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INTERNATIONAL COUNTERNARCOTICS POLICIES:

DO THEY REDUCE DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION

OR ADVANCE OTHER FOREIGN POLICY GOALS?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 21, 2010

Serial No. 111–157

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

DIANE E. WATSON, California

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

——— ———

JARON R. BOURKE, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 21, 2010 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office ..................................................................... 12

Isacson, Adam, senior associate for regional security, Washington Office

on Latin America; Vanda Felbab-Brown, Ph.D., foreign policy fellow,

the Brookings Institution; and Mark Kleiman, M.P.P. and Ph.D., professor of public policy, UCLA School of Public Affairs ............................... 109

Felbab-Brown, Vanda ................................................................................ 131

Isacson, Adam ............................................................................................ 109

Kleiman, Mark ........................................................................................... 149

Kerlikowske, R. Gil, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy;

David T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of International

Narcotics and Law Enforcement, U.S. State Department; and William

F. Wechsler, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats, U.S. Department of Defense ...................... 44

Johnson, David T. ...................................................................................... 67

Kerlikowske, R. Gil ................................................................................... 44

Wechsler, William F. ................................................................................. 79

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Felbab-Brown, Vanda, Ph.D., foreign policy fellow, the Brookings Institution, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 133

Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of .............................. 15

Isacson, Adam, senior associate for regional security, Washington Office

on Latin America, prepared statement of ................................................... 112

Johnson, David T., Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of International

Narcotics and Law Enforcement, U.S. State Department, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 69

Jordan, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 8

Kerlikowske, R. Gil, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 47

Kleiman, Mark, M.P.P. and Ph.D., professor of public policy, UCLA

School of Public Affairs, prepared statement of ......................................... 151

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

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 4

Wechsler, William F., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats, U.S. Department of Defense, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 82

(1)

INTERNATIONAL COUNTERNARCOTICS POLICIES: DO THEY REDUCE DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION OR ADVANCE OTHER FOREIGN

POLICY GOALS?

WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Kucinich, Tierney, and Jordan.

Staff present: Jaron R. Bourke, staff director; Claire Coleman,

counsel; Charisma Williams, staff assistant; Justin LoFranco, minority press assistant and clerk; Sery Kim, minority counsel; and

Molly Boyl and James Robertson, minority professional staff members.

Mr. KUCINICH. The Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will now come to

order.

The hearing will evaluate international supply reduction programs intended to stop the flow of illicit drugs into the United

States. We will be joined shortly by some of my other colleagues

here, and I appreciate the cooperation of the minority staff in permitting us to proceed.

Without objection, the Chair and ranking minority member will

have 5 minutes to make opening statements, followed by opening

statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member who

seeks recognition.

Without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5 legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous materials for

the record.

Today I want to welcome all of you who are here today and to

let you know that I appreciate your taking the time to join us for

this important discussion about the issue of supply reduction.

This subcommittee continues its oversight of the Office of National Drug Control Policy by focusing on U.S. international counternarcotics policies and programs. Over the last decade international supply reduction efforts in source countries and transit

zones have accounted for almost 40 percent of the Federal spending

on drug policy. Funding levels for international counternarcoticss

were not always so high. Under the Bush administration, Federal

2

resources for supply reduction increased by over 60 percent. Interdiction spending, alone, increased over 100 percent.

But, despite acknowledgement from the current administration

that international supply site programs like crop eradication and

interdiction have not been effective in reducing the availability of

drugs in the United States and that treatment and prevention are

far more cost effective, those programs are still being funded at significant levels.

The President’s drug control budget request for fiscal year 2011 asks for $151⁄2 billion, of which $6 billion is slated for international

support and interdiction.

This hearing will scrutinize those spending decisions and evaluate what we have accomplished in this decade through supply reduction programs, both in terms of the national drug policy goal of

reducing consumption in the United States and other foreign policy

objectives.

We will hear from the Government Accountability Office, which

will tell us that, for all the money we spent in international counternarcotics programs, there has been limited success in reducing

the flow of drugs to the United States, and we have done a poor

job of ensuring that there are high-quality criteria to measure how

useful and cost effective these programs really are.

This is consistent with what many drug policy experts have been

saying for years. The evidence, after all, is stark. After spending

billions of dollars on aerial spraying programs and efforts to interdict drugs, drug supply and consumption in the United States remains strong.

The question we hope today’s hearing will answer is: if international programs like eradication or interdiction simply cannot

make much of a difference in U.S. drug consumption, then to what

extent should we be continuing these costly programs? We cannot

and we do not ignore legitimate national security concerns, and we

must face squarely connections between the illicit drug trade and

insurgents or terrorists. But such international policies and goals

should not be confused with drug control policy in the United

States.

If the goals of these programs are, in fact, now justified on

grounds of national security and helping stabilize democracy and

rule of law abroad, then we need to evaluate whether and how U.S.

counternarcotics policy and dollars should play a role in those programs, if at all, and what role the White House Office of National

Drug Control Policy should play as the leader in Federal drug control policy.

Our witnesses today will applaud some shifts we are seeing in

international counternarcotics efforts under this administration,

de-emphasizing military and police aid and focusing more on

strengthening civilian governance, justice, and economic opportunity. For the first time, the U.S. Government is starting to consider anti-poverty programs and justice reform as part of its counternarcotics efforts, recognizing that marginalized populations

must have sufficient legal alternative livelihoods if we can hope

that they will cease illegal crop cultivation and trafficking.

But they will also caution that U.S. counternarcotics programs

are in danger of repeating the same mistakes we have made in the

3

past and must undertake an honest assessment of the unintended

negative consequences of these policies. For example, Mexico’s efforts to crack down on drug trafficking is one factor generating a

wave of horrifying killings. Our efforts in Afghanistan may be contributing to the insurgency by enriching the Taliban.

Our work in Colombia, while successful in improving security,

came with significant costs. Aerial spraying has grievously harmed

the environment and punished impoverished farmers who have no

other way to feed themselves. And U.S. support of Colombian military’s fight against guerrillas effectively underwrote extensive

human rights violations that have gone unpunished.

Those unintended consequences will be discussed at today’s hearing as part of an effort to evaluate these counternarcotics programs

holistically.

Again, I want to thank each and every one of you for your attendance, and thank the witnesses for their appearance here today.

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

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Mr. KUCINICH. Now it is my privilege to recognize the ranking

member of the committee and my partner in so many of these important hearings, Mr. Jordan.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for running

a few minutes late. We were actually downstairs in the other room.

Thank you, Chairman Kucinich, for holding this important hearing today. Our Nation continues to face a drug problem that takes

lives, brings about violence, and tears apart communities and families. We need to take every opportunity and make every effort to

eliminate this problem with an approach that focuses both on keeping drugs from entering the country and curbing addiction here at

home.

In the last decade the United States spent over $20 billion to

fight the war on drugs domestically and internationally. Winning

the war on drugs is vital to the health and safety of Americans at

home, and it is important to our national security.

The threats surrounding the international drug trade from the

Taliban in Afghanistan to the violent cartels in Mexico is real and

has serious foreign policy implications. I am pleased to see that

ONDCP budget request for 2011 increases both the international

and interdiction components of the drug control budget. Support for

the U.S. Government’s international eradication and interdiction

efforts is an important part of the supply reduction strategy.

Through eradication, interdiction, enforcement, and basic Government support, we have seen some success, but we need to be

certain that our international drug policies translate into reduced

supply and ultimately reduced demand here at home. We know

that drug trafficking has provided a means of funding terrorists

and insurgent groups, some of which we are fighting abroad. However, there is some debate over how best to curtail these activities.

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today about which

programs are working, which ones aren’t, and how we can do the

most good with the limited resources we have.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back before this microphone drives everyone crazy.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Jordan follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman for his presence here. As

the days wind down in the House, there are many different things

going on simultaneously, including markups, so I may need to

briefly recess this hearing to run to a markup downstairs, only for

the purpose of voting. I just want to give everyone a heads-up

about that.

I want to introduce our first panelist. Mr. Jess Ford is currently

Director of International Affairs and Trade for the Government Accountability Office, the GAO. He joined GAO in 1973 and has

worked extensively on national security and international affairs

activities. He has managed GAO audits of the U.S. Agency for

International Development, the State Department, DHS, and Department of Defense and other Federal agencies.

Mr. Ford, I want to thank you for appearing before our subcommittee.

One other thing about today. We were not supplied with a clock

here, so that means your testimony will be timeless. [Laughter.]

But still 5 minutes. [Laughter.]

So if staff would kind of give me the heads-up when it is five,

I will just wave or say something to indicate that it would be good

to wrap it up. But, as you know, your entire statement will be included in the record, and it is much appreciated that you are here.

Mr. Ford, I would like you to know that it is customary for all

witnesses who appear before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to be sworn in before they testify. I would ask that

you would stand. Please raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, sir.

Let the record reflect that the witness answered in the affirmative.

You may proceed, Mr. Ford. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS AND TRADE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I am

pleased to be here today to discuss GAO’s body of work on international interdiction counternarcotics activities. Over the last decade, we have issued over 20 reports covering a wide array of program activity in countries such as Colombia, Afghanistan, the transit zone, Mexico, Venezuela, and other key countries that are involved in international drug trafficking.

Today I am going to talk about four topics which I would like to

mention to this subcommittee. First, having to do with the issues

related to the reported results of some of our programs. Second, I

am going to talk about factors that relate to our ability to judge

the effectiveness of our programs. Third, I want to talk a little bit

about the nexus between our counternarcotics goals and our other

foreign policy objectives. And fourthly I am going to discuss the difficulties in trying to measure the effectiveness of these programs.

A key goal of the U.S. national drug control strategy is to reduce

illicit drug use in the United States. These programs are designed

primarily in source countries such as Colombia and Afghanistan, as

well as in transit countries such as Mexico, Central America, and

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the Caribbean. They have included interdiction of maritime drug

shipments on the high seas, support for foreign military and civilian institutions engaged in drug eradication, detection, and also the

rule of law and alternative development programs, all of which are

designed to affect the supply of drugs that are coming to the

United States.

GAO’s work on these programs, I want to first talk about the

first topic, which is really what the results have been reported.

We have found that in Afghanistan, Colombia, and in the drug

transit zones the United States and its partner nations have only

partially met targets that have been established to reduce drug

supply. For example, we recently reported in Afghanistan that

opium poppy eradication efforts consistently fell between targets

established by the administration. While some Afghan provinces

are now poppy free, United States and Afghan opium poppy eradication strategy did not achieve its original goals of reducing the

level of poppy in the country.

In 2008 we reported that after 6 years plan, Colombia had met

some of its key goals in reducing poppy cultivation, but it had not

achieved its goal for reducing coca crops. Most recently, the administration has reported additional reductions in the amount of potential cocaine that can be produced in Colombia, which suggests that

the program has, in fact, achieved some of the original goals intended, although for a longer period of time than was originally established.

We note that our interdiction goals to stop the flow of drugs primarily through the transit area, we have not achieved any of those

goals since 2007.

My second point has to do with the factors that influence program effectiveness, and I am going to just briefly touch on some of

these. I think in the Q and A I can get into this in a little more

detail. But the key issues that we find in our work that affect our

ability to reduce the supply of illegal drugs, first and foremost is

the level of commitment and cooperation by our partners in influencing the effectiveness of these programs. In Colombia we reported that over the years the degree of political commitment and

commitment on the part of the Colombian government was a major

factor in our ability to reduce supplies in that country and to

achieve some of the broader foreign policy goals, which I will talk

about later.

Conversely, in other countries where we have had less levels of

cooperation, such as in Venezuela, we were unable to effectively

achieve some of our interdiction goals because the government

there has not been cooperative with the U.S. Government since

2005.

Another factor that we frequently identified in our work has to

do with the level of sustainment that our programs have had, particularly in places in the transit zone and in Central America,

where we have provided resources intended to enhance the capacity

of those countries to interdict drugs, but the programs, themselves,

due to lack of sustainment, have not achieved their intended objectives.

A third area that I would like to comment on has to do with the

nexus between our counternarcotics programs and other foreign

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policy objectives. Currently, in places such as Colombia and Afghanistan, much of our programs there, our counternarcotics programs, are part of our broader foreign policy objectives to deal

with, in the case of Afghanistan, our counterinsurgency problem,

and in the case of Colombia to deal with the problems of security

with the FARC and other illegal groups there. I am going to get

to this in a minute, but in trying to assess effectiveness, we find

that this overlap between counternarcotics and foreign policy goals

is problematic in trying to assess the overall effectiveness.

Finally, the last point I would like to make has to do with the

difficulties in trying to measure the overall effectiveness of these

programs. We have found in many of our reports that U.S. agencies

lack a reliable performance measurement and results information

to really judge whether or not we are having a major impact in reducing those supplies and flow of drugs to the United States. An

example, in Afghanistan we found that our opium eradication

measures were not sufficient for assessing overall U.S. efforts.

We also reported that the State Department in the transit area

was not able to measure more than half of their programs intended

to reduce the flow of drugs. This morning we are issuing a new report on the Department of Defense efforts to enhance their performance system, and our findings are that DOD still has not got

an effective performance measurement system that enables one to

determine whether or not their programs are achieving the intended results.

I am not going to get into all the recommendations we made. I

can just say that for the 20 products that I mentioned we had several recommendations designed to address many of these shortcomings, and in most cases the administration, and agencies that

we dealt with, agreed with our recommendations and they have

taken action.

With that, I think I am going to close. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford.

I am looking at the report, and would just like to piece together

some of the comments, the statements that are in this report.

You talk about factors that limit program effectiveness, including

external factors in partner nations that relate to corruption or lack

of political support. Then the report goes on to talk about a lack

of political will on the part of Afghan central and provincial governments. And then you also, on a section on limited cooperation between the United States and partner nations, talk about the objections of Afghan officials to certain eradication efforts, and them

being slow to grant permission to eradicate poppy fields.

Talk to this subcommittee a moment about the effect of corruption in Afghan’s central government and the impediment that presents for the eradication of drugs in Afghanistan, or the eradication

of these drug crops in Afghanistan.

Mr. FORD. In our report issued in March, we discussed the problems that our program implementers have had in trying to get cooperation with elements of the Afghan government. The program

at that time was being administered at the provincial level, where

the Governors of various provinces were our partners, and our ability to get them to support our eradication efforts varied from one

place to another, and in some places they were unwilling to partner

with us and take the actions that were necessary to help achieve

the eradication goals. That is one of the key reasons why we didn’t

achieve those goals.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it also one of the reasons why production seems

to go up?

Mr. FORD. Certainly if we are not able to eliminate the crop, I

mean, if the crop is not eliminated, then obviously production will

go up.

Mr. KUCINICH. Production has gone up substantially.

Mr. FORD. The level of production in Afghanistan, I don’t have

the exact numbers. I could supply them for the record. But my understanding is that they have gone up. In some provinces they have

gone up; in other provinces the level of poppy cultivation has actually gone down. So it varies what part of the country you are in.

But all in southern part of Afghanistan is where most of the poppy

is currently being cultivated. That is the main problem area that

we are trying to address.

Mr. KUCINICH. And how much of an increase has there been

there?

Mr. FORD. Again, I don’t have the numbers here in front of me,

but I can supply them for the record.

Mr. KUCINICH. Your report states that since 2006 cocaine removal rates from interdiction have declined and have not reached

any of the annual targets to date. It also states that long-term

gains in crop eradication are difficult because of counter-measures

and shifts in production. Yet, we spend billions of dollars a year on

expensive interdiction and crop eradication efforts.

Is there currently any data that would allow for a cost-effective

analysis of supply reduction programs, like crop eradication or

interdiction, in reducing supply of illicit drugs?

Mr. FORD. Let me just clarify. Are you asking just about Afghanistan, or in general?

39

Mr. KUCINICH. In general.

Mr. FORD. OK. I have not seen any cost effectiveness analysis directly related to your question, related to either supply reduction

or interdiction in terms of how it affects consumption in the United

States. The Office of National Drug Control Policy reports lots of

different data on levels of consumption in the United States based

on surveys that it takes, but I have not seen any analysis that

shows a correlation between the supply reduction effort and the

interdiction effort.

We in GAO have not studied that in any detail.

Mr. KUCINICH. It is troubling that there is an absence of useful

metrics to measure success of supply reduction programs, especially when we are spending billions of dollars a year. One of the

principal goals of this subcommittee is to enhance and improve

upon ONDCP’s role in collecting and analyzing data to ensure we

create drug policy based on what works, and knowing what doesn’t

work.

One drug policy researcher has estimated that, while the United

States spent 60 percent of our budget on supply reduction, supply

side agencies spend only about 5 to 10 percent of the total drug policy research budget. Based on GAO’s work, do you agree with this

assessment that enforcement agencies are not adequately oriented

toward data collection, research, and analysis that would conceivably improve programming?

Mr. FORD. We certainly think that research and collecting good

data on these problems is certainly needed. I mean, one of our

major findings, as I mentioned earlier, for most of our work is that

we don’t have good performance metrics and we don’t have good

data to support them to enable one to make good decisions about

what course of action we should be taking, so that is a fundamental

problem that we have seen throughout the 10-years we have been

studying this.

Mr. KUCINICH. Just a followup before Mr. Jordan asks questions.

What types of assessment and program planning tools are needed

by U.S. agencies to effectively assess counternarcotics efforts? And

are you aware of any of these agencies currently working to improve their metrics?

Mr. FORD. Well, first of all, on the Department of Defense, the

report that we are issuing today, we comment on the performance

measurement system that DOD has in place. We are critical of that

system. DOD is currently in the process of revising their performance measurement system. They have been working on that for

several months.

Our big concern really having to do with DOD is that we don’t

believe they can currently tell anyone exactly to what extent they

are able to carry out their mission in terms of what works and

what doesn’t work, because they don’t have a good way of assessing

the performance of their program elements.

Moreover, our report also shows we talked to many of their client

organizations, and we found that many of them aren’t using the

performance system that is in place now. So they need to do two

things. They need to first improve the system and, No. 2, they have

to get the commands that are carrying out the programs to use it

40

as a tool for making the right kinds of decisions. Those are the two

things that we recommended in that report.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Mr. Jordan, why don’t you take 7 minutes if you would like.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just pick up, Mr. Ford, where the chairman was. Of the $11⁄2 billion DOD spent last year, how much of that money was

marked for assessment and measuring the effectiveness or lack of

effectiveness of the program? Do you know that?

Mr. FORD. I do not know that. I do not know how much money

they spent for performance measurement.

Mr. JORDAN. OK. That would certainly be a place to start when

we are trying to figure out how to measure this. We can’t even tell

how much money they allocated for that. That is an indication that

it is not working the way we want it to.

In your comments, Mr. Ford, I believe you said on Plan Colombia

that it had met some of its goals, but not relative to coca crops.

How far off were they from meeting their goals there?

Mr. FORD. Well, can I explain? We issued a report in 2008.

Mr. JORDAN. Yes.

Mr. FORD. One of the original goals of Plan Colombia was to reduce coca cultivation by 50 percent using 2000 as a baseline. Our

report in 2008 in 6 years showed that after 6 years we did not

achieve that goal. We did achieve that goal for poppy eradication,

which was in our report.

Since that time we have seen some new data that ONDCP has

put out that shows that the level of potential coca production has

declined fairly significantly in 2008, so over an 8-year period you

could argue they met the goal, but during the original goal they

didn’t achieve it. That is what our report said in 2008.

Mr. JORDAN. And is it fair to meet these goals? Is this back to,

I think, the chairman’s questioning. What do you attribute that to?

Is it the lack of cooperation from local authorities? Elaborate, if you

would.

Mr. FORD. OK. Well, I think it is a little bit difficult to answer

that question because part of this has to do with the way we survey what the potential is in that country. When we started the program in 2000, the methodology that was used to determine what

the potential coca cultivation level and what the potential production was different. It changed in 2004 and 2005. The CIA, who does

these surveys, changed their methodology. So that came up with

different results.

Part of the problem was what denominator you use to try to

judge that success level.

Mr. JORDAN. Yes.

Mr. FORD. So part of it is what I would call a methodological

challenge on the part of our Government to determine what exactly

exists there, what can be produced, and what the potential is for

these drugs to come to the United States. So part of it is that.

Then, as far as the actual implementation of the program, you

have to look at it over time. I think our work in the early years

of Plan Colombia, we identified lots of problems with the way our

Government was implementing the program in partnership with

the Colombian government. Over time I would say that the relaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:49 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65556.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
41

tionship improved fairly significantly, and that probably had a positive impact in the ability for us to eradicate some of those crops.

But I don’t think necessarily you can establish a causal relationship between all of those various efforts and the current outcome.

I think we need to look at what the trend will be over the next several years, to see if it really did have a meaningful impact.

Mr. JORDAN. Let’s go back to this measurement and assessment

concern, kind of a broad category here. Why has the State Department not reported outcome related information for over half of its

major drug countries?

Mr. FORD. That work is based on a report we did on the transit

areas. This is primarily in Central America.

Mr. JORDAN. Right.

Mr. FORD. In the Caribbean. In that work we identified, the

State Department had identified a number of performance indicators, but they just hadn’t matched them together with reasonable

results. They had an indicator that said we are going to train 50

police officers in Guatemala, but what they didn’t say was whether

or not those officers, in turn, would be used to address the counternarcotics problem versus just fighting crime, in general. Those kind

of things weren’t identified in their reports, so for us it was difficult

to show what are the real results of this effort.

We see that a lot, by the way. Often the administration will have

these indicators, like we trained certain number of people, we

added five pieces of new inspection equipment on the border, but

we don’t link that to what are the outcomes of that. What are we

getting for it? Are we seizing more drugs? Are we reducing the

crime levels? Is the level of violence going down? Those kind of

things we haven’t typically seen in many of these systems we use

to measure our programs.

Mr. JORDAN. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman.

We are going to go to one more round of questions for Mr. Ford.

New York Times is reporting that GAO’s report being released

this afternoon found that the State Department has failed to set

specific targets to determine whether the money was having the

desired effect of disrupting organized crime groups and reforming

law enforcement agencies. Is this an accurate summary of your

findings with respect to Mexico?

Mr. FORD. I can tell you that the report hasn’t been released yet,

so I am not quite sure where the New York Times got that information, but I can tell you that we are going to be reporting that

performance measurement is a challenge. Absolutely.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let’s talk about Afghanistan. In March 2010 the

GAO report evaluating the U.S. strategy to combat drugs in Afghanistan, one of the key points was that insufficient mechanisms

were in place to evaluate the counternarcotics strategies justice reform pillar. To what extent is this deficiency specifically for Afghanistan or of U.S. counternarcotics policy broadly, and is this

also true in Mexico?

Mr. FORD. I can tell you that our work looking at judicial reform,

which is usually an element of our counternarcotics or security

strategy in many of these countries, that our work over the years

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has shown that the administration has not done a very good job of

measuring the impact. Again, it just gets into a case of we trained

X number of prosecutors, that type of thing, which gives you some

information but doesn’t really tell you whether or not real reform

in the country is occurring or not.

The other thing, our work in Colombia, our work in Afghanistan

shows that changing the judicial system in these countries takes

years. In the case of Colombia, we attempted to have them change

their prosecuting system to an accusatorial system similar to what

we have in our country. That has taken years for them to put that

in place. My understanding is they do have it in place now, but it

was a long-term effort. We are trying to do that in Mexico. It is

in the early stages, so I don’t think we have any information to indicate whether it is having any impact.

But the bottom line is those kind of programs are one of the key

areas where we don’t see very good performance information to tell

you what the results are.

Mr. KUCINICH. One final question. Your testimony states that

counternarcotics related programs often advance broad foreign policy objectives, and you cited Afghanistan as an example where the

United States has combined counternarcotics efforts with military

operations to combat insurgents as well as drug traffickers.

But isn’t there also evidence that prior to the administration’s

decision to stop forced crop eradication the counternarcotics programs actually hindered rather than advanced foreign policy goals

of stabilizing the country? Are there other examples where counternarcotics have actually undermined other foreign policy goals?

Mr. FORD. Well, with regard to Afghanistan, obviously the administration changed its strategy there. One of the rationales they

have used is the one that you just articulated, that they felt that

the eradication program was a negative influence on our

counterinsurgency effort there. Now the new strategy is to focus

more on interdiction.

Mr. KUCINICH. What do you think?

Mr. FORD. In terms of whether or not that is going to work or

not?

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes.

Mr. FORD. I don’t think there is any basis for us to say whether

it will work or not at this point, because they just changed the

strategy within the last year.

Mr. KUCINICH. Based on your evaluation, though, of these programs in the past, do you have any informed opinion that you

would like to share with this subcommittee?

Mr. FORD. Well, I don’t have an independent opinion about

whether that policy was working or not. We said in the report their

eradication goals were never achieved from 2005 to 2009, so for

that 4-year period the data would suggest we weren’t achieving

those goals.

We didn’t say that policy was contrary to our counterinsurgency

goals. We didn’t make an evaluation of whether that was a wrong

policy to implement that program.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Ford.

Mr. Jordan.

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Mr. JORDAN. Just one question, and this may be more appropriate for Mr. Kerlikowske in the next panel, but is there an effort

across Government agencies to put in place—and the chairman was

getting into this in his first round, as well—a consistent way to

measure how we are doing, to measure success or lack of?

Mr. FORD. Actually, I will tell you what I know. It is my understanding that ONDCP is currently actually assessing the whole dynamic of how to measure performance. I don’t know much about

the details of what they are doing. I have talked to some of their

staff and they have indicated they are revisiting this whole concept, but I just don’t know what they are going to be doing on it.

Mr. JORDAN. I probably should know this, but on the other side,

the success of treatment programs and measurements we have

there, have you looked at some of that, as well?

Mr. FORD. To my knowledge, GAO has not looked at that extensively recently. The part of GAO that would normally do that work,

my understanding is the last time they looked at this issue was at

least 10 years ago.

Mr. JORDAN. Really?

Mr. FORD. So I am not aware we have done any major, significant work on treatment; however, for the record I will go back and

check, just to make sure that I am right on this.

Mr. JORDAN. All right. Do you happen to know how much money

taxpayers have put in to treatment programs?

Mr. FORD. I don’t have that number in front of me. I know that

is in the ONDCP budget announcement, but I don’t have the exact

amount in front of me so I can’t estimate what number that is.

Mr. JORDAN. But certainly something we should be measuring

and finding out how we are doing.

Mr. FORD. I would agree with that. I think all aspects of our

drug program should be evaluated. I agree with that.

Mr. JORDAN. OK. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Ford, the subcommittee will have some final

questions to present to you in the next few days, but we appreciate

your presence here and your service to our country.

Mr. FORD. Thank you, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. You are dismissed as a witness and we are going

to call the next panel.

I will introduce the next panel as our staffer helps prepare this

table for their testimony.

Mr. Gil Kerlikowske is the Director of National Drug Control Policy. Mr. Kerlikowske brings nearly four decades of law enforcement

and drug policy experience to the position, most recently serving 9

years as the Chief of Police for the Seattle Police Department. He

also served as Deputy Director for the U.S. Department of Justice,

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Ambassador David Johnson has served as the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the State Department since October 2007. In addition to numerous other distinguished posts within the Federal Government, Mr. Johnson served as Afghan Coordinator for the United

States from May 2002 to July 2003.

Finally on this panel William Wechsler is the Deputy Assistant

Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats. In

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that capacity he leads the Department’s counternarcotics policies

and operations around the world. Mr. Wechsler has previously

served as Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury and on

the staff of the National Security Council.

I want to thank each of the witnesses for being here. Your service to our Nation is duly noted and appreciated.

It is the policy of our Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform to swear in all witnesses before they testify. I would ask

that you rise, raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

Let the record reflect that each of the witnesses answered in the

affirmative.

As with the gentleman on the first panel, we ask that each witness give an oral summary of your testimony. Keep in mind that

your entire statement will be included in the record of the hearing.

We ask that you try to keep it to 5 minutes in duration.

Director Kerlikowske, let’s begin with you. Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF R. GIL KERLIKOWSKE, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF

NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; DAVID T. JOHNSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT, U.S. STATE

DEPARTMENT; AND WILLIAM F. WECHSLER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR COUNTERNARCOTICS

AND GLOBAL THREATS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

STATEMENT OF R. GIL KERLIKOWSKE

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Thank you, Chairman Kucinich and Ranking

Member Jordan, distinguished members of the committee. I look

forward to answering all of their questions in just a few minutes.

I am happy to discuss ONDCP’s national drug control strategy,

which, as the chairman knows, was not available at our last hearing but has since been released by President Obama from the Oval

Office. It is a comprehensive drug strategy that includes prevention, treatment, domestic enforcement, and recognizes the importance of interdiction, cooperation with partner nations, to reduce

the supply of illicit drugs.

You have asked us to focus on the international supply reduction

programs and interdiction, which together constitute, as you mentioned, about 40 percent of the annual drug control budget. These

programs benefit the United States as well as our foreign partners

in our efforts against drug trafficking organizations, reduce the

supply of drugs available on American streets, while our allies increase their own capacity to resist the crime, violence, and corrupting influence of drug production and trafficking.

This partnership to promote the rule of law and strengthen

democratic institutions while dismantling drug cartels not only reduces domestic drug availability; it helps to achieve broader national security objectives.

The international narcotics programs present a tool kit of initiatives, and these tools include interdiction, eradication, extradition,

economic development assistance, institutional capacity building,

law enforcement, human rights, judicial training, and international

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demand reduction assistance. How these tools are used depends in

particular on the drug challenge, the available resources, the current capabilities, and the political will found in respective host nations.

Where we have a strong and sustained commitment from elected

leaders, such as in Colombia, the United States’ support can significantly strengthen the nations’ security, human rights, and economic environment while reducing drug production.

The globalized illicit drug trade requires collaborative solutions.

The traffickers do not respect any borders. Both Colombia and

Mexico have benefited from the brave and decisive leaders who insist on bringing traffickers to justice, and are gaining full control

of their countries. The United States must continue to provide direct assistance to these two nations, as well as forge other partnerships in the western hemisphere, the European Union, the Federation of Russian, and Afghanistan as they address their respective

drug challenges.

Multilateral collaboration is another fundamental part of our

international efforts. I had the opportunity to lead the U.S. delegation this year to the United Nation Commission on Narcotics, a

drug meeting in Vienna, where we presented our policies on

drugged driving, access to treatment, and achieved approval of the

U.S.’ resolutions on community-based prevention and prescription

drugs.

Throughout the year, the U.S. agencies work with these international organizations such as the U.N. and OAS to address drug

trafficking, money laundering, precursor chemical division, and to

promote institution building, law enforcement, and international

demand reduction programs. These international efforts have resulted in some significant accomplishments, and in June I joined

U.N. ODC Executive Director Antonia Costa and the Russian Director, their Drug Czar, Chairman Ivanov, for the release of the

United Nations’ 2010 World Drug Report.

The report highlights the recent significant decline in cocaine

consumption in the United States. The conclusions of this report

correspond with the progress reported in multiple domestic data

sets, such as declining cocaine prevalence found in the surveys of

youth, adults, and arrestees, as well as law enforcement reporting

on the drop in purity and the rising price per pure gram of cocaine

on U.S. streets since 2006.

It is difficult to prove direct cause and effect, and I believe it is

noteworthy that multiple U.S. drug indicators reflect positive domestic changes concurrently with a 43 percent decline in cocaine

production in Colombia between 2006 and 2008. Cocaine provides

a good example of how our international efforts work.

Nevertheless, we must continually adjust and fine tune our mix

of programs. In fact, we are doing a performance reporting system

that Mr. Ford just referred to. We are displeased and unhappy

with the performance metrics that are out there, and the President’s drug control strategy has devoted an entire chapter to working on improving the domestic measures and also improving the

quality of the measures internationally.

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I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kerlikowske follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

Ambassador Johnson, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF DAVID T. JOHNSON

Ambassador JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Jordan, members of the subcommittee, I am grateful for the opportunity today to testify about

the State Department’s foreign assistance programs, programs that

seek to diminish counternarcotics production and trafficking abroad

and combat the illicit networks with which they are linked.

Drug trafficking organizations show time and again that they

have neither decency nor respect for the law, and certainly no respect for human life. Cartels and traffickers demonstrate every day

their only motive is profit. And profit they do, often overwhelming

or circumventing the capacity of government resources to shut

them down and corrupting public officials who stand in their way.

This undermines public security, weakens democratic principles

and institutions, and, if left unchecked, provides a fertile breeding

ground for the instability that can threaten our own national security here at home.

That is where we at the State Department come in. As the Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, much of the work that the team I lead does involves foreign assistance programs that give our foreign partners

the tools to isolate and disrupt drug trafficking organizations

abroad.

Our programs directly impact and improve foreign government

capacity, building a platform for joint work between our foreign

partners and American law enforcement agencies. Our primary

focus is to improve the criminal justice sectors, police, prosecutors,

courts, and corrections, of foreign governments so that they can

confront threats directly on their own home turf before those

threats can reach our own borders.

In key drug source countries, State’s assistance has disrupted

drug trafficking operations and organizations in Colombia, weaned

farmers away from drug crops in Afghanistan, and educated and

treated populations affected by drugs or drug violence throughout

Latin America and the Caribbean.

After more than 10 years of U.S. support for Colombia’s quest to

secure their country, they have begun to self-administer the counternarcotics eradication and alternative development programs that

we helped to introduce. In fact, Colombia’s consolidation plan to nationalize our joint programs is well underway.

Although one of the initial goals of Plan Colombia, reducing the

actual area of coca cultivation by 50 percent, has not been met, current cocaine production potential is approximately 295 metric tons,

a 58 percent decline from the 2001 high of 700 tons, a significant

achievement. This decline reflects not only gains through eradication, but also a significantly enhanced interdiction capability,

with more than 280 metric tons of cocaine and character base

seized in 2009 by Colombian authorities. Most of these drugs would

have otherwise ended up on the hometown streets of America, or

our partners and allies.

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Our experiences in Colombia have also informed U.S. support initiatives in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, where

drug supply or transit threatens our own national security. We

know and have factored this into our strategic planning, that criminal justice sector capacity building for the host government is the

only long-term effective program, that the process is long-term and

difficult, that political will is essential, but that the results can be

well worth the investment.

Mr. Chairman, the title for your hearing today is very important,

‘‘International Counternarcotics Policies: Do They Reduce Domestic

Consumption or Advance Other Foreign Policy Goals?’’ As a diplomat who has spent his life representing our Nation’s interest

abroad, my experience has been that our national security objectives and our domestic security objectives are always directly

linked.

As Director Kerlikowske has noted, we, the U.S. Government and

the American people, are already taking some steps on the domestic front. State’s efforts abroad to build partner capacity is one additional piece of the administration’s larger U.S. drug control policy

to reduce the demand for and use of illegal drugs.

Thank you for the opportunity to illustrate the role of the Department’s foreign assistance programs. I will do my best to address any of your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Johnson follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Ambassador.

Mr. Wechsler.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. WECHSLER

Mr. WECHSLER. Thank you very much, Chairman Kucinich,

Ranking Member Jordan. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss

the Department of Defense’s counternarcotics programs and, in

particular, the steps we have taken and are taking to improve our

performance management system, which I know is a strong interest of the committee. It is a pleasure to appear before you alongside

my colleagues.

International illicit drug trade is a multifaceted national security

concern for the United States, weakening the rule of law and preventing governments from effectively addressing other trans-national threats. The global and regional terrorists who threaten interests of the United States often finance their activities through

narcotics trafficking.

Through its combatant commands, the military departments and

Defense agencies, the Department of Defense provides unique capabilities and expertise in support, and that is critical, we are supporting agency on this mission set, in support of Federal, State,

local, and foreign law enforcement agencies. Maintaining force

readiness through demand reduction programs for the armed services is also a critical component of our counternarcotics efforts.

Roughly half of our just slightly over $1 billion budget for fiscal

year 2011 supports international efforts, and the other half supports domestic law enforcement, demand reduction, and intelligence and technology programs.

These efforts, coordinated through strong leadership of Director

Kerlikowske and his team, are integrated into the Obama administration’s wider whole of Government approach that has been discussed.

The narcotics threat has changed dramatically since the 1980’s,

when trafficking of cocaine directly into Florida made Miami Vice

the hit television series. While the narcotic mission was not a principal focus of the Department, Congress recognized that Department of Defense was uniquely suited to conduct aerial and maritime surveillance of illicit drug shipments bound for the United

States. Department of Defense programs primarily implemented by

U.S. Southern Command and JIATF-South have made tremendous

impact on the drug flow directly into Florida and the U.S. mainland since then.

While the counternarcotics mission was once slow to be embraced

by some Defense policymakers, today the Department is widely recognized as a critical component of the national drug control strategy, and JIATF-South is viewed as a model for inter-agency coordination and regional engagement.

Drugs, of course, still come into Florida, but the scale and challenge of this part of the problem is a shadow of what we confronted

in the 1980’s.

During the late 1990’s, the Department of Defense played a vital

role in development and implementation of Plan Colombia by providing equipment, information sharing, and capacity building to

the Colombian armed forces. In Colombia, Defense counternarcotics

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programs as part of the whole of government integrated strategy

led by the Department of State, including DEA and US AID, have

helped the government of Colombia increase its presence throughout the country, reduce level of violence, disrupt drug production

and trafficking, and dismantle drug trafficking organizations.

Through these efforts, today Colombia is an exporter of security in

the region.

Many challenges, of course, remain in Colombia, beginning with

the diminished but continuing unacceptable levels of cocaine production there, but by any reasonable measures the situation in Colombia today is far, far better than that which we confronted in the

1990’s.

In Mexico our programs are supporting President Calderon’s continuing campaign to confront rising violence fueled by drug trafficking and other organized crime. Our support to Mexico complements

the Merida Initiative, led by the State Department, and closely coordinated with our inter-agency partners, both at post and in

Washington.

Today we are also applying the appropriate lessons learned in

Colombia and elsewhere to confront heroin production and trafficking in Afghanistan. While the Department of Defense has traditionally provided counternarcotics support to law enforcement missions, in Afghanistan our law enforcement partners, such as DEA,

are providing critical counternarcotics support for our military objectives. This support is critical because the drug revenues support

the Taliban insurgency and undermine the rule of law by fueling

corruption.

While Afghanistan presents unique and complex challenges, the

interagency cooperation fostered in Colombia is paying dividends

today in Afghanistan. The revised counternarcotics strategy that

has been referred to previously for Afghanistan emphasizes the

whole of government approach to counternarcotics mission that is

incorporated into our overall counterinsurgency strategy.

Soon after coming into this office last year it became clear to me

that the Department needed to do a much better job as it had before in evaluating the effectiveness of our programs. While performance measurements were being collected and reported, they were

inconsistent, too focused on inputs and outputs, not adequately

aligned with the national drug control strategy, and were rarely

used as a basis for budgetary or policy decisions. Many of these

issues have been highlighted in the GAO report released today.

Recognizing the need to improve these performance management

systems for the Department’s counternarcotics efforts, in June

2009, which was 1 month after I arrived, I launched a comprehensive review of the system. Based on this preliminary assessment,

we identified corrective actions, and in May I issued new performance measurements procedures for all programs my office supports.

We are now undergoing a very thorough process to further identify

and execute those efforts.

In 2011 and beyond we will incorporate theater-specific data for

each combatant command to further enhance the program’s usefulness to leadership and program managers in the field.

I spent the last 8 years before returning to Government service

as a management consultant. This subject is one that I am quite

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passionate about, and I know that any successful performance

management system must be useful to the implementers, as well

as those making decisions from a programmatic level, so that they

can effectively input the data that we are going to need to make

the cost effectiveness decisions that we have to make.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared testimony. Thank you

again for the opportunity to discuss these issues with you. I look

forward to addressing any questions that you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wechsler follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

We are going to have at least two rounds of questions of the

panel.

I would like to begin with Mr. Kerlikowske. We are looking at

what is, without a doubt, a multi-billion-dollar enterprise in just

about every country where drugs are produced. What kind of work

do you do, and can you give this committee any insight into whether or not there are any banks in this country that end up being

the repository of massive amounts of drug money, or banks through

which drug money is being laundered, banks in the United States?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Mr. Chairman, I don’t know which banks

would be involved in money laundering. I do know of a certain——

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you look to see if banks are involved?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I don’t look at the banks. I know that FINSEN, OFAC, the Treasury Department does. I am very familiar

with Attorney General Goddard’s settlement with Western Union,

and I am very familiar with the Department of Homeland Security

work that is being done to not only look for the threat when it

comes to finances, but also to stop the bulk cash that goes south.

So I know that there are a lot of Federal law enforcement agencies

that are looking at that, and certainly some State and locals.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do either of the other witnesses have any experience or information relating to money being laundered through

U.S. banks or drug money being deposited in U.S. banks?

Ambassador JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, not in U.S. banks. I would

use this opportunity, though, to underscore the steps that the

Mexican government has taken in the last several weeks strictly to

limit the amount of cash that can be deposited there as a way to

provide a method for helping to combat the leakage into their own

system.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Wechsler.

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes, sir. I would greatly encourage you to ask

the Treasury Department. As someone who used to work at the

Treasury, we have come a long way since the 1990’s when U.S.

banks—and the Congress was the one who discovered this—U.S.

banks were actively abetting, in some cases, drug trafficking organizations.

Mr. KUCINICH. With all the funny business that has gone on in

Wall Street, it seems like it is an appropriate time to ask that

question, and we will contact them.

Directing staff, we are going to talk to somebody in Treasury

about following up on those questions.

Thank you.

I want to ask, I read your testimony, Ambassador Johnson. You

said that to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated approach to

the drug program in Afghanistan, we are currently working with

our interagency and international partners to target narcotics traffickers and drug lords, especially those with ties to the insurgency.

Are you also looking at those with ties to the central government?

Ambassador JOHNSON. The Drug Enforcement Administration

has its largest deployment anywhere abroad, and a very comprehensive system to look at all forms of trafficking from wherever

it is originating, and is working with the Afghan authorities, as

well as authorities here, to develop cases. Those specific cases are

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something that I am sure that no one would address during their

development stage, but I will assure you that DEA is looking at

this without regard to who may be involved.

The concentration on the traffickers who might be involved with

the insurgency is a step that has been taken in order to complement the counterinsurgency strategy of the military, and so the

targeting, the focus is of necessity there. But in terms of case development, it is without regard to person.

Mr. KUCINICH. But if the central government is involved in looking the other way or discouraging reduction and demand, it is quite

possible that you ought to be looking at them, as well, isn’t that

true? You mention insurgents. There is an inflection there. I just

wanted to see if that inflection represented an omission, a correction, or there was a lack of inclusion there. I am talking about the

central government, which has become famous for corruption. I just

wondered what you are doing.

Ambassador JOHNSON. The work has been, I think, of necessity

focused as much as possible on where the insurgents are getting

their cash and how they are operating in areas where we are seeking to prosecute the war. But to underscore again, the efforts that

are being undertaken in the law enforcement area are without regard to origin.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am going to ask a question of Mr. Wechsler, and

then I have a whole series of questions to ask you again about your

testimony.

Mr. Wechsler, given your involvement here, do you ever see any

evidence where U.S. resources, particularly those that are being

used by contractors of the U.S. Government, are involved in either

the production of or the shipment of narcotics? Have you ever

looked at whether contractors who are said to be working for the

United States are actually involved in any drug activities that

move the drugs out of the countries in which we are involved militarily?

Mr. WECHSLER. Sir, I have not seen evidence of any contractors

that are involved in the drug trafficking problems that we encountered in Afghanistan. No, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. I saw the Secretary of Defense the other day

made a statement he wasn’t even sure how many people he had out

there in terms of different contractors, so it seems to me it would

be a fair question, is it not, that if you don’t know how many people are out there and you have this big drug problem, to maybe do

some kind of cursory review of what is going on with your contractors who may or may not be coming into contact with some of these

drug supply routes.

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes, sir. I can speak to the ones that I know

about in my programs, and I can say that I haven’t seen that. The

general question about contractors I know is one that has the attention at the very highest levels of the Department of Defense,

and an awful lot of work is being done because of some of the wider

concerns that you allude to today.

Mr. KUCINICH. You know, this whole hearing is about what are

we doing to reduce the amount of drugs that are coming into this

country and the effectiveness of the programs thereof. Since we

have a proliferation of contractors, it seems to me that there is also

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potential routes into the country that open up through these different contractors. I just thought I would share with you that observation.

Mr. WECHSLER. It is a very good point, and the general concern

about the contractors and, more to the point, their subcontractors

and their subcontractors is one that is very much the attention of

the Department. Absolutely.

Mr. KUCINICH. And you are familiar with the Tierney report

about how we contract out, and the contractors have subcontractors

who actually end up shooting at our own troops.

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. So the drug issue comes up in that.

Mr. Jordan, thank you for your indulgence. Go on.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I think just underscoring the need for the right kind of processes and structures

to be in place so that we can measure all this.

Thank you all for being with us. Mr. Kerlikowske, thank you. I

know you have been in front of our committee and Judiciary Committee several times, so we appreciate the work you do and your

willingness to come here.

The National Drug Control Strategy issued in May of this year

states that the administration firmly opposes the legalization of

drugs, obviously a good statement to see, and that would include,

Mr. Kerlikowske, legalization of marijuana?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. You are correct, Mr. Jordan.

Mr. JORDAN. In light of that, talk to me about what at least appears to be somewhat contradictory, the Justice Department’s decision relative to the law in California with respect to marijuana and

the National Drug Control Strategy issued just 2 months ago, and

likely what may happen in here in the District relative to the substance of marijuana.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. The two issues are the legalization of drugs,

including legalization of marijuana, and then the second part is the

medical marijuana issue. Medical marijuana has been in California

since 1996. I don’t think there is anyone that doesn’t recognize the

explosion in the last several years of medical marijuana

dispensaries and recommendations that have come out.

The Attorney General, and I believe rightly so, through his office

issued guidelines to the 15 U.S. attorneys or 16 U.S. attorneys that

operate within districts that have medical marijuana, essentially

talking about the finite resources that they had, and that if a medical marijuana dispensary was operating clearly within the laws of

that particular State, that the U.S. attorney should consider the

use of finite resources, whether or not that would be appropriate.

It didn’t prohibit them from doing it.

The media had an absolute field day with that, and I believe that

it was incredibly incorrectly interpreted, because if you read those

guidelines he said that anything that involves violence, anything

that involves for-profit, anything that involves under-age sales, and

on and on, that all of the resources or resources that those U.S. attorneys and Federal law enforcement resources were appropriate.

And we do know that cases have been made by the U.S. Attorney,

and I am aware of active investigations that are going on. So that

is the medical marijuana.

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Drug legalization, marijuana legalization, the administration has

firmly repeated that it is either a——

Mr. JORDAN. Let me ask you personally, as head of ONDCP, as

the face of our efforts to curtail and hopefully stop the use of drugs

in our country, do you think it is appropriate when States and/or

the District of Columbia—well, let’s just say it this way: do you

agree with the whole medical marijuana approach, frankly, as is

happening in California right now?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I would tell you that I think that it is very

clear that a number of the recommendations, doctors can’t issue a

prescription, the number of recommendations that are issued by

physicians, and it is only a very small percentage of the physicians,

are highly questionable. That being said, the medical marijuana

question should be decided through the same process that science

uses to decide and the U.S. Government uses to decide other——

Mr. JORDAN. I am asking you personally, with your extensive experience in law enforcement, the good work I think you are doing

as the head of this agency, do you personally think these type of

laws are beneficial to our country or harmful to our country?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I think there is some benefits in further exploration of what could be helpful to patients as a result of marijuana. I clearly think that this mass amount of media attention

that has been given to medical marijuana sends the wrong message

and is inappropriate for young people in this country.

Mr. JORDAN. That is good to hear. Do you think when States

have this medical marijuana statute in place that it makes it easier

for—it is the first step toward legalization? Would you agree with

that?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I would tell you that I think that I have

heard a number of statements from people that are in the pro-legalization business that medical marijuana issues were a gateway.

I still think that there are also, though, some benefits that need

to be further explored and further refined for people that could use

marijuana in a medicinal way.

Mr. JORDAN. OK.

Mr. Chairman, I have another line of questioning, but I will wait

until the next round. You are going to do another round?

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes.

First of all I want to say that we have been joined by Mr.

Tierney, whose report I cited just before he came into the committee room. We appreciate your presence here. Thank you, sir.

Congress has provided over $6 billion to the Department of Defense counternarcotics program since 2005. GAO report said since

2006 cocaine removal rates from interdiction have declined and not

reached any of the annual targets to date. The 2010 ONDCP strategy calls for the removal of 40 percent of the cocaine moving

through the transit zone annually by 2015.

Mr. Wechsler, is this goal realistic? How much money will we

have to spend to get to that percentage? And what outcomes do you

expect as a result of these efforts?

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes, sir. The goal is realistic if we have the resources, and additional resources will be required to meet that

higher goal. I think it is important to set goals that are not easily

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achievable but that actually push the agencies to do the best that

they can.

We are going through a process right now to figure out exactly

what combination of additional assets and additional programs

might be required to hit that goal, and that is where we are in that

process.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it cost effective? I mean, are you looking at the

cost effectiveness of this?

Mr. WECHSLER. The answer is yes, and——

Mr. KUCINICH. It is cost effective now?

Mr. WECHSLER. The answer is yes that we are looking at that

problem. Before you get to cost effectiveness you have to get to effectiveness in the first point, and that is—when we looked at the

285 different metrics that had been left to us by the last administration, we have been reviewing them for a whole variety of characteristics, and what we found is that some of them are applicable

and some of them are not applicable for basic level effectiveness.

To get to cost effectiveness, then you have to look at that in the

context of the budget process, which you run every year.

To be quite honest, we are not there yet, but we have a very,

very thorough process to get us there in a way that won’t just simply answer your question quickly but easily and then you will be

asking the same question 2 years from now when someone else is

sitting in this seat.

Mr. KUCINICH. You understand the importance of this, though,

because Congress now, we are looking very seriously at theses

questions. You don’t just throw money at a problem.

Mr. WECHSLER. The challenges that you face with the budget are

very, very well understood. I believe that one of my primary goals

is a steward of U.S. taxpayer dollars on your behalf, and I want

to make sure that the programs that we run are not only effective

but are also cost effective.

A great amount of things that we do are effective. I would need

to find out, and some of them that I have seen I can conclude are

cost effective, but I am still doing additional work.

Mr. KUCINICH. We will go deeper into this.

I want to go to Ambassador Johnson just for a minute here.

You cited recent declines in production of cocaine in Colombia,

but isn’t it true that, despite fluctuations, coca production has been

remarkably steady since before Plan Colombia even began? So after

spending over $4 billion on these efforts, illicit crop reduction is, at

best, slightly lower than it was before we started pouring money

into the country’s counternarcotics efforts? It doesn’t seem to me to

be a good use of taxpayers’ dollars. And isn’t it true that the production has increased in Peru and Bolivia to offset any gains made

in Colombia? So why is eradication still being funded at such high

levels, Ambassador?

Ambassador JOHNSON. The statement that you made about

changes in Peru and in Bolivia are regrettably true. There have

been some sustained——

Mr. KUCINICH. I like the way you put that. I mean, that was very

artfully done. I just want to state that was artfully done.

Ambassador JOHNSON. Thank you, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Please continue.

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Ambassador JOHNSON. There have been some sustained gains in

Peru, based on programs that work very clearly and very much in

a teamwork effort between the eradication efforts that we provide

support for, as well as the alternative development and governance

building efforts that AID, through the appropriations that it is provided, works with.

I think the change in Colombia is reflected over the time that

you cite. There was a continued growth in area under cultivation

and cocaine production for a substantial time after Plan Colombia

was begun, and that corner was not turned for several years afterwards. But, as your previous witness has stated, there is a substantial decline measured over the course of the last several years

in the amount of cocaine that is available from that production and

the amount that is actually grown in Colombia.

Bolivia is a much more challenging situation. We have a program

there where we have worked with the government there to address

an eradication of a gross amount, but, due to changes on the

ground there, including the attitude of the government toward coca

production, the area under cultivation, in fact, grows in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 percent per annum over the course of the last

several years.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Ambassador.

Mr. Jordan.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kerlikowske, when Mr. Ford was in front of the committee

a few minutes ago I talked to him about whether the GAO had

done any assessment of how effective your treatment programs the

Federal Government is involved with. Can you elaborate and

maybe tell us what the GAO has not looked at, your assessments

of how you are doing on the treatment side?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I think that I share your concerns, and certainly the Chair’s concerns, over the lack of the timely, relevant

data. When I was police chief and made decisions for 2,000 people

with a several hundred million dollar budget, I actually had a lot

more data and a lot more timely data to do that than I have seen

here.

Mr. JORDAN. Yes.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. That is why the national drug control strategy has devoted an entire chapter to improving the quality of the

data.

There are two things that make the assessment of the treatment

programs difficult. One, there is a whole plethora of treatment programs that are out there. Many of the treatment programs report

their results in very different ways, as far as recidivism within a

month, recidivism within a year, and the fact that actually in treatment part of treatment is, in fact, that people relapse.

The other problem is that State and local communities often do,

either through in-kind services or their own local tax dollars, an

awful lot of treatment that we don’t have control over.

It is interesting that in Mexico right now they are working very

hard to consolidate how treatment is done and how it is measured,

because they are seeing a growing addiction population in that

country.

Mr. JORDAN. Sure.

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Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. We could benefit here in the United States

from doing the same.

Mr. JORDAN. The folks you contract with or the folks who provide

the treatment, what percentage are faith-based groups or entities

who are doing that work?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. An awful lot of the treatment is paid for, as

you know, from the HHS block grant that flows to the States.

Mr. JORDAN. Yes.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I do not know the percentage of faith-based,

but it would tell you that the most recent meta analysis, for instance, on prevention talks about that if there are trusted messengers giving young people information—and I am talking in the

prevention area here—that would include faith-based, that can

have a positive effect on young people.

Mr. JORDAN. But you don’t have any measure to say if faithbased approaches are working better or worse or more successful,

less successful, than non-faith-based approach?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I don’t know.

Mr. JORDAN. That would certainly be something I would like to

follow.

Let me just ask you, along those lines there is the Substance

Abuse Mental Health Services Administration Modernization Act.

I would like to get your thoughts on a provision contained within

that act. This is sponsored by Representative Green and Representative Kennedy.

Let me just read a quick paragraph if I could, Mr. Chairman.

Again, this is to Mr. Kerlikowske: ‘‘With respect to any activity

to be funded in whole or part through an award, a grant, a cooperative agreement, or contract under this title or any other statutory

authority of the administration, the administrator, the director of

the center involved may not make such an award unless the applicant agrees to refrain from considering religion or any profession

of faith when making an employment decision regarding an individual who is or will be assigned to carry out the portion of the activity.’’

Do you think we need to place that kind of limitation on some

of these faith-based groups who are doing the work of helping treat

people with drug problems, this kind of limitation on a faith-based

organization? It seems to me what is going to happen is if you

place this kind of limitation on those they will say we just can’t do

the work any longer, we just can’t apply because that violates their

statement of faith.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I would not want to see that, in particular,

but what I would like to support is certainly on the hiring decisions

that you are not going to discriminate against people coming into

those programs based upon the religion, but I think that the faithbased programs can have beneficial effect, and I would be happy

to followup with you and with SAMHSA on this.

Mr. JORDAN. I would like to be a little clearer, because it seems

to me that what you just said is contradictory, because you said

you want the faith-based groups to continue to do the work, but if

they can’t hire the people who support their statement of faith how

are they going to continue to do the work? That is my point. It

seems to me this act is going to undermine the ability of the faithVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:49 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00103 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65556.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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based organizations, which you have said are doing some of this

treatment and doing a good job at it. If we make this change, we

are going to keep them from being able to do this kind of work.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. And I am not sure that I agree, Mr. Jordan,

because I think if the bar is not to discriminate against somebody

coming in, but yet not to prohibit the practice and the way that the

organization does the treatment, I’m not sure they are mutually exclusive.

Mr. JORDAN. I think what we have to focus on is what is going

to help the individual with the drug problem. That is what this

whole thing is about today. That is what this hearing is about.

That should be our focus. And if these groups are working, I don’t

think we need to be making this change.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. We will followup with that.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

It is good to see you again, Mr. Kerlikowske, and others. I thank

you.

This is all about the money, right? I mean, that is what people

are in this business for. Or does anybody have another suggestion?

It is all about the money. We can treat people all day long, but as

long as there is money involved they are going to keep pushing this

thing around and find other people to deal with.

We can interdict it, and they are going to just find a different

route to take it to market. We can sort of try to eradicate. They

are just going to find another place to grow it.

So how do we go about getting the money? The first thing, corruption, obviously. If we are talking about a place like Afghanistan,

you go after the corruption. You arrest the guys, including the

brother or step-brother or whoever it might be in the chain there

and show that you are serious about it, and you take them out of

the loop and maybe get some progress there. We can talk about

that in any country where it is there, but even that is going to be

difficult unless you go to get the money. So how do we do that?

What are our efforts so far in that regard? How successful have

they been or not been? What aren’t we doing that we should be

doing, because until we take the money out of this I think we are

behind the eight ball.

If I could just go left to right on that.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I think that the money is absolutely critical,

and I have been extremely impressed with the work that I have

seen lately from FINSEN, from the Department of Treasury, from

the Department of Homeland Security, also some of the State and

local efforts. The recent settlement that Attorney General Goddard

had with Western Union includes additional law enforcement training in how to detect the money issue for local law enforcement.

Quite often we think that it is going to be a Federal law enforcement agency that is going to go after the money. What we really

need to do is to bring a whole other group of resources into that

fight, and that is the deputy sheriffs and the State and local law

enforcement who may not have either the tools or the training to

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go after the money. We are actually seeing these kinds of training

initiatives increase.

Along with that, the Department of Homeland Security license

plate reader system, they can perhaps detect the suspect vehicles

that may be going south with the bulk cash. A number of both back

scatter x-ray systems and also x-ray vans that Customs on the

south side of the border, Mexican Customs can use. As you know,

it was not that common in the past for cars, once they had entered

Mexico, to be searched by the government of Mexico Customs. That

is changing pretty dramatically also.

I think also making the going after the money sexy is particularly important. We often spread out the drugs and see the perpetrators when it comes to seizures and weapons. We don’t often

spread out the money on the table and then make sure that people

see what is going on.

I am sure Mr. Wechsler and Ambassador Johnson can tell you

about some great work that has been done at interdicting bulk cash

outside our borders.

Mr. TIERNEY. Ambassador.

Ambassador JOHNSON. Congressman, I think virtually every program that we have has some element in it that is dedicated exclusively to chasing cash for its own sake, but I think they also have

to be looked at as a combined effort. There is not a single solution

to this.

Mr. TIERNEY. I am going to interrupt you if I can, Ambassador,

because just a moment ago Mr. Kerlikowske told me that we are

under-resourced in those avenues of looking at the cash and looking for the money. So I guess with the real paucity of success that

we have on interdiction, for instance, where all it does is move it

from one place to another, why aren’t we considering moving some

of the resources from there to a place where we know it will have

more affect?

Ambassador JOHNSON. What I was saying was we do have resources dedicated to this, but the resources to chasing the money

sometimes don’t appear directly there. We have resources that are

dedicated to these devices and the training for the Mexicans so

that they can detect the bulk cash. We have resources that are

dedicated to training individuals in places all over the world to inspecting and knowing how to detect individuals who may be leaving through airports with substantial amounts of cash with them.

But there is also an element of, for example, the program in Colombia that has to do with reforming the judicial system that allows them to detect people, to prosecute them, who have been

smuggling cash and engaging in money laundering.

So these elements, when taken together, I think form a whole.

The exact proportion that might be spent more on non-intrusive inspection devices, for example, as opposed to ships at sea, I think

that is worthy of some consideration, but it is a multi-variable calculation you are trying to make here.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess it is, except that we have had years and

years and years of experience of not doing very well with interdiction and with eradication. We have shown that we are just bounding the ball back and forth, whacking it off the wall. It seems to

me that the one area we know these guys are interested in and

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they have to have it is cash and money, and they have to launder

it, and we are talking banks and everything else. Why don’t we just

focus there like a laser beam and make this unprofitable for them

and the other stuff will take care of itself if you do that?

Mr. Wechsler.

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes, sir. Of course, the way the Department of

Defense works is primarily focuses on this issue in the war zone,

and you are exactly right. We have done a tremendous amount of

work in the last year on this subject at a strategic level, at an operational level, and at a tactical level, and what we are doing today

is tremendously different than where we were 18 months ago.

We built out the Afghan threat finance cell in Kabul, we are

building out tactical level elements in Kandahar to work at this

exact issue and the nexus of the money and the drugs and the insurgency in a coordinated, interagency approach so we can bring

the military authorities where they are appropriate, but also bring

together the law enforcement authorities and the Treasury Department’s authorities where those are the appropriate tools to take

against a given target.

We have a long way to go on this area, but we have had some

significant successes recently, and the level of progress is one that

I am very proud of.

Mr. TIERNEY. If I might, Mr. Chairman, for just 1 second, I get

a little concerned when I see stories in the Wall Street Journal

about $3 billion being put in cash on a plane and taken out of

there. I know some of that is the war lord stuff that we investigated, and that is lining pockets and going out, but I am concerned that a lot of it is drug cash getting out of there, so we have

a long, long way to go on that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to say again that what Chairman Tierney

did with his report was extremely important. I hope that all of you

will have a chance, if you haven’t already, to study it thoroughly,

because when we consider how those people we are trying to work

with are actually using U.S. resources to further their own avarice

and to try to convert our resources into their own, and the potential of moving drug money out of the country, and we brought up

before you came, Mr. Tierney, the issue of banks. We are going to

get Treasury engaged in that. Maybe we can do that jointly.

I think that the points that he is making are absolutely critical.

The underlying dynamics that are driving so much of this is the

tremendous amounts of money that people are making, billions of

dollars.

And it becomes even more perplexing when you understand that

we have brave men and women whose lives are on the line in some

of these countries who are totally dedicated to this country, and

somebody, some groups, are making billions of dollars off of their

presence there. There is something fundamentally wrong.

You gentlemen are each charged with a grave responsibility to

try to bring some alignment in these policies.

I am just going to go to a final round of questions, and we will

try to move through this as quickly as possible. I want to thank

you for your indulgence and your time.

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I want to ask all the witnesses if you think labeling international

state-building programs like alternative livelihood programs, rule

of law initiatives, and justice reform as counternarcotics policies, if

it makes sense. Mr. Kerlikowske? Let’s go right down the line.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Right now we are in the process of reviewing

the budgeting accounting system that we are using for drugs. I

think, as you know, from the NAPA Report there was concern

about how things were being accounted. We want to review this,

and we are doing it. It will be done in the most transparent way

possible.

Mr. KUCINICH. Can you answer the question, though? What

about labeling these international state-building programs?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I think there should be some portion of them

that clearly do work for counternarcotics, and I would think that

there are some in the domestic area that also could be in a counternarcotics mode also.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to go down the line, and then I have a followup question to ask each of you. Go ahead.

Ambassador JOHNSON. I agree with the Director. Some portion of

them should be. I think to label them 100 percent would be misleading. Cost accounting is hard, I know, but I think that in some

cases alternative livelihood is an essential part of a program, for

example, in Peru and in Afghanistan. In some areas those

programs——

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to stop you for a second because you just

said something about it, you know, potential for being misleading,

because what I was wondering is whether or not there is a risk

that labeling these programs as counternarcotics results in misguided policies because they are being judged based on how drug

supplies diminished instead of improvements in good governments

or socio-economic development.

Ambassador JOHNSON. I think that a durable, effective, longterm program will have to have some element, perhaps a significant element, particularly on the rule of law side. We have had,

from my point of view, a successful eradication program in Colombia, but that program will be durable over time to the extent that

the Colombian authorities, with our support, are able to extend the

reach of the State and provide State services, particularly security

services and rule of law in areas that are ungoverned or poorly governed.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Wechsler.

Mr. WECHSLER. I will defer to my colleagues who run the programs for the accounting, but what I can say is what we have recognized is that we cannot succeed in our counternarcotics objectives

based purely on the military approach to this and we need the alternative development efforts to be part of this integrated plan for

our counternarcotics lines of operations to succeed as part of our

wider counterinsurgency programs.

Mr. KUCINICH. So then what is the significance, Ambassador

Johnson, of labeling these state-building programs as counternarcotics as opposed to just focusing on rule of law initiatives, justice reform? Why are they put into that ambit of counternarcotics?

Ambassador JOHNSON. Well, part of them have a positive counternarcotics effect. I am not sure what you are meaning by put in

104

the label of counternarcotics. The appropriation that we receive is

international narcotics and law enforcement, and there are programs which go beyond counternarcotics for which I am responsible.

Mr. KUCINICH. You make a good point, which is something that

this subcommittee should take note of, and that is that if our legislative and appropriation process guides those definitions, that also

can drive a combining of programs or an overlap of programs. I

thank you for making that point. That is a good point.

Director Kerlikowske, ONDCP cites the U.S. role in taking out

some of the major drug cartel leaders in Mexico as a sign of the

effectiveness of the U.S.’s participation in Mexico’s war on drugs.

Would you comment on the collateral consequences of taking out

these cartel leaders, such as the destabilizing of the industry and

creating a power vacuum, and does that cause more violence?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I think that it does cause more violence when

the heads of some of these organizations are taken out. The anecdotal information is that the people that replace them—and there

are always people that will replace them—are not as sophisticated—probably a bad term there, but not as sophisticated as perhaps the more entrenched leadership, and that they, in fact, may

be more reckless. I think that experience is true in what we have

seen, whether it was in northern Ireland or here with our own organized crime.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me just ask one final question. How endangered is the government of Mexico, itself, from these cartels? I

mean, do these cartels have the power to capsize the government

of Mexico?

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I do not think so.

Mr. KUCINICH. Ambassador Johnson.

Ambassador JOHNSON. No.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Wechsler.

Mr. WECHSLER. No.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Mr. Jordan, a final round of questions.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one question. This

will be for Ambassador Johnson, if we could.

In your testimony you talk about the experience in Bolivia where

they expelled last year all DEA personnel, and yet in the final sentence in that same paragraph you say, We will provide $20 million

in logistics and training support to Bolivia this year. They kicked

all our guys out, and yet we are still giving them money. It is sort

of the old line why pay people who don’t like you, they will probably not like us for free. Why are we doing that when obviously

they said take a hike, and yet we are still sending taxpayer dollars

to the tune of $20 million?

Ambassador JOHNSON. Two points. We are not giving the government of Bolivia any money.

Mr. JORDAN. OK.

Ambassador JOHNSON. We are providing a service in cooperation

with them to eradicate a substantial amount of standing coca,

which is a program that we have operated there over several decades.

I think that you raise a legitimate question as to whether this

program, in the face of the absence of political will on the part of

105

the Bolivian authorities clearly to combat these narcotics, is viable

in the long term. I think that it is having the intended effect of

eliminating a substantial portion of the crop.

Mr. JORDAN. Tell me how the money is being spent. If they kicked out our personnel and yet we are still spending $20 million

there, who do we have there? Tell me how it is working.

Ambassador JOHNSON. We have a team of people who work with

the Bolivians, provide them with support for aviation, logistical

support for moving around their country for the destruction of

standing crop, as well as interdiction operations. What is missing

with the departure of the DEA is an ability to really point those

interdiction operations based on solid intelligence.

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. I mean, the folks who are there on the ground

are the ones handing out the money——

Ambassador JOHNSON. Excuse me. Nobody is handing out any

money.

Mr. JORDAN. Not handing out the money, but spending the

money, helping them, and the people who could enforce kind of the

tough love part of it, they are going, No, we don’t want those

around. We just want the help part; we don’t want the people

around who are actually seeing if we are doing things in the right

way.

Ambassador JOHNSON. I don’t know the variety of motivations,

but I think what is clear is that the program is working effectively

as described, but it does not have the ability to work with a solid,

intelligence-led interdiction effort in the absence of the DEA.

Mr. JORDAN. I would agree with that.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Kerlikowske, I first want to thank you for your written responses following the hearing that we had back in March. We sent

some written questions to you, and I want to appreciate the time

and effort that you put in to answering them.

But some of what we explored in those were whether or not there

was adequate data to make some of the determinations as to how

to distinguish between what attempts are more successful than

others in dealing with this issue. Part of your response indicated

some $42 million, or $42.6 million of the President’s budget to help

collect the data. I am wondering if that is money well spent, given

all the other studies that you cite from Rand and others that had

very serious limitations in their usefulness.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I think it is unbelievably well spent when we

talk about the multi millions in the Federal drug budget. I am extremely disappointed to be having to cite 2006 or even 2007 data

about who has died as a result of drugs, and then I tell you that

this is the most recent data set available. Unfortunately, that is

the case.

So, working with CDC, working with HHS to find out who is

coming in to jail and what drug are they under the influence of,

who is being admitted to an emergency department at a hospital

and what kind of drug are they under the influence of, coroners’

reports, all of those kinds of things are particularly helpful.

106

I truly believe that as we continue to focus an awful lot on marijuana and youth use, and appropriately so, over a number of years,

we have this kind of skyrocketing number of people dying from prescription drugs that was just kind of out there. Greater numbers

than from gunshot wounds. In 16 States greater numbers than

from car crashes. It is kind of the 800-pound gorilla that nobody

was actually recognizing. So I think the data improvement is very

important.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Wechsler, with respect to Afghanistan and the drug trade

there, whatever, has the President made any designations under

the Foreign Narcotics King Pin Designation Act of Afghan citizens?

Mr. WECHSLER. There have been designations, yes. I am going to

have to defer you to the State Department and the Treasury Department, who run the various designation processes about how

many there are and the various names.

Mr. TIERNEY. Wouldn’t you think that you would know that,

though? If you are seriously involved in that area, wouldn’t that be

one of the things that you would want to be following up on so that

you know?

Mr. WECHSLER. We absolutely do. We coordinate on every single

name and are encouraging this process to do these designations.

Again, against any individual target that you are talking about, we

want to go through a process to figure out is the Treasury or the

State authorities the right one to use. Should we use a law enforcement approach to go after this individual target? Or in some cases

do we want to use a military kinetic approach to go after that given

target in Afghanistan, or a combination of them. Those are the efforts that are being made in the field on every note of the various

networks that we have, the mapping in each individual case.

But there will be a different answer in each case about what the

appropriate approach is.

Mr. TIERNEY. Which I guess is why I thought that you would

have had the information, as well, because if you are coordinating

this then I would think every one of you knows who these people

are that you are going after and take every opportunity to go after

them.

Mr. WECHSLER. Oh, yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Assuming there are a limited number of people

here that we are talking about, and probably few institutions because the banks aren’t that prevalent. You are talking about other

informal processes, right?

Mr. WECHSLER. The networks are not inextensive that we are

talking about and there is no shortage of targets that we are going

after. When it gets to the institutions, then you are correct, then

there is a relatively small number. But when you are talking about

individuals and organizations, unfortunately we don’t lack for targets.

Mr. TIERNEY. Ambassador, the last time we went around I got

the feeling I sort of cut you off. Is there something that you wanted

to add to your last comment?

Ambassador JOHNSON. Only that the idea of going after the

money is something we have been focused on for a very long time

and have had extensive programs to address it, but it is also someVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:49 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65556.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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thing where the adversary is extremely creative, and as we develop

tools they develop ways to work around them. So the comprehensive effort that Mr. Wechsler described about how we are seeking

to use new tools on the battlefield is something that we are working on every single day.

I may be the most aged person here, but when I was a bank examiner back in the 1970’s we were working on this same problem

with people buying expensive automobiles and then turning them

in 15 minutes later to launder money. So it is an effort that goes

on over time, and I think one of the key elements of the work that

we do, particularly in Latin America, is on money laundering and

civil asset forfeiture, which is the way to take away the proceeds

of crime.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Again, I apologize if I did cut you off

before.

So I am looking at this thing and I am thinking about choke

points. We have a lot of money spread out in a little of different

avenues from interdiction to eradication to hitting the demand side,

to going after the money, to going after the precursors, all of that.

Is there any merit to the concept of picking one or two areas that

we really think are the choke point in that and consolidating all

of our attention and resources on those avenues and just really

leaning hard and trying to get some international consensus on

that as well as some interagency consensus and just going full bore

at that one or two areas that we think have the most effect of shutting these people down?

I think we already know it is not eradication, it is already not

interdiction, but maybe look at some of the remaining ones and say

this is what we are just going to double down and put all of our

resources into this and set a period of years that we think we

should see some effect from it and just do it.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Mr. Tierney, I think if we knew what worked

that would probably be certainly the most helpful way. The sad fact

is we don’t actually know what works.

I would tell you that I think the President’s strategy, this very

comprehensive strategy, is the best way to go, and I would cite the

most recent example when President Obama and President

Medvedev last year and we started a bi-national on narcotics. It

was only to look at drug traffickers and drug trafficking.

It became very clear, both to the Federation of Russian and to

the United States, that was a narrow way to look at the drug problem, particularly Russia’s drug problem with 21⁄2 million heroin addicts, and it would have to be to look at prevention, it would have

to be to look at what type of drug treatment systems are available

to get these people back into the work force, and it would have to

be to go after the money, the financiers, the traffickers, etc.

I think that balanced approach is probably the one that we have

to put all our eggs spread across the spectrum rather than into the

two or three things that we might think work.

Mr. TIERNEY. Interesting, because I think, again, I think we

know what doesn’t work, yet we keep doing it. The definition of insanity, I guess. It is part of it. It is not just this President, it is

all the Presidents. It is all of us that have done this. We continue

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to think that we are just going to keep throwing stuff at the wall

and see what sticks here.

If we can’t figure out what definitely works, if we can’t get the

data behind it to say this works, we are going to do it, we certainly

can get the data behind what doesn’t work and say, Well, we have

been trying this for a few decades now, that certainly hasn’t done

it, because we have great enforcement agents and other people out

there just beating their heads against the wall.

I know if you say to them we are going to stop doing one thing

or the other they are going to be upset because every day they see

results, but that is the point. Every day they see results because

there is an endless group of people that will be doing that forever.

You can just keep repeating it over and over and over again instead of finding the angle that finally shuts down the operation.

I am out of time. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Tierney.

We are going to move on to the third panel in a moment. I just

want to thank each one of you for your service, for the work that

you do.

Mr. Tierney, as he often does, raised the question that requires

some deeper level of analysis, and it seems that every time we hold

these hearings—and this is the responsibility of this subcommittee,

oversight over the Office of National Drug Control Policy. We are

required to really ask some deeper questions about why, what

drives this seemingly insatiable demand for drugs in our culture.

That is beyond the scope of this particular hearing, but it sure is

something that we need to have a national discussion about.

For all that you do that works and doesn’t work, we can continue

to go over this from now until kingdom come about what works,

what doesn’t work, but we are missing the deeper question. What

is it in our culture that drives this tremendous demand for these

various types of drugs?

I don’t know the answer to that, but it is sure something that

we need to get into, because otherwise all we are doing is shuffling

policy this way, that way, and you still have this tremendous demand and supply that is readily available where people who are

selling it are ready to risk life, limb to make billions of dollars.

Thank you for your service to the country. We will move on to

the third panel, which I will introduce while the staff proceeds with

the changing of the table there.

Our third panel includes Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security at the Washington Office of Latin America. He

joined the Washington Office of Latin America in 2010 after 14

years working on Latin American and Caribbean security issues

with the Center for International Policy.

Vanda Felbab-Brown is a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings

Institution. She focuses on the national security implications of illicit economies and strategies for managing them. She is an adjunct professor in the securities studies program at Georgetown

University School of Foreign Service.

And Mark Kleiman is professor of public policy in the UCLA

School of Public Affairs. Professor Kleiman is a renowned expert on

drug policy, teaches courses on methods of policy analysis, on drug

abuse, and crime control policy.

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As with those on the first and second panel, we ask that each

witness give an oral summary of his or her testimony. Keep the

summary 5 minutes in duration. Your complete written statement

is going to be included in the hearing record.

It is customary for all witnesses before our full committee and

subcommittee to be sworn. I would ask that you raise your right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

Let the record reflect that each of the witnesses has answered in

the affirmative.

You may proceed with your testimony, Mr. Isacson. Please begin.

STATEMENTS OF ADAM ISACSON, SENIOR ASSOCIATE FOR REGIONAL SECURITY, WASHINGTON OFFICE ON LATIN AMERICA; VANDA FELBAB-BROWN, PH.D., FOREIGN POLICY FELLOW, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION; AND MARK KLEIMAN,

M.P.P. AND PH.D., PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, UCLA

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

STATEMENT OF ADAM ISACSON

Mr. ISACSON. Chairman Kucinich, Ranking Member Jordan, Mr.

Tierney, I want to say a big thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing that I think is badly needed, and I congratulate you for holding it. I look forward to a good discussion.

A big part of my work at the Washington Office on Latin America is monitoring U.S. aid to that part of the world, and where

Latin America is concerned U.S. aid really does mean counter-drug

aid.

In the 10-years between 2000 and 2009, 48 percent of our aid dollars spent in Latin America, $9.9 billion, went through counternarcotics accounts in the State and Defense Departments budgets.

When you look only at the military and police aid that went to the

whole region, 85 percent is counter-drug aid.

So for all that have we managed to reduce drug supplies? I am

afraid the answer is no. Look at cocaine, which is the only illegal

drug produced entirely in Latin America, and by every measure,

the tons produced, the price on U.S. streets, drug-related violence,

these 10 years of aid did not reduce cocaine supplies. My written

testimony provides the numbers comparing 2000 and 2009.

So where do we go from here? In fact, the experience of the past

10 years in Colombia and Mexico and elsewhere offers some compelling lessons. The first is that we have to do far more to reduce

our own citizens’ demand for illegal drugs. The new national drug

control strategy puts a greater priority on drug treatment, which

is welcome, and let’s hope it translates into greater resources in the

next several years’ budgets. Also, community corrections programs

like Hawaii’s HOPE probation program, deserve more support.

In Latin America, meanwhile, the lessons really are pointing in

two directions, broad directions: strengthening states and reducing

impunity. While that sounds a bit like academic jargon, they deserve to be unpacked a bit.

First, strengthening states. Counternarcotics programs don’t

prosper in a vacuum of government. Whether that vacuum could be

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a wild jungle coca growing region or it could be a gang-ridden slum

in a Latin American city, drug trafficking will thrive there if there

is no state presence.

Note I say state presence, not military occupation. Of course, I

mean, you can’t set up big economic aid programs without security

of forces there to protect them, but military operations also fail

when the civilian part of the government doesn’t show up, I mean

the part that provides public goods beyond just security—property

rights, equal protection under law, farm-to-market roads, health,

education, clean water, a stable financial system.

Second, impunity. Establishing a government presence, even a civilian government presence, isn’t enough if it doesn’t include a

strong, credible judicial system alongside it. If a government is in

a zone but it is acting abusively or corruptly toward its own people

and it does so without fear of punishment, then that population is

not going to support its government. State presence can actually

make matters worse without a judiciary in place to ensure nobody

is above the law.

Now, when the United States provides judicial aid, which we do,

it has to include more for physical security, for judges, prosecutors,

investigators, and witnesses. It has to help increase manpower, to

reduce caseloads, and the investigators in these countries need

technology, data bases, data security, crime labs, DNA, forensics.

This sort of strengthening states without impunity framework

may be the best approach, but the thing is there is little specifically

counternarcotics about it. Put plainly, it is nation building. Programs like consolidation or integrated action in Colombia, which

has been going on the last couple of years in Colombia, are helping

Mexico reform its police and judiciary. They are costly and they require long-term commitments. By now though I think we have seen

that there is really no other shortcuts.

But is the U.S. Government set up to help in this way? The

agencies that provide the most aid to Latin America who were represented on the last panel, INL at State, counternarcotics at Defense, they are counternarcotics agencies; they are not governance

and development agencies. And the White House office providing

policy direction, ONDCP, they are limited to a narrower counterdrug mandate, too.

These agencies have important contributions to make, but I

think the natural lead agency for civilian governance aid would be

US AID. Where judicial reform is involved it would be US AID and

the Department of Justice. In the past, there has been aid for these

priorities, but it has usually been channeled through the State Department’s international narcotics control account. I think that is

unnecessary and it adds an extra layer that slows the delivery of

aid.

If we move in this direction, what will happen? If we expand the

amount of territory that is governed and strengthen the rule of law

in countries like Colombia and Mexico, those countries could become less hospitable to cocaine, but global demand for cocaine is

likely to remain stable. The balloon effect tells us supply will move

to other countries with weaker governance and greater impunity.

Peru and Bolivia are seeing more cocaine right now. Central America is seeing more trans-shipment and cartel activity.

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We have to be vigilant about where the trade is migrating and

start working proactively with those governments to strengthen

their own capacities, especially their civilian and judicial capacities.

Again, ONDCP and other counter-drug agencies will have an important role to play, but from now on it must be in support of a

much larger governance and justice effort.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Isacson follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Ms. Felbab-Brown, proceed.

STATEMENT OF VANDA FELBAB-BROWN

Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Tierney.

I am honored to have the opportunity to address you.

As long as there is strong demand for illicit narcotics, supply side

measures should not be and cannot be expected to stop supply and

prevent consumption; however, supply side policies do have a great

impact on the level of threat that the drug trade and drug trafficking organizations and other non-state actors pose to state and societies in source and trans-shipment countries. They impact country

intensity, institutional development, and human rights, and basic

state society relations in source and trans-shipment countries.

Often they do not do so in a positive way.

Let me now highlight some real general lessons about the effect

of supply side policies on these broader issues, and I will be happy

in the question period to talk specifically about Afghanistan, Mexico, or Colombia.

The drug trade generates multiple threats to the United States

and other states and societies. It often threatens public safety, at

times even national security, in supply and trans-shipment countries. It can also compromise the political systems by increasing

corruption and penetration by criminal entities, and undermine

legal economies.

At the same time, large populations around the world in areas

of minimal state presence, great poverty, and social and political

marginalization are dependent on illicit economies, including the

drug trade, for basic survival and the satisfaction of other socio-economic needs.

Supply side measures such as eradication and interdiction have

not yet succeeded in disrupting global supply of drugs in any lasting way; however, supply side measures have at times been effective in suppressing production in particular locales. A good security

is a key condition for this success.

Short of great political oppression that is deeply inconsistent

with U.S. values and interest, the second condition for success of

supply side policy and suppressing production in particular locales

is a multi-faceted state building effort that seeks to strengthen the

bonds between the state and marginalized communities dependent

or vulnerable to participation in the drug trade.

One component of such a program is the proper sequencing of alternative livelihood efforts and eradication, with eradication being

implemented only when legal economic alternatives are in place.

Effective alternative livelihoods requires that it be designed as

real funding, long-lasting, and comprehensive approach that does

not merely center on searching for the replacement crop. It really

amounts to either comprehensive rural development, and in places

like Mexico or Brazil a complex urban planning.

The state building approach also needs to include other components of state presence such as the strengthening of law enforcement and justice and correction systems. But it needs to do so in

a way that holds these other mechanisms and components in the

state accountable to citizens.

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Interdiction does play a critical part in supply side policies, including in ways to achieve these state building objectives, but it

should not be conceived primarily as a mechanism to stop supply,

but rather as a mechanism to beef up law enforcement, to prevent

the ability of drug trafficking organizations to coerce or corrupt a

state and societies.

Stopping weapons flows and anti money laundering measures

add important components, but they should not be overstated in

their effectiveness. They do not represent silver bullets and, indeed,

they are often some of the least effective approaches to be undertaken.

Even when successful in particular locales, supply side measures

have inevitably transferred the transshipment or supply problems

to new locales, whether these are new areas within the country or

they are new countries altogether.

The recognition of the balloon effect requires strategic

prioritization of effort. The imperative to mitigate spill-over effects

to other countries, however, should not give impetus to simply rush

to assist with counternarcotics law enforcement efforts to new

areas. Some of these areas, including in Central America and West

Africa, have such weak state and law enforcement capacity and

such high levels of corruption, the capacity to construct or absorb

external assistance is limited.

In devising supply side policies, the United States needs to be

aware of the limits to effectiveness of outside policy intervention

and assistance. If we accept the proposition that supply side policies are a critical component of state building efforts and, indeed,

should be construed as state building efforts, we need to realize

that there is only so much an outside country can do to change the

basic socio-economic and political arrangements that persist in

countries. Indeed, these socio-political arrangements, such as taxation system, will have great affect on the effectiveness of counternarcotics policies.

It is imperative that the U.S. Congress demands of the Executive

detailed reporting on the design and effects of counternarcotics

policies abroad that focuses not simply on outputs but, indeed, outcomes.

Measures to reduce demand abroad must be a key component of

U.S. counternarcotics policies. Many countries today have consumption levels on par or even greater than the United States. Many of

these are located in Asia and Latin America.

Finally, it is important that consideration is given in the design

of policies to second-degree effects and unintended consequences. A

regular part of any policy analysis should be to consider where supply or smuggling would shift if counternarcotics efforts are successful in particular locales. What kind of illegal enterprises or economies will criminal groups turn if their proceeds from the drug trade

are diminished? Will they, in fact, seek to penetrate to a greater

degree the legal economies? And then do these developments pose

a greater threat to the United States and partner countries than

the current conditions?

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Felbab-Brown follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Professor Kleiman.

STATEMENT OF MARK KLEIMAN

Mr. KLEIMAN. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to be invited to testify before this body. Mr. Chairman, having required me to take an

oath to tell the whole truth, I hope you will pardon me if I don’t

pull any punches.

My theme today is the logic of counter-drug strategies in the context of insurgency and terrorism. My claim is that we have let the

pieties of the drug war blind us to economic reality and commit us

to unattainable goals.

We make some drugs illegal because of the problem of drug

abuse, and it seems to be the best refutation to the claim that we

would improve matters by legalizing them is to look at the one

drug we legalized, alcohol, which causes more damage than all the

illicit drugs combined. By the way, this somewhat modifies, Mr.

Chairman, the claim that the United States has an unusual appetite for drugs. We have an unusual appetite for illicit drugs. In fact,

if you add back alcohol, we are sort of in the middle of the league

table.

Anyway, we ban drugs because we are worried about drug abuse.

Once the drugs are illegal, trafficking in them is a source of criminal revenue. The same capacities that allow an organization to

function as a terrorist organization—secrecy, loyalty, weaponry—

allow it also to function as a drug dealing organization, and when

a terrorist or insurgent group controls a piece of territory, it can

collect money from drug dealers who operate in that territory, either as tax or in return for actual services in protecting drug dealers from one another and from law enforcement. And, indeed,

drugs provided some of the funding for the Contras, for the FARC,

for the Colombian Paras, for the Northern Alliance war lords, and

for the Taliban.

Preventing terrorists and insurgents from successfully engaging

in or taxing drug dealing is one way to reduce their power, and

fighting drug-related corruption is one way to improve governance.

So much is true, but the following, Mr. Chairman, is not true: that

doing drug law enforcement generally in areas where terrorists operate is the same as fighting terrorism, that counternarcotics is

counterinsurgency. Not only is that not true, it is precisely backward. Drug enforcement raises prices. Volume doesn’t go down

nearly as much as price goes up, especially for exported drugs.

Therefore, drug enforcement tends to make drug dealers, in general, richer, which indirectly benefits those who can extract taxes

from them.

Worse, insofar as terrorists function as drug dealers, they are

among the harder sorts of drug dealers to catch because they have

violence and influence at their command, so it is mostly their competitors we are going to put out of business unless we target very

carefully. So drug enforcement without respect to persons, as one

of your earlier witnesses mentioned, is exactly, exactly the wrong

thing to do.

Moreover, the value of protective services goes up as the intensity of enforcement goes up. The bigger a threat law enforcement

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is to drug dealing, the more it is worthwhile paying an insurgent

or a war lord for protection. So untargeted drug law enforcement

provides material support for terrorism. It is not anybody’s intention, but that is the result. It is true in Afghanistan. I think it is

true in Mexico.

The goal, which has been discussed today extensively, the goal

of stopping the flow is unattainable. Drug consumption in the

United States is determined overwhelmingly by conditions in the

United States, not abroad. We can redirect the flow. We can try to

control the collateral damage. The effort to solve our drug problem

in someone else’s country is worse than futile.

Mr. Chairman, the Myth of Sisyphus, who is punished for some

outrageous misdeed in the afterlife by being forced to continually

roll the stone up a hill, and as soon as he gets on top of the hill

it rolls back down, the myth is familiar. I don’t believe the GAO

report on that myth is familiar, but it is entitled, ‘‘Stone Rolling

Goals Not Being Achieved: Sisyphus Needs to Assert Better Performance Measures.’’ Then it goes on to say that he needs to push

the stone up the hill more often and have a goal of doubling the

amount of time it stays at the top of the hill before it rolls back

down within the next 3 years.

When you are pursuing an exercise in futility it doesn’t do any

good to measure it more precisely. Of the cost of drugs in the

United States to U.S. users, 90 percent is U.S. markups. We cannot

fix this problem overseas. Yes, we can reduce drug production in

some parts of Afghanistan and it will go up in other parts of Afghanistan.

It was mentioned that a number, about 27 of the 34 provinces

of Afghanistan are now poppy-free. That is regarded as an accomplishment. The other seven are the ones controlled by the Taliban.

So our accomplishment is to have made our enemies a monopolist

in the world opium trade. I suggest that is not something we want

to simply measure more accurately. It needs to be re-thought.

And we need to change the rhetoric of international drug control.

A report yesterday in the Chinese News Service quotes a U.N. official as dismissing the arguments that show how drug enforcement

can enrich terrorists. It must be right, he says, to crack down on

anyone who is deeply involved in the drug trade. Right? That is

your drug enforcement without respect to persons. It must be right.

Mr. Chairman, I submit that is the language of incantation, not of

analysis. It must be right because we have been saying it for years,

but that doesn’t keep it from being wrong.

So I claim that we need to rethink our policies in Afghanistan,

targeted enforcement targeted at insurgents, anti-corruption efforts. In Mexico I think we need to think about picking one of the

big drug trafficking organizations and taking it down by making it

uncompetitive.

I will be happy to answer questions. Thanks.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kleiman follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Professor Kleiman.

Mr. Isacson, in looking at your testimony, you talk about the extraordinary amount of money that has gone over the past for military aid related to counternarcotics. Our military budget carries

within it headlong momentum that keeps funding hardware far

into the future, notwithstanding exigent circumstances or longterm predicted circumstances for their use. Since such a substantial amount of money goes to fund the hardware side of this, is it

possible that one of the driving forces for funding these ‘‘counternarcotics efforts’’ is a continued support for this military industrial

complex?

Mr. ISACSON. I don’t know who coined the term drug war industrial complex, but there is certainly is such a thing. I mean, there

are——

Mr. KUCINICH. Such a thing as what?

Mr. ISACSON. As a drug war industrial complex where you have

companies, whether they are making helicopters or other hardware, or whether they are contractors who are actually carrying

out programs like aerial herbicide fumigation who have a very

strong interest and actually do lobby actively in favor of increased

counter-drug spending.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you want to comment, Professor FelbabBrown? Do you have anything to say?

[No response.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me ask you another question here. Dr.

Felbab-Brown, what do you think about Professor Kleiman’s conclusion that alternative livelihood programs in Afghanistan contribute directly to funding the insurgency—am I quoting this correctly—through taxes levied by the insurgents on the alternative

livelihood programs?

Mr. KLEIMAN. Right. There are two aspects of it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did I characterize your conclusion correctly?

Mr. KLEIMAN. One half of it is that there may be taxation of the

effort. The other thing is, if you succeed in getting some farmers

to not grow poppy, particularly in government-controlled areas, you

are increasing the demand for poppy in non-government-controlled

areas.

Mr. KUCINICH. Ms. Felbab-Brown.

Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. I agree that the proposition that the Taliban

taxes a lot of different economies, both legal and illegal, including

aid projects, and U.S. funded aid projects. That is a consequence

of the fact that the government and the ISEF does not have good

territorial control and be able to prevent Taliban penetration.

I would, however, argue that it should not be the position then

to cancel these programs, because I do not believe that insurgencies

can be defeated through the efforts to bankrupt them. There is no

evidence that any insurgency has as yet been defeated through efforts to bankrupt them, whether these efforts were interdiction of

narcotics generating money or eradication programs.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, indeed, you pointed out in your testimony

that it is ‘‘highly unlikely that interdiction measures can significantly reduce the Taliban’s income and greatly limit its operational

capacity.’’

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Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. Indeed. However, I do believe that it is critical for preventing insurgencies, preventing counterinsurgencies, for

defeating insurgencies to win the hearts and minds of the population. Offering better governance, greater security, and better economic options is the critical component of that.

Mr. KUCINICH. But in doing that you can talk about better government. There is an assumption that when we say better government we mean not the Taliban, we mean central government, but

the corruption in the central government, which by now is legendary, as linked government with traffickers, and you are saying that

there is a need to ‘‘target government-linked traffickers to send a

message that the era of impunity is over.’’

Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. And you are right, sir. Perhaps the Achilles

heel of our project in Afghanistan is the poor quality of governance

that includes corruption linked to drugs, includes many other forms

of malfeasance and corruption. I agree with Professor Kleiman’s

testimony that the more we simply blanketly use law enforcement

the more likely it is that the most violent armed actors will end

up being the ones holding the largest proportion of the traffic. So

I think there is some great wisdom in focusing on Taliban-linked

traffickers. However, the other component of insurgency, of

counterinsurgency is, of course, to show that the government is

more just, can provide better governance.

Because the corruption is so notorious and so detrimental, it is

important that at least some of the highest linked traffickers, traffickers linked to the highest members of the government, are prosecuted and done so effectively.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am going to direct staff. I think that your testimony with respect to Afghanistan is quite compelling, particularly

in terms of the how our programs can raise expectations among the

population and then withdraw the money suddenly, and the expectations plummet, support for insurgencies continue. I am going to

recommend your testimony to be read by the Secretary of Defense

and by General Petraeus because I think that we really need to

have a strong response from them about the observations that you

have made before this subcommittee in your testimony.

I am going to move on to Mr. Tierney, and then we will have another round of questions for this panel.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Hello to all of you and thank you for

your testimony, written and oral, on that.

Ms. Felbab-Brown, the program, the so-called Aviba-plus program that they are running out of Afghanistan down in Helmand

and Kandahar Provinces, where they give cash for work, small

grants basically to procure different equipment or whatever, vouchers for high-tech sort of things or the farming or the training with

respect to all of that, have you had any knowledge about whether

or not there has been any success with that or how that is going?

Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. Well, Mr. Tierney, it is very difficult to

judge success because the programs have been in place for a relatively little period, and often the reporting that we hear from

members of the Executive are reporting on outputs, not necessarily

outcomes, so I think there is a great need for careful monitoring.

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That said, I do have some concern along the lines that Mr.

Kucinich raised. I am concerned that some of these programs are

being designed as buy-outs of the population rather than effective,

sustainable, long-term development. I understand the excruciating

dilemma that the administration is facing, ISAF is facing, in needing to win hearts and minds, including because the lives of our

men and women are at stake and because the time line is running

out, but there is a real danger that the buyouts will not be effective, that they will not sufficiently buy the population, and at the

same time, when they are no longer sustainable because funding

ends, they will then be directly counterproductive. They will, in

fact, alienate the population.

We have seen that with many programs, but emphasis has been

put on the physical structure. Development sort of isn’t if you cannot kick the building, the school, as opposed to, for example, providing teachers or doctors, and people have been deeply, deeply disappointed and antagonized. And at the same time, we have not

seen the programs such as offering a village a diesel generator as

sufficient to generate intelligence flows to make a big difference on

the battlefield.

So, while I certainly understand the imperative to demonstrate

to the population that a better future lies with the government

supported by ISAF, I would be very concerned not to design the

programs as short-term buy-offs.

Mr. TIERNEY. A question for all of you. Do you think we are approaching this in the wrong way if we are seeing all of these as

kind of counternarcotics programs as opposed to just focusing on

development aspect of that and say there are many different outcomes you can have from a good development program, to say that

it is just part of counternarcotics and focusing money for the narcotics program over there as opposed to broadening out the concept,

moving forward? Would that be a better approach, Mr. Isacson?

Mr. ISACSON. I do agree that it is the wrong approach, because

if you are calling it a counternarcotics program it completely

changes how you measure success. You are not measuring how

many people feel like they are governed. You are not measuring

how many people have government representatives in their town

saying you can’t grow this any more but you have alternatives. You

are measuring how many acres of crops were destroyed, or you are

measuring some estimate of how many tons were produced, and

that doesn’t really capture the picture. It captures something that

can perhaps show short-term gains and fluctuations, but not the

overall trend.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Kleiman.

Mr. KLEIMAN. Mr. Tierney, I completely agree. Insofar as we are

measuring reductions in drug production, we are measuring exactly

the wrong thing. We want to measure whether we are making

farmers richer and more trustful of the government. Afghanistan

currently has about 90 percent of the world’s opium production.

There is no country in the old world that is nearly competitive with

Afghanistan in terms of producing opium. Now, I am not saying

that 10 years from now there won’t be another producer, because

producers do change.

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In the near term, Afghanistan is going to produce all the opium

that the old world wants, and that is then a function of supply and

consumption conditions in Iran, in Russia, in Europe, in Pakistan.

To try to reduce drug production in Afghanistan is completely

misguided. A very small portion of the price that a drug user pays

for heroin is accounted for by the value of poppy at the farm gate,

or even of heroin at the refinery gate in Afghanistan. So a lot of

enforcement effort can force that price up a little bit. It is not going

to change consumption very much. If you really wanted to reduce

drug consumption in Afghanistan, pray for a failed state in Burma.

If Burma completely collapsed, it might compete with Afghanistan

in poppy production. But we are not going to reduce poppy production in Afghanistan by chopping down crops or by paying people

not to grow crops or by arresting heroin processors or dealers. It

just doesn’t work that way.

Of the arable land in Afghanistan, 4 percent is planted in poppy.

Land is not scarce. We have well demonstrated that we can move

poppy production around Afghanistan but not change the volume.

I don’t think changing the volume is a realistic goal. Afghanistan,

of course, is ridiculous. We get very little heroin from Afghanistan,

but for the whole world the notion that the goal of our foreign drug

programs is to protect drug consumers in the United States, completely misguided.

We want to protect drug consumers in the United States, we

have to do stuff about drug demand in the United States. That

does not mean offering treatment to addicts and lying to school

children. It means finding the heavy drug users, who are mostly in

the criminal justice system, getting them to stop. Professor Hawkin

will be talking about that tomorrow, I think.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Tierney. We are going to have one

brief round of questions of the witnesses.

I am looking at your testimony, Mr. Isacson, and it is very, very

well researched, much appreciated. I want to ask you, in your research have you ever seen any indication that there is a narcotics

strategy being used by intelligence interests to try to destabilize

governments? Is that possible?

For example, we have received information—I mean, it is probably public knowledge, but that there has been a proliferation of

drugs from certain areas in Asia into Russia. Now, have you ever

heard, aside from the obvious incentives of selling drugs——

Mr. ISACSON. Actual fostering of narcotics in order to undermine

an enemy country, something like that?

Mr. KUCINICH. Has that ever happened?

Mr. ISACSON. I cannot think of any real examples in Latin America.

Mr. KUCINICH. That is just the stuff of science fiction?

Mr. ISACSON. I would have to look at maybe the work of Professor Al McCoy, who did some work on this in southeast Asia, but

I am not very familiar with it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Does anyone have anything to offer about that?

Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. Well, during the 1980’s, Soviets were in Afghanistan. Soviet military faced very large addiction rates, and the

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Soviet military leadership often believed that this was not accidental.

Mr. KUCINICH. That what was not accidental?

Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. That the addiction rates among the Soviet

military were not accidental, and they believed that the United

States perhaps encouraged the addiction rates. Of course, the reality is that the conditions of the Russian troops, the Soviet troops

in Afghanistan were often so difficult that it motivated many soldiers without outside help to resort to narcotics.

Mr. KLEIMAN. Amen to that. There is a long-term flip of this,

right? I mean, you can get uncounted numbers of pamphlets explaining how the communists are flooding the United States with

drugs, right, or it was the North Koreans or it was the Cubans or

it was the Russians. There is a persistent fantasy that the cause

of drug trafficking is drug traffickers. The cause of drug trafficking

is consumption.

Mr. KUCINICH. Right.

Mr. KLEIMAN. And no, it doesn’t need any help from the United

States or anybody else for Russia, given its current economic and

social and political conditions, to have a terrific drug problem.

Mr. KUCINICH. I would just ask a final question to each member

of the panel. Spending on interdiction and international counternarcotics programs has increased by almost 100 percent since 2002.

If you were asked which programs should be cut to get us back to

the spending levels of, let’s say, the pre-Bush administration, what

would be your recommendation?

Mr. ISACSON. If you were to divide the hard side strategies into

interdiction, eradication, and sort of going after the king pins, I

would say eradication should take the deepest cut by far because

it really has almost been counterproductive in some places.

Ms. FELBAB-BROWN. I agree with that statement, and I would

suggest, however, that interdiction should be reoriented from the

futile effort of thinking that borders can be closed, that the U.S.

borders or borders in Afghanistan or borders in Colombia, and instead focus on building effective law enforcement that tackles

crime, street crime not just organized crime, and is accountable to

other citizens of the country.

Mr. KUCINICH. Professor.

Mr. KLEIMAN. It was mentioned earlier in the hearing that the

task force in the Caribbean substantially disrupted the drug trade

from Colombia into South Florida. That is true. What was not mentioned but is explained quite clearly in Rob Bonner’s foreign policy

article is that the result was the development of the throughput

trade through Central America and Mexico. The current Mexican

crisis is the consequence of our successful interdiction effort in the

Caribbean.

It seems to me if we had to choose between destabilizing the Bahamas and destabilizing Mexico, I think that is an easy choice, so

the first thing I would cut would be the Caribbean effort. Now, I

say that not having to get any votes in Florida. But we are currently doing something really disastrous to Mexico by making it

hard to get drugs in the other way. If we stop imagining that we

are going to solve our drug problem and start to say, look, the flow

into the United States depends on demand in the United States

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and the sales organizations in the United States, that we can do

something about them, and then all we can do is decide how the

drugs come in and how much damage they do. That seems to me

ought to be the new focus.

As long as we tell the interdiction people that their job is keeping

drugs out of the country, we are condemning them to futility. As

Jack Lawn said when he was DEA Administrator and a Member

of Congress asked him why we couldn’t just keep the drugs out of

the country, he said, Congressman, if we build a 50-foot wall

around the United States, the traffickers would buy 51-foot ladders.

Mr. KUCINICH. Because they are supplying a demand.

Mr. KLEIMAN. Because they are supplying a demand we can

sometimes reduce the street availability of drugs in a way that reduces consumption. That has turned out to be very hard. We have

15 times as many cocaine dealers in prison in the United States

today as we had in 1980. The price of cocaine is down by 90 percent.

What we can do more effectively, since most of the drugs go to

heavy users, most of the heavy users are criminally active and get

arrested, so they are going to be on pre-trial release, on probation,

or on parole when they are not in prison or jail. The HOPE project

has demonstrated that you can enormously reduce their drug consumption, and since they are where the drug consumers are, that

is our hope for reducing the damage we are doing to Mexico

through our demand for illicit drugs.

Mr. KUCINICH. This subcommittee is going to continue its oversight of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and of the more

broad question of supply and demand with respect to the United

States, and so, because of that, you as witnesses, because you have

been so helpful to the work of this subcommittee, you may find

yourself being invited again to testify. Each of you has developed

a very incisive expertise that has helped to inform the work of this

subcommittee, and we are very grateful for that. I just want to express that to you individually and collectively.

This is the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of Oversight and Government Reform. The topic of today’s hearing has been ‘‘International Counternarcotics Policies: Do They Reduce Domestic Consumption or Advance Other Foreign Policy Goals?’’

We have been gifted with three panels of witnesses, all of whom

have helped us to explore this question, which we will continue.

I want to thank the staff of our majority as well as minority for

their participation, as well as for Mr. Tierney’s and Mr. Jordan’s

participation.

This committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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