part of the

record. Thank you.

General MCCAFFREY. If I may make some very quick comments.

And I might add that my colleague over here that will be pulling

the slides for me is an intern working with me, Air Force Second

Lieutenant Chris Rainy, on loan for the summer from the School

of Public Policy. There will be a little bit of flair that may be lacking in my normal presentation.

Please, if you will, first view graph—let me just say that the

President did dispatch me on a trip last week that took me to Colombia, No. 1, Ecuador, and Venezuela; Ecuador to look at the FOL

at Manta Ecuador, to talk to their congressional leadership, their

government officials and the President; into Venezuela to talk to

President Chavez, his Defense Minister, Interior Foreign Ministry;

and then finally in Oranjestad Aruba, to look at the forward-operating locations in those two places.

I’m very upbeat, to be honest, about the value of our trip, and

would be glad to respond to your own questions.

At the end of this coming month, the President will send me

back to Brazil, Bolivia and Peru and Argentina. The whole notion

would be to pull together regional ideas about continuing to successfully confront the drug issue, and to do so not just on the basis

of intelligence cooperation and judicial cooperation and air and sea

interdiction, which are vitally important, but to see it in a larger

context of what we think are the major contributions that we started in the Santiago Summit of the Americas. How do we make sure

that 34 nations are engaged in this process, and this is not seen

as a United States problem that we’re cajoling our Latin American

partners into participating in? That’s where the trip took me, and

I will be glad to respond to your own questions.

Chris, the next chart if you will, sir. Why don’t you put them all

up there so we can run through this a bit quicker.

Source zone strategy. Six years ago we put together PDD 14. I

think it was a sound piece of work. I thought so at the time. It suggested you got to do it all; you’ve got to have a solid domestic law

enforcement and interdiction strategy. Yes, you do have to go into

the transit zone, the Caribbean, the Eastern Pacific, Central America. We can talk about that. But at the end of the day, the huge

payoffs in terms of supply reduction are going where the drugs are

produced, and we’re doing that worldwide.

But certainly when it comes to cocaine and heroin in the Latin

American arena, our eradication concept in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia

and Mexico are vital to achieving some goal. And I would just suggest to you, almost to my astonishment it’s working, more so than

I could have envisioned in the 5-some odd years that I’ve been

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working the issue. With a rather—in terms of the entire national

budget, with a rather modest financial investment, we actually

every—achieved a net reduction in cocaine in 3 years. And I will

go on to talk about that and why it might be jeopardized in the

coming years.

When I say we, this is not just the DEA, the Customs Service,

the Border Patrol, U.S. Armed Forces, the Agency; a lot of it is the

Peruvian Air Force, Colombian National Police, the cooperation of

authorities in the Caribbean. It’s really been a multinational effort,

and it’s pretty impressive.

Next chart, Chris.

Let me talk about Peru, because that’s clearly the most dramatic

successes we’ve made. Three years, 56 percent reduction in coca

under cultivation. It’s astonishing, unbelievable what has been

achieved. Now, a lot of that was not just the incredible performance

of the U.S. Air Force and intelligence services supporting the Peruvian Air Force, it was alternative economic development, it was

smart political operation by President Fujimori. It was a defeated

Sendero Luminosos. It was a reintroduction of civilian police in the

Huallega Valley. It was good eradication operations in the

Eberamag valley, but inarguably, that’s where they’ve gone in 3

years.

And for that reason, for the first time in a decade there have

been less cocaine floating around the world on a net basis then

there were in previous years. That’s jeopardized. We’re now seeing

possibly some bad evidence of the reintroduction of coca planting

into the eradicated fields.

A lot of reasons why that may or may not be occurring, one of

which is the—as you get production down, the value of the product

goes up. More likely the important reason is these drug criminal

organizations are so flexible, they’re adapting to what we did and

are now moving on the rivers, and they’re smuggling out in the

eastern Pacific by noncommercial shipping. They’re getting around

what we’ve achieved. They’re out in Brazilian air space. They’re

making short aircraft hops across the Colombian border. They’re

moving east into Bolivia instead of north into Colombia. So there’s

a dynamic process by some very clever and dangerous criminal organizations. But Peru ought to be proud of what it’s done.

Next chart. Bolivia. Unusual, I watched this, as have many of

you, for a decade. For 7 years we put $1 billion in there. We

achieved enormous increases in legal cultivation. We helped the police and the Army, but we had a zero impact on coca production.

In the last 2 years, President Banzer, Vice President Quiroga, this

administration has actually reduced coca production 22 percent,

and they’ve done it, thank God, with a human rights equation

taken into account, where there has not been massive conflict,

armed conflict between the coca-ers and the police and the Army.

Now they ought to be proud of what they’ve done, but they’re

also now getting into the heavy lifting, and how well they can proceed will be a challenging concept to them. They’ve gone out, they

asked the Europeans and their global partner for help. But this is

another nation that’s been on the right track, and one element of

it was stiff law enforcement and eradication, very impressive work.

68

Colombia. A traditional ally, they fought with us in Korea. They

are enormously important economic partners, whether it’s coffee or

flowers or whatever. Literally 30,000 jobs in Florida, as you well

know, Mr. Chairman, depend upon trade with Colombia. An honest

President, a good government struggling with these huge challenges.

But when you back off of it and look at the global drug threat

that they pose, it’s a huge problem. And I might add, Mr. Chairman, I would volunteer later on to review the transcript of this

hearing. I’ll pull together the other actors in the government who

watch this issue; let me try and get you a fact sheet. Congressman

Reyes I think quite correctly suggested we have got to get on the

same set of facts.

I think there’s been an awful lot of good sound bites that are

well-meaning, but I need to paint the picture as I think it actually

is. I say that, because I think Colombia is a dynamic situation,

what we’ve done in the past may not be adequate.

We do need to think through the coming several years. It’s going

to require a coordinated effort under the leadership of Secretary

Albright. I went to her when I got back to lay out my own thinking.

She is dispatching Under Secretary Pickering, one of the most distinguished diplomats I’ve ever worked with. He will go down there

on Monday and try and work the issue.

So it’s a changing situation, and I welcome, I think all of us welcome, the oversight of Congress and the participation of Congress,

but we’ve got to get the same sheet of facts.

The peace process, the drug issue, the economic problem, they

are linked. The peace process is faltering. It’s not achieving its purpose. There’s been no gesture of goodwill on the part of FARC guerillas. It’s outrageous. They have gone into this, quote, demilitarized zone, cleared zone with thousands of FARC fighters.

There’s 41 airfields in there. There is some indication there is now

coca production in there.

It is a laboratory operation. They are using it as an armed base

area, and during the July offensive they came out of that DMZ and

attacked the police and the Army as far as 75 kilometers away.

They executed 30-some-odd people in the DMZ. They are entering

homes in the DMZ; 90,000 Colombians live in there, and they’re

violating Colombian constitutional law by exercising jurisdiction in

the absence of Colombian law. It’s a huge problem. And I might

add when they attacked the police and the Army, it was a tremendous signal of determination on the part not just of General

Seranno, but all the Colombian armed forces. Nobody surrendered.

None of these besieged outposts gave up. Many of the Colombian

soldiers that were killed were executed while wounded. They were

shot in the head.

So this is a huge problem, and yet in saying that, I do not imply

that we should do anything but be entirely supportive of continuing

to engage on a negotiated—support Pastrana and his colleagues on

a negotiated end of the FARC, ELM and paramilitary struggle

against the government, but that’s a problem in sum right there,

and it’s spilling over, as I will show in a subsequent chart.

Next. A lot of us should be proud about what we’ve done in the

last 3 and 4 years in the Andean Ridge. I’m not sure what is comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:44 Jan 22, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\65738.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing up in the next 3 or 4 years. It looks to me like the dynamic

is shifting, and we’re now moving in a different direction. The Peruvian cocaine industry is coming back. It’s just beginning, and

January, when we get our yearlong analysis of the data, I will be

able to give you a better overview. But I think it’s going in the

wrong direction, and I will try and learn more about that toward

the end of the month.

Bolivia. Indeed we have done a magnificent piece of work, ‘‘we’’ meaning primarily the Bolivian police and human rights activists

and alternate economic development programs. But again, I think

the organizations, criminal organizations, have now reneged themselves. The Colombians are gone. The Colombians criminals are out

of Bolivia, but Bolivian cocaine production is still going out of country through Argentina, through Brazil, to Europe. A lot of it is in

Europe. It’s not going up now into Colombia to be turned into HCL.

The laboratories are in Bolivia. So it’s a different problem and a

very serious one, and arguably some tough years are coming up.

And then finally we talked about Colombia, it doesn’t need to be

repeated.

It’s not the source of 80 percent of the cocaine. The facts are that

it’s a No. 1 cultivation source of coca. And we’re seeing an improvement, I might add, in the quality of these coca bushes; the HCL

contents going up. It is arguably either 80 percent of the cocaine

in America originated in or transited through Colombia is a better

way to look at it.

I would also argue that there’s six metric tons of heroin, high purity, low cost, now being—as Congressman Cummings accurately

pointed out, being dealt, distributed by the same criminal organizations that are there to distribute cocaine, which makes it even

worse. That heroin is a new dynamic. It’s killing kids from Florida

all the way to New York City and Boston. They’re sticking it up

their nose, thinking because they don’t inject it, it’s less dangerous

probably. Although the extremely good law enforcement work, particularly in Miami and New York City, the seizures are up to 70

percent on the East Coast.

I would argue that does not necessarily mean that’s the primary

source of heroin. Poor Colombia produces 4 percent of the world’s

heroin. The majority of it is still produced in two places, Burma

and Afghanistan. And one could argue in those two countries the

only thing that works is opium production. And that stuff is still

coming in—Burmese heroin is all over the United States.

Next. One could argue Colombia is a trafficking center of gravity.

There’s no question about it, a lot of the laboratories are involved

there. The precursor chemicals come into Colombia from—through

Venezuela, through Ecuador, directly into Colombia. The money

laundering, a lot of it is either orchestrated or takes place in Colombian systems. Clearly the FARC and the ELN and the paramilitary, we’ve had this long sterile debate over whether to call

them narcoguerillas. I don’t know what we ought to call them, but

without question, the FARC income depends upon drug production.

They’re taxing it at every stage, they call it a tax, the growing

of it, the transportation, the laboratories, and so when the Coast

Guard and the DEA seize 6 pounds of Colombian cocaine, the

FARC already got paid, and that’s why you see them in shiny uniVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:44 Jan 22, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\65738.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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forms and brand new automatic weapons, and with aircraft and

helicopters and international legal talent. It’s the center of gravity,

we could argue, for gigantic and menacing criminal enterprise.

Next chart. Their neighbors are worried. They ought to be worried. Colombia is incapable of controlling the land area, particularly in the south, Caqueta and Putumayo provinces. When I flew

in the combat base at Tres Esquinas, right in the heart of Indian

country, and you look out the window, 30 percent of the land area

is coca production, and their FARC base area is now operating,

particularly in Ecuador, but also across the border into Peru, into

Brazil, Brazilian frontier, and in and out of Venezuela land space.

And then finally they’re clear across the border into Panama and

the Darien Peninsula.

I mentioned that not just to indicate the regional nature of the

threat, but to underscore the requirement for regional cooperation

in solving it, which is one of the reasons that I had gone to the surrounding countries and listened to their own views.

Mr. Chairman, final quick comment, we’ve got a first-rate CINC

in Southern Command General Charlie Wilhelm. The Congress

gave us some money to set up United States Southern Command

in Miami, the crossroads of Latin America. We’ve got a problem.

We’ve closed down operations in Panama. As you pointed out, some

2,000 counterdrug flights a year which took place out of Howard

Air Force Base, the capability is gone as of May 1st. It was an $80

million-a-year operation. There were 2,000 airmen there, so that 24

hours a day, 7 days a week, we were supporting the U.S. Customs

Service, which has indeed probably the preponderance of

counterdrug missions, the U.S. Armed Forces, DEA aircraft, the

Agency, Department of Transportation, the Coast Guard tracker

aircraft program. Now we’re trying to come up with new alternatives.

We’re behind the ball on it. We kept negotiating with Panama.

We thought we had a solution that was good for the region. We got

interim access to Manta, Ecuador, Curacao and Aruba. I believe

we’re going to be able to put together a first-rate longer-term

agreement. There’s great receptivity in the region, I think, to continue these cooperative fights.

And I’ve got to underscore, you know, I was out there with Congressman Reyes at 2 a.m., with the Secretary of the Army, the

Chief of Staff of the Army, the old guard, the soldiers of that 204th

MI Battalion, to welcome home the first two remains from those

five brave young U.S. Army aviators. And the President asked

Janet Reno to head the U.S. Delegation that went back to bring in

Captain Jennifer Odom, a beautiful young public servant, operational aircraft lost, supporting regional counterdrug mission, and,

in my view, directly protecting the safety of the American people.

It was a great honor, I know, for Congressman Reyes and I, among

others, to have taken part of in that mission.

With your permission, I will end my formal remarks there, and

I look forward to responding to your own questions and listening

to your own ideas. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

[The prepared statement of General McCaffrey follows:]

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Mr. MICA. I will start with just a couple of questions, if I may.

You’ve been quoted as saying the line between counternarcotics

and counterinsurgency in Colombia no longer exists. I notice that

last week President Pastrana played that down a bit. Do you believe that’s the situation, and your having been there, is there any

reason that President Pastrana would make those comments?

General MCCAFFREY. Well, President Pastrana is a good man,

and he’s accountable to history for achieving peace in Colombia.

And to be blunt, I’m accountable to the American people to protect

them in the drug menace. I believe the only way to do that is in

cooperation with our regional partners. So it’s just a matter of perspective.

There is no factual argument that without 25,000 or so FARC,

ELN and paramilitary guerillas, this gigantic explosion in drug

production in Colombia could not exist. And the Colombian police

are not capable with 4,500 members at Danta in interdicting and

interceding in these coca-producing regions. They’ve got to have the

Colombian armed forces stand them with them.

I think it is a difference in perspectives and possibly semantics,

but he’s got to deal with these people.

Mr. MICA. But there’s no division in your mind between counternarcotics and counterinsurgence?

General MCCAFFREY. Well, I don’t think I would go that far. I

think there is a distinction, but they’re all related issues. The spiralling economy, the peace process, and the guerilla violence and

the drug issue are all fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars from

coca production and opium.

Mr. MICA. One of the problems that we’ve had is getting equip- ment to Colombia. The Congress last year appropriated $280 million, and you’ve heard testimony today about helicopters on

tarmacs, equipment not getting there. I met with the Vice President of Colombia, I believe it was last week, when he was in Washington, and we still seem incapable of getting that equipment to

that area.

Could you tell us of the $280 million that we appropriated what’s

there?

General MCCAFFREY. Let me—I think that’s one of the areas that

bothered me, you know, obviously, since Secretary Randy Beers

and Brian Sheridan and others who are here to testify can with

great, you know, knowledge of the issue talk to you about it, and

I would be glad to give you a report.

Mr. MICA. Would you give us an estimate?

General MCCAFFREY. Let me, if I can——

Mr. MICA. Our staff has reviewed it, and they find only a few

millions of dollars in equipment out of the $280. The press continues to report that Colombia is now the third largest recipient of

aid.

General MCCAFFREY. Yeah.

Mr. MICA. Actually that is only in the money that’s appropriated

this year, and very few of those dollars our investigation indicates

that have actually gotten there.

General MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, if I can, rather than go to

which four helicopters on which day, let me go to how I’ve watched

it over the last 5 years. We—for example, in a statement made

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there’s no Black Hawks there, it’s just simply not the case. There’s

7 Black Hawks there in the Army, and there’s 13 there in the Air

Force. There’s six more going in for the police. There will be there

in October and March, you know—this best aircraft on the face of

the Earth is the Black Hawk. It’s being modified to reach Seranno’s

specifications.

There are, if you will, Mr. Chairman, there are six Bell 212 helicopters have been provided to CNP. Only two are currently operating. One was damaged in a hard landing; one destroyed in an accident. Of the remaining four, two are in maintenance. There are an

additional eight going in darn quick, four more in August, four

more in October.

Mr. MICA. The Hueys are with the military? Blackhawks?

General MCCAFFREY. There are seven with the Army. There are

13 with the Air Force. There are six more going into the police.

There is an Army 7th group training session. The counter-narcotics

battalion at Tormita actually is being equipped and trained and

U.S. trainers are there. I think it’s inaccurate to get the impression

that there isn’t—Colombia is the third largest recipient of foreign

aid on the face of the Earth. There are a lot of people down there

trying to make that happen.

Mr. MICA. But again, only $7 million in this recent appropriations that we did in a supplemental was last year. The equipment

is actually there. We have been trying to get, I quot Mr. Hannah

from 1997, the Hueys to the Colombian National Police. Mr. Reyes

pointed out about the decertification. We could have decertified

with a waiver which we recommended, which would have allowed

us to get that equipment there. So what we have is we have appropriated money but the actual resources have not gotten to those

who are—and the dispute in the Congress or among folks here has

been not providing the military equipment to the military. It has

been the military have it. The police who are conducting the bulk

of the antinarcotics effort don’t have it.

General MCCAFFREY. I don’t think that’s accurate. When I went

to Colombia 6 months ago, I got aboard Army Blackhawks and flew

out to the combat base in Guaviare with NAS-supported helicopters

moving Colombian police. I think there is a big problem, potted radars being produced, Blackhawks being produced and modified.

Maybe it was inadequately done, but there is a lot of stuff there.

There is trainers on the ground.

Mr. MICA. General, we are just trying to get that equipment to

where it can effectively do the job, to solicit your assistance. Finally, one question on the forward operating locations. Our surveillance, which has closed down, there were 15,000 flights and 2,000

personnel. All of that stopped in Panama.

General MCCAFFREY. 2,000 flights.

Mr. MICA. No, we have 15,000 flights.

General MCCAFFREY. I don’t know where you got that.

Mr. MICA. That is the information we were given.

General MCCAFFREY. I ran the programs. 15,000 flights is ludicrous. I don’t know where that number came from, whatever the

number is.

Mr. MICA. We won’t debate that. Again, we are using the figures

given to us by the Southern Command and others. In any event,

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what percentage of flights are now being conducted? We sent staff

there about a month ago and staff found about one third of the

flights were being conducted that were previously conducted. You

could give us Manta and also Curacao.

General MCCAFFREY. That’s where you have to be careful what

sound bites you use. If you take all of the flights flown in the region during the month of June—listen to me, this is factually accurate—it is 122 percent of the flights flown during the same period

a year earlier. What is deceptive about that is most of those flights

are flown in the transit zone, Caribbean. We can support the Caribbean just as effectively out of McDill Air Force base as we could

out of Panama. The problem is the source zone region. That’s been

a huge decrease. But even then we got into Manta and we got into

Curacao and Aruba and were flying from all three locations.

Mr. MICA. What percentage of flights?

General MCCAFFREY. Well, the source zone I think has gone way

down. Part of that was tied up in Kosovo. We lost a lot of these

Intel aircraft, AWACs were all redeployed to fight the air war in

Kosovo. But I think we have a challenge. We have got to get infrastructure support from Manta, Curacao, and Aruba. We have got

to get cooperation from regional authorities, or we will have a problem supporting the source zone. You are quite correct.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, General. Just as I conclude, let me submit

for the record the helicopter that was shot down in the video was

shot down at 18:38 to 18:40. It was right at dusk. It was with an

infrared camera, so that’s the exact time on that. Mr. Reyes has

also asked about a balanced approach. I would like to submit for

the record these charts which show Federal spending on international, which is source country, which was decimated, cut about

50 percent we see during the beginning of this administration.

Only now, and if you look here, are we getting back to the equivalent of 1991 to 1992 dollars.

Federal spending for interdiction was cut. Interdiction decreased

51 percent, international funding levels fell 56 percent from 1992

to 1995, and for the record to look at the balance from 1991 to

1999, we have more than doubled, approximately doubled, the

treatment money.

I just wanted to submit those for the record so that we can, and

possibly there would be some dispute about these, but we were

given these statistics from GAO reports, create a balanced approach and look at what our strategy would be.

I would like to yield now to the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Chairman, would you like to go ahead and recognize one of the Democrats first and then I will be——

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, since I have to go into another briefing, I would welcome it if you would give me the opportunity to ask

some brief questions.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I have absolutely no problem with that.

Mr. MICA. Then we will go right back to you.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, and I want to thank Mr. Burton for your

courtesy.

Mr. GILMAN. I thank the gentleman. I thank the gentleman for

yielding. General McCaffrey, we want to commend you for saying

what Colombia needs now is $1 billion regional proposal. But

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where is the White House on this? I haven’t seen any budgetary

requests for that. I haven’t seen any spelling out of the details nor

the implementation of your proposal. We would welcome hearing

about that.

General MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, if I can correct you, I don’t

have a $1 billion proposal for Colombia. What I have got is a discussion paper that I put out about 3 weeks ago to all 14 of the

President’s Cabinet officers. It’s a $1 billion package for regional

drug issues. It goes to Peru, Bolivia, Colombian, the Caribbean, et

cetera. It’s not just military police aid; it is also alternative economic development, support for judicial training, and infrastructure. That discussion paper I think needs to be addressed. I was

privileged to brief the Cabinet very succinctly on our concerns. I

have seen the Secretary of State, so I think we are going to have

to look at this very dynamic situation in the coming months. We

have got a challenge on the budget. No question.

Mr. GILMAN. General McCaffrey, when will we get beyond the

discussion stage and just the proposal stage? If we are going to

really help, when are we going to provide the kind of funding that

is needed and the resources that are needed?

General MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, let me, if I may, challenge

all of us, because I really welcome your involvement in this thing.

We sent over an INL budget. The Senate cut it by 27 percent. The

House just cut the INL budget by 10 percent. We have got earmarking of money in the House for three A–10 tank killing aircraft

as crop spraying planes. We haven’t—you haven’t funded, the administration hasn’t funded——

Mr. GILMAN. If I might interrupt you, what—the House and Senate have complied even with more funding and resources than the

administration requested. According to ONDCP 1999 budget, $48

million was budgeted for Colombia in fiscal year 1998; yet the administration only requested $30 million in fiscal year 1999. That

represents a 37 percent decrease in the request in just 1 year. Why

has there been such a significant decrease request? In addition to

the $30 million for Colombia in fiscal year 1999, Congress passed

an emergency supplemental appropriations bill which brought the

total allocations for Colombia last year to about $256 million according to ONDCP figures. Yet your fiscal year 2000 budget request for Colombia was only $40 million this year.

Now, you are talking about a $1 billion emergency counter-drug

including 600 million for Colombia. So you have now gone from $40

million request to over $600 million in just 6 months. Why all of

these discrepancies? Don’t point the finger to the Congress. We are

asking the administration, why aren’t you coming forward to meet

the crisis with the proper funding?

General MCCAFFREY. Well, Mr. Gilman, here is the answer. Fiscal year 2000 request for international programs were $637 million.

That is a 4 percent increase over last year’s requested amount. I

do think it’s an appropriate question to ask, why did the House and

the Senate both cut the INL budget we sent over here. I don’t understand how we can be doing one thing and talking another. I do

believe that we need a new look at the region. If you will allow me

to answer your question, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. GILMAN. The House just passed $285 million for INL

antinarcotics efforts.

General MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, you get to ask the question,

but you have got to allow me to respond to them.

Mr. GILMAN. Your figures are wrong. We have accommodated the

White House request for the antidrug funding for INL. We passed

it.

General MCCAFFREY. Actually, Mr. Chairman, the figures are

quite correct. I think you are taking a bite out of them, which I believe deserves a respectful response. But in fact there is a 4 percent

increase in INL budgets in fiscal year 2000, which has not been

acted on by the U.S. Congress. Now, I am also going to propose a

new look at the whole region. I will get an answer out of the Government when they sort it out, these conflicting peace process, economic challenge, and drug problems. We do require a new look at

it. That’s why I welcome your involvement. But I do believe that

you ought to give us the money that was in the INL budget. That’s

really what I am trying to put on the budget.

Mr. GILMAN. General McCaffrey, if we have such a crisis confronting us, why isn’t the administration asking for additional

funds to meet this crisis instead of just a paper talking about some

regional approach?

Let me move to address another area. With regard to Panama

and regard to Howard Air Force Base, we were engaged with the

foreign affairs directorate in Panama before we closed the base.

They were anxious to keep us there. Then they got caught up in

politics. Now we understand that the new President of Panama is

willing to discuss further negotiations in keeping Howard Air Force

Base instead of advertising Howard Air Force Base for sale to a

private developer.

Now we are hearing just recently that there is an ammunition

shortage in Colombia primarily because Howard Air Force Base

has been closed that used to supply the ammo. Right now they

have a critical ammo problem. What I am asking truly is what can

we do to reopen Howard Air Force Base by negotiations with an administration in Panama that is interested in doing that?

General MCCAFFREY. I certainly share your dismay that those

negotiations didn’t come out positively. We clearly were suiting the

needs of the region. It was better for U.S. national interests. It was

better for Panama, and I think it is a great disappointment. We negotiated in good faith. We had a first-rate performance, in my view,

by Ambassador McNamara and the United States Ambassador to

Panama. It’s a shame that’s what happened. In the short run, I

think we are out of Panama. It’s a closed question.

The new administration down there, when he gets in office, perhaps then we ought to let them think through what they want to

achieve. But I think our CinC has got a decent way of dealing with

the problem. If we can get into Manta, Ecuador, with an FOL and

also into Curacao and Aruba and locate a third FOL that can

watch the eastern Pacific, and Panama is not the only option, we

will be able to satisfy our regional counter-air requirements. I

think President Balladares turned off the process. Until he is out

of office and this new administration can look at it, I don’t believe

that it’s fruitful to pursue that.

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Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General.

Mr. MICA. I would like to recognize now Mr. Cummings from

Maryland.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First of

all, let me say this, General McCaffrey. As you know, I really appreciate what you are doing. It seems like it all depends on what

day you appear here. Some days we think that you are the greatest

thing since ice cream, and other days it’s like a slam dunk against

you. But the fact is that I do believe—and I know that you know

this—that on this day when the Congress is basically out of session, for a total of 10 or 12 Members to remain here to deal with

this issue, it means that all of us are very concerned about this,

as I know you share our views and our feelings and our passion

about trying to rid our country of, if not our world of, this drug

problem.

In that light, you sent a letter—first of all, let’s go back to these

helicopters. We spent a phenomenal amount of time on these helicopters. It sounded as if—I know that we have got some people

from State, but I want to first of all figure out what role you play

in all of this. You have a strategy for Colombia, is that right, pretty

much?

General MCCAFFREY. I think the Colombians have a strategy for

Colombia. We are trying to figure out how to support it effectively.

Mr. CUMMINGS. These helicopters, do you see them as a very important part of the strategy there in Colombia?

General MCCAFFREY. I think there is no question. Mobility for

the police and the Army is probably one of the greatest tools we

could give them in the short run.

Mr. CUMMINGS. One of the things that you said, you were talking

about General Serrano. You said something that kind of caught my

ear. You said something about one of the problems was trying to

get helicopters to meet certain specifications of General Serrano. I

know that we may have testimony later on about this, but can you

elaborate a little bit on that?

General MCCAFFREY. It’s been a very complex issue. For example, I probably ought to clear up that I owe Mr. Burton a response

to his very legitimate concern about why would I apparently be

supporting the Blackhawks but writing a letter to not support the

Blackhawks. At one point 11⁄2 years ago, Congress said let’s give

six Blackhawks to the Colombian police, but the money was going

to come out of the existing INL budget, which to me was a disaster.

It would have immediately stopped two-thirds of our support to Bolivia. So I opposed that course of action. And, oh, by the way, the

Colombians hadn’t budgeted for those Blackhawk flying hours. So

they would have stood down in my view the majority of their Huey

helicopters. So I said that’s no good and I wouldn’t support it.

Congress last year in the supplemental provided enough money

to pay for the training, the OPTEMPO, et cetera, at which point

I said OK it’s a contribution. I also would tell you, I think our support for mobility so far has been marginal. This is sort of on the

edge. There are 240,000 police-army, 25,000 for KLN and paramilitary guerillas, six helicopters. This is not significant.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. But you don’t have a problem with us getting

these helicopters? You are not pulling my time on me, are you, Mr.

Chairman?

General MCCAFFREY. No, I think we absolutely support it. We

absolutely support it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I thought my chairman wanted to stop me. I just

want him to know that I didn’t have my 5 minutes.

General MCCAFFREY. Your light is OK, Mr. Congressman. I don’t

know about—— Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me just finish here. You sent a letter on July

13 to Secretary Albright. You talk about the fact that we had a— that the aid to Colombia was, ‘‘inadequate to deal with the enormous internal threats.’’ There seems to be some question as to what that was all about

and how did you come to this revelation. Can you address that for

us? Then you had specific requests, and we want to know what her

response was.

General MCCAFFREY. Well, I think it’s premature, to be blunt.

That was me laying down a marker suggesting—I know, for example, there is an idea floating around in Congress of $940 million of

support for Colombia. I tried to pull together some good thinking

as a discussion paper, not only to the Secretary of State but others

involved in this and said let’s relook at a dynamic situation that

is going in the wrong direction. I think that’s exactly what is taking place. The administration will look through the threat as it has

evolved and try to sort out what to do and we will consult with

Congress. But we don’t have an idea on the table, OMB approved,

yet to come down here and present to you.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I would like to recognize the chairman of

the full committee, Mr. Burton.

Mr. BURTON. General McCaffrey, according to news accounts in

Colombia 1997, you said you supported Blackhawk helicopters for

the Colombian National Police, as you have stated here today. Days

later in Washington, DC, you opposed counter-narcotics aid to Colombia and you wrote that Blackhawks would threaten to undermine the objectives of the United States international counter-drug

policy.

Why did you have those two conflicting positions in just such a

short period of time?

General MCCAFFREY. Mr. Burton, I just answered that question.

You were involved in the discussion. Let me repeat it if I may.

Mr. BURTON. I appreciate that.

General MCCAFFREY. I just answered the question 2 minutes ago.

Let me again lay it out.

I do support mobility for the police and the Army. That’s unquestioned. What happened was we had a proposal where we would pay

for six helicopters for the Colombian police out of the existing INL

budget, which would have reduced the Bolivian counter-drug aid by

two-thirds that year. That was a disaster for the U.S. Government,

so I opposed it and I provided a letter to that effect.

Now, later when we got the supplemental out of Congress, which

I think basically is a pretty good piece of work, it was done too hurriedly. It wasn’t thought through adequately, but it was a pretty

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good piece of work. Congress provided the money for the

Blackhawks, the training, the spare parts, and the OPTEMPO.

If we had taken those six Blackhawks and put them there, minus

funding from the Colombian Government—I might add they did not

budget for the operation of those aircraft—we would have stood

down every NAS Huey helicopter. We can’t have, in my view, congressional staffs micro-managing the Colombian police and air

force. They are not qualified to do it. We ought to make the Colombians think through it. Let other CinC work with the people who

are doing that and present some coherent plan, which is what we

owe you.

Mr. BURTON. General McCaffrey, it isn’t our staff. I talked to

General Serrano personally, and I looked him in the eye much closer than we are. He said, why are we being promised these helicopters and why aren’t they being delivered? You promised 40 helicopters. They are not down there.

And you said, well, we have got to be real careful because we are

going to hurt Bolivia if we take that money away. The fact of the

matter is we now have a situation that is virtually out of control

and you are saying, OK, we have got to do something about that.

In 1997 and 1998, nothing was done. In Congress, you said that

Chairman Gilman and I were micro-managing, trying to micromanage it.

The fact is we were talking to General Serrano on a frequent

basis. Our staffs were going down there on a frequent basis to see

what was being done and nothing was being done. We have got

junk helicopters down there. We have got 4,000 Colombian National Police being killed. They are now negotiating from a position

of weakness with the FARC guerillas because we haven’t done anything. Now, all of a sudden with bravado, you are coming up here

saying, oh, yeah, we are really going to sock it to them and we are

going to do something.

Why didn’t we do it before?

General MCCAFFREY. Well, I would suggest that we—I couldn’t

agree with you more. We need to relook the Colombian problem. I

think that you are right. I look forward to hearing your own ideas.

An enormous amount has been done. We have the third largest recipient of U.S. aid on the face of the Earth. There is a huge embassy and military effort going on to support, where appropriate,

training, equipment, intelligence cooperation. But I welcome your

own ideas, Mr. Chairman, and we will try to support your thinking.

Mr. BURTON. We will try to work with you. Let me just say that

I want to set the record straight on a few issues. The reason we

earmark funds for INL is because there are 40 helicopters that

have not been delivered. INL has been fully funded and we are the

reason for it here in the House. We are the reason that the Senate

added that $70 million to INL’s budget. Earmarking was necessary

to make sure that those helicopters got down there because we

didn’t——

General MCCAFFREY. This is the fiscal year 2000 budget, Mr.

Chairman? Because that’s just not the case.

Mr. BURTON. Fiscal year 1998.

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General MCCAFFREY. Fiscal year 2000 is the budget that I am

talking about. The one on the Hill, the House did not fund it and

neither did the Senate.

Mr. BURTON. Let me give you the facts as I see them: one, last

year after administration cuts in source country programs totaling

more than $1 billion in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996, Congress acted

decisively. Two, last year Denny Hastert, the Speaker of the House,

led a congressional effort to put $690 million into source country

programs as the first year of a 3-year effort to fund the Western

Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act. Of that amount—that’s law.

But note, very little of that aid is yet in Colombia, that $690 million.

No. 2, this year despite all of our efforts, despite the U.S. Congress putting forward the crucial 3-year western Hemisphere act,

despite clear signals that we will support aid to Colombia, the

President asked for zero money for this year’s tranche of the western hemisphere Western Elimination Act. We wanted to fund it.

We gave $690 million for it. This year in the President’s request,

zippo.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the chairman of the full committee. I am now

pleased to recognize Mr. Reyes.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, General McCaffrey. I appreciate your tendering and trying to handle some of the

questions because, frankly, there are a lot of issues that from my

perspective are up in the air. I would look forward and encourage

you to come up with some specific facts that we can all look at so

that we can sort things out.

I think ultimately the ones that pay the price are those five soldiers that you and I participated in those ceremonies. Part of what

I think is frustrating, at least for me, is the fact that we do what

I call political jousting in some of these issues. When we talk about

not fully funding the INL money; when we talk about the Senate

still not confirming the State Department official in charge of

North American relations; when we talk about the kinds of things

that we are dealing with as we try to address drug trafficking on

an international level, and also on a domestic level, part of the

frustration that I think we all share regardless of political perspective has to be a clear understanding of what our strategy is.

I think that—again predicated on my background and alluding

to the comments of my colleague on the other side of the aisle on

this committee where he was trying to differentiate how this is different from Vietnam, I would submit that we are engaged—I spent

13 months in Vietnam and I know that you are also a veteran of

Vietnam. Part of the frustration that I see us participating in and

fermenting is the fact that we are doing the same kinds of things

that occurred in Vietnam, that is, we are interjecting politics when

we should be supporting an all-out effort that ultimately will make

a difference in keeping narcotics from our neighborhoods and addressing the issue of how much is coming across the border and

from where. Having spent 261⁄2 years doing that, of my life doing

that, I think it’s critical and vital that we work together.

I have a couple of questions for you, General. One of them has

to do with more the domestic; yet it’s related to the international.

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What is the status on your proposal for the border czar? I think

if we are going to be able to have a clear understanding of our

strategy, we have to start with the strategy that calls for coordination. When we are talking about our southern border, where the

challenge is, as far as I am concerned and based on my experience,

we have to be paying attention to coordination. We have to provide

the kind of support to our various agencies and our various assets

that are involved in this to be able to maximize and give them the

best kind of support, both political and otherwise. Can you tell me,

what is the status of your proposal?

General MCCAFFREY. Mr. Congressman, I think there is some interim good news. There are 15,000 Federal agents involved in the

defense of the southwest border, a $2 billion operation. Thanks to

bipartisan support in Congress, we have dramatically increased the

resources; the manpower of the Border Patrol; the amount of technology going into the Customs Service. The coordination with Mexico, while imperfect, has improved.

The Customs and INL have come up with a notion called BCI,

Better Coordinated Action, at these 39 ports of entry. I think arguably our intelligence flow to support Federal law enforcement on

the border is better. Our HIDTA, High Intensity Drug Trafficking

Area Program, on the five southwest border HIDTAs is, I think,

more effective than it was 2 years ago. At the same time, I must

admit that I think we need a renewed discussion inside the administration so that there is a better integration of the four major departments of the Federal Government who work on border issues.

I have argued for a southwest border coordinating official possibly to be collocated at El Paso, with EPIC, joint task force six,

and Alliance. I think there is a strong logic to persuade my colleagues of that and we need to continue that debate.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, General. Very quickly, can you address

the issue of the School of the Americas? We fight this battle every

year. It seems to me that the mission of the School of the Americas

is critical and vital to the context of the conversation that we are

having here this morning in this hearing.

General MCCAFFREY. I wrote some letters over here to support

the School of the Americas along with two of the people whose

judgment I most trust in Government, Mr. Tom Pickering and Mr.

Walt Slocum in State and DOD along with the secretary of the

Army and others. The School of the Americas is an enormous contribution, in my judgment, to allowing, in a Spanish-language environment, military and police officials from throughout the 34 democratic nations to come together and train on a common U.S. Army

doctrine basis.

I think that it’s made a tremendous gift of professionalizing and

making more responsive to democracy the rule of law of the military forces. It’s been going on essentially since the early 1950’s.

There were problems with some of the graduates during the ideological wars of the 1970’s in Central America and South America.

I think it’s a great gift to the hemisphere.

I also, to be honest, find that the criticism is not only 10 years

out of date, it’s insulting to the current leadership, uniformed leadership of the U.S. Army. That school at Fort Benning is under the

same inspector general rule of law, congressional oversight that

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any other U.S. Army installation has to respond to. I think the

American people properly have a lot of confidence in the Army’s

leadership.

I think that we have got an old argument dragging us back to

the 1970’s when we need to look at the future. And the School of

the Americas as well as the Air Force school in El Paso—have I

got it right? El Paso or San Antonio, excuse me, and the Navy’s efforts are all tremendous contributions to the drug mission, also.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I will recognize our vice chairman, the

gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, you mentioned

briefly in your opening remarks about the policies that Peru has

implemented which resulted in a very, very marked decrease in the

drugs coming out of that country. Could you just very briefly tell

us what is the current status of the Peruvian shoot-down policy.

General MCCAFFREY. They actually—I ought to be careful and

not use classified information in public. The numbers are relevant.

The Peruvians still have a shoot-down policy. Their air force is still

committed. We are still providing the intelligence. Basically, it is

sort of still working if you look at it from a narrow perspective of

air interdiction in the growing fields. The problems is that drug

criminals changed their systems so now they are moving short air

hops, they are using the river systems, and there is some argument

that we are seeing new coca planting occurring in the formerly

eradicated areas. They are also moving out into Brazilian airspace,

and they are also using ground smuggling out of Peru and into Bolivia.

Mr. BARR. I understand that. I just wanted to understand, does

the Peruvian Government still have the shoot-down policy?

General MCCAFFREY. Absolutely.

Mr. BARR. By the way, I appreciate your comments on the School

of the Americas. I think there was a very unfortunate amount of

misinformation that was used in the floor debate, and I hope that

you will help us to try to correct that mistake that was made by

the House.

With regard to the way that we characterize the situation down

in Colombia, and as I mentioned earlier, I am glad to see the State

Department is recognizing there is a narcoterrorist threat or a

narcoguerilla threat, that there is indeed a very, very profound and

deep relationship between narcotics trafficking and the destabilizing terrorist and guerrilla activity. I was somewhat surprised,

though, in a recent story to see the Colombian President denying

the FARC or narcoguerillas. How would you account for that? Does

the President there just not get it? Does this reflect fear on his

part, some sort of policy decision? Clearly, they are narcoguerillas

or narcoterrorists. Why would the President of Colombia be hesitant to recognize that?

General MCCAFFREY. I think first of all, Mr. Pastrana is trying

to keep peace. And so he has got to deal with these people. He is

trying to set up a dialog. I am very respectful of the problems he

faces—— Mr. BARR. I presume it is not the way that you would go about

negotiating, giving away all of your chips up front?

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General MCCAFFREY. I would prefer to not argue about their name and to say that there is no argument that there is $200 million or more going from coca production into the FARC. That is

where the machine guns, the mortars, the legal talent, the corruption, the violence affecting Colombian society and our own is flowing from.

Mr. BARR. I don’t want to get into an argument now. I don’t

think that fundamentally you and I disagree on this. It is not just

a question of semantics. It’s a recognition of what the problem is.

General MCCAFFREY. I meant his semantics.

Mr. BARR. If we have people that say, OK, we have a narcotics

problem and let’s deal with that; OK, we have a guerrilla problem,

let’s deal with that, we are not recognizing that there is a problem

here and that the sum of its parts is much worse than the individual parts themselves.

The proposal that you circulated in the administration last month on the 13th, the discussion paper, recommending $1 billion

in emergency counter-drug budget enhancements, do others in the

administration and specifically—because I agree with you, and I

want to be very supportive of that—but do others in the administration, including specifically if you could address this, the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, DCI, and the national security advisor, do they share your view that the situation

in Colombia is an emergency, and will they be supportive of requesting emergency funds to address it?

General MCCAFFREY. I think there is no question that there is

a broad-gauged feeling on all my partners that there is an emergency situation.

Mr. BARR. I really want to be very specific. Do those named individuals, the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense,

DCI, and national security advisor, not generically or as a group,

do they share—because I know you have talked with them about

this.

General MCCAFFREY. They do share a feeling we have an emergency situation in Colombia and it requires a broad-gauge response

which may require additional resources. Now, we have got to sort

that out and end up with a sensible plan to send to Congress.

Mr. BARR. As you sit here today, would you tell us whether you

are optimistic or pessimistic that your views will prevail?

General MCCAFFREY. Well, I am optimistic that——

Mr. BARR. I hope they do, but——

General MCCAFFREY [continuing]. That the Secretary of State,

the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, Secretary Slater

and others, all of whom have a piece of this, are seriously looking

at the issue. We put a tremendous amount of resources in there already. But the dynamics have changed. Now, we have got to sort

out what do we do to support the peace process, the economy, and

the drug effort.

Mr. BARR. Do you think that you will prevail in getting them to

agree, not just that there is an emergency down there, but they

will request and support your request for emergency funds?

General MCCAFFREY. First of all, there is no request on the table

yet. I am trying to pull together a conceptual agreement among the

administration. That includes I might add, I have got to go consult

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with the leadership in Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. This is a regional

problem, not just a Colombian problem. That’s the other thing that

we have to remind ourselves. At the end of the day, I hope that

we will continue to evolve a policy that meets the requirements.

And it is an emergency requirement, there is no question.

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

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I am pleased to recognize now the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Venezuela is our No. 1 supplier of oil to America,

far more than anywhere in the Middle East. A lot of people don’t

realize that. Much of its border with the Colombian Government

now doesn’t, in fact, control. Colombia is the second, I think, in oil

by-products to our country. You mentioned earlier in your testimony the problems with, particularly, in the Panama Canal and

the FARC and the narcotraffickers have moved into the Darian potentially with Panama not really having the resources with which

to defend itself. We already have the financial people moving into

Panama.

I heard you testify on different committees on the drug problems

in our high schools and our cities. There is no question that drugs

are a huge killer in America. Do you believe that the crisis we are

currently facing, with possibly a destabilization of Colombia or at

least a dividing of the country where many of the borders could not

be controlled, is as great a threat to our country as Kosovo?

General MCCAFFREY. I pretty much admired your earlier comment about why this isn’t Vietnam. I think this argument by analogy gets us into trouble. Let me take Kosovo off the table. I did

that 5 years ago. Let me, if I can, just get to the part of your concern in Colombia. I showed a chart that essentially suggests, I

think accurately, that if you are looking for the serpent of the

whole problem, it’s Colombia and it is affecting their international

partners. And they are also concerned.

So before we are done with this, it seems to me there will be a

coming together of these democratic regimes to include us as one

of them with the support, I hope, of the European Union, because

we are absolutely going to work other partners to help with this

process. The Brits have been extremely supportive. The Dutch have

been supportive. The French. We have got to get concerned about

it because it is going to have an impact on many of the rest of us.

Mr. SOUDER. I agree that analogies are dangerous. But if we

were simultaneously right now funding Vietnam versus Colombia,

we actually have to make some very tough budget decisions. We

are looking at putting a minimum of $4 billion to $8 billion into

the Balkans. I wanted to make an earlier comment which I understand is disputed. Mr. Beers and I have argued this before. But

there is a disagreement in the INL. When I first offered an amendment to move Blackhawks to the CNP many years ago as to whether that money was coming from Bolivia and Peru or whether it was

coming because, against the will arguably of INL and of the drug

czar’s office, resources were transferred to Bosnia at that time.

There were multiple waves in the accounting, whether it was a

direct transfer or an indirect transfer. I in no way, nor did other

people, think we were taking it in Bolivia and Peru. Now, we can

dispute how the money gets moved around, but in fact it isn’t as

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simple as it looks just on the surface. Furthermore, I believe that

history in fact does matter, not only because you don’t want to repeat it, but because I know Mr. Reyes and others have expressed

concerns about our politics. We are an oversight committee. We

have to look through and say, well, we have done this. If this didn’t

happen, how could we not have that repeat again? That’s what an

oversight and reform committee does.

I hope in the record of this hearing we can go through and get

some of the actual numbers because we have got numbers passing

across each other here. I do want to clarify a couple of historical

points which really are only minor, relative to the problem we are

facing now in Colombia but important in trying to sort through

how to get there. My understanding of the 7 Blackhawks with the

Army and the 13 with the Air Force is those were not bought with

our money. Those were bought by Colombians——

General MCCAFFREY. True.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. And the reason that they were bought

by Colombians was because the Leahy rule says, in my opinion correctly, for a long period of time that the Colombian military was

not screening their people enough; therefore, we could not provide

aid to the Colombian military. The only way that we could provide

aid was to the Colombian National Police because they had been

vetted. Southcom and General Wilhelm and you and others have

worked very hard to try to improve the Colombian military. They

are trying to get the vetted units, but the only way that we could

get additional Blackhawks with American funding into the developing crisis was to try to do it through the CNP, not that the Dante

were sufficient to win a war. We understand that, but that was our

only vehicle with which to do so. We are now, to add one other

thing which I hope we will get into in these budget questions, the

House passed the INL in general. We have increased it. We have

had problems in the Senate. We have the work together——

General MCCAFFREY. Minus $10 million.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. And then the sub-questions. The second point is that, as we all know but very few people want to

admit, we are in the process of a very delicate dance about the

budget caps. We are in the early stages of the budget agreement,

not at the end stages. We know that we are facing omnibus or

some sort of combination of omnibus and emergency supplemental.

That’s why you are hearing a lot of the questions here today. Will

the administration come to the table with an emergency proposal

that you are floating? You put everything in your office behind that

because we are going to need additional money. The question is, is

it going to go to INL or this kind of effort? Is this crisis going to

be as forefront as the farm crisis, as the Y2K, as the many other

things? That is partly, do the American people understand what we

are facing here? And arguing over $10 million when your budget

initially was $40 million I think and we came a little under that—

not $40 million for Colombia, but the INL was—now you are saying

maybe $600 million just for Colombia. Hey, conditions have

changed. You said conditions have changed. So what are we going

to do to push this up? History does matter some, but at this point

how do we get to the next level?

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General MCCAFFREY. Well, you can be assured, Mr. Congressman, I agree with your point. I will argue forcefully for a balanced

coherent approach to this changing problem in the region. Mr.

Pickering goes down there on Monday. I believe there is an enormous focus on the part of all of us that Colombia is going in the

wrong direction and it’s affecting our regional partners. I might

add that we are concerned about Peru and Bolivia and Panama

and many of the Caribbean Islands. So we will close on the issue.

I will be prepared to discuss rationally our options inside the Government, and I will respond to the Congress in the fall.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from Indiana, and I recognize

Mr. Ose from California.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, a couple of questions if I might. If I understand, within the budget that you have,

you are able to move money back and forth between accounts?

General MCCAFFREY. I apologize. I missed that.

Mr. OSE. If I understand correctly within the budget that you

have, you are able administratively to move money between accounts?

General MCCAFFREY. There is a legal authority for me to move

a percent or so with the concurrence from the smaller of two budgets with the total concurrence of the committee in Congress from

which the original budget came. So it’s a tenuous authority that exists, and it has never been exercised.

Mr. OSE. One of the things that I find most troubling about this

entire situation is that—and you are far more familiar with the

numbers than I am and I suspect that if we get into an argument

on the numbers I am going to look pretty foolish and you are going

to look pretty smart. I am willing to go through that if I have to,

but at some point I am reminded of that old ditty that mine is not

to question why, mine is but to do or die.

I have to say, after 7 months up here, I don’t care about the next

election. I don’t care whether I win or lose. I just want something

to happen. We are tired of reading about the kids in the streets of

America dying from this poison. I know that you are too. We moved

a half million people and I don’t know how much war materiel, to

Saudi Arabia in 6 months’ time, and we can’t get 10 stinking helicopters to Colombia in 3 years? That’s the level of my frustration.

I am reminded of General McClelland when he worked for President Lincoln. He had all of the rationales for why he couldn’t get

out in the field and beat Robert E. Lee. Give me some guidance

here.

General MCCAFFREY. Well, I certainly agree with you on one

thing, Mr. Congressman, we shouldn’t argue about facts. Logic 101

in college, don’t argue about facts. They either are or they aren’t.

We ought to argue about the implication of the facts. I think that

I owe the chairman of the committee some layouts so that we can

have a debate where we all agree on, here are the numbers, and

get down to micro-detail on which two helicopters.

Make Mr. Beers and Sheridan answer those questions. I think

there is no question of this at all. Four years ago, the counter-drug

budget was $13.5 billion. This year the request on the Hill is $17.8

billion. That includes a 21 percent increase in support for the INL

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process in that same period of time; 36 percent increase in research; 52 percent increase in prevention education; 26 percent increase in treatment. There are real people, real programs, real

adds, and, oh, by the way, there is a real decrease in drug abuse

among American adolescents.

So you ought to be frustrated, but don’t you forget that Congress

has provided some serious sensible increases to support this program. I am very well aware of it and supportive of it. When it

comes to helicopters and trainers and equipment for the Colombian

armed forces and police, we have had problems. There are real increases in their capabilities over the last 4 years. No question. I go

down there and I get on Blackhawk helicopters and I visit the

counter-narcotics battalion in Tolamia and the 7th special forces

group is there, and we are doing the right thing.

Now, I think we do, back to your point, we need a new debate

on it because coca protection has doubled. They are attacking the

police and the army in the outskirts of Bogota. And the peace process is not working.

Mr. OSE. I don’t care about the peace process in Colombia. I just

don’t care. I don’t care. I just want to know when are we going to,

as you have suggested, take a material hard look at whether we

are succeeding or failing on our—on our standards? Just giving

General Serrano a couple of helicopters that can get to the elevations that he needs to go to seems like an infinitesimally simple

thing. I don’t understand why we can’t do it.

General MCCAFFREY. I think the answer is, we are doing it.

That’s the answer. There actually are six Blackhawk helicopters

that will show up in Colombia. There actually are NAS-supported

Hueys. There actually is a brand new intelligence coordination center that I was just in. There actually are huge resources flowing

into Colombia and they are making a difference. Now, we need to

revisit, is this adequate not only for Colombia, but for the region?

Mr. OSE. If it’s not, the dilemma that we are going to be faced

is with the FARC growing ever larger, and threatening the neighbors and a peace process in shambles or whatever. The democratic

institutions in these countries will be collapsing. We are going to

have a real hard choice. I would rather get those helicopters there

now. If it’s the helicopters, if it’s the physical presence in the air

of helicopters spraying coca plants that sends the message or establishes the fact that the FARC is not going to rule here, I just think

that we ought to send—I have read General Frank’s book.

I know you’re experienced in the Second Corps. I know if there

is anybody who can do this, you are the man. I don’t understand

why we can’t get 10 stinking helicopters to Colombia. I am completely frustrated. We have kids dying in my district. I’m sorry, Mr.

Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. I would like to recognize as

we conclude for a couple of minutes Mr. Cummings is serving as

our ranking member.

Mr. CUMMINGS. General, a few weeks ago one of my proudest moments in sitting on this subcommittee, and on this committee,

came when we held a hearing with regard to a murderer from— I think it was Florida, Deltoro. This guy had eluded extradition to

the United States. And they had been trying to get him extradited

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from Mexico for something like 18 months, 2 years. And in one

hearing, in a bipartisan way, this subcommittee got it done within

about 2 weeks.

I think what you are hearing from Congressman Ose and really

Congressman Souder and all of us is that, first of all, we acknowledge that you have probably the most difficult job in this country.

I don’t think that anybody here would question that. I think you

are doing a great job. I think quietly others might say the same

thing. But at the same time when Mr. Burton was questioning you,

you said you agree with him and maybe we need to get together.

It’s not going to take that long, to get together to look at our policies with regard to Colombia. You also said that, and I agree with

you, that we have to be careful about the Congress or the congressional staff micro-managing what goes on as far as these policies

are concerned.

I just come to one basic question, and that is how do we help you

accomplish what you have to accomplish? I, deep in my heart, I believe that we are pretty much on the same page. We may have different routes of getting there, but I mean, I can hear the frustration in my colleagues because I feel the same kind of frustration.

I also feel the frustration from you. Since we are all trying to get

to the same place—if you don’t mind, can you just tell us—I think

Mr. Reyes alluded to the same thing—it’s not a beatup session, but

how can we work together to take these dollars that our constituents are paying in taxes and use them effectively and cost efficiently. That’s basically what I think would be helpful for us so

that we can receive a clear message from you so that when we

walk out of here we can say at least we know that the drug czar

has come in, he has laid out his problems. I don’t care what anybody says. It is much more complicated. You have made it clear

that it’s much more complicated than I thought it was. So now,

how do we work with you to make this work?

General MCCAFFREY. Well, Mr. Congressman, first thing I think

the hearing is enormously helpful. I think the process of bringing

down the administration officials and asking us where we are and

what our evolving thinking is is enormously useful. I think there

is a follow-on step to this process, that clearly the situation

changed. Colombia today isn’t what it was 2 years ago. It’s my own

view it takes us about 3 years to see an idea and turn it into

money and in appropriations.

If you want to build a Blackhawk helicopter and send it to Colombia, it is 25 months to build the thing, the best helicopter on

the face of the Earth. So it takes time to work these ideas in a coherent fashion. I think we’re doing that. If you start looking back

at the resources we’ve put in the international piece of it, they’ve

gone up substantially. It’s hard to throw money at Colombia, for

example, or even helicopters. You’ve got to find Colombian pilots to

fly them. That’s a year of training. And meanwhile, they’re fighting

for their lives. They’re not going to be able to pull people offline.

Very complex issue.

I think in the fall I should come back and tell you where we’ve

taken our evolving thinking based on my visits to the region, also

Mr. Pickering and others, and let’s see where we ought to go from

here.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m sure the chairman will take you up on that

invitation and we look forward to continuing to work with you as

we address these very, very serious problems. And I thank you for

all that you do every day, every hour to uplift our country and the

wonderful citizens of this great America.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman and recognize for very brief

comments Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I had a specific comment. I want to make two other

brief ones as well. First, I don’t know where we would be, General

McCaffrey, if you weren’t there, drug czar. So whatever criticisms

I may have of this administration or times of you, I want to say

that for the record. I said it before. But if you were to leave, it

would be a tremendous devastation to our country. If you hadn’t

been there and using the moral authority and your ability to articulate, we’d be in a lot worse shape. I believe we need to move

ahead and not look back but I just have to say this for the record.

Every time I hear you refer to the training time, I’m thinking

that’s why we were pushing this stuff 4 years ago. If we had been

a little farther ahead of the curve, we wouldn’t be potentially quite

as bad. It would still be bad. I also want to say one other thing

for the record. It’s not meant as a criticism in any way. There were

lots of conflict back and forth but as a former staffer myself, I want

to say a brief word on behalf of staff. As I remember, when I was

a Senate staffer, we always said the scariest thing is when somebody comes up and says my boss was talking to your boss in the

elevator because the plain truth of the matter is that whether

you’re the head of GM, or the drug czar, or a Member of Congress,

we have to raise money. We’re going back and forth to vote on the

floor. You hire people who become experts in that. The first time

I went to Colombia, one of the people we took along with us as an

expert was former Ambassador Buzby who had been Ambassador

to Colombia, when what was referred to earlier as the courts problem there was there. He’d been over Latin America issues. We need

that expertise. It does not mean there aren’t going to be disagreements. It means ultimately we’re elected by the people and we

have to make those final decisions in this area.

I’ve been to Colombia four times. Mr. Mica has been there many

times. Mr. Barr spent much of his youth there in addition to his

trips back. So we are trying to stay engaged but we also have to

have experts on our staff. I wanted to make sure the record reflected that. That’s the only point I wanted to make.

General MCCAFFREY. If I may, because I share your viewpoint,

there are enormously bright, skilled, experienced people on the congressional staffs. I have about 10 people working for me who are

the most knowledgeable folks I ever ran into in the government on

the Andean Ridge problems, but you can’t design the Colombian

police and Air Force in Washington with anybody’s bureaucracy.

It’s got to be the Colombian authorities, their strategy. They’ve got

to budget for it. They’ve—they can’t just buy Blackhawks. They’ve

got to get the training package, the maintenance package, et

cetera. They have to see the tradeoffs. That’s why I’ve argued push

it out, let our Ambassador, our CINC and Colombian authorities

sort out rational policies and then we’ll decide whether or not to

support them.

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Mr. SOUDER. I understand your principle, but remember in the

constitutional powers as the United States was developed, we seek

the advice of the administration for how to fund things, but it is

the responsibility of Congress ultimately to make the funding decisions. We are saying because of your expertise, the way the system

has evolved as we’ve gone much more to the executive branch to

create offices like drug czar because we seek that, but ultimately

we in fact do have to make the funding decisions as American dollars go to Colombia or wherever and we should be careful not to

overmicromanage. When we feel the advisory and execution branch

is not following that policy it is our constitutional responsibility to

do the very thing which is if necessary to micromanage.

General MCCAFFREY. Sure. I understand.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Souder. Being chairman, there is one

benefit and I get to say the last word, General. We thank you for

your testimony today and look forward to cooperating and working

with you.

Just a couple of things for the record. I had staff check on the

number of flights from Howard Air Force Base and we sent down

the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics staff, Senate Foreign

Relations staff, House International Relations Committee, our subcommittee, other staff. This is the latest report I have, July 1999.

American facilities, page 6, within the former Panama Canal Zone,

have provided vital counternarcotics activities. Air operations from

the base ceased on May 1, 1999. Before that time the 8,500 foot

runways saw 15,000 flights annually. The base could handle up to

30 helicopters and over 50 planes. Now, I’m sure that they had various missions but given 2,000 flights only would have left 40 something planes on the ground each day. I don’t think that was the

case. And this may be incorrect. It’s just the information that was

given to our staff.

General MCCAFFREY. It’s a small effort, to be honest.

Mr. MICA. Just for the record, without objection, we’ll include

that.

Additionally, you testified that we have had successes in Peru

and Bolivia, some of them initiated by the former chair of Drug

Policy and who is now Speaker of the House. I think if we check

the record, we’ll find that we actually spent very few dollars there

and have had extremely good return. Peru had a very difficult situation with its insurgency problem so it’s not dissimilar. It’s not totally similar in any way but they have been able to do it, and if

we checked, it would be with very few dollars from us.

And also let the record reflect that the administration did transfer $45 million from that region, the South American region. I remember going down there with Mr. Hastert. We were looking for

the money and they had transferred it to Haiti. And you testified

today, General, that some assets had been—had been transferred

or used in Kosovo and that was an emergency situation. You have

also identified an emergency situation here. And then finally an interesting note, we had done some surveillance with you, too. We

found out when we were down there we were doing that until the

vice president sent the U–2’s that were doing drug missions to

Alaska to check for oil spills. So we do need to check what our priorities are and try to get them in order and look forward to workVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:44 Jan 22, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00107 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\65738.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing with you in a mutual effort to bring this situation under control.

We thank you for coming. We look forward to working with you

and I’ll excuse you at this time.

General MCCAFFREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I call our third panel. I am going to call forward the

Honorable Randy Beers, Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the Department

of State; the Honorable Brian E. Sheridan, Assistant Secretary of

Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict with the Department of Defense; Mr. William E. Ledwith, Chief of the International Operations of Drug Enforcement Agency; and I’d also ask

if we could have Mr. Michael Shifter join us on this panel. He’s the

senior fellow and program director of the Inter-American Dialogue.

I’d like to welcome this panel of witnesses and again this is an

investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress. We do

swear in our witnesses. Some of you have been before us and some

of you haven’t. If you would please stand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. The witnesses answered in the affirmative. I’m

pleased to welcome our panelists. We have gone for some time, and

I am going to enforce the 5-minute rule. We’ll put on the timer. If

you have lengthy statements, we can make them part of the record

just upon request or additional information or data that you think

will be of particular importance to the record of this hearing.

So with that, I’d like to welcome back and recognize the still

standing or sitting Randy Beers, our Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs for

the Department of State. You’re recognized.

STATEMENTS OF RANDY BEERS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE; BRIAN E. SHERIDAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND

LOW INTENSITY CONFLICT, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE;

WILLIAM E. LEDWITH, CHIEF OF INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; AND MICHAEL SHIFTER, SENIOR FELLOW, INTER-AMERICAN DIALOGUE

Mr. BEERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I will

make a very brief statement in opening. Thank you very much for

this opportunity. You have, as is quite often this committee’s role,

brought us together on an absolutely critical issue that we are facing at this time and we all appreciate that. I echo General

McCaffrey’s statement in that regard.

Let me say also that General McCaffrey, I think, has done a fairly respectable job in his opening statement of covering most of the

material that I will want to cover and I wish only to say that the

State Department, and INL in particular, are committed to dealing

with the problem in Colombia, to going after drug traffickers in

both the areas of cocaine and heroin. And I look forward to your

questions and an opportunity to explain some of the questions

which you all have raised in your own opening statements.

Thank you.

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Mr. MICA. Mr. Beers, that’s probably the shortest statement

made by any official of the State Department in history. We welcome it in a way, but we’ll be back for questions after we hear from

Brian E. Sheridan, Assistant Secretary for Special Operations and

Low Intensity Conflict with our Department of Defense. You’re welcome and recognized, sir.

Mr. SHERIDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m also very pleased

to be here today to discuss the situation in Colombia. I think we

all share the committee’s concern about recent events there.

In your letter inviting me to come today, you asked four questions. I would like to very briefly address those. In a written form

submitted to the committee are fuller responses, but I would like

to highlight a couple of key points.

You asked about the nature of the drug threat in Colombia. To

us we still see Colombia as a source of over 80 percent of cocaine

hydrochloride production. We see recently increased fragmentation

in the business and explosion in cultivation, a continued heavy reliance on aircraft for internal flights by drug traffickers within Colombia and what in our view is an increased kind of intermingling

or blurring between the FARC and drug traffickers.

Second, you asked what are recent initiatives of the Government

of Colombia to address this threat. I can only speak to the ones

that the Department of Defense are involved in, and as for recent

initiatives, we’re working with them on the counternarcotics battalion, enhancing their air programs and enhancing their riverine programs.

And then last you asked about the regional security implications

and for that I would simply say they are serious today and potentially more serious as time goes on.

If I could close, I would like to make one pitch to the committee

for support going forward on keeping open the School of the Americas. Congressman Reyes raised that a few moments ago and I

think General McCaffrey spoke of the importance of the school. I

think at a time when we’re studying the situation in Colombia and

are concerned about it, it’s worth noting that over the last 5 years,

789 Colombian police and military have attended the School of the

Americas and from a regional perspective, 310 Bolivians, 116 Ecuadorians, 22 Peruvians, and 177 Venezuelans, so from a Department

of Defense perspective, the School of the Americas plays a vital role

in our engagement in the region and in running good sound counternarcotics programs.

With that, I will conclude my statement and I look forward to

your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sheridan follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. And we’d like to now recognize Mr. William E. Ledwith, who is the Chief of International Operations with

the DEA. Welcome. You’re recognized, sir.

Mr. LEDWITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the

committee, for providing DEA the opportunity to testify at this very

important hearing. If I may, we have a short oral statement and

then I would request that our full written statement be submitted

for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, your entire statement will be made

part of the record.

Mr. LEDWITH. Chairman Mica and members of the committee,

DEA believes that the international trafficking organizations based

in Colombia who smuggle their drugs into our country are indeed

a threat to the national security of the United States. As a law enforcement agency, DEA must hold to a high standard of evidence

our investigations aimed to gather evidence sufficient to indict, arrest, and convict criminals. Our evidence must be usable in a court

of law and must withstand severe scrutiny at every level of the

criminal justice process. With that in mind, my testimony will be

limited to presenting the evidence that DEA holds and drawing

conclusions which we can support given the legal standards we

must meet.

Colombian traffickers control the vast majority of cocaine in

South America and their fingerprints are on virtually every kilogram of cocaine sold in United States cities and towns. In addition,

Colombia alone now manufactures a minimum of 165 metric tons

of cocaine hydrochloride directly from Colombian grown coca leaf,

with an almost equal amount being manufactured or controlled by

Colombians from Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine base. Colombian

traffickers are becoming increasingly less reliant on Peruvian and

Bolivian cocaine base.

As many of you are aware and as DEA has testified to in the

past, the United States is currently experiencing a significant cocaine and heroin trade on the East Coast of the United States franchising a significant portion of their wholesale and cocaine operations is allowing the top level Colombians to remain beyond the

reach of American justice. The Dominicans in the United States

now, not the Colombians are the ones subject to arrest while the

top level Colombians control the organizations from outside the

United States.

This change in operations succeeds in reducing the Colombian

criminals’ exposure to United States law enforcement and extradition to the United States. Reducing their exposure puts the Colombian bosses closer to their goal of operating from a political,

legal, and electronic sanctuary.

In addition to the Colombian organized crime groups involved in

the international drug trade, there is another issue of great importance to both the United States and to Colombia. There is deep

concern about the connection between the FARC and other terrorist

groups and right wing groups in Colombia and the drug trade. The

Colombian Government is responding to this armed challenge.

DEA has in the past demonstrated its ability and willingness to

fight drug trafficking organizations on a global basis. For example,

we participated in the struggle against Pablo Escobar in Colombia,

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a trafficker who resorted to extreme acts of violence as the net was

closing around him. We will work to indict and bring to justice any

drug trafficker regardless of his or her associations.

An alliance of convenience between guerrillas and traffickers is

nothing new. Since the 1970’s drug traffickers based in Colombia

have made temporary alliances of convenience with guerrillas and

right wing groups to secure protection for their drug interests. DEA

intelligence indicates that many elements of the FARC and the

ELN raise funds through extortion, taxation, or by directly selling

security services to traffickers. These terrorists extort from all

manner of economic activity in the areas in which they operate.

In return, the terrorists protect cocaine laboratories, drug crops,

clandestine air strips and other drug interests.

However, these terrorists are not the glue that holds the drug

trade together. If the traffickers did not buy security from the

FARC or ELN, they would certainly buy it from elsewhere as they

have done in the past. It is however true that the cash cow represented by the drug trade has taken on a major role in financing

the terrorists.

The physical threat posed by the terrorists is very real. The frequent ground fire sustained by CNP aircraft when engaged in

eradication missions over FARC or ELN controlled areas is indicative of the extent to which the terrorists will go to protect the

drug interests.

DEA’s partner in Colombia, the Colombian National Police, is a

major law enforcement organization with a long and honored tradition of professionalism and sacrifice. CNP is aggressively pursuing

significant counterdrug operations against cocaine processing laboratories, transportation networks, and trafficker command and

control elements.

By way of conclusion, we can and should continue to identify and

build cases against the leaders of the criminal groups from Colombia. A number of initiatives hold particular promise for success.

DEA is fully committed to supporting efforts currently under way

to train and equip effective forces within the Colombian military to

counter the narco terrorist threat.

The excellent working relationships DEA enjoys with the Departments of State and Defense on counterdrug issues will provide a

foundation for sustained cooperative effort in these undertakings.

The United States Embassy’s Information Analysis and Operation

Center will be increasingly utilized to coordinate and analyze tactical information regarding the transportation and production activities of drug trafficking groups active in the Colombian territories south and east of the Andes Mountains. Special Investigative

Unit programs funded under the Andean Ridge Initiative will continue to work closely with DEA and conduct high level drug investigations against the most significant violators.

The CNP, in concert with DEA and other law enforcement agencies, is conducting several sophisticated investigations which we believe will lead to the dismantling of major portions of the most significant drug trafficking organizations currently operating in Colombia. The DEA will continue to work with our partners in Colombia to improve our cooperative efforts against all those involved in

drug trafficking.

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Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee

today. I will be happy to respond to any questions you may have,

sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ledwith follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. We’ll withhold questions until we hear

from Michael Shifter, who is a senior fellow and program director

at the Inter-American Dialogue. Welcome. You’re recognized, sir.

Mr. SHIFTER. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate

the subcommittee’s invitation to testify at this very important and

timely hearing. Just a year ago I had an opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on the political

and security situation in Colombia.

The main point I want to convey today is the following. The goal

of the United States should be to help improve the Colombian Government’s capabilities and effectiveness. We should help the government reach a political solution to the country’s intense conflict

from a position of strength. We are currently not doing all we can

to advance this goal.

Colombia desperately needs political reconciliation. This is the

first and critical step in what will inevitably be a long-term process. The ultimate aim is to construct a more inclusive society and

more effective institutions. President Pastrana, along with most

Colombians, instinctively understand this. It is hard to imagine a

successful effort to fight drug production and trafficking without a

strong and stable Colombian Government. It is crucial to first establish a greater measure of authority and control over the forces

in conflict. For Colombians, this is the priority.

The Pastrana government faces two fundamental challenges. The

first is to, clear and comprehensive strategy to help Colombia move

toward greater reconciliation. The second is to forge a national consensus behind such a strategy. The strategy should attempt to do

three things. Set firm goals, spell out what the Colombian Government is prepared and not prepared to accept in any negotiations,

and organize resources accordingly. Colombians will have to work

out the details of such a strategy and assume responsibility for carrying it out.

The strategy will no doubt include many aspects. These may

range from economic support to help with mediation efforts, from

development assistance to the strengthening and

professionalization of the military. The United States can and

should help Colombia deal with its difficult challenges. We have

many reasons to be interested in what happens in Colombia and

to do what we can to contribute to a more prosperous, stable, and

democratic country. This means engaging with the Pastrana government in the most respectful and constructive way. It also means

consulting widely among our hemispheric neighbors and other

friends to mobilize and sustain adequate backing for President

Pastrana’s approach.

It is crucial, however, that the support provided by the United

States or the international community be consistent with and help

reinforce the strategic purposes set by the Pastrana government.

It is not surprising that some United States officials are edging

toward support for Colombian security forces. The key question,

however, is what the United States realistically expects to accomplish with such support. Is it in fact the purpose of United States/

Colombia policy to defeat the guerrillas? Is it to reduce drug production? Or is it to enhance the Colombian Government’s leverage

to negotiate peace with the insurgents?

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For many the answer is simple. All of the above. They regard the

guerrillas and those involved in the drug trade, producers and traffickers alike, as virtually indistinguishable. These groups are in

fact interconnected in complex ways, but they’re distinct and ought

to be understood as such. No one disputes that the guerrillas, the

insurgents, draw substantially from the drug economy for their

strength.

Important consequences flow from failing to distinguish between

guerrillas on the one hand and drug producers and traffickers on

the other. For one, the tradeoffs among different policy aims tend

to be ignored. We should realize that not all objectives have equal

weight and not all policies can be pursued at the same time. That

is why we should keep our main objective, improving the Colombian Government’s capabilities, in sharp focus. Achieving peace

with the guerrillas and reducing drug production will come about

only as a consequence of that improvement.

What is crucial is to face squarely what military aid to Colombia

actually means. Should the United States make defeating the guerrillas its main goal? If so, how much would that cost and how long

would it take? Once undertaken, how far is the United States prepared to go? The Colombian situation has all of the elements of a

slippery slope or mission creep but military assistance is at best

only part of what needs to be a comprehensive approach to help Colombia deal with its underlying problems.

That is why a wide ranging program of reform and reconciliation

in Colombia is essential. Increased United States support for the

Colombian armed forces should be seriously considered but that

step should be an appendage of a broader strategy designed to

strengthen democratic institutions and obtain political reconciliation. Too often, pursuing peace and supporting the military are regarded as mutually exclusive. They should not be. That false dichotomy only further polarizes the already difficult politics of Colombia’s peace effort.

As I mentioned at the outset, the fundamental goal of the United

States should be to help improve the Colombian Government’s capabilities and effectiveness to enable it to negotiate from strength.

This is the best way we could contribute to the kind of profound

institutional change Colombians desperately want and deserve.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shifter follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. Mr. Beers, as my dentist said before he was going to take out my wisdom teeth, I’ll try

to make this as quick and painless as possible.

Mr. BEERS. That was my intent in not reading a longer statement, sir.

Mr. MICA. Well, I think you see sort of unanimous consent that

we want the equipment to get there, that Congress has appropriated a significant amount of money and we keep hearing it over

and over. It’s now the third largest recipient of foreign aid but the

equipment isn’t getting there and we still have four upgraded Huey

II helicopters sitting on the tarmac in Ozark, AL, waiting to be

shipped.

Mr. Burton, the chairman of the committee, went through a litany of delays that we’ve had. Can you tell us where we are? What’s

our hope of getting these there and the latest timetable?

Mr. BEERS. Yes, sir, I can. With respect to the 10 Huey helicopters that were being upgraded to the Huey II configuration, we

began the contracting in March of last year. The delivery of the

kits, that is, the portion of the plane that has to be installed in the

older helicopter in order to bring it up, were delivered according to

a schedule that had been proposed by Bell Helicopter. Those kits

began arriving in their full form in November of last year. There

were some delays in some portions of those kits which caused them

all not to arrive on their original schedule.

There was also a misestimate with respect to the amount of time

with which it would take to actually bring the helicopters into the

configuration required. That is a combination both of taking older

helicopters, which they were, and bringing them up to full capability, and then also installing the kits. So there was a delay which

resulted there.

And third, there was some additional requirements that were requested by the Colombian National Police after the first two helicopters were supplied in the February timeframe which added

some time to submitting the design specifications and adding that

equipment. That amounted to what is for you and for me a delay,

which is far too long——

Mr. MICA. But they are on the tarmac now—— Mr. BEERS. But they are on the tarmac. The first of the four was

received in June for transportation. The second two were received

after the middle of July and the fourth is in receipt now. We contracted for the plane. After we have the three, the Air Force provided us with transportation free of charge for next week and that

is the reason that there are—— Mr. MICA. That’s what I was trying to get to——

Mr. BEERS [continuing]. There are four now ready to go. We don’t

ship normally smaller amounts than four or five.

Mr. MICA. They’ll be there by next Friday or Saturday. The next

question would be Congress also authorized and appropriated

money last year for six Blackhawk helicopters for the Colombian

National Police. To date, how many of these helicopters have been

delivered, are actually in Colombia?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, there are no Blackhawk helicopters in Colombia

at this particular point in time. The money was made available for

signing contracts in February of this year. The contracts were

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signed immediately. The Army allowed us to move to the front of

the line to take Blackhawk helicopters for this particular project.

The specifications had been agreed upon during the timeframe

from the passage of the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act

until the funds were provided to us in final form, so there was no

delay with respect to that.

So the helicopters, we’ll have three of them that will be delivered

in November and three more which will be delivered in March with

pilots, mechanics, and spares so that they will all be ready. The Colombia National Police had neither the pilots nor the spares available at the time. They chose not to train on helicopters other than

the ones which they had ordered so that a possible speeding up of

the aircraft delivery time with pilots might have been possible.

That’s their choice and that’s the delivery schedule.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Beers, one of the latest rumors to float is that now

the lawyers in the State Department have suggested the need for

an export license to transfer the Blackhawk helicopters to Colombia. Is that the case? Have you heard that may be required?

Mr. BEERS. No, sir, I have not heard that may be required, but

we will comply with the law.

Mr. MICA. We also lost one aircraft, an ARL, airborne reconnaissance low plane, and I think that there have been listed as requirements that we may need as many as 15. We’ve lost one and the

cost of those is around $30 million a piece. Mr. Sheridan, is there

going to be a supplemental request for this equipment?

Mr. SHERIDAN. At this time, Mr. Chairman, I’m not sure. Certainly we have been in discussion with General McCaffrey’s office

about a possible supplemental and what it would look like within

the department. We’re certainly looking at the various programs

that would make good candidates for such a list. Obviously with

the loss of the ARL, that would be a logical candidate, but it’s pretty early.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Barr asked the question about if the administration was preparing a supplemental—emergency supplemental request and he named some agencies. Is your agency working with

either the drug czar or anyone else from the administration to

come up with numbers to present to Congress for a new supplemental request or emergency supplemental?

Mr. SHERIDAN. I have to be careful, Mr. Chairman, because I’m

not a Comptroller type and I don’t know what form it will—such

a thing if it comes to pass, will eventually take but I know we are

looking at programs right now. We are working with our Comptroller. They are in discussions with OMB but it is very, very early in

that kind of process and how that all ends up playing out is above

my pay grade, but we are certainly looking at it.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Beers, you are working on part of that request

with the drug czar?

Mr. BEERS. We are, sir.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Ledwith, are you involved? Have they asked DEA

the figures?

Mr. LEDWITH. Sir, I’m not personally involved but I’m aware

those discussions are under way at the more senior levels of our

agency and Department of Justice.

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Mr. MICA. Finally, Mr. Beers, do you have any idea when the

agency or the drug czar might be coming back to Congress with a

supplemental request?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I can’t say with precision when it will be that

that will be ready. I just don’t know, although I think Congressman

Souder probably provided us with the most accurate expression of

how this is all going to take place when he spoke about a mid-September timeframe.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Cummings, you’re recognized.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If I were

just one of the many people watching this right now on C–SPAN,

I think I’d be a bit frustrated when we think about sending a space

capsule all around the—in outer space and then get it to land at

a precise moment in a precise place. I don’t know that much about

the military, and then they sit here and they hear all the difficulties that we are having with these Blackhawk helicopters and the

Hueys. I tell you, I’m sure it gets kind of frustrating to them and

I’m sure they’re sitting there right now just kind of scratching their

heads and there are some of them that are sitting in my district

probably looking out a window right now as drug deals are taking

place and they’re tying to put the two together.

One of the biggest complaints I get in my district is that drugs

are flowing in but the people in my district own no planes. They

own no ships, no trains, no buses, and they’re coming from somewhere. And so when they hear this, and I go back and I say to

them this afternoon—I’ll be back there in about an hour or two— and they say we saw you on C–SPAN and you see, I told you. I

told you that we should be doing a better job and I heard what

they said about those Blackhawk helicopters and see, Mr.

Cummings, and see, they had become very cynical and they believe

that the government in some instances is almost a part of allowing

this—these drugs to come into their communities.

With that statement, let me ask you this, Mr. Beers. You told us

a moment ago that—correct me if I’m wrong—that we’ll have three

Blackhawks in November and three more in March; is that right?

Mr. BEERS. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And as you were going down the list of the problems with the Hueys, you said three things that I have listed here.

You said there were delays, there was a misestimate, and then

there were additional requirements. And I’m just trying to figure

out how—how do we—what happens to us here as we get a little

frustrated because we come back and—how do we know we’re not

going to hear the same excuses over and over again? I don’t know

whether you heard Mr. Ose’s comments a little earlier about his

frustration because I’ll tell you, I think we’re sort of—we’re pretty

much in agreement on this. We want to see things happen and this

is already a slow process up here. But we do like to see things happen because people are dying as we speak. People are getting addicted as we argue.

So I’m just trying—can you give us some assurances so that we—

I always say a lot of times what happens is people get caught up

in motion, commotion, and emotion and no results. And so the

question is, is whether when the time comes in November how can

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we be assured that these Blackhawk helicopters are going to be

where they’re supposed to be, doing what they’re supposed to do,

so that people watching this and the Congress can have the kind

of faith and confidence that they need? Can you understand the

frustration?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, thank you for the opportunity to respond. I answered the questions which were asked me. Let me give you the

answer now that tells the picture of the entire story.

We have focused on the delivery of some helicopters and they are

important and I don’t mean to diminish that. Last year INL and

the Colombian National Police police sprayed 66,000 hectares of

coca in Colombia. We sprayed 3,000 hectares of opium poppy in Colombia. This year to date we have sprayed 7,500 hectares of opium

poppy and we have sprayed 27,500 hectares of coca. That is the effort that INL and the Colombian National Police make together.

In addition to that, we have raided labs. The Colombian National

Police captured approximately 30 metric tons of cocaine last year

and they are on a similar pace this year. There has been no delay,

no delay in the prosecution of the campaign against opium poppy

for lack of helicopters. We began that campaign in earnest this fall

and we have not had 1 day that we didn’t fly because those helicopters weren’t there. There are adequate helicopters that are

there. They are flying when they can fly because of the weather,

but we still are continuing to make that effort. These helicopters

will help expand that effort but we also have other needs. What we

do with most of our money, what we do with most of our support

is provide assistance to the Colombian National Police and their air

wing to keep their planes and our planes in the air. These will be

additional planes. They will help. But there’s been an effort that’s

been ongoing throughout this period of time. I want these new helicopters to get there as quickly as possible but we will go with what

we have when we have it and we will continue to make a significant effort, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am so glad that I asked you that question so

that you could say what you just said. We need to hear that. The

American people need to hear that. And I’m glad you said it the

way you said it. I really mean that. Because those are the kinds

of things that we need to know. And I agree with you after you said

what you just said that maybe we are putting too much of a spotlight on one thing and not dealing with all the other good things

that are happening. Now I feel a little bit better about going back

to my district this afternoon and I can—I’m sure they’ll quote you.

They’ll probably even remember your name. Thank you very much.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. I recognize now Mr. Souder,

the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. SOUDER. Just so nobody thinks that we just do this to have

a public debate for television, we’ve argued in hotel lobbies in

Santiago. We’ve argued in bathrooms. And I have a—I want to

plunge into some of the particulars and some clarifications but I

have a couple of particular questions that I want to clarify. Are the

helicopters to Colombia the top priority? In other words, are they

designated what I understand is FAD, force activity designator, so

it’s the top priority in getting military equipment over to places

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like Chile, Argentina, or other places where we’re not at war? Is

it the top priority?

Mr. BEERS. We have requested that of the Department of Defense. We have not yet received an answer from that, sir, but with

respect to the helicopters themselves with respect to INL’s effort,

they are our top priority at this point in time in terms of the delivery of product here that needs to be down there.

Mr. SOUDER. When did the request go to the Department of Defense?

Mr. BEERS. In June.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Sheridan, do you know why that hasn’t been

acted on?

Mr. SHERIDAN. Congressman, I’ll have to get back to you on that.

I will check into that.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. This is—I mean, this isn’t years at least.

It’s months, but when there is a war going on and we heard about

the nature of the crisis, I would hope that we could move as fast

as we seem to in other areas of the world where we may not have

the same compelling national police interests, which was an editorial comment, I realize.

Another very specific question. We have really struggled with the

Leahy amendment and how to work with the applications of the

Leahy amendment, and my understanding is that there was an allegation of a human rights violation lodged against a senior officer

of a brigade sized Colombian unit, the result of blocking any

United States assistance to that brigade and that Colombia has

very few brigade sized units which are capable of conducting offensive operations, so the strict interpretation of the Leahy amendment has resulted in weakening their ability, and our ability to do

that.

Would you have the State Department’s legal advisor provide

this committee with some detailed recommendations and legislative

language to address the current limitations imposed by the Leahy

amendment? Because we have some belief that they are willing to

kind of work with this too, that part of the problem here, and I

have directly talked to their defense ministers and military commanders too as have many others and they are trying to vet the

units.

In fact, we have said that we want to be so careful that even

when there is a complaint lodged, but if a complaint is lodged, are

there ways we can get the individual separated so we don’t in effect

shut down a whole brigade because of a complaint lodged against

one individual? Because if we are in the nature of the crisis that

we’ve heard about today, this is really micromanaging to the detriment of not only the United States and Colombia but the entire

world, as we hear it’s going to Europe and everywhere else.

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I will take that question back and we will provide you an answer in that regard. Let me say on behalf of the Colombian Government and our effort to deal with this issue to date,

part of the reason that you all are hearing about this counternarcotics battalion which is being established now is a realization

on the part of the government of Colombia in conjunction with consultations with us to rebuild units in order that these issues are

not relevant to the discussion of assistance to those kinds of units.

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That is, I think, a valuable and important move on the part of the

Government of Colombia that will, even without any change in legislative language, make this process a lot simpler in terms of our

ability to certify that the units are eligible for assistance and to

maintain constant oversight of that as the legislation requires us

to do.

Mr. SOUDER. Another question I have is that regarding these

counterdrug battalions, it is my understanding that they’re to be

activated in December, that there is no particular budget for air

mobility for these units. I would hope that any supplemental request that comes up or emergency requests would address this

question. We have worked for years.

I would argue we’re at least 3 years behind where we wanted the

Blackhawks into the CNP and I’m very concerned that those are

going to be diverted into this other important battalion. I’m not arguing against it because you have to have both fighting but we had

a specific intent of Congress and we want to make sure on the

record that there’s an understanding that there needs to be a budget for this battalion if we’re going to do that, not transferring what

we committed to the CNP.

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I can assure you that the Blackhawks that you

all asked be provided to the CNP will be provided to the CNP and

the ones that have come off the line will be the ones that will be

provided. There will be no substitute or any delay caused by any

displacement for another requirement.

Let me indicate to you that with respect to the issue of the mobility of the counternarcotics battalion and the counternarcotics effort on the part of the Colombian military that we have proposed

to them and they have accepted and we are in the process now of

working through the details an interim lift capability which will involve the provision of certain helicopters that are within the INL

inventory to give them an interim lift capability until such time as

they have the Blackhawks that they would like.

So we will be doing our part with respect to assets that are already within INL’s control in order to make sure that this battalion

is in a position to move as soon as they’re through with their training because, as General McCaffrey said, if you wanted to buy a

Blackhawk today and you put your money on the table absent any

other provisions, you have to wait 25 months before that

Blackhawk comes off the line and is available.

Mr. SOUDER. And I would again hasten to point out that I agree

with that point, which is why we started this process 4 years ago.

I am not one who is going to take that real lightly because if we

would have started this process, we would now be talking about

how we would be addressing the full——

Mr. BEERS. And my ability to have the aircraft in order to provide the interim lift capability is a direct result of you and your

committee’s and this Congress’s efforts to provide us with the resources and we appreciate that very much.

Mr. SOUDER. I’d like to move—I know Chairman Gilman came in

so I appreciate giving the extra time here to—you made some comments earlier that I want to clarify and try to put this in context

briefly or we’re going to get really arcane real fast as we’ve argued

over even the guns and the bullets in the different helicopters we’re

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sending down and the cost of the bullets I should say as to which

gun we were going to do. That first off that I think there’s no disagreement with your earlier point in response to Mr. Cummings

that nobody should think that we’ve stopped efforts anywhere

along the line and that the State Department and the Colombian

National Police and Colombian Government have been aggressive

in trying to do what they can with the resources that they have.

However, we also heard earlier today that this has exploded in

Colombia and clearly those resources are not sufficient in that as

we were squeezing, particularly with President Fujimori in Peru

and President Banzer in Bolivia. We in effect moved the problem

and we should have been able to anticipate that some because now

we’re in these 2-year lead times. General Serrano said in fact he

needs 100 helicopters to effectively do his job because even if 80

percent of them are flying, the problem has increased, the nature

of the problem increased, and the interim solution that we worked

out as we’ve heard, the Bell helicopters and, quite frankly, we had

some discussion they weren’t in the greatest shape but they were

in terrible shape and that it costs extra funds.

I do want to say for the record too as we’ve discussed this a number of times, some of the decisions in the alterations were from

General Serrano. Some of the decisions were in my opinion the

fault at our end. Certain basic things were not in the helicopters

that would have been expected to be there.

Other things we were arguing about changing, we wanted, as

some people said, the Cadillac version of the guns. There were

questions about the price of the bullets in relationship to those

guns and a number of things. Some of the helicopters didn’t even

come with basic things and that the delays implication here was— is that a significant part of the delays were coming because of

modifications from the Colombia National Police and I believe some

may have been but even those were because of policy debates here

as well. Things that would—you would normally expect to have in

it so they were not unreasonable demands, for example, to have a

gun or a gun holder or a machine gun holder. There were some

things that the Colombian National Police were coming back with

that weren’t kind of extras. They weren’t like electric windows or

something. They were kind of basic things in helicopters that in my

opinion we should have had going down. Because I wanted to clarify because it sounded like they were just being overly picky as opposed to we in effect sent them some shells almost in some of these

cases.

Mr. BEERS. Sir, if I gave the impression that there was one particular area that was the primary area of responsibility for the

delay, I did not mean to do that and I’m not prepared to assign responsibility, first responsibility here, there, or elsewhere. I was

simply trying to give the committee a sense of the variety of issues

that caused this.

First, let me say with respect to the issue of the first two which

arrived down there, they did not arrive down there without the

knowledge of the Colombian National Police of what they were

coming with. When they got down there and saw what they had,

they had some desires to make some changes. That’s understandable. This was the first time that they had received this. So what

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we did was to try to make those changes to those helicopters and

to make sure that the subsequent helicopters also had those

changes on them.

Mr. SOUDER. Could I ask you a specific question related to that

specific point, that partly that was an agreement for those helicopters that we struck. It was not originally the request—— Mr. BEERS. Are you talking about the Bell 212’s, sir, or are you

talking about the Huey IIs?

Mr. SOUDER. Both of those were neither their choice. First we upgraded the Huey IIs and then we did the Bells because the

Blackhawks had been delayed for such a long period of time, but

in those different cases why wouldn’t you have talked to the CNP

first about that or more informed them because in effect they were

new in this. Here’s what’s—you said that once they got them, they

wanted no unreasonable modifications, but why wouldn’t that discussion have occurred at the front end?

Mr. BEERS. We did have that discussion beforehand, sir, and

what I’m saying is when they saw them compared to other helicopters, they had some changes that they thought they wanted to

have made and that’s what we tried to do was to make those

changes so they would be available for them. There was nothing

that was withheld from them. These are discussions that we have

with them on a regular basis about what it is that we purchase and

provide for them. We don’t just give them things that we think that

they need without talking with them.

Mr. SOUDER. I realize the chairman’s been very generous. I

would just like to say that part of this I think is that they are in

this case the—they are adjusting as best they can to get the best

resources they can from us and then—but it is not—because they

say we would like this upgraded or compared—they get new helicopters and say hey, we thought we would like these to be like the

other INL does not mean they’re holding up the process. It means

that to some degree they’re having to take what they can and then

seek out upgrades from us and we need to continue to work

through that. I’ll yield back.

Mr. BEERS. Yes, sir. That is absolutely our intent as well, to

work this as quickly as possible, to get them the equipment as

quickly as possible and to get it to them in the form that they want

it in.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from Indiana. I’d now like to

recognize the chairman of the International Relations Committee,

also a member of our subcommittee, Mr. Gilman from New York.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I can’t thank you

enough for continuing with this concern on our narcotics strategy

and what we can do to help Colombia. I regret I had to leave to

go to another meeting, but I’m pleased I was able to get back here

for this panel.

Secretary Beers, we’re now convinced that we’re going to try to

provide to General Serrano all of the helicopters that he needs.

He’s talked about if he had 100 helicopters, he could eradicate the

whole crop within a 2-year period. Are we going to be supportive

of that request?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, General Serrano has never requested 100 helicopters from me. I will talk to him about that, but I can’t say I’ve

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ever heard about that. We certainly talked on a regular basis, including earlier this week, with respect to various levels of requests.

I have no requests for 100 helicopters.

Mr. GILMAN. It was my impression that his staff had shared that

information.

Mr. BEERS. I have not ever seen that request, sir. I will check

with my staff, but I can’t say that I’m aware of it.

Mr. GILMAN. If a request comes to you, will you be able to support his request?

Mr. BEERS. We will with the available funds look if we can fulfill

that request. I can’t commit to you 100 helicopters because I have

to figure out how to pay for them or we have to figure out how to

pay for them.

Mr. GILMAN. We’ll work with you if you’re in agreement that this

has to be done and you come back with us with a proposal. I’m sure

that a number of the members on this committee particularly will

try to be of help to you.

Mr. BEERS. I appreciate that, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Secretary Beers, as to the helicopters assigned to

Colombia; 23 are in flying status and 15 are not flying because of

maintenance problems and lack of parts. Just in June 1998 you assured us that any twin engine helicopters going down there, and

I quote you, will not be hangar queens and yet he’s got about 15

that are ‘‘hangar queens’’ right now. A year and several million dollars later only two of the six INL provided Bell 212’s are flying.

Can you tell us what we can do to beef that up, this situation

momentarily, without waiting for a whole new process to go

through to get additional flying equipment?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, with respect to the six Bell 212’s which were provided, it is correct that today on the flight line two are available

to fly. Of the remaining four, one was crashed not too long ago and

has been destroyed. Of the other, the second was the subject of a

hard landing by the Colombian National Police, which has caused

significant damage to the plane. That plane is currently being repaired by us and them, and we will put it back on the flight line

as soon as it is available.

With respect to the other two, one is down for scheduled maintenance; the other one is down for a fuel cell replacement process,

which is under way on a priority basis.

With respect to the helicopters, other than the one which was

crashed and the one which had the hard landing which has had to

be taken out of service, that is with respect to five until just recently and with respect to four now, the operational readiness rate

of those helicopters has been at about 65 percent, which exceeds

the operational readiness rate of any other element of the Colombian National Police Air Service.

So to say that something was a hanger queen by definition never

flies. These Bell 212’s fly. They don’t fly every day, but no plane

does. They have to spend some time in maintenance. You roughly

fly for an hour and maintain something like that for 2, 3, 4, 5

hours, depending upon the aircraft.

So I believe that I delivered helicopters that were flyable, and

that they have been flyable within the terms of what one would

normally expect out of helicopters.

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Mr. GILMAN. Secretary Beers—and I appreciate your response. If

that’s a normal kind of problem, these maintenance problems,

crashes, et cetera—if he has only 23 that are flyable right now, it

would seem to me that we would want to add something on an expedient manner to give them more air capability, rather than wait

for a whole new project. Can’t we move some additional equipment

down now?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, we will talk with the Colombian National Police

and see what we can do.

Mr. GILMAN. We would welcome that, and anything we can do to

assist them in what they’re trying to do I think would be helpful.

And if we’re worried about the massive amount of illicit narcotics

coming out of that country, whatever we can do to help them interdict, that would be very helpful and to eradicate it at the same

time.

Are you going to be making a new budgetary request for the year

2000, and will that be in addition to what you’ve asked for this

year? Is it going to be an increase? What will be your budgetary

requests for the coming year?

Mr. BEERS. For fiscal year 2000?

Mr. GILMAN. Yes, fiscal year 2000.

Mr. BEERS. With respect to the discussions which are currently

under way which General McCaffrey spoke of and others have spoken of, there is a review under way of what the situation in Colombia is like, and as we come to the conclusion of that review, we will

be back to inform you of what our views are on that. But at this

particular point in time, I can’t tell you that there will or will not

be a budget request, because that hasn’t been decided yet, and it’s

not my position to say anything about that, sir.

But we will—as General McCaffrey promised to you, be back to

you when we have——

Mr. GILMAN. What is your general thinking right now? Knowing

what the problem is and knowing the inadequacy of what we’ve

been doing up to date, what is your thoughts? Are you thinking

about an increase right now or a decrease?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I’m not at liberty to tell you what the deliberations within the administration are.

Mr. GILMAN. I’m asking what your recommendations would be.

Mr. BEERS. I understand, sir, and I’m part of an administration

and part of a team. In my written statement, I submitted that I

think and we all at the State Department believe that this situation in Colombia is a very serious situation and needs very careful

review. Anything that we do in Colombia—and we have heard from

a variety of members of the committees about how difficult the

choices will be. You’ve also heard from witnesses about how difficult the choices would be.

It would be premature at this point in time for me to tell you

what the recommendation could or should be, in part because part

of this process is critically dependent upon what the Colombian

Government is prepared to do and thinks. And while General

McCaffrey has had one round of discussions and Under Secretary

Pickering will have another round of discussions next week, all of

that is part of building the process to the point that we actually

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have something that we have come to a judgment on and something that we’re prepared to do.

And at this point in time, Congressman, I’m not in a position to

tell you what that ought to be.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, I would like to recommend—I’m sure my colleagues would like to recommend to you that we make certain that

we provide the kind of resources that are needed down there to accomplish what we’re seeking to do and that’s to eradicate the supply and to interdict the supply coming to our Nation.

Mr. BEERS. Thank you, sir. We appreciate the support you’ve

given us over the years.

Mr. GILMAN. Let me thank you, Mr. Beers.

Now, let me refer now to Mr. Sheridan of the Defense Department.

As you know, Mr. Sheridan, we helped the Mexican military obtain 70 or more excess Hueys several years ago. We’ve now been

informed that they plan to rid themselves of nearly 50 of these old

choppers. Can’t we arrange to have some of those choppers that are

still operational be upgraded to superHuey status by use by the police in Colombia to fight drugs at a fairly reasonable cost to us,

since the Mexicans are about to unload those?

Mr. SHERIDAN. Well, let me first say that, regarding the helicopters in Mexico, it is the case that we are bringing them back.

There will be, I believe, 20 that will remain. But I have to be very

clear that that Department of Defense authorities do not allow us

to spend funds for upgrading helicopters and then transferring

them to a third party. We’re not permitted to do that. What we

usually end up doing is working with Randy on those kinds of arrangements.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, it seems you’re pretty close to each other even

at this table.

Mr. BEERS. And with our discussions about budgets and activities and programs, yes, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. But let’s talk about the efficiency of this kind of a

project. Here you’re taking 50 choppers back from Mexico. When

will they be back with us?

Mr. SHERIDAN. They will be back soon.

Mr. GILMAN. How soon?

Mr. SHERIDAN. If my latest information is correct, the first ones

will be moved back by truck imminently, if not already departed

Mexico.

Mr. GILMAN. So some are on their way already.

Mr. SHERIDAN. Yeah, could be.

Mr. GILMAN. What will it take to make them operational for Colombians?

Mr. BEERS. Money.

Mr. GILMAN [continuing]. How much would it take to make these

operational?

Mr. SHERIDAN. I think the first step—and we will have them

back in a central facility. The first step will be a very detailed examination, tail number to tail number, just to—— Mr. GILMAN. Just approximately what would it take to make one

of these operational? Most of them are operational now, as I understand it.

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Mr. SHERIDAN. Especially to upgrade, probably a couple million,

isn’t it?

Mr. BEERS. The upgrades, sir, the kit alone is $1.4 billion.

Mr. GILMAN. For each chopper.

Mr. BEERS. For each helicopter. To make a Huey II out of it. To

make them operational——

Mr. GILMAN. I’m not talking about making the Huey II.

Mr. BEERS. I’m trying to answer that, sir.

With respect to making them operational, it is entirely dependent upon the review that Brian’s people have to make to see what

the repairs required are. But the general review that we and they

conducted earlier was that they were in pretty bad shape.

Mr. GILMAN. What would you estimate—you both are experts.

What do you estimate it would cost to make a chopper of that nature operational to send it back down to Colombia?

Mr. BEERS. $300,000 to $500,000 a chopper, if they are in as bad

a shape as they are supposed to be.

Mr. GILMAN. How much would a new chopper cost?

Mr. BEERS. There isn’t a new Huey 1H.

Mr. GILMAN. The similar.

Mr. BEERS. 412 runs on the order of $6 to $8 million.

Mr. GILMAN. So there’s a substantial savings between the $6 to

$8 million to the $300,000 or $400,000 of making these operational.

Can’t we explore the possibility of rehabing these choppers and

sending them back to help Colombia while we’re waiting for Black

Hawks to be sent down?

I’m going to ask you to explore that and get back to our committee. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, if you would submit a report to our committee with regard to the possibility of utilizing

these choppers for the purposes that we’re seeking and that’s to upgrade General Seranno’s efforts in Colombia.

And I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Well, I want to thank you and the other members who

have participated with us today. I also want to thank our panelists.

We called you to testify so that we could work together to solve

some of these problems.

There is a level of frustration as a result of not being able to get

the equipment to Colombia and the resources so that we could assist the Colombians, bring this situation under control. It certainly

is in the vital interests of the United States when we have had last

year over 14,000 Americans die from drug-related deaths, and

that’s just part of the number, and doubling in the number of heroin and overdose deaths.

Mr. Cummings and I have served together for so long, and he

tells me that the DEA reports 39,000 heroin addicts in Baltimore,

he tells me it’s closer to 60,000, which is almost 10 percent of the

population, an incredibly staggering amount. And when I go home,

I’m met by mothers—I have been met by mothers who have lost

a child—I come from an affluent area in central Florida, and I’m

accosted by mothers who’ve lost a son or a daughter, and it’s very

hard for me to respond. And some of them have taken heroin,

maybe this high, pure, deadly heroin one time and die as a result.

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So it’s affecting everyone, and dramatically the cost is in the billions and billions to this Nation. So we’re trying to stop drugs at

their source.

In September, we will be doing hearings on the southwest border. We’re also anticipating hearings on our drug education pro- gram, where we funded $195 million, and we’re going to see how

that money has been spent. And we will also be doing hearings on

the substance abuse programs, our grants through HHS, our health

grants and other drug programs. That will be in September.

I have a request for an additional statement to be entered into

the record, this one by myself. Without objection, so ordered.

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

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Mr. MICA. Without objection, we will also, and with the permission of the minority, leave the record open for additional statements and questions for 3 weeks. And I might say that we have

substantial additional questions. I don’t think we’ve even scratched

the surface of them for both the Department of State and Defense

on this issue. So they will be submitted and be made part of the

record.

There being no further business to come before the subcommittee

on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources, I declare this

meeting adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:24 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich, Hon. Dana

Robrabacher, Hon. Roscoe Bartlett, and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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