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41–842 CC 1997

COAST GUARD INTERDICTION EFFORTS IN THE

TRANSIT ZONE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT

REFORM AND OVERSIGHT

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 10, 1997

Serial No. 105–18

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

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico

CHRISTOPHER COX, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

PETE SESSIONS, Texas

MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas

BOB BARR, Georgia

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

GARY A. CONDIT, California

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL

JUSTICE

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Chairman

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

STEVE LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

GARY A. CONDIT, California

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

JIM TURNER, Texas

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

ROBERT CHARLES, Staff Director

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member

IANTHE SAYLOR, Clerk

MIKE YEAGER, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 10, 1997 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Burns, LCDR Mike, U.S. Coast Guard, C–130 aircraft pilot; LCDR Randy

Forrester, U.S. Coast Guard, HU–25C aircraft pilot; LT Jim Carlson,

U.S. Coast Guard, Commanding Officer, USCGC Vashon; and BM1

Mark Fitzmorris, U.S. Coast Guard, Boarding Officer, USCGC Tampa . 38

Kramek, Admiral Robert E., Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard .................... 3

Yost, Admiral Paul A., president, James Madison Memorial Fellowship

Foundation and former Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard ......................... 50

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

Carlson, LT Jim, U.S. Coast Guard, Commanding Officer, USCGC

Vashon, information concerning estimated street value of drugs ............. 49

Kramek, Admiral Robert E., Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard:

Information concerning signatory foreign governments ......................... 35

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

(1)

COAST GUARD DRUG INTERDICTION

EFFORTS IN THE TRANSIT ZONE

MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1997

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:15 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Dennis Hastert

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Hastert, Souder, Barrett and Turner.

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

Sean Littlefield, professional staff member; Ianthe Saylor, clerk;

Mike Yeager, minority counsel; and Ellen Rayner, minority chief

clerk.

Mr. HASTERT. The Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice will come to order.

We have two people on the way over; and, because I think probably everybody’s time is valuable sitting out in the audience, I

would like to get going.

In today’s hearing, we zero in on the national security threat

posed by the explosion of maritime drug trafficking in the transit

zone and the extraordinary efforts by the U.S. Coast Guard to combat it. Let me say, by transit zone, we mean the 2 million square

miles between the United States and South American borders; it

covers the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, Central America,

Mexico and the Eastern Pacific.

We are privileged to have Admiral Robert Kramek, President

Clinton’s outstanding Interdiction Coordinator and the Commandant of the Coast Guard. Admiral Kramek has been a tremendous leader in our interdiction efforts, and we welcome him here

today.

We are also pleased to have with us several front-line Coast

Guard personnel direct from operations within the transit zone— a C–130 pilot, a HU–25C pilot, a Commanding Officer of a cutter,

and a Boarding Officer. These officers are the ones who have to

risk their lives tracking, pursuing and arresting international drug

traffickers off the coasts of Colombia and Mexico and our own

coast. We are honored to have all of you brave men here today.

Finally, we have Admiral Paul Yost, former Coast Guard Commandant and the architect of the highly effective late-1980’s drug

interdiction program.

We welcome all of you.

2

Stopping the flow of cocaine into the United States is the No. 1

priority of the international drug control policy. Currently, over 30

percent of the cocaine entering the United States comes through

the Caribbean, mostly from Colombia, bound for Mexico and Puerto

Rico. Roughly $15 billion worth of cocaine travels through the Caribbean. A great deal of this cocaine enters the United States

through the ports and borders of Puerto Rico. Have no doubts,

drugs entering Puerto Rico don’t stop there—80 percent continue

on to the rest of the United States.

All current indicators show an increase in trafficking through the

Caribbean, but there is another untold story. Budget reductions

since 1992 for interdiction efforts have reduced the ability of law

enforcement and the Defense Department to identify, to track and

to intercept international drug traffickers. The problem intensified

in 1995. The President’s 1995 National Drug Control Strategy stated that ‘‘a stronger focus on source countries was necessary,’’ and

the National Security Council ‘‘determined that a controlled shift

in emphasis was required, a shift away from past efforts that focused primarily on interdiction in the transit zone to new efforts

that focus on interdiction in and around source countries.’’ President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 14 making this determination official policy.

But the policy has not become a reality. While funding was shifted from transit zone interdiction, stripping the Coast Guard and

others of critical resources, there was no increase in funds for

source country programs. We lost critical transit zone support and

gained no new resources in the source countries.

Due to this shift in resources, we have seen the Caribbean become an extremely active drug transit area. In fact, Puerto Rico

has probably paid as high a price as anyone. Their murder rate has

become higher than any State over the past several years, and 90

percent of all violence on the island is believed to be drug related.

Last June, this subcommittee conducted a field hearing in San

Juan Harbor aboard a Coast Guard cutter aptly named the Courageous. At that hearing, we heard from Governor Rossello, who

clearly conveyed the message that his island is under siege. Under

his leadership, Puerto Rico has fought back. But they cannot do it

alone. They need our support.

Reduced attention by the President and weaker funding is a big

part of the problem. In fiscal 1991, President Bush committed $2

billion to drug interdiction. By 1995, President Clinton had cut

interdiction spending to $1.2 billion. The President mothballed

Customs and other aircraft, removed intelligence assets and reduced the number of Coast Guard cutters, ship days, flying hours

and personnel.

In the last 3 years, Congress restored some of the much-needed

funding for transit zone and source zone interdiction. But we are

far from having the resources we had when Admiral Yost led our

efforts in the late 1980’s. For fiscal year 1998, the President has

requested $1.6 billion for interdiction and just under $4 billion for

the Coast Guard. We will work to make that happen, but more effort is needed.

Finally, we need to discuss how effective increased resources can

be. A recently released report by the Institute for Defense Analyses

3

employed rigorous mathematical modeling to quality and determined that a properly planned, source zone interdiction strategy is

cost-effective. Such a campaign increases cocaine prices and thereby reduces the use of cocaine in the United States.

Based on the success of a new operation called Frontier Shield,

which Admiral Kramek will outline today, and the results of the

IDA study, we now need to reassess our funding structure for interdiction and how important this part of the drug war is.

I hope that today’s hearing will serve as a cornerstone for this

subcommittee’s efforts over the next 2 years. Thank you.

Before proceeding with our first panel, I am pleased to turn to

my colleagues—we have none right now, we will reserve that for

a later time—for any opening statements that they wish to enter

into the record at that time.

I would like to welcome Admiral Robert Kramek, Commandant

of the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Interdiction Coordinator. We appreciate your being here today. We know certainly this is a busy

time of year for you.

Admiral, if you would stand and raise your hand, the committee’s

rules require me to swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witness responded in

the affirmative.

Admiral, please proceed with your opening statement.

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL ROBERT E. KRAMEK, COMMANDANT,

U.S. COAST GUARD

Admiral KRAMEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to

appear before you today and discuss Coast Guard transit zone

interdiction operations and my role as U.S. Interdiction Coordinator.

I am often asked to discuss the many issues of the Coast Guard

with respect to saving lives and protecting property, and drug

interdiction is no different. By reducing the supply of cocaine and

other drugs which are smuggled across our borders, the Coast

Guard saves lives and protects property from drug-related violence.

Today, Mr. Chairman, we will talk about why interdiction is a

very important tool in the effort to stop drugs from coming into our

country and that it is a successful supply reduction effort.

We will also discuss the importance of maritime interdiction and

why it is effective. When the correct resources are applied, as the

Coast Guard has recently demonstrated during operation Frontier

Shield, we get a lot of bang for our buck.

The Coast Guard is unique, as you know, in that it is the only

member of the Armed Forces with law enforcement authority; and

that is why we have become and been designated the lead agency

for drug interdiction in the maritime regions, especially for surface

in maritime and co-lead with Customs for air interdiction.

We, with the support of General McCaffrey, have put together a

5-year budget plan. Our fiscal 1998 appropriations, which I will be

testifying on later on this week, is the first year of that 5-year plan

to support the administration’s 10-year strategy to successfully reduce drug use amongst all of our population.

4

The Coast Guard campaign is called Steel Web; and during this

hearing, Mr. Chairman, I will describe a little bit of that campaign

to you.

I would like to draw your attention right now to the threat slide

all the way on the right showing the magnitude of cocaine flow.

You and I have discussed that before, but it is illustrative of the

threat in the maritime region in that those threat arrows, such as

100 metric tons of cocaine heading right toward Puerto Rico and

the Virgin Islands, represents the transit from the source countries

to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as an example, on the sea,

over the sea, and in some cases even under the sea.

But, for the most part, the Coast Guard is the lead agency for

maritime interdiction; and our job is to take a look at where those

threats are and, working with other agencies in the Federal Government, especially the Department of Defense, to mount a credible

deterrence and interdiction force to prevent those drugs, especially

cocaine, from entering the United States.

Testifying before you last year, Mr. Chairman, in the spring, you

had properly identified almost 28 to 30 percent of the cocaine flowing up into Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands from the source

countries. In response to that, I mounted a major campaign, which

I will talk about in just a few minutes.

I think it is notable, though, that if you were to look at that

chart, you would see on the west coast of Mexico almost 234 metric

tons and on the east coast of Mexico almost 264 metric tons. Clearly more than 60 percent of the total cocaine flow coming out of the

source countries goes to either coast of Mexico.

We will talk about some operations that are under way there

now to thwart that, but those operations are just kicking off and

are going to require more resources than are currently available to

do it.

In his letter transmitting the 1997 National Drug Control Strategy to Congress, President Clinton wrote, ‘‘We must continue to

shield America’s air, land and sea frontiers from the drug threat.

We must continue our interdiction efforts, which have greatly disrupted the trafficking pattern of cocaine smugglers and have

blocked the free flow of cocaine.’’

The Speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich, in his acceptance

speech at the beginning of the 105th Congress stated, ‘‘Drugs aren’t

statistics. Drugs are real human beings being destroyed. Drugs are

real violence.’’

These statements by our Nation’s leaders demonstrate our bipartisan commitment to combat this plague.

As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, you are also going to hear

from four Coast Guard personnel today.

Lieutenant Commander Mike Burns, a C–130 aircraft Commander, who will tell you about the use of new technology, forward-looking infrared and the aperture radars aboard our C–130

aircraft, and how he has recently used that technology in detection

and monitoring and helping the interdiction role around Puerto

Rico and the Caribbean AOR. There is money in our 1998 budget

to support continued installation of the forward-looking infrared

equipment on these aircraft.

5

You will also hear from Lieutenant Commander Randy Forrester,

a Charlie Model Falcon aircraft Commander. This aircraft is specially outfitted with F–16 fighter aircraft radar and other sensors.

It is very dangerous, what he does. He not only has to intercept

aircraft, but then he has to get very close, track them and identify

them, until we reach an end game where an apprehension can be

made.

Our 1998 budget also brings back aircraft into our fleet and allows all of our Falcon aircraft to be located in Miami, FL, conducting the intercept mission for which they were designed and

outfitted.

You will also hear from Lieutenant Jim Carlson, Commanding

Officer of one of our 110-foot patrol boats, the Coast Guard cutter

Vashon. These patrol boats are our first line of defense against

smugglers trying to reach our shoreline.

They were designed to be away from home, from port, for 2 to

4 days. Many of them are away from home port for 45 days, Mr.

Chairman. We brought them all the way down from Maine, as a

matter of fact, and have them stationed in Puerto Rico, operating

there for up to 5 and 6 weeks at a time in forward-operating bases.

When not encountering drug smugglers, they are encountering the

9,000 migrants we interdicted in the Mona Passage coming from

the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico last year, some of which

were also carrying drugs. Over 100 migrants this weekend alone

were intercepted, some of them in a capsized vessel, and they deceased.

You will also hear from Petty Officer Mark Fitzmorris, a Boarding Officer on Coast Guard cutter Tampa. This Boarding Officer

was involved in many inspections, and the Tampa was recently involved in seizing over 1,700 pounds of cocaine coming into Puerto

Rico. He will be able to tell you about his experiences doing that

particular mission.

I mentioned our 5-year budget plan, Mr. Chairman. The middle

slide is called Steel Web. Steel Web is the campaign that we will

mount over the next 5 years. That will provide both the deterrence

and interdiction forces to intercept those threat arrows.

The Coast Guard is just one element in this. As the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator, I coordinate the Department of Defense, Customs, DEA, FBI, all agencies, because it requires the resources of

all of our agencies in order to counter this threat.

I know you visited Joint Interagency Task Force East in Key

West. You have been to Puerto Rico and seen some of that in action. In a true spirit of jointness, more jointness than just in the

five armed forces, joint interagency task forces working together is

how our campaign plan is put together. Each agency is a piece of

this patchwork quilt that is necessary to thwart this particular

threat.

As I mentioned, funding for operation Steel Web for the first

phase of our 5-year program is included in the Coast Guard’s 1998

budget; and we will have a hearing on that this Wednesday.

You will notice on the Steel Web slide at the point of the 110

metric ton arrow is operation Steel Gauntlet. That is the operation

around Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Mr. Chairman.

6

We prototyped that operation this year. It is better known to you

as operation Frontier Shield. It was in direct response to the hearings that you held this last May and the GAO report indicating the

28 percent of cocaine flowing up to that area of responsibility.

Steel Gauntlet will be the steady state operation that will deter

and interdict drug smugglers. I hope 90 percent of the smugglers

that take off from Colombia will not ever make it to Puerto Rico.

They will either be deterred and go back or be caught. The level

of resources we will ask for over the next 5 years in Steel Gauntlet

will allow that to happen.

In the meantime, we tested that out, Mr. Chairman, with an operation called Frontier Shield. We took the resources that this committee was instrumental in convincing the appropriators to appropriate as a sort of a supplemental at the end of the last budget season, and in that particular case we started Frontier Shield and

then were augmented with about $14.5 million that the Appropriations Committee had supplied to ONDCP to help the Coast Guard

in this endeavor.

I would like to just show you what robust interdiction can do. As

you know, I met with Governor Rossello. I met with all the leaders

in that part of the region, including the Prime Minister of Haiti

and the President of the Dominican Republic, and recently went

down to that AOR in the middle of operation Frontier Shield during Thanksgiving week.

These results you see here, we started this operation on October

1, 1996, until March 1st—so 4 months, 5 months, of operations. In

that time, we have had 17,968 vessels sighted heading toward

Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We have sorted that out; and,

of that, 1,562 were targets of interest.

To give you an order of magnitude of how much traffic is down

there, we decided to board 892 of those vessels. Some of our personnel will tell you what it is like to do that later on in the hearing.

The results of those boardings were we seized 19,000 pounds of

cocaine. We seized 11 vessels, and made 35 arrests. We witnessed

24,000 pounds of drugs jettisoned into the ocean. At the same time,

we intercepted 2,237 illegal migrants who were trying to come up

through the same area of responsibility.

Mr. Chairman, in a 5-month period, that equals 195 million cocaine doses we prevented from coming into the United States of

America through a robust interdiction program, with the support

that this committee gave us last year.

In summary, our mandate is clear. During the roll out of the

1997 National Drug Strategy, the President said we have to do

more to shield our frontiers against drug traffickers. He went on

to say we have had some successes against trafficking and we can

do better with interdiction and we are learning how to do it, citing

the success of Coast Guard operation Frontier Shield as his example.

Drug traffic in the transit zone remains a substantial threat to

our national security. We must employ new tools to weave a seamless steel web of enforcement, and your Coast Guard is ready to do

that.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to recognize your support, oversight and long-term commitment to the national counternarcotics

7

effort. As America moves into the next century, the Coast Guard

stands ready to meet our responsibilities in this important effort,

especially with your support.

I am happy to answer any questions you may have, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. Any written material you have there

will be entered into the record.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Kramek follows:]

8

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Mr. HASTERT. Let me ask a question.

Last week, there was a big news hit on Mexico and the certification of Mexico. One of the things that I said continually is that

we probably ought to—before we certify Mexico, there are probably

seven or eight things we should have been able to get extracted or

leverage for that, and that advice wasn’t taken and certification

went on.

One of them was a permanent maritime agreement. It is my understanding that within the Mexican territorial waters we can’t

stop any vessel and hold them, even for the time that the Mexican

Coast Guard or Navy can get out and check that. How would this

impact your job? How would that agreement work?

Admiral KRAMEK. Well, we have that type of maritime agreement now with 18 of the 22 nations in the Caribbean region. The

last time I testified, we had it only with 14 or 15. We are getting

more and more cooperation.

There are a couple of nations now who haven’t agreed with a

maritime agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard and our Nation

and the State Department. Mexico is one of those nations. But I

am fairly optimistic that we are getting ready to reach one of those

agreements.

I say that because there were four or five other issues that we

recently were dealing with with Mexico over the last 5 or 6 years

that we couldn’t come to closure on, that all of a sudden have

reached closure in the last couple of weeks. One of them, on the

west coast of Mexico where you see the 234-metric-ton threat on

operation Steel Vice, in order to operate down there, so far from

our west coast bases, we need logistic support. Otherwise, you have

to take your oilers and everything else with you.

Mexico has never agreed we could go in and refuel our aircraft

or ships. They have just agreed in a diplomatic note, which I just

received about a week ago, that we can now go through those logistic support agreements.

We are in constant discussions with them. I just sent Admiral

Saunders, my Chief of Operations, to Mexico with General McCaffrey on his last high-level delegation meeting to negotiate with the

Mexican Navy on the ship rider agreement. We are in discussions.

Why is it necessary? Well, I will go to the threat arrow where

the 264 metric tons are coming up on the east coast of Mexico. I

hope to launch another operation. I am able to tell you what the

name is but, other than being in closed session, not the details

right now and when it is going to happen. But it is going to be

similar to Frontier Shield, only this is going to be called Gulf

Shield in the Gulf of Mexico, to stop the flow of cocaine and marijuana from the east coast of Mexico to southwest Texas.

It is a considerable threat, with over 14 tons of cocaine and 100

tons of marijuana coming by sea across into south Texas from that

area. Without the help of Mexico in stopping those people when we

chase them and they try to get away from us and go back into

Mexican territorial waters, without this type of agreement, then

that operation can’t be successful. That is why we need their cooperation in that endeavor.

Mr. HASTERT. You are saying 200-some tons—even in the age of

bifocals, I can’t read all those numbers—but that shipment comes

19

actually out of the north coast of Colombia and goes into Mexico,

that you need that type of maritime agreement to stop that flow

in the United States. Is that what you are saying?

Admiral KRAMEK. It would be very helpful. Because we see when

we work together with the other nations—for instance, we have

maritime agreements with the Bahamas, and that is why OPBAT

is successful, as the Coast Guard helicopters, DEA agents, Bahamian National Security Police, armed in the end game, is there to

the tremendous deterrence of the smugglers. They hardly do air

drops in the Bahamas anymore. We need that type of agreement

with Mexico to deter smugglers from coming.

Mr. HASTERT. Ten days ago at least we got an agreement with

Colombia, a maritime agreement. How does that impact what you

are trying to do?

Admiral KRAMEK. It has tremendous impact. We have been negotiating the agreement for 5 years. I am very happy that they have

agreed to do that.

This last year, we have sent Coast Guard training teams to Colombia to help train their coast guard, which is part of their navy,

on how to do interdiction. We have been aboard their ships. I sent

a Coast Guard cutter there, the Missouri Hawk, for a couple of

weeks to train them. Ambassador Frechette was very complimentary of all that action.

They have to see firsthand what we are talking about, and they

just now in the last month signed the ship rider and maritime

agreement with us. That will allow us to chase smugglers in their

territorial sea. It will allow us to go directly to the Colombian Navy

to get a statement of no objection, not having to go through our

State Department and for foreign ministries, and they promised us

response within an hour.

I will point out it is not the full-blown maritime agreement, as

robust as we have with other countries, but it is more than a good

start; and we have already tested it twice, and it works. I am very,

very encouraged by their cooperation.

Mr. HASTERT. So, basically, the amount of cocaine coming off the

north coast or the west coast of Colombia could be impacted by

that, with that type of agreement?

Admiral KRAMEK. I would hope it would make it much more difficult for the smugglers and much more expensive for them to get

there. We call that the departure zone, where it departs the source

countries.

This whole thing is set up, if you will, as a defense in depth.

There are three areas we operate at. There is the departure zone,

where it comes right out of the source; the transit zone, in between;

and the arrival zone in the United States.

This weekend we just had an interdiction. In fact, the staff just

gave me a picture which I will share with the committee. In the

arrival zone, right off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, FL, we seized

349 pounds of cocaine in a sailboat, estimated enough for 250,000

hits of crack cocaine. One person operating a sailboat had that.

That had gotten by all of the other deterrents and was approaching

the coast of United States, and one of our patrol boats picked it up.

20

Mr. HASTERT. I see on the map, too, and it may be just the way

you have to draw the arrows, but you have a lot of movement off

the coast of Venezuela. Is that indeed a fact or is that——

Admiral KRAMEK. No, that is indeed a fact. I will tell you that

we have great difficulties recently on sharing intelligence information with Venezuela. We have gone down there and trained their

coast guard, which, again, is part of their navy, so that they would

be responsible patrolling from the shoreline out to 50 miles from

their border with Colombia all the way up to the Lesser Antilles.

So far, we have been unable to share technical information with

Venezuela.

I would like to broaden my comment on that, Mr. Chairman. It

is very clear to me now, having done this for more than a few

years, that unless there is regional cooperation in the source countries along with the United States, this can’t be successful.

We have essentially shut down the air bridge, as you know, for

the transfer of coca paste from Peru to Colombia. It is so successful

it has driven the price of coca paste below alternate crops such as

bananas and soybeans and pineapples. That was our goal.

The smugglers have adapted now, and they have moved to the

rivers, and we have river training going on to combat that.

But what is worse is they are flying straight east into Brazil and

then from Brazil up to Venezuela. So the State Department has a

major effort under way now to get Brazil’s cooperation with the

United States, as well as Venezuela. The bottom line is all those

countries need to have regional cooperation where they can go

across each other’s borders and get by our interdiction forces.

Mr. HASTERT. Let me ask you another pretty relevant question.

We talked in my opening statement about dollars. You are concerned about the appropriations and things coming up. If we are

successful in getting the maritime agreements that we hope to get

and the patrols that you need to do, do you, in your recent budget,

have enough equipment to be involved in the west coast of Mexico

and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean area?

Admiral KRAMEK. We have enough equipment to be involved in

the first year of a 5-year plan. The operation on the west coast of

Mexico where you see Steel Vice is called Caper Focus. It is under

way now, and it is managed and under the operational control of

the Joint Interagency Task Force East. Admiral Shkor is short of

assets in terms of Coast Guard cutters, maritime patrol air draft,

gray hulls and logistic supports.

Mr. HASTERT. Gray hulls——

Admiral KRAMEK. Those are Navy vessels.

Mr. HASTERT. White hulls are Coast Guard.

Admiral KRAMEK. That is right.

I sent out a message to the CINCs asking for their support. I

think I will get more maritime patrol aircraft and Navy hull aircraft. But we won’t be able to have a robust operation there until

the next 2 or 3 years. We started out—now, what do I mean by

that? We have some measures of effectiveness. Nobody has really

ever put down the measure of effectiveness for drug interdiction.

ONDCP has started a new study on this. I think they probably testified to that already.

21

Everybody in America is concerned about the Government Performance and Result Act and how well we do on this. I can tell you

when we put together operation Frontier Shield, there had been

some studies done which we used that indicate that if we can contact and be seen by 40 percent of the smugglers who leave, 80 percent of them will turn back and go the other way; and we will

interdict and intercept 10 percent more.

So for every 100 smugglers that leave Colombia, we will either

deter, disrupt the supply rights, or seize 90 percent of them. Only

10 percent of the cocaine leaving will get through.

We are nowhere near any one of those threat arrows being able

to lay down the intelligence, the sensors of radar and the force

structure necessary to do that. But that is what we did when we

surged that operation in Frontier Shield.

I think for that one, because it is a small area of responsibility,

we intend to keep up the pace against that threat and keep up

those results. Because our goal was to not deny the smugglers

Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as a trafficking route. We are

successful, and in the 1998 budget enough money is being asked

for to sustain that operation and to sustain Laser Strike, which you

are familiar with in South America on the air bridge.

It will be a couple of more years before we are back to where we

were in the early 1990’s, where we can sustain the assets we need

on the east and west coasts of Mexico.

Mr. HASTERT. Admiral, when you look at this issue and you are

trying to coordinate gray hulls and white hulls and working with

the Navy, what type of Navy ships do you work with and coordinate with, especially in the Caribbean area?

Admiral KRAMEK. In the Caribbean area, we have some frigates

that we work with. Sometimes they are under our tactical control;

sometimes they are under JIATF East.

In the case of Frontier Shield, the Navy designated some of their

new 160-foot patrol craft, Cyclone class vessels, underneath our

operational control; and we share these back and forth, whoever

the Commander of the particular mission.

Maritime patrol aircraft are key. Not just P–3s and C–130’s but

we are also using AWACS, P–3s with roto domes, and then Customs jets, Citations and Coast Guard Falcons as interceptors to

deter the air traffic.

Mr. HASTERT. One of the questions that we had on the Mexican

certification and something that didn’t happen in Mexico, we were

promised in 1993 three radars to be placed in the south of Mexico.

I don’t know what the radar capabilities are of whatever seacraft

we have in that area, whatever ships we have in that area. I know

we have planes.

What is the impact of not having that radar, and is there some

way we can make up for that?

Admiral KRAMEK. Well, the Mexicans don’t have the capability to

detect and monitor, using their own forces, drugs coming into their

own country.

I would tell you that I have again recent information just in the

last 48 hours that the Mexicans are going to move some of their

naval forces further south, closer to the interdiction zone, to try to

participate in that.

22

The bottom line is we pretty much have to find them, detect and

monitor them and let the Mexicans know where they are coming

from now—here they come, please react and respond because they

are coming into your territorial sea.

There is a time lag there of a few hours; and, most often, if it

is an air target, it is enough for the people to get away. We have

to have a hand-off to the Mexicans. They have to have their own

inherent capability for us to hand off a radar contact, much like

you find when you fly across country and one FAA control region

hands off to another. That is the way we do it with other countries.

That is the way we are going it have to do it with Mexico.

Mr. HASTERT. So even with a maritime agreement, closer cooperation is more important?

Admiral KRAMEK. It is absolutely important in the air bridge,

and it is essential in the maritime agreement as well.

Mr. HASTERT. You mentioned a couple minutes ago a ship rider

agreement. Can you expand on what that is, No. 1, and how does

that relate to the current authority you have to put law enforcement people in Department of Defense vessels?

Admiral KRAMEK. The ship rider agreement we have with foreign

countries is much like our law enforcement attachments on the

U.S. naval vessels. If there is a U.S. naval vessel underway in the

Caribbean, it probably has on board a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment of about seven personnel who have the authority

to enforce U.S. laws on the high seas against any U.S. flag vessel

and with permission of a foreign country, either that country’s laws

or our laws.

Our armed forces are not allowed to enforce law because of the

concept of posse comitatus, but the Coast Guard can as a law enforcement detachment on a U.S. Navy vessel.

The ship rider agreement works much the same way. We will

bring a Bahamian with us on one of our Coast Guard cutters; and

if a smuggler is entering Bahamian waters, we have permission to

chase in the Bahamian waters. The law that is enforced is enforced

by the Bahamian law enforcement person we have on board.

I do have the same thing on the high seas with fishery patrols.

North of Midway, south of the Aleutian Islands, I have Chinese

ship riders on board the ships. So when we find people violating

the U.N. sanctions against drift net fishing, the Chinese ship rider

can enforce Chinese laws on those Chinese violators.

It is a concept we have proven in maritime over the last 10 or

15 years that is very successful.

Mr. HASTERT. Do you anticipate with maritime agreements then

that you will have Mexican ship riders and Colombian ship riders

as well?

Admiral KRAMEK. That is correct.

Mr. HASTERT. Do you have it now?

Admiral KRAMEK. We have some Colombian ship riders. We don’t

have an agreement with Mexico yet on the ship rider agreement or

on a maritime agreement. We are still negotiating with them.

Mr. HASTERT. Several minutes ago you talked about the riverine

strategy. Of course, as we try to break down the air bridge between

Colombia and Mexico and Mexico and our country, especially South

American nations and Mexico, we have seen more and more of the

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riverine system. It is going out of Bolivia and Peru into the Amazon basin and up through—it especially impacts Brazil and Venezuela. You talked about Venezuela a few minutes ago. Tell us

about your assessment of what is happening.

Admiral KRAMEK. Smugglers are going to the river with the coca

paste to try to move it up to Colombia, in particular to Colombia

and a little to Venezuela, so it can be made into cocaine.

SOUTHCOM, which is part of our interdiction scheme, as well as

JIATF West in San Francisco, JIATF East in Key West, JIATF

South in Panama, the Operations Officer, General Wesley Clark in

Panama, whose SOUTHCOM is also in charge of Joint Task Force

South for counternarcotics, with a focus on South America.

They have put together a very robust program that I have asked

them for as the Interdiction Coordinator called a Regional Waterways Management Strategy. Riverine is what we are talking about.

I have General Clark’s concept of operations for that. We are now

in country in places like Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, and I believe

recently in Venezuela, with teams to train those forces on denying

smugglers routes on the Amazon tributaries.

This team usually consists of three supporting commanders,

some from the special operations command at MacDill Air Force

Base, a contingent of U.S. Marine Corps personnel provided by

General Krulak to SOUTHCOM, and a contingent of Coast Guard

personnel provided by myself. They all report to the CINC South

in Panama. He deploys them throughout South America with the

approval of the U.S. country teams and embassies.

In Bolivia, we have trained the 175-person riverine force called

the Blue Devils as part of the Bolivian Navy in order to do this operation over the last 2 years. There is also a school we have established in Trinidad and Bolivia that trains these other nations as

well. So we are trying to develop the inherent capability for a regional focus on riverine or waterways management throughout

South America using that concept, and that is well under way.

Mr. HASTERT. A few minutes ago we talked about—you talked

about—the first time you talked about the riverine system, trying

to squeeze down the ability of getting this product to market and

the ability, really, the interdiction ability that you have and why

maritime agreements are so important.

There has been talk about some correlation, where you can tell

when you squeeze down those markets, you start—when you

squeeze down the ability to interdict and actually have some success in that area, you also affect the markets. There was an IDA

study that talked about that. Will you comment on what you have

seen and your ability to squeeze down on interdiction and what effect it has had in this country?

Admiral KRAMEK. Well, I use IDA for two purposes. First, I have

the IDA analyst brief all of the operational commanders who are

responsible for interdiction once a quarter. He also provides a

monthly product.

The IDA analysis is what led us to operation Laser Strike as you

know it now. That is, they were able to show us where all the air

tracks were occurring in the air bridge between Peru and Colombia. We were then able to work regionally with Peru and Colombia

and with our interagency group to provide them technical informaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:25 Jun 26, 2002 Jkt 078984 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41842 pfrm09 PsN: 41842
24

tion to disrupt 120 flights this last year, as you know, and essentially shut that source of supply of coca paste down that was going

into Colombia.

IDA further goes on in their study to try to show how that affects

price and purity on the street.

The study that they recently did has been approved by the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense paid for that

study. It was reviewed by them, and so I think my comments

would be, it met their approval process. Whether I believe in it or

not, I can tell you that I base operations on IDA analysis. They

know where the tracks are.

I would be delighted if I could see a sharp upturn in the cost of

cocaine, because I know that if we can increase the price of cocaine

by 50 percent, that reduces the demand by 25 percent. That is a

known statistic. So, I also know that for every modest increase in

interdiction, we reduce demand by over a percent in this country,

and that is part of IDA’s analysis as well.

I think the work they’ve done is valuable. I think it’s still statistically being debated by those who did the IDA analysis and those

who do the RAND analysis. That debate by statisticians will continue on. Overall, I think they have value. I get bang for my buck

when I—when they show me the tracks and where the bad guys

are and we put our assets on that threat arrow or on that target,

we get good results.

Mr. HASTERT. I think that is important, because we need to know

the basis for where you put the bang for the buck and what you

expect out of that.

A couple of questions; then I am going to recognize my colleague

from Texas.

One of the things that you said is that you need the ability of

our radar in the area. We used to have pretty liberal use of

AWACS, especially out of SOUTHCOM. That is gone to a large degree. You use the P–3s with the rotodomes now. Do you need more

of those?

Admiral KRAMEK. We need the ones that we just recently ordered

as a result of the increase in appropriations in the 1997 budget

that this committee identified the last session of Congress. I say

that because we had a lot of use of AWACS, but there were no national priorities for AWACS then. That was before Desert Storm

and Iraq. That was before what is going on in the Middle East.

That was before Bosnia.

AWACS are a national asset. Seeing how hard it was to get what

we call rotodome time, AWACS time, I met with General

Fogelman, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and I said the interdiction community has as a low-cost rotodome aircraft that Customs

has been running for years. It’s a P–3 with a rotodome on it. Would

you have your staff look at whether or not it would be valuable to

buy more of these and that would free up AWACS as a national

asset? They agreed. Chief of Staff of the Air Force supported me

in that.

So the P–3 rotodomes will be sufficient, along with some AWACS

time we get. We also get some E–2–C time, I should point out,

which is the same type of detection and monitoring but only has

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4 hours of endurance rather than 8 hours endurance. So we use all

three aircraft.

Is it sufficient? Right now, when we get these other two aircraft

on board in a year, it will be sufficient to share amongst all the

operational commanders, and in fact I am very encouraged by what

I see as a reduction in air smuggling. Because we have been successful there with OPBAT, with air drops off of Puerto Rico, with

the air bridge down in between Peru and Colombia, more is moving

to the water both in the maritime regions and to the rivers.

So in general, yes, I think we will have enough of what we have

to share, and it’s a very closely monitored asset that I work out

with the joint staff to make sure each one of the operational commanders has enough rotodome time.

Mr. HASTERT. I recognize our colleague from Texas, Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is good to be here and to discuss what I think is probably one

of the most important tasks that we have undertaken, to try to halt

the flow of narcotics into our country, and I commend the Chair on

spending the time of this committee to look at this issue, which I

think is of utmost importance.

One of the questions, Admiral, that came to my mind that is certainly on the mind of many of us in Congress currently, relates to

the cooperation that you have seen or perhaps not seen, from the

Government of Mexico.

As you know, the President recently certified Mexico as a cooperating partner in the war and the fight against drugs, and many

Members of Congress feel that perhaps we should decertify Mexico,

and that issue will come to a vote here in the next few days in the

Congress.

From your perspective in working with the Government of Mexico on the issues that you have charge over, could you tell us what

your experience has been in terms of the degree of cooperation, or

lack thereof, that you have seen from the Government of Mexico?

Admiral KRAMEK. The Government of Mexico and the Coast

Guard have worked closely together for years and years, especially

the Mexican Navy and the United States Coast Guard. But our

foundations of working together were based on search and rescue.

We have moved that good relationship into the area of maritime

law enforcement, not only for drugs but, I have to point out, for

fisheries. Much of our fisheries conservation problems in the Gulf

of Mexico have to do with Mexico as well, especially in the southwest Texas border.

Working with Mexico takes a lot of patience and a lot of time.

Mexico has always agreed to do coincidental operations, not joint

operations. That means—they have constitutional barriers that

prevent them from working together with us like many other countries in the world can, and so we work together so that we plan

to show up in the same place at the same time to do a particular

operation.

It’s a slow process. I have seen over the last year or two their

cooperation start to increase over previous levels, but it has a long

way to go. We need ship rider agreements; we need better logistic

support; we need a better hand-off of technical information.

26

I can say 21⁄2 years ago, if I had a large aircraft flying from

South America with 10 tons of cocaine in it and we were in the

process of telling Mexico it was getting ready to land in Mexico and

where, it was doubtful that I would get cooperation from Mexico to

do anything about it. That is not true today. They will take action

now. They will react on it.

A lot has to do with the high-level contact group that General

McCaffrey has met now two meetings of that group in Mexico and

then his visit with the top officials of Mexico this week. So I see

their cooperation improving, but it has a long way to go.

Mr. TURNER. You have noted that cooperation is improving

over—improving, did you say, over the past year and a half?

Admiral KRAMEK. I would say over the last 21⁄2 years.

Mr. TURNER. In terms of your evaluation of the attitude of the

Mexican Government, would you anticipate or would it be fair to

anticipate that there would be continued cooperation from the Government of Mexico, or do you see any impediments to furthering

the cooperative spirit that you have noted in the past year and a

half?

Admiral KRAMEK. I see no impediments; I only see continued

progress. In fact, I’ve seen more progress in the last 6 months and

year than I’ve seen in the last 5 years before that.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. Thank you, Admiral; and thank you,

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and now I pass

the mic to the distinguished vice chairman from Indiana, Mr.

Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I would like to point out that while at the top we

are continuing to try to work with them, what appears to have happened while Mexico may not have cooperated in the past years—

in the years back, in the last couple of years they appear to be cooperating and handing the information possibly over to the cartels

themselves.

So sharing the information from the drug czar, as we learned

from the Department of Justice, from DEA, and other agencies,

may not have turned out to have been very wise. We are even worried whether we had compromises in every attempt to try to—even

try to arrest somebody at a wedding. They appear to have shared

the information.

So we have to be very careful when we say someone is cooperating, because it may have been cooperating for ulterior motives,

much like what happened in Colombia between the two cartels

when they went after each other. But it is at least at the top levels,

the mere fact they got rid of the drug czar, a hopeful sign that the

President at least remains committed, and hopefully we can get

some cooperation further down the line.

One of the things that was in the news today is, the Commander

of SOUTHCOM had said that he felt that he was effectively working with the Colombian armed forces in at least—nobody is talking

about the President, kind of the reverse of the Mexico situation,

but that they were cooperating in the armed forces level.

Have you seen that? Have you had decent cooperation out of Colombia? Have you seen any change? The other thing that has been

in the news the last few days is that Samper is threatening to stop

27

eradication efforts. Have you seen any change in the relationship

with Colombia since the decertification announcement?

Admiral KRAMEK. Since decertification a year ago in Colombia,

they were decertified last year as well as this year. From a military-to-military standpoint, from a Coast Guard-to-Colombian

Coast Guard-Colombian Navy standpoint, I have seen greater cooperation than in the past. We just hammered out a maritime

agreement together with the Colombians.

We have just had a Coast Guard cutter, the Mohawk, call on Colombia for a period of several weeks and train their personnel in

drug interdiction. So from that standpoint, I have seen their willingness to cooperate and act together jointly better than we have

before.

Mr. SOUDER. Before you go on, can I ask you to clarify? You are

saying that prior to decertification they weren’t cooperating very

much. When we decertified, the cooperation actually got better with

Colombia?

Admiral KRAMEK. In my view, it got better with Colombia, correct. Concerning the eradication, eradication is back on track, I

think, as of this weekend. Colombia states that there was some

technical reasons as to why they stopped it having to do with the

type of defoliant and protection of the people who were eradicating

and things of that nature. I am not quite sure of all the technical

reasons, but I think that eradication is back on now and the country is again supporting that.

As with Mexico, there is a long way to go. But I can recall if I

had testified 4 years ago and we had an operation concerning Colombia, I would testify it would take me 2 days, sometimes 3 days,

through diplomatic channels to get the agreement with the country

of Colombia to help us interdict a ship, even if I was already on

board that ship, to get the diplomatic clearances I needed to either

enforce Colombian law, United States law, or turn it back over it

them. That is done in 1 hour now. So I would say that we are

working toward better cooperation but we still have a long ways to

go.

Mr. SOUDER. We are having—before I get into a couple of other

specifics, a general question is being thrown at all of us on interdiction, and certainly the media’s first focus on that we have a drug

problem was helpful.

Lately, most of the emphasis seems to be that nothing works.

Interdiction doesn’t work; the treatment programs are not working;

D.A.R.E. is not working. I am not sure whether they think we

should legalize everything or whether it is just kind of general cynicism. But it is clear when I intercept a ship or vessels seized, we

keep that amount of drugs from going to the streets.

But give the cost; how do you—and I am sorry I missed your testimony; I assume some of that was in the testimony. But succinctly, what would be a way to say it does work. Do you need more

money? If so, what do you think we will get for that money? How

much also is in just—like there are unintended consequences in

this case, unintended positive consequences of either forcing if you

had more money like the 1991 levels and what you are doing, how

much of it forces them to go way up to the north or use other

28

routes that, in effect, drive their costs up as it comes into the country or decide to go to another country?

Admiral KRAMEK. What I think you just described is the reason

why we need a coherent strategy. I believe we have a coherent

strategy for the first time in years in 1996, with the President’s

1996 strategy. We just rolled out the 1997 strategy. I would recommend that. I have recommended it to my staff to read, and especially the appendix to that strategy, which is the budget for all the

agencies involved in carrying out that strategy. The appendix is

four times thicker than the strategy, especially the classified annex

to that strategy which lets all Federal agencies know what they

should do. It is classified ‘‘Secret,’’ and I think that at least in a

closed hearing of this committee you should review that, because

there are a lot of things that I think you would be pleased to see

on how we are tasked by that strategy.

Now, that strategy is part of the President’s 10-year plan, and

along with that 10-year plan there will be 5-year budgets to support that plan, of course updated every year. That 5-year budget

is underway now.

In the classified strategy—and this is unclassified—I can tell you

this: I, as the Interdiction Coordinator, have been tasked by General McCaffrey with putting together a 5-year plan for all the assets that agencies require to accomplish the transit zone strategy

that’s called out in the plan, not dollars, but what ships, planes,

radars—what things they need to do the job to the degree that the

strategy calls for.

Having said that, the systems approach that ONDCP is using is

the best one that I know as a manager. We are throwing out the

things that don’t work; we are trying to keep the things that work.

In another year or two, the measures of effectiveness will be completed. This will be part of the Government Performance and Result Act. Congress will be able to provide oversight to all of those

different types of things that worked, and you’ll want to keep those

because the benefits will exceed the costs or they will meet their

performance measures.

As an example, I want to stop 80 percent to 90 percent of the

drugs ever reaching Puerto Rico from Colombia. I know what

laydown of assets and what intelligence I need to be able to do that

I need to articulate to the administration to get the budget to do

that and then have my oversight committees approve that, and

1998 is the first year of the 5-year budget plan that agencies are

coming forward to ask for those resources.

Now, what works and what doesn’t work? This is a balance between demand programs and supply programs, and we need to

keep the ones that work. Some demand programs don’t work; some

do; same with some supply programs.

Frontier Shield works, and that’s why we provided this demo, so

that you could see the type of thing that works. Will that work everywhere? No, that can’t work off the west coast of Mexico. There

is a 2,000-mile coastline with no choke points. You can’t use small

patrol boats and the types of things that we used in that other area

of responsibility.

But let’s look at what has worked since 1985, because I think

those who write and say that the investment we have made on

29

interdiction or the supply side isn’t working are wrong. In 1985,

there were 5.7 million cocaine users in the United States. In 1995,

there were 1.5 million cocaine users in the United States. That is

a substantial reduction.

Now, I know that crime is high; I know that the use of cocaine

is up. There is about a 300-metric-ton demand in this country, and

we have some chronic use. Two-thirds of all the cocaine use is used

by chronic users, so some of the treatment programs proposed by

the administration attack that. That is something you might want

to do.

We also know that if we disrupt supply routes, some wonderful

things happen. At the same time you held a hearing in May about

30 percent or 28 percent of the cocaine coming to Puerto Rico. I

met with Governor Rossello from Puerto Rico and he said, ‘‘Commandant, I have a problem. I’ve had to call out the National Guard

because the drug flow into Puerto Rico is so severe, the traffickers

are paying off the people in Puerto Rico to transshipment in drugs,

not in money. Now I have terrible crime and murder in the

projects, and I’ve had to call out the National Guard. By the way,

many of those traffickers were Dominicans.’’ So we have launched Operation Frontier Shield and another operation, and this last year we have reduced the flow of Dominican

migrants into Puerto Rico by 80 percent from what it was. We have

reduced the flow of drugs by Frontier Shield to Puerto Rico significantly. I would hope that a year from now Governor Rossello would

say, ‘‘We don’t need the National Guard anymore. While things

aren’t perfect, they’re really improving. Our crime is down, our

murder is down, our drug interdiction is down, and, together with

Customs and DEA and DOD, we have removed Puerto Rico as a

transshipment point for drugs into this country.’’ We need to keep

measuring that. If we are not doing that, then we’re not effective.

But I think we need to take a look at the long-term trends on

the investment that is made. I think the investment of interdiction

is minuscule compared to the total drug budget. The entire interdiction budget for this country is 10 percent of the total counternarcotics budget.

In terms of the Coast Guard, 9.8 percent of my total budget in

1998 will be for drug law enforcement. I don’t think that’s too

much, and I think we get a lot of bang for our buck. This operation

alone in 5 months kept 195 million cocaine doses off the streets of

the United States. I don’t think we can afford not to do that.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman. We will do a second round

here.

I just wanted—you were talking about two-thirds of all the cocaine goes for chronic users. I think the thing that we need to

watch out for is eight kids for every one chronic user that are

using, casual use, could end up being chronic users, and of course

the kids and the gangs and the ones that create some of the problems too.

One of the things, you were talking about the Dominican Republic. There was in the press today, and I wanted to ask you, the

neighbor of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, it talks about there is

a release out of Port au Prince that says that almost all of the

cargo, a great deal of the cargo, headed from the United States to

30

Haiti gets diverted and doesn’t pay the tariffs. Is that something

that you are involved in, or is that really a domestic problem of the

Haitians?

Admiral KRAMEK. It is something we are involved in indirectly.

We just had a high-level administration meeting on Haiti where we

discussed that. But I recently went to visit Haiti to look at that

problem in November, and I met with the Ambassador and the

Prime Minister. The Ambassador has asked that the Coast Guard

lead a team, an interagency team on restoring the ports in Haiti.

I mean, this is a country that depends almost 100 percent for its

economic trade on the maritime region.

Sixty percent of the cargoes coming into Port au Prince are

unmanifested. A lot that does reach the dock gets stolen. The harbor is unsafe to ships that are sunk there. The aids to navigation

doesn’t exist. It is a huge infrastructure that is required for us and

other nations as well, to help Haiti restore their maritime infrastructure, and, in my estimation, it doesn’t exist sufficiently enough

to make their economy—put their economy back on its feet again.

Mr. HASTERT. Consequently, most of that cargo that would come

in would be tariffed and at least give them some revenue runoff of,

and they are deprived of that.

Admiral KRAMEK. It would be—I will tell you that we’re going to

lead a team of Customs, Corps of Engineers, NOAA, and others

working with the interagency team.

One of the reasons I went to visit was to stand up and give

awards to the first Haitian Coast Guard station, who helped us

with two drug seizures there, as a matter of fact, both about 600

or 700 pounds of cocaine.

The Ambassador has asked us to set up two more Haitian Coast

Guard stations, one in the north coast and one in the south coast.

The Haitians are now working along with us to do that, and we are

now working on our second Coast Guard station and training those

people.

So it will be a long haul, but those things need to be done, Mr.

Chairman, in order to make the Haitian economy viable.

Mr. HASTERT. The other side of my question was basically that

there is nothing much to export out of Haiti, as I understand it,

so a lot of those ships are actually backhauling refugees or illegal

aliens and/or narcotics.

Admiral KRAMEK. What they will be able to bring out of Haiti is

the light manufacturing and that type of export. Materials are

brought into Haiti by businessmen, and they are made into clothing, as an example, and then taken out because the labor rate is

so inexpensive. But you need a good transportation system in the

maritime to allow that to happen. It is very fragile right now.

Mr. HASTERT. One other unrelated question, to go back to just

some clarification: You talked about the P–3s. You have two P–3s;

is that correct?

Admiral KRAMEK. Well, there is a lot more than that. I’m not

sure how many there are. Two new ones have just been ordered

with the 1997 budget addition that was provided by Congress. I

want to think that there is probably four or six of them, maybe

even more than that; I’m not sure.

31

Mr. HASTERT. Do you have intelligence capabilities on the two

new ones? Do they have the rotodomes?

Admiral KRAMEK. Yes, they do.

Mr. HASTERT. You fly two P–3s, and they run about 8 hours.

What do you need for a 24-hour watch?

Admiral KRAMEK. Well, in a lot of places, based on intel., we

don’t use them 7-by-24, 7 days a week, 24 hours around the clock.

Most of these smuggling planes don’t fly during the day; they only

fly at night.

But I think we would have to talk about it in a closed hearing.

If you would see where the laydown was and add up the number

of planes, I guess what I am reporting to you is, based on the

amount of AWACS allocated now, the P–3 rotodomes in service, the

two new ones that are on order, there should be enough of that

asset available to take care of the air threat that we know it today.

That is the air threat, not the surface threat. That is to look for

air targets and detect those that we have sorted out.

As important to some of those P–3s is the third ROTHR, overthe-horizon radar, that is needed to be installed in Puerto Rico. It

is funded, but there is an environmental problem with getting it installed.

Mr. HASTERT. One last comment or question: In one of the questions that you answered, you said that you don’t think that we

would be back to the level that we were in 1992, 4 years out. I’m

not sure it was 4 years out or 3 years out, what you said. What

things would you do? What are you building in the next 3 or 4

years so that we come back to the level that we were in 1992?

Admiral KRAMEK. I don’t think that we should be at the level of

hardware that we were at in the early nineties, but we should be

at or better the level of effectiveness that we were. We have a different way of doing business than we had then.

DOD, the Department of Defense, has stepped up to the plate,

in my estimation. They were just given the detection and monitoring mission as lead agency in 1989, and over the last 3 or 4

years they have successfully provided a communications system.

They have fused intelligence. That means—and in the late eighties

we didn’t have this. We are now able to take all source intelligence

from our national security systems, merge it with all of the law enforcement agencies—DEA, FBI—all of that information is all

merged together in our joint interagency task forces, and a product

is put together for the operator, a tactical product that he can operate on now.

So the laydown of what we have would look a little bit different,

and, rather than just conducting very robust patrols, we had a lot

of ships and aircraft conducting a lot of patrols. We would rely

much more heavily on intelligence. I think in the late eighties and

early nineties we probably relied on intelligence 20, 25 percent of

the time. We operate on acute intelligence more than 70 percent of

the time, and we should be moving to 90 percent. We have great

intelligence assets in this country, and we need to focus them so

we can take these very high valued assets and put them in the

right place.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Admiral.

32

I yield now to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner. The gentleman has no questions.

The vice chairman from Indiana, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to just briefly followup on the funding and

strategy question, too, because one of the things that we have seen

is that nobody is arguing against treatment and prevention. We are

increasing the budget 40 and 50 percent in the budget over the last

number of years, whereas the eradication number has dropped and

the interdiction number is comparatively flat.

The core—and we realize that cocaine use is down; methamphetamine is up; heroin is up. Crack is a form which is not counted in

that cocaine number, and it is up most alarmingly in kids. As we

have penetrated the higher-income groups and we have left those

who are at most risk most vulnerable, while we need to treat, just

focusing on that is not going to be enough, and we are trying to

sort out how much needs to be spent on interdiction and eradication, because if we can get it before it gets there, as it comes out,

it is like going out like this, and where it starts is pretty pointed.

One of the things—see if I have this general concept right as a

layperson, that we used to always think of Florida and, to some degree, New Orleans area as major transit points, and as we spent

a lot of money on focused interdiction, the traffickers logically decided to find other routes. We pushed it partly into Mexico, partly

into Puerto Rico, and up into New York and other routes.

But is it not true that what we are gradually doing as we invest

in this over the long term is building almost an international defense system that, when you defend one area, they move to another, but that if you don’t leave some residual defense in that

area, they will come right back?

Admiral KRAMEK. Well, that’s why you need international cooperation and international agreements. No one country can do this

by themselves. If four or five nations in the Caribbean decide not

to join an international cooperation, the smugglers will go there.

One of the places which we don’t have a maritime agreement,

which might be surprising to everyone—it is to my people when I

mention it to them—is Haiti. We just finished restoring democracy

in Haiti, and there is no international maritime agreement with

Haiti on drug smuggling or repatriation of migrants, because their

new constitution doesn’t permit it.

Mr. SOUDER. We didn’t get any kind of agreement or——

Admiral KRAMEK. Correct, but we are negotiating with them,

and, again, that is one of the reasons I just visited there.

Now, what would happen if Haiti never agreed to cooperate with

us because their new constitution doesn’t allow it? They are going

to be a target for smugglers. They will be a weak point, and that

is what we point out.

I just had a member of the high-level group in the administration

just travel through, this last week, 11 Caribbean nations with my

chief of operations in that area and in an effort to hammer out in

places like Barbados and others that don’t have these agreements

with us that they really need to for their own regional security.

This is an international thing. It is international cooperation. You

can’t leave any holes, or the smugglers will go there.

33

I don’t agree that you need to be every place, but you need to

know where they are going from an intelligence standpoint so can

you move your most reliable resources there quickly if you can.

Again, I am struck by the balance that the new 1996 and the

1997 strategy has on education and on prevention and on treatment and on interdiction. It is balanced.

I don’t agree that we should get trapped and play one goal off

against the other as being more effective. I think there are different objectives that may not work. But the fact of the matter is,

I believe the long-range strategy is going to require more money by

the Federal Government in all areas: Treatment, prevention, interdiction, source country.

I mean, if you really want to stop it, nobody will grow coca leaves

in Bolivia or Peru. Peru is the center of gravity; 60 percent of all

the coca leaves are grown in Peru; 80 percent of the cocaine that

comes into the United States comes from coca leaves in Peru. It is

essential that we make the source country strategy work, and so

we have to make some investment in that area, and we haven’t,

as the chairman pointed out in his opening statement. The strategy

exists, but the funding for it has never been provided because of

various social, economic, and political reasons, not only in that

country but our country as well.

Mr. SOUDER. We get paid to make decisions on how money is allocated because we have less of it to spend in the future. When we

have one category increasing at 40 percent and another, I think,

at 50 percent and one going down and one flat, we need the information with which to decide whether that decision was a correct

decision because there is not more money to throw at all the categories. If you say it goes into drugs, then it is less for education

or less for health or less for a retirement program. We could print

it, but it doesn’t maintain its value if we do that. So we have to

make some tough decisions.

One of the questions—I understand that we cannot be equal

force everywhere, but isn’t it true that, if we had radars and our

equipment concentrated in the Caribbean and then they moved

over to Mexico, that we would need some residual cooperation in

joint however you do it, Department of Defense, in that area? Because the logical thing to do would be, the stronger you get in the

Gulf of Mexico, the more they come back around to the Pacific side.

Admiral KRAMEK. That is exactly right.

Mr. SOUDER. If you transfer resources to the Mexico side as opposed to getting additional resources, they are going to go back to

the shorter side.

Admiral KRAMEK. Yes, but we’re not transferring those resources.

I could tell you that Operation Caper Focus, you don’t see that

on the chart. It’s an operation where the 234-metric-ton arrows go

up the west coast of Mexico. There is a strong operation there now

and has been for the last couple of months. The 1998 budget for

all agencies continues to support that.

We won’t get up to the level of activity we need there for the next

couple of years, but this last year we have had some very, very dramatic operations there. The Don Celso, a vessel with 13,000 pounds

of cocaine, was seized off of Ecuador and brought in there.

34

A vessel called the Oyster, which I particularly went to look at,

with over 5,000 pounds of cocaine, came out of the west coast of

Colombia heading up toward Mexico. A Coast Guard law enforcement detachment aboard a Navy vessel boarded it, found what they

thought was the cocaine, using IONSCAN, our technical equipment, and part of the funds appropriated by Congress this last session, with this committee’s help, helped us buy more technical

equipment to detect cocaine on board.

But the bottom line is, we used the Department of Defense, Customs, DEA, and the Coast Guard; arrested—brought the ship into

Panama; got the authority of Honduras—this was a Honduran flag

vessel with Colombian crew—arrested the Colombians. They are in

jail in Miami.

The vessel was then brought through the Panama Canal and

properly searched. We found 5,000 pounds of cocaine that you

couldn’t find underway because it was inside the fuel-oil tanks in

another tank. The boarding party had to kill 14 rats on the way

to get there, and this thing was really horrible.

When I went on board—they didn’t want me to go on board. I’m

glad I went on board and put on coveralls and a respirator to see

where this was. Down underneath the engines, almost in double

bottoms which looked like sewage, was a tank with a cover on it.

We first had to pump the oil out, and inside that tank was another

tank with the 5,000 pounds of cocaine. That was all going up the

west coast of Mexico, and we have had recent major seizures there

because of good intelligence, because of some cooperation with Ecuador and some with Colombia.

So you keep the pressure on in all of these places. Are you going

to stop it? No. You are going to deny the routes and make it tougher for the smugglers to get here, and you’re going to give credibility

to or demand reduction and education programs and give us the

time to reduce demand and to educate the children.

All law enforcement officers would agree, I believe, with me and

with this committee, that the long-term goal is to reduce demand

in the United States. That’s a long-term commitment. You can’t

keep the borders open, because if we left the borders open, look

how many more doses of cocaine could come up. The price would

be reduced, and then you have a two-to-one relationship. If the

price is reduced, the demand goes up by a half.

Mr. SOUDER. Which is what is happening in our home area right

now, because we’re getting flooded from the outside, and no matter

how hard you work at the schools or how many hospitals you fill

with treatment, the street prices drop.

The headline in the newspaper was about a fiery crash on I–69

where a young boy, a high school senior, was on cocaine and marijuana, flipped his car over on top of another car of somebody from

my hometown. That person had their legs busted, and it ran into

another car. I think two deaths and six injuries because somebody

was high on cocaine, because the stuff is flooding, and it is an upsetting process.

Just for the record, you mentioned Haiti and Mexico don’t have

a maritime agreement. Who would have maritime agreements?

35

36

Admiral KRAMEK. I will provide that for the record. But there is

at least five or six countries right now, and I would like to provide

that for the record.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

Mr. HASTERT. Without objection, so ordered. As a matter of fact,

we’re going to leave the record open, and anybody who would like

to write and to have questions and submit questions, and if you

would, within a week, submit those back in writing, I appreciate

it. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

A list of signatory foreign governments and respective components of the standard

‘‘six part’’ bilateral maritime counterdrug agreement follows. None of the agreements involve specific funding commitments.

37

Mr. HASTERT. Admiral, one last question before we move on here.

You have talked about what you can do with your acquisition, construction, and improvement budget. I think in our discussions before, and today, you probably don’t have a lot of plans to, you know,

bring in a lot of new hulls and build those or new airplanes. But

if you had—this is a hypothetical question—if you had another $200 million, what would you do with that money, and what would

be the effect on interdiction?

Admiral KRAMEK. Well, first of all, if I go to some of the statistics

and what we have done before the IDA study, I believe that for

small investments in interdiction over all of the agencies for $25

to $30 million a year, that investment in interdiction assets, that

tends to reduce demand by at least 1 percent in this country.

But what would I do with it? I would procure and fund the

things on the 5-year budget strategies for the agencies involved in

interdiction, if these were interdiction funds, those things that had

been certified by ONDCP and General McCaffrey, the Drug Czar.

We have already sent him some lists, and he has certified some

things that we asked him for. That is what his role is.

My role as Interdiction Coordinator is to make sure that all of

the agencies follow the strategy, and that they ask for sufficient resources to do it, and that they employ it efficiently, and each quarter I meet with all of them to make sure that they do that.

In terms of the Coast Guard, our 5-year budget strategy is about

that amount, our 5-year budget plan, and it requires a couple of

ships to be taken out of mothballs, a couple of patrol boats that are

excess to the Navy to be turned over to the Coast Guard, a couple

of frigates that are going to be decommissioned by the Navy and

given to foreign countries in the Military Assistance Program to be

given to the Coast Guard instead so we can operate H–60 helicopters off of them in a SEABAT operation in the eastern Caribbean. Much as the OPBAT has been successful in the Bahamas, we

would operate these off ship, and then to provide the forward-looking infrareds for all the C–130’s and the aperture radars for all of

our ships.

That list is pretty well-known. We have submitted it to the administration. It is part of our 5-year budget strategy. Those are the

things that we would be buying, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. If you had those things, do you believe that you

could dramatically reduce further use of drugs in this country?

Admiral KRAMEK. I think we could reduce the flow of drugs into

the United States to the extent that we can afford it. Now, what

do I mean by that? This is a learning curve operation. If you had

a contact rate of 40 percent, which is what I would be moving to,

you can deter 80 percent of the drugs from coming into the United

States. Our contact rates now are down around 15 percent. So this

would bring us up to a higher contact rate.

Now what about the last 20 percent? We cannot in this country—

this country has the longest sea borders of any country in the

world. There is more shoreline in the United States and our tributaries in Hawaii and Alaska than any nation in the world. It is impossible to guard them all with that amount of contact rate.

But it is like a learning curve. I wouldn’t recommend going any

higher than a 40 percent contact rate, which would get you up to

38

that part of the 80 percent learning curve. You could go to 80 percent contact rate and it would only be 82 percent. In other words,

you are way up on the curve here.

So our 5-year strategy is to get a 40 percent contact rate with

the smugglers so that we can be 80 or 90 percent successful. I

think that’s in the doable range. I think that is what we need to

do to deny them the routes while we continue with a robust education and treatment program.

Mr. HASTERT. So you are saying that when we get to above 40

percent contact you have a diminishing return, which doesn’t pay

for the investment?

Admiral KRAMEK. It doesn’t pay for anything beyond that.

Mr. HASTERT. You say we’re at 20 percent now?

Admiral KRAMEK. For Frontier Shield, we were almost at 40. For

our current-day operations, we’re at 20 percent or lower than that.

Mr. HASTERT. Two things: You have submitted what your 5-year

plan is. Can we assume that if we brought that into play quicker,

that you are doing what you say you did, or would you submit for

the record what you think that $200 million should be used for if

you had the chance to do it?

Admiral KRAMEK. We could do it earlier in the 5-year period.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. Thank you, Admiral.

Admiral KRAMEK. You’re welcome, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. I would now like to welcome our second panel.

This panel is comprised of certainly frontline Coast Guard personnel. They are Lieutenant Commander Mike Burns, a C–130 aircraft pilot; Lieutenant Commander Randy Forrester, HU–25C aircraft pilot; Lieutenant Jim Carlson, Commanding Officer of the

U.S. Coast Guard cutter Vashon—I hope I said that right—and

Boatswains Mate First Class Mark Fitzmorris, Boarding Officer on

the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Tampa.

Would you gentlemen please step forward. If you would all stand

and raise your right hand, committee rules require me to swear

you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witnesses responded

in the affirmative.

Please sit down, and we will start with Lieutenant Burns.

STATEMENTS OF LCDR MIKE BURNS, U.S. COAST GUARD, C–130

AIRCRAFT PILOT; LCDR RANDY FORRESTER, U.S. COAST

GUARD, HU–25C AIRCRAFT PILOT; LT JIM CARLSON, U.S.

COAST GUARD, COMMANDING OFFICER, USCGC VASHON;

AND BM1 MARK FITZMORRIS, U.S. COAST GUARD, BOARDING

OFFICER, USCGC TAMPA

Commander BURNS. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for allowing me

to go ahead and give you some insights to my Frontier Shield experiences.

I am Lieutenant Commander Mike Burns. I’m from Chicago, IL,

born and raised. I joined the Coast Guard team in 1986. I’m presently a C–130 Aircraft Commander based out of Clearwater, FL. I

have been flying C–130’s out of Clearwater, FL, for the past 5

years now.

39

I have extensive experience in the Greater Antilles Section Region. I fly the C–130 aircraft. It is a four-engine aircraft. It’s very

long range, has a high endurance, and it’s the primary surveillance

aircraft that is utilized in Frontier Shield. Clearwater has provided

two C–130 aircraft from the start of Frontier Shield, and basically

we provide the backbone of the maritime surface patrols.

A deployment crew consists of eight crew members. We normally

deployed for 2 weeks at a time. We are normally tasked to fly 7

or 8 hours a day or night, and it’s quite a popular mission with the

crews. The crews are very motivated. They like to go down to Frontier Shield. That is what they’re trained for, and they feel that they

are really making a contribution to go down there.

It was on the November deployment that I went on. It was quite

different and unique in that the air station had just received its

first forward-looking infrared radar on a C–130 aircraft. This was

quite important to us, and we were quite excited using this new

hardware down in Frontier Shield.

Since we did have this new capability, our tasking was for night

patrols. Generally speaking, we would launch at about 8 p.m., and

return at 3 a.m., for 2-week periods of time. It was on our third

night of tasking, it was around midnight, we were about 60 nautical miles south of Puerto Rico, when my radar operator had reported that he had two contacts on his APS–37 radar, sea surface

radar, and he asked us to go ahead and move in that particular direction to see if we could take a look at what he had.

We moved in that particular direction and turned it over to our

forward-looking infrared radar sensor operator who sits in the back

of the aircraft, and on his TV screen as we overflew these contacts

he had described to us that he had seen two low-silhouette vessels

in the water. These are called yolas.

Normally a yola is a low-silhouette, very slender, sometimes— mostly wood structure, sometimes fiberglass, usually has a single

outboard engine, and extremely hard to detect in the daytime. They

are very small and hard to detect in any kind of rough seas also.

So it was really a good catch by our radar operator to go ahead and

catch the two yolas.

What he described to us was, on his FLIR screen he saw that

these two yolas were sitting dead in the water. They were obviously lights out, and they had huge containers on them, at which

time we didn’t know what they were, and they had one person on

board. With the overflight we spooked them, and basically they

took off. One yola started turning north, the other one eastbound.

The best way I can describe what the next 21⁄2 hours was like,

it was like a cat and mouse game. Obviously, they were trying to

evade us. We worked very hard to go ahead and ensure that we

monitored their directions, positions, and this was done with a

great deal of work between both the radar operator and our FLIR

operator. We were lucky enough to go ahead and pass this information to our commander of the task force. We were also lucky

enough to have two surface vessels that were close enough that

they could go ahead and chase down the yolas.

We had information that a Navy patrol boat was to the north.

This Navy patrol boat had a Coast Guard leader team on board,

and we were successful in getting the first yola stopped, and the

40

leader team did wind up boarding this yola. We also had a Coast

Guard 110-foot patrol boat that got the other yola and stopped

them. We found out that the large containers that they had in the

yola were fuel caches that allowed them to go ahead and basically

transit to those positions that were well off Puerto Rico.

After the flight, when we had returned, we were informed by our

law enforcement folks that the larger mother ship was proceeding

up from Colombia and was en route to the position of those two

yolas to go ahead and off-load drugs. We know from previous experience that these yolas are capable of carrying anywhere from 1 to

2 tons of cocaine.

I think that this illustrates that we can be very effective with

transit zone interdiction. However, we must have the proper tools

to go ahead and do the job that we are sent out there to do. Clearly, the difference in this case was the fact that we had sophisticated sensors. It was a perfect example of the Coast Guard team

taking back the nighttime from the bad guys.

Thank you for allowing me to make this statement.

Mr. HASTERT. I have to say that the Chicago winters are worse

than what you are experiencing down there.

At this time, I would like to introduce Randy Forrester, Lieutenant Commander on the HU–25C.

Commander FORRESTER. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee.

I am Lieutenant Commander Randy Forrester originally from Indiana. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to be here and

represent the air station men and women of Miami, FL. We do

have the privilege to serve our country down in the Caribbean, and

South America. We have been involved in Laser Strike and, most

recently, Operation Frontier Shield.

As an aircraft commander of an HU–25 Falcon Charlie model

aircraft, it is basically a small business type of aircraft outfitted

with the F–16 radar, and we are busy quite a bit. We most recently

had two aircraft deployed down in Operation Laser Strike and two

aircraft deployed in Frontier Shield. We only have seven aircraft at

the unit, and basically what that means for the crews is, about

every 2 weeks out of a month you’re on the road either in Operation Laser Strike or Frontier Shield.

Most recently, I’ve had the opportunity to go down to—in the

middle of January in to support Operation Frontier Shield. We deployed with a crew of five personnel, a pilot, a copilot, a drop master, a sensor operator, and a basic air crewman.

Wherever we are, whether it is off the coast of Miami, down in

Puerto Rico in Frontier Shield or in Laser Strike, we’re capable of

doing multiple sorts of missions. If we have a search and rescue

case that involves someone who needs a raft or needs a pump, we

are able to deliver that no matter where we are.

The situation down in Operation Frontier Shield—we deployed

down there on January 7th. We stand 12-hour alert windows, and

usually, the case we are going to talk about this afternoon, we

checked in with our operation coordinator in San Juan, Puerto

Rico, before we go on watch and we ask, ‘‘Hey, is there anything

going on tonight?’’

41

The night prior to the President’s Inauguration, we checked in

and they advised us that there was an air target coming up with

South America that was being tracked by I believe it was a Navy

dome aircraft. It was being followed. A Customs Citation had

launched out of Puerto Rico and was now tracking the aircraft toward Puerto Rico. We were advised to go ahead and launch and

intercept and assist as necessary.

We departed out of Rincon that evening, probably about an hour

before the sun set, headed en route, and checked in with the dome

aircraft. They basically filled us in on the situation, and what had

evolved since we had been briefed by our coordinator was that the

aircraft that they were tracking had dropped several bails into the

water probably about 40 miles south of Puerto Rico.

The traffic, the Customs—another Customs aircraft, a Nomad,

has been in close proximity to that and were tracking a go-fast vessel that was heading toward the suspected drugs where the bails

had been dropped. The aircraft that made the drop turned around

and started heading back toward South America.

Since we are air intercept capable, we asked them if they needed

us to go ahead and track the aircraft back to wherever in South

America, whether it be Colombia, Peru, or Venezuela, to maybe set

up an end game in one of the countries down there. We were advised that that was not necessary and there were other assets

probably out of Howard that were being launched to intercept the

aircraft as it headed back south.

Meanwhile, the go-fast vessel had picked the bails, loaded them

on to the boat, and started heading toward Puerto Rico, the southeast coast of Puerto Rico. We were advised that the Coast Guard

cutter Tampa was on scene. They were en route, trying to get the

vessel to stop. They were fortunate enough that the vessel did stop,

and their lookouts on board the vessel had suspected that they

thought some people were throwing things overboard. We were

about 25 miles from the scene at the time and asked to come in

to start looking for bails in the water.

We got on the scene in about 5 or 6 minutes and started looking.

It was just about sunset now. What they normally do if the bails

are about 50 to 75 pounds, they will put chemlights on them, which

is a small tube that lights up. They threw the bails into the water.

We were low level, about 200 feet, trying to see them up with the

Mark 1 eyeball. Unfortunately, we were not successful with that.

We also had the FLIR on board, trying to look with the forwardlooking infrared to see any types of vessels.

Meanwhile, the Tampa was successful in getting the go-fast to

stop, and Petty Officer Fitzmorris will tell about that situation. We

continued to look for the bails at a low level. It was about an hour

and a half before we were diverted back to our other mission of

surface interdiction.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

Lieutenant Carlson.

Lieutenant CARLSON. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I am Lieutenant Jim Carlson. I’m Commanding Officer of the cutter Vashon out of Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico. The 110-foot patrol boat has a crew typiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:25 Jun 26, 2002 Jkt 078984 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41842 pfrm09 PsN: 41842
42

cally of 16 crew members. I happened to be on the good fortune to

be overbilleted by 2, so I have 18 crew members.

A 110-foot patrol boat operates at speeds of up to 30 knots. We

are employed as pouncer. What that means is that we work in conjunction frequently with a Falcon or a C–130. They’ll detect targets

of interest and vector us in to investigate further, typically concluding in a boarding.

The Vashon is one of five 110-foot patrol boats home ported in

Puerto Rico and one of the eight that was in theater for Frontier

Shield. The Coast Guard brought three additional patrol boats into

Puerto Rico from the East Coast, as Admiral Kramek mentioned,

some as far away as Maine.

Working in Puerto Rico, or Greater Antilles section area of responsibility, gives us the opportunity to patrol a little further than

many 110’s. We patrol from the Dominican Republic as far south

as Grenada. During Frontier Shield, the emphasis, however, was

on Puerto Rico with the Virgin Islands as far west as the Dominican Republic coast.

I had the opportunity to work with some of these foreign maritime services. I worked with the Dominican Republic Navy three

times, Antigua-Barbados Coast Guard once, and the British Virgin

Islands Marine Police and Her Majesty’s Customs in British Virgin

Islands; we’ve seen some successes there.

My ship worked with British Virgin Islands Customs and Marine

Police to interdict an airdrop, a small one, 300 pounds of marijuana. We were the first unit on scene. We rapidly got permission

to go into British Virgin Islands territorial seas to conduct limited

operations, i.e., just take a look around and secure any drugs that

happened to be on the scene. We worked with two British Virgin

Islands vessels, British Virgin Islands fixed-wing aircraft, and a

Coast Guard helicopter. That bust yielded 300 pounds of marijuana, three arrests, and a seized vessel and an aircraft. So there

are some successes in this regard. There are challenges, however,

that lie ahead.

One of the times—one of the instances we worked with the Dominican Republic Navy, I had the opportunity to talk to my counterpart on the Dominican Republic Navy patrol boat—about the

same size, 105 foot. He was telling me how one of his two engines

was not operational. He knew what the problem was but didn’t

have the money to fix it, and also, their budget was so tight that

he had to pay for the ship’s crew’s meals out of his own pocket. I

did not know this at the time. We were invoking or enacting the

U.S. Dominican Republic bilateral counterdrug agreement. I sent

one of my Boarding Officers over to the Dominican Republic Navy

vessel to do some boardings, and he told me he hadn’t eaten all day

because he didn’t want to take the food out of the Dominican Republic Navy crew members’ mouths. So there are some challenges

that lie ahead.

But why are we doing this? I think the point needs to be made

that we have seen great strides over the last couple of years. Two

years ago, we saw these foreign maritime services frequently were

lucky to get a vessel underway during the day. They have progressed to the point now where we can contact them at night. They

can recall a crew, get a boat underway, frequently talk to one of

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the U.S. aircraft that may be monitoring a target of interest—

whether it be a Customs Nomad surface surveillance vessel, Coast

Guard C–130, or Coast Guard Falcon, or even a Navy P–3 in some

instances—intercept that target of interest and board it that night.

Which is a significant stride that we have seen.

All this is in an effort, as Admiral Kramek mentioned, to form

international partnerships, the thinking being, if they can patrol

their area around their territorial seas, it frees us up to do some

other things and the better partnerships throughout the area.

I want to touch briefly on yolas. We talked about yolas. There is

a connotation there that they are conducting illegal activity, which

is not always the case. The yolas are all over Puerto Rico. There

is a number of fishing cooperatives on the south coast who fish the

banks there. You will see yolas all over the place.

One, they are extremely difficult to detect, which causes a problem for me from different facets. One, from a law enforcement

facet, yolas are also used to bring drugs and migrants over from

the Dominican Republic. I can’t see them. Two, from a safety of

seas aspect, I have to be extremely careful when I am patrolling

that I don’t hit one of these guys legally fishing on the banks when

I patrol with my navigation lights out at night so as not to reveal

my position.

So I have to be very careful when patrolling not to hit the legal

guys, but also it is very difficult to detect anyone conducting any

illegal activity. I have had the good fortune, recently, to prototype

a hand-held version of the FLIR basically on the aircraft, about the

size of a camcorder. It is a wonderful sensor. Basically it paints a

black and white negative, different picture of the ocean at night,

and it depicts differences in heat sensors, so it allows me to see

these yolas better than with any other sensor. Unfortunately, there

are only three prototypes to be passed around between the eight

patrol boats in theater.

That concludes my remarks this afternoon. I would like to thank

you for this unique opportunity. I would be happy to answer any

questions.

Mr. HASTERT. Now I would like to direct and invite Boatswains

Mark Fitzmorris to testify. You are a Boarding Officer for the U.S.

Coast Guard cutter Tampa; is that correct?

Boatswains FITZMORRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of

the committee. My name is Petty Officer Fitzmorris, from the

Coast Guard, assigned to the Tampa, which is a 270-foot cutter out

of Portsmouth, VA. The Tampa was involved in Operation Frontier

Shield for two separate patrols. The first patrol was October and

November, and then we went back there in January, for January

and part of February.

On the night of January 19th, on the evening actually of January

19th, the cutter Tampa set the law enforcement bill, which basically tells the people on the crew that we are approaching a vessel;

we will be conducting preboarding and possibly a boarding on the

vessel.

I was the Boarding Officer that night, so I went to the bridge.

When I got to the bridge, there was quite a bit of activity going on.

I learned that we were in pursuit of a go-fast type vessel, that we

44

were being vectored in to this vessel by a Customs aircraft, and

that the vessel was trying to get away from us.

While I was on the bridge, we did get visual on the go-fast. The

go-fast was going away from us, trying to get away from us. The

sea state that night was quite a bit choppy. It was 4 to 6 foot seas

at this point in time. The go-fast was going all the way out of the

water as it was hitting the waves, and trying to get away.

We tried to contact the vessel with radio. We were not successful

in getting the vessel to come up on radio. Eventually the vessel

came to a stop. I went below to get my boarding team ready to go

over and board the vessel. My boarding team consisted of myself,

one Lieutenant Junior Grade, my Assistant Boarding Officer, two

other Petty Officers, and a seaman. The experience level on my

boarding team was not very high. Two of the boarding team members, it was their absolute first boarding. One of the members, it

was his second boarding.

While I was briefing the crew, getting our gear ready, getting our

gun belts on, body armor, et cetera, and the deck department was

getting the small boat ready, we heard from the PA system for all

hands topside to start looking in the water for bales. I then went

back up to the bridge to find out what was going on and was informed the lookouts had spotted people on board the boat throw

something, we didn’t know what, into the water.

We went down below. We got into our small boat and started

over to the subject vessel. On the way over, the sea state was still

quite choppy. As we approached the vessel, we saw that it was registered in Puerto Rico. The name on the vessel was The Hard Life.

Because it was registered in Puerto Rico, we knew that we had jurisdiction over this vessel and we could just go on board.

We approached the vessel, tried to talk to the people on board.

They indicated they only spoke Spanish. We boarded the vessel. I

speak a very limited amount of Spanish. We got on board.

My first concern when I got on board was to assure the safety

of my boarding team. I was identifying the crew, finding out who

the captain was, and checking to see if there were any weapons on

board.

While I was doing this, a member of my boarding team looked

in the cabin of the go-fast and indicated to me that I should look

down there. When I looked down there, I saw many, it turned out

to be later only 22, large packages, packages were approximately

11⁄2 foot by 2 foot by about 8 inch deep, orange, wrapped in orange

plastic packages. On the outside of the orange there was some

mesh netting on it and there were chem-lights attached. I attempted to find out from the captain of the vessel what was in

there. The captain of the vessel would not answer me.

I sent at this point in time for an interpreter from my ship so

they could prevent any possible miscommunications between myself and the people on board. When the interpreter came over, we

again asked what was in the packages. They indicated—they refused to answer to us. I told the captain that I would like to look

in the packages to ensure that they did not have any contraband

on board. The captain said that I could go ahead and do that.

45

We opened up the packages. We found a white powdery substance. We used our narcotics identification kits, tested the substance. The substance turned out to be cocaine.

While we were dealing with this, I noticed that the forward cabin

had water in it and the water level was rising. At this point after

testing the cocaine for—the substance for cocaine, I requested permission from my command to arrest the crew and to seize the boat.

When I received that permission, I decided at that point in time

it was better to get those people off, get them on to the Tampa, so

I could get a rescue assistance team on board to take care of the

flooding we had. We then did that.

We put the prisoners on the Tampa, got a R&A team on board.

They dewatered the boat, and found that a pipe, there was a broken pipe on board. They effected repairs, and we determined that

the reason that the vessel had stopped for us wasn’t because they—

not because we outran them, that is for sure. It was by beating on

the boat so hard, they ended up breaking both of their engines.

One engine could not operate at all, the other I could barely maintain steerageway.

We had our engineers come over from the Tampa, attempted to

repair it so we could drive it. We were approximately 40 miles

south of Puerto Rico. Our engineers attempted to repair and they

weren’t able to, so we determined that the best course would be to

tow it in.

The Tampa was unable to tow us for a couple of hours because

of some helicopter operations; we were bringing Customs agents

out to interview the prisoners. We had to wait until that was done

before we could take it in tow. Eventually, we did get the vessel

in tow and the vessel was towed—when we got the vessel in tow,

I took my boarding team, put them back on the Tampa because we

had some squalls that came through, the sea state built up and we

were getting pounded on the boat pretty well. I stayed on board the

vessel and was towed into Ponce, arrived there the next day where

we turned the vessel over to Customs.

That concludes my testimony. Thank you very much.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Boatswains Mate First Class

Fitzmorris.

Mr. HASTERT. You talk about all the equipment that you have to

have, the body armor, all the side arms and everything. Do you

have adequate equipment to do the job that you have to do?

Boatswains FITZMORRIS. As far as the type of equipment, yes, sir,

we do. Right now, however, we are a little short on equipment on

board our boat and some of our boarding team members actually

tradeoff.

Mr. HASTERT. Like what kind of equipment?

Boatswains FITZMORRIS. We are currently getting more gun belts

for the people, for the boarding teams, et cetera.

Mr. HASTERT. How about communication equipment?

Boatswains FITZMORRIS. Our communication equipment we have

on board, we currently use secured comms. between us and the

ship. Sometimes they work. Usually they get wet on the way over.

It is very wet transferring back and forth. We will take three with

us, and sometimes have one working when we get over there.

46

Mr. HASTERT. Lieutenant Carlson, one of the things you talked

about is the FLIRs, the hand-held FLIRs. You say you have three

of them.

Lieutenant CARLSON. Yes, sir, that is correct.

Mr. HASTERT. You have to trade around?

Lieutenant CARLSON. That is correct.

Mr. HASTERT. Different ships?

Lieutenant CARLSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. Is that pretty important for use?

Lieutenant CARLSON. Extremely important. We got some nightvision goggles which are also important. If you are away from the

companies and it may be a dark night, overcast, there is no ambient light from which the night-vision goggles could amplify, so

sometimes they are not of use. The infrared camera is very valuable.

Mr. HASTERT. How many units are used in three FLIRs?

Lieutenant CARLSON. I didn’t understand the question.

Mr. HASTERT. How many units?

Lieutenant CARLSON. Since we only have the three, frequently

when the 110 pulls in, they will try to do a swap. I will run them

across the pier to the ship relieving them, give them the suitcase,

and they will get underway. Sometimes people get underway early,

people come in late, and the swap can’t be made. So frequently, I

wouldn’t say frequently, probably about half the time we are patrolling without that.

Mr. HASTERT. So how many more do you need?

Lieutenant CARLSON. I would like one on my ship. Probably in

theater, one for each patrol boat.

Mr. HASTERT. How many boats are there?

Lieutenant CARLSON. Right now there are eight patrol boats.

Mr. HASTERT. Only three of these units?

Lieutenant CARLSON. That is correct. It would also be valuable

for the larger ships in the area. At any time we have larger ships.

Mr. HASTERT. Night-vision goggles, you have an adequate

amount of those?

Lieutenant CARLSON. We have three sets of night-vision goggles

on board.

Mr. HASTERT. For each ship?

Lieutenant CARLSON. I know each ship has at least one.

Mr. HASTERT. I am going to pass to the vice chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. When you look at the size of the Gulf of Mexico, you

know people have to be going by with drugs in them. What would

you do if you were in our position or the President’s position or

anywhere, understanding that they have budget constraints and

they are trying to balance different things, but what would you do

if money wasn’t the object to try and catch more of the people going

by you? Any of you.

Lieutenant CARLSON. I—for me, I don’t think I am qualified to

answer that question, sir. I don’t know what the threat is in the

area. I don’t know—we have operations analysis type people that

could probably better adequately answer that.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the things that struck me last night, we

rented two movies, ‘‘Harriet, the Spy,’’ which didn’t cover the drug

47

issue very much, and ‘‘The French Connection,’’ which I hadn’t seen

for a while. When we looked at that and how they buried the heroin inside the car, when we heard Admiral Kramek talk about the

oil tank, inside the oil tank, it would seem on the surface that

when you were discussing the ship that you intercepted, it had

bales of marijuana floating in the water, that they weren’t taking

a lot of precautions to hide that inside the hull or that type of

thing.

Also, when you were describing the seeing orange bags of cocaine

when you came on board, that is not like buried inside of a motor

where it is impossible to find. Which suggests they don’t think

their odds of getting caught are too high.

Is that a false assumption or is the size of their load not critical

or are they just particularly stupid?

Lt. Commander FORRESTER. Your first statement about how

large the ocean waves are in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean,

there is such a large mass of water to cover, the detection in monitoring is probably our key thing. You have to find these vessels

first. Because of the limited resources, it is so difficult sometimes

just to find them. With the C–130 capabilities, with their radar,

that is a great help.

The more detection assets out there to locate these vessels, it is

probably our biggest frustration. You search a lot of times for many

hours and never locate anyone. It is detecting those and then they

can be boarded by the 110’s or the vessels.

Mr. SOUDER. So you don’t think that the problem is the ability

to detect, but our limitations in the number of units we have detecting? Or is it part of it?

Lt. Commander FORRESTER. It is a combination of both, in my

opinion, sir. It is having the technical ability, for example, in the

HU–25 Falcon, we are mostly an air intercept asset. When it comes

to detecting the small yolas, in any type of sea state, we have a

very low likelihood of detecting a small yola at 25 or even a go-fast

boat. If it is flat waters, we are pretty effective in detecting surface

contacts. It is a combination of both, of having the technical ability

to do it, the equipment, the FLIR, the APS–137, the C–130 has a

great radar, and then obviously the assets.

The more you are out there, the more likelihood, the number of

flight hours to fly, the number of underway days for the boats to

be out there. It is a combination of both of those. The ability to detect it with the proper equipment and then the assets out there to

utilize that equipment.

Lieutenant CARLSON. Also, sir, just to bring one more point to

light, there are different modes of smuggling. The yolas are difficult to detect. The people in the yolas know that. So in that sense

there are not many places you can hide drugs on a yola.

A sailboat coming up from South America, however, of which

there are hundreds cruising those islands, we have come across

modes where they go into a yard, maybe a covert yard somewhere,

a shipyard, remove the keel, hollow it out, put drugs in there and

bolt the keel back on. There is no way to find that in a boarding

at sea. So it is not so much they are so flagrant or blatant that

they don’t think they will get caught, it just depends on the mode

of smuggling.

48

Mr. SOUDER. If they had it in the hull, you wouldn’t be able to

find it?

Lieutenant CARLSON. If they had it in the keel, short of any other

intelligence, there would be no way for us to access that keel.

In a typical boarding, the Boarding Officer is relying on a number of things to tip him off. One would be intelligence, one would

be crew members’ reactions when boarding team members are in

different areas of the vessel. One is just plain view, maybe someone

is so blatant to think they wouldn’t get caught. But if someone has

been doing this for awhile and has something hidden in the keel,

it would be extremely difficult to detect that at sea.

Mr. SOUDER. You don’t have the equivalent of like a drug dog?

Lieutenant CARLSON. We do. Some ships do have, not permanently stationed, but some ships do take on drug dogs occasionally.

The new technology, the IONSCAN and CINDI are two pieces of

equipment that would in that case detect the drugs. I don’t happen

to have them on my ship.

Mr. SOUDER. I think we saw a demonstration of one of those at

one of our hearings.

If I could return, Commander Burns, do you have something you

want to insert in any of this discussion?

Lt. Commander BURNS. I will. I will go ahead and point out one

thing, again getting back to the C–130 aircraft, it has been the

backbone of the air surveillance down until Frontier Shield. I have

always felt that we have had tremendous capability for detection

of any sea surface vessels. We have had the APS–137 radar, which

was employed. Navy technologies, it was utilized to go ahead and

detect Soviet submarine periscopes. So that is how advanced this

technology is. It is an asset that we have had in Clearwater aircraft since 1988, and I felt it was the biggest step the Coast Guard

had taken for maritime patrol aircraft since we have had C–130’s.

It is also my feeling that with the acquisition of the FLIR to C– 130 aircraft, we have one now, that was probably the second biggest step we have taken.

The reason why I say that is because the C–130 always had this

very, very good ability to detect assets, but we would have to visually ID these vessels during the day. Quite frankly, at nighttime

we would have to pack up our tent and go home because we had

no way to go ahead and ID these surface contacts.

We did that, or we would work with other units. A helicopter or

a fixed wing aircraft that had the FLIR or night-vision goggles

would have to be incorporated with our flight plan to go out and

ID the targets that we detected.

Mr. SOUDER. Do we have an adequate number of the FLIRs?

Lt. Commander BURNS. We have one FLIR at Clearwater at this

time. That is all we have been funded for.

What I would like to point out is that this FLIR acts as a force

multiplier and allows us to go ahead and act as an independent,

autonomous aircraft that can go out, do the detection, and ID the

targets. We do not have to rely on another resource.

In terms of working with the Coast Guard cutters, for us to go

ahead and detect targets and have to go ahead and have the Coast

Guard cutter jump from target to target to target in terms of time

and fuel, is very, very costly and very ineffective. That is why I

49

think that we are moving in the right direction by putting this advanced technology FLIR on C–130 aircraft.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you have a rough idea of what that costs?

Lt. Commander BURNS. I do. I am not sure that my figures are

exact. It is my understanding, and I will leave this so that we can

go back for the record, but I believe it is $800,000 is what we paid

for the Texas Instrument FLIR 49.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

While he is waiting, can I come back to the marijuana floating

in the water? About what was that worth?

Lieutenant CARLSON. I am not sure of the street value of that,

sir. I can certainly insert that for the record.

Mr. SOUDER. It was in the hundreds of thousands or millions?

Lieutenant CARLSON. I don’t know, sir.

[The information referred to follows:]

Approximately 300 pounds of marijuana was recovered from the water following the disrupted airdrop. The estimated street value of this contraband was $1.2 million.

Mr. SOUDER. I am still intrigued, because it had to be a pretty

large amount. It seems like if they thought there was a fairly high

risk of getting caught, you would—— Lieutenant CARLSON. That was the strangest airdrop I have ever

been associated with, sir. It was during the day on a Sunday morning. I don’t know what the guy was thinking.

Mr. SOUDER. He was probably high.

Lieutenant CARLSON. He was probably using some of the product;

that is right.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Indiana.

Lt. Commander Burns, we are talking about a C–130. I am going

to go back to the testimony that Admiral Yost gave us about 2

years ago, and it says, I am quoting here, ‘‘Yost testified the Coast

Guard C–130 airborne early warning aircraft had been turned over

to the Air Force, stripped of its equipment, including a domemounted radar, and is now used for transportation of cargo.’’ In addition, Yost reported that the new, and I am reading this verbatim,

‘‘Yost reported that the new command control communications intelligence center has been closed and its duties are performed elsewhere.’’

Now, are these aircraft that are not in use now?

Lt. Commander BURNS. It was my understanding the domed aircraft that we used, it was the Coast Guard 1721, it was turned

over to the Air Force. It still belongs to the Air Force, and I do not

have any idea as to what the Air Force is doing with it at this time.

Mr. HASTERT. The domed radar is not the same FLIR you are

talking about, right?

Lt. Commander BURNS. No, sir, it is not.

Mr. HASTERT. It performs a like duty?

Lt. Commander BURNS. The FLIR is a small ball attachment. We

modified the attachment point to be on the belly of the aircraft, on

the right-hand side. We have a pallet that is in the back of the aircraft, of which we have a radar screen for the radar operator and

for the FLIR operator, and they sit side-by-side. Basically, they can

both work detection and IDing at the same time. So it is totally different from what we are referring to with the 1721.

50

Mr. HASTERT. How many of these C–130’s do you have now in

operation?

Lt. Commander BURNS. We have seven C–130 aircraft at Air Station Clearwater. We only have one FLIR. Right now it is mounted

to a specific aircraft, and that is due to the tolerances of not having

a common frame structure underneath the aircraft. Right now it is

under one of our aircraft. It will go down for 2 weeks at a time.

However, when that aircraft returns back to Clearwater, the FLIR

goes with it.

Presently we are working, our engineers are working to go ahead

and get three common airframe mounts on our aircraft so that

when the aircraft returns, it is a very simple removal from one aircraft on to the other aircraft, so that aircraft can go ahead and

then go down the feeder and to utilize it again.

Mr. HASTERT. So not only do you have one FLIR for seven or

eight aircraft, but it is not interchangeable?

Lt. Commander BURNS. It is not easily interchangeable. It takes

about 3 days for the removal and installation on the next aircraft.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

Well, gentlemen, I appreciate your testimony. You kind of give

us a flavor for being there on the front scene of this. We hear a

lot of testimony from time to time about what we should do and

the issues of how things should be done, often from somebody sitting behind a desk, including ourselves. I appreciate the work that

you do, your firsthand experience that you have brought forward

today, and it is very helpful and very valuable. Thank you for participating.

It is now my distinct pleasure to welcome Admiral Paul Yost,

former Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard and current president of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation.

I have to tell you while you are coming up, I don’t know if you

remember, but I sat on this subcommittee years ago when you were

first starting to put together the ability to stop drugs and work on

building up the drug interdiction effort in the late 1980’s and early

1990’s. We certainly thank you for your effort, and we thank you

for being with us today.

If you will stand and raise your right hand, committee rules require me to swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show the witness responded in the

affirmative.

Admiral, please proceed with your opening statement.

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL PAUL A. YOST, PRESIDENT, JAMES

MADISON MEMORIAL FELLOWSHIP FOUNDATION, AND

FORMER COMMANDANT, U.S. COAST GUARD

Admiral YOST. Thank you very much. I am Admiral Paul Yost,

U.S. Coast Guard retired. I was Commander of the Atlantic area

for the Coast Guard between 1984 and 1986, and then Commandant between 1986 and 1990.

As you said, Mr. Chairman, I gave testimony to this committee

2 years ago, I think it was March 9th, and I ask that it be referenced or made a part of the record in this committee hearing.

51

I have not prepared written testimony, but would like to orally

expand on my previous testimony.

In the 1984 to 1990 era, we didn’t seem to have the tension between source country and transit zone strategy that I see today. I

don’t think that that competition should exist, and I don’t think it

is particularly healthy.

Both are needed, and they must be done in unison. Let me explain by example.

In the late 1900’s, early 1990’s we had an operation we called

HAT TRICK. The idea was to pulse into the transit zone with an

overwhelming force immediately after the marijuana harvesting

season. This forced the cartels to either ship through our pulse or

to stockpile. The second piece of the equation was the source country piece. That is, the Colombian army descended on the stockpiles

in the port zones and destroyed the harvest.

It worked. The source country’s armed forces destroyed masses

of marijuana while the transit zone pulse held most of the drug

vessels in port.

The next harvest season we tried to do the same thing, but something had happened in the source country. A few months before

they had had a major national disaster, earthquakes and mud

slides, and the armed forces were completely employed in the national disaster. So we got no help from the source country.

The next season we tried to do the same thing again, but this

time the Colombian Supreme Court had been attacked by the cartels, many judges had been taken hostage, records had been destroyed, and what we found is that at that time of the Colombian

effort, national will had all but disappeared. Again, the source

country part of the equation was not there.

In each of these seasons, the cartels stockpiled and shipped after

our pulse. The first season, of course, they didn’t have anything to

ship because their own armed forces had destroyed most of it. The

second two seasons, because without the source country help, they

were able to outwait us and try to ship after the pulse was over.

The message here is source country strategy is a powerful tool,

but it is not reliable, it is not as reliable as the transit zone effort.

You have to do both. One you control, the second is a function of

foreign policy and source country internal politics.

Also in the 1984 to 1990 era, I saw less tension between the demand and the supply side efforts, although there was still some

tension there. In truth, again, both are needed. However, as long

as large supplies of drugs are available in the United States, drug

use will be high. That is, demand reduction doesn’t work as well

with high supply. Again, the two have to work in unison.

Unfortunately, interdiction in the transit zone is very expensive

and the temptation is not to properly fund it.

In that regard, not much has changed from then to now. We

didn’t have enough money then in either the President’s budget or

the ‘‘Congressional Stage’’ budget. I understand the Coast Guard

budget for drug interdiction was reduced after 1990 by almost 50

percent. There is plenty of fault to go around for this, including

with the Coast Guard itself whose leaders felt that putting money

and assets in fisheries and in Merchant Marine safety after the

52

Exxon Valdez spill was wise. As it turns out, it was not wise, in

my opinion.

The budget at both the Presidential and ‘‘Congressional Stages’’ supported this transfer of effort from drug interdiction into fisheries and Merchant Marine safety. We are now paying the price in

increased supply, followed by increased demand.

My understanding is that Admiral Kramek is actively realigning

the asset allocation in this regard, but it takes time. It took years

to buildup the force structure we had in 1990. It is going to take

years to reinstate it at great cost, and meanwhile we are going to

be inundated by drugs in this country.

I would be pleased to answer any of your questions.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Admiral.

At this time I would like to invite our vice chairman, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. We heard earlier today, and also from General

McCaffrey and in the President’s drug budget, that cocaine use has

dramatically dropped. Are you suggesting that the cutbacks haven’t

been all good news? In effect, we have been hearing that, well, we

made great progress, and that we didn’t pay a price for the cutbacks.

Admiral YOST. Well, let me say I admire General McCaffrey, and

I think he is a warrior and he is the guy for the job. I don’t have

any of the details or the facts or the statistics on what the supply

is. All I read is in the newspaper that supply is up and use is up

amongst children of high school age. That may not be so. I don’t

have that intelligence available to me as the General does.

Mr. SOUDER. I don’t think any of us along the way are questioning that he and Admiral Kramek and others aren’t great warriors in the drug battle. We are wondering whether they are muzzled to some degree by their positions, because if in fact you can

cut the budget 50 percent and make progress, quite frankly, as

somebody representing the taxpayers of this country, I have to ask,

well, so what?

The question is, what do you think, could you be a little more

specific? I know you testified to us before. What do you think some

of the things that might have happened because of these cutbacks

are?

Admiral YOST. Yes. I am not sure that I could tell you statistically what happened in the way of drug supply. What I can tell

you is that from 1990, 1989, 1990, 1991, in that era, to 1993 or

1994, there was about a 50 percent drop in the operating expense

of the Coast Guard budget dedicated to drug interdiction.

That caused, I read in the newspapers, an increase in supply. I

am surprised to hear that there isn’t any increase in supply. But

I would not disagree with General McCaffrey. He has all the intelligence available to him. I am involved in running an educational

foundation that has to do with the Constitution of the United

States. I don’t have any of that intelligence.

Mr. SOUDER. In his defense and the others, I don’t think they

said there was a decrease in supply. What they said was the number of cocaine addicts had declined because every law enforcement

official around the country will tell you that that is part of the reason that the price has dropped, is the supply is up, and the purity

is up.

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It is clear the supply is there. We are seeing it in the youth. We

are trying to figure out this one number that keeps popping up on

charts about cocaine addicts. That doesn’t apparently involve crack.

Admiral YOST. I can’t help you on that. I just don’t have the information. I can’t supply it for the record. It is not available to me.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you believe, had the budget been kept at levels

that it were, we would have heard what we heard on the last panel

as we get equipment like sensors or FLIRs, that we would be short

those? Are those some of the prices we paid by having reduced the

budget?

Admiral YOST. I am not sure that the shortages that the young

officers and men here reported are critical. They were talking

about a FLIR that was a prototype, that was a hand-held, that apparently they are testing it out for more procurement.

I testified last time that I felt very badly about the loss of the

airborne early warning aircraft. We had three AWACS aircraft

dedicated to this job in the Caribbean, Coast Guard aircraft. We

had created a Coast Guard air station just to support those complicated aircraft. We had put F–16 radars on Falcons so they could

sit on strip alert, come off strip alert and intercept. We had all that

in place, and because of a decision that was made partly because

of budget priorities, partly because of the Exxon Valdez, partly because of emphasis on fisheries, a lot of that was taken down and

the money and the men transferred elsewhere.

Now we have got a real warrior as Commandant of the Coast

Guard, and he is trying, as I understand, to move that back in. It

can’t be done overnight. It can be taken down overnight. It is easy

to tear down a building. It takes a long time to rebuild it. That is

what he and General McCaffrey are trying to do, is my understanding.

Mr. SOUDER. Now, it is kind of hard, because, we do a lot of different things here in addition to fund-raising that—not here in the

Congress—but as Members of Congress, going back and forth to

our districts and town meetings and trying to sustain a family life.

So it is hard to keep track of all the different variables. I get lost

sometimes in the numbers.

But what I heard Admiral Kramek saying at first was that we

didn’t need the AWACS because there are smaller type systems

that can do the same amount of tracking. Were you here during his

testimony? Can you explain that?

Admiral YOST. I was. What I heard the Admiral say is that

AWACS is a national asset. Although we had more available before

Desert Storm, before Bosnia, before some of the other emergencies,

AWACS now is a very scarce item and one has to program it very

carefully, and that is being done by the Department of Defense.

He is getting his share, but whether he is getting all that he

would like, I don’t think he said whether he was or not.

AWACS is always highly desirable. Of course, I felt when the

Coast Guard had their own AWACS, it made continuity of command much easier when you didn’t have to compete in the marketplace against other national priorities.

Mr. SOUDER. If you were in our position, what is the single greatest thing you would focus on relative to the Coast Guard right now

in addition? Would it be the AWACS?

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Admiral YOST. Well, I would have to salute Admiral Kramek on

that. I am not sure, because I don’t know what his force structure

is. All I can tell you is we had more forces dedicated to drug interdiction in 1990 than we have in 1997. The newspaper tells me we

have a greater supply of drugs in 1997 than we had in 1990, 1991,

and 1992. Whether that is true or not, I don’t have the intelligence,

the national intelligence to know.

I do know that supply and demand must be done at the same

time. I know supply is very, very expensive compared to demand.

So you can’t pull money out of supply and move it over to another

area without hurting the whole equation.

Mr. SOUDER. You suggested in your testimony that it was more

complicated when we had to deal with source country things than

when we dealt with interdiction because of the international diplomacy. But are you surprised that we continue to not get a maritime

agreement out of Mexico and we don’t have one with Haiti?

Admiral YOST. Well, I don’t know whether I was surprised. It

was a piece of knowledge that I didn’t have until I listened to the

testimony here. I am sure it is available in the newspapers. I must

have just not read the right articles.

But I know that dealing with these countries, they are very concerned with sovereignty, they are very concerned with the United

States being the big brother to the north, and that has been around

for a long, long time, since I was in grammar school. We heard

about those problems. So I am not really surprised that they are

not willing to give something that they feel affects their sovereignty.

Again, that is not in my portfolio really to comment on, other

than saying I am not surprised and that I am aware. I don’t think

I can say more.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you have any comments, this will be my last

question, Mr. Chairman, or any suggestions based on your experience, because this is a comparatively new phenomenon, I am sure

it was there to some degree, but what to do with the movement to

the Pacific side on Mexico?

Admiral YOST. No, I don’t have any ideas on that side. It is a

much bigger problem than on this side. There are no choke points.

As the Admiral points out, there is a lot of ocean there.

I think that you need assets, and how you deploy them and what

the strategy is is up to General McCaffrey, a superstar, and Admiral Kramek, one of the best Commandants we have ever had. I am

not going to second guess those guys.

Mr. HASTERT. Admiral Yost, again, I want to say I really appreciate your being here today and giving us your expertise.

The testimony that you gave before this committee basically 2

years ago said that, and at that time it was probably more critical

than it is today, that a lot of the work that you had done and we

had put together, and I served in this Congress, I have been here

since 1986, is gone. That was disassembled. We don’t have the

AWACS flying. They are other places. We have other problems.

But this thing, we also hear a national strategy that this isn’t

a war any more, it is like a cancer. Well, I go back to my old coaching philosophy, which I did before I got into another business like

this. When something is a cancer, you don’t usually win that. A

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war you can win. You have to put your resources out there and

make sure you do win it.

If you had resources again, what would four or five things—this

whole debate on whether we should certify Mexico or decertify

Mexico, there are some things that we could have done to make leverage, that we could have done other things. This is foreign policy,

but it really gives you tools to get things done.

What are four or five things that we could do in your opinion to

help win this war? I still think it is a war, in my opinion.

Admiral YOST. Well, unfortunately, as you said before, we are not

really treating it as a war, and when you don’t treat it as a war,

it is very hard to fight it on a war footing. We don’t shoot down

aircraft coming into this country carrying cocaine. When we track

them, very often when they find out we are tracking them, they

turn around, do a 180, go back and land in Colombia or wherever

they came from. They refuel and 3 or 4 days later they will take

off again, give it another shot.

There is no great penalty for turning around and going back with

a cargo. If worse comes to worse, they might even drop the cargo

and turn back. So it is very hard when you are not on a wartime

footing to make the enemy pay the price when he makes a big mistake. When he makes a big mistake, the enemy in the aircraft

turns back and goes home.

The go-fast boat will sometimes be able to jettison the cargo, and

when you finally catch him, if you do catch him, he is clean and

you have trouble making a case against him. If you don’t catch

him, he goes home.

So we are not on war footing, and it is hard to make the enemy

pay the price. Without war footing and rules of engagement that

approach war, I don’t know how you do it. Neither do I know any

administration or any Congress that is going to violate all the

IKAO treaties by starting to shoot down civilian aircraft. So it is

kind of a catch–22.

I don’t have any great ideas how we are going to win this war.

I didn’t win it in 1990 when I had these assets. We weren’t winning the war then. We were keeping even with it, maybe we were

even decreasing the supply some. Maybe we were decreasing the

use some. But we were certainly a long way from winning it.

So I don’t know what kind of assets it would take to add to the

stockpile to win the war, along with rules of engagement that

would allow us to make the enemy pay the price. I don’t see either

of those things in the offing. So I hesitate to say any more than

that.

Mr. HASTERT. Well, in the 1990’s you did end up having the assets and you did have a strategy and you did, through your pulse

technique, really kind of shut down the Caribbean. Other things

happened when you shut down the Caribbean. The air bridge from

Colombia up to Mexico and then in from Mexico into the four

branches into the United States, I mean, the way the stuff moved

changed. You would have to be able to fight that and adjust to

that.

But knowing what you know today, you were in the interdiction

operations not just in the Caribbean but in Vietnam, during that

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war, and if you were speaking frankly, what would you do, at least

in a strategy that we are not doing today?

You talk about shoot-down policy. We have a shoot-down policy.

It happens to be in Peru, but we have worked with them and been

pretty successful.

Admiral YOST. It works. It works. That is Peruvian aircraft,

sometimes using our intelligence, et cetera, and that worked. It

worked very well. I think it is still working.

We shut down the movement; by shut down, we vastly reduced

the movement of marijuana and cocaine over the Caribbean into

the United States. When we did that, then the movement began to

be along the land bridge, through Mexico and into Mexican airfields and then transported by land across into California, or sometimes they would fly it directly into California.

Once you stop it over the maritime area, then you have got to

have the assets on the land border. Now you are getting again into

sovereignty, you are getting into posse comitatus, you are getting

into what kind of a force, are we at war, what kind of force do we

put on the land border. Those are political questions well above my

pay grade.

But once you stop it across the maritime area, you have got to

stop it on the land area. If you let go on the maritime area, it will

come back into the maritime area.

So it is a balloon, and wherever you grab it, it comes someplace

else.

Mr. HASTERT. Admiral, if you were working on this project today,

in fact when you were there, you integrated other DOD assets. Do

you think we should be doing more with other DOD assets today?

Admiral YOST. Well, of course things have changed a lot since I

was there. I would say this: When I was Commandant, I was very

interested in using DOD assets and having control of those assets.

I was not particularly interested in seeing DOD get into the drug

interdiction business. At that time, DOD had plenty of other things

to do, so they didn’t—they were reluctant to get into the drug interdiction business.

Now I think things have changed, where DOD is very interested

in drug interdiction; they are very active in drug interdiction. General McCaffrey is the drug czar and is very familiar with the DOD

system.

So the ideas that I had, which was let’s get one guy in the maritime area, hopefully the Commandant, with all the assets he needs,

either with Coast Guard shields painted on them or tasked by DOD

to his operational control. I think we are probably beyond that. We

have moved beyond that, and I don’t think we can go back to that,

and I think that the system we have now is fine.

You have just got to add assets to it. That is the answer. You

have got to add assets before you are going to stop the supply.

Mr. HASTERT. A couple weeks ago, because of the nature of this

committee, I was in the southern command of Europe, and out on

a command ship. I saw capabilities, that I am not sure if I am free

to talk about here or not, so I won’t. But it just boggled your mind

about being able to identify what was moving where and when. It

is unbelievable. If you cover the whole area of the Baltics, you cerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:25 Jun 26, 2002 Jkt 078984 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41842 pfrm09 PsN: 41842
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tainly should be able to do that type of thing and be able to watch

what is moving over our Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

Admiral YOST. You put an AWACS over the Caribbean and you

have got almost the whole Caribbean on your screen, air and surface. You have two people in the back end of that AWACS, one of

them is handling the air picture, other the surface picture. They

have a good idea what is going on in the Caribbean. Then you need

strike aircraft on strip alert that are able to launch and track. That

is the asset you need. Those are a lot of assets if you are going to

stay there, as Admiral Kramek says, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

We don’t have those kind of assets. The national assets are not

available. I don’t know why we got rid of the C–130 aircraft with

the radar dome and took the dome off of it. That was a great asset.

But apparently the decision was made to take the money and the

people that were running that C–130 and the three AWACS aircraft and use them in areas such as Merchant Marine safety, to

avoid oil spills like the Exxon Valdez, those kind of things. I wasn’t

privy to that, but it was an administration and congressional and

a Coast Guard decision. It is—if it is a wrong decision, there is

plenty of blame to go around. If it is the right decision, there is

plenty of credit to go around. So I can’t second guess it from 7

years out of being the Commandant of what they should be doing

now.

Mr. HASTERT. Admiral, as we said, partly because of what you

were able to do in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and we were able to

basically shut down most of the drugs moving through the

Caribbean—— Admiral YOST. We were.

Mr. HASTERT. Now there are new technologies and the air bridge

developed and the Mexico land bridge, those types of things. Because we have been somewhat successful, not very, but somewhat

successful, still about 70 percent of the narcotics that comes in

from Colombia, moves in from the land area once being flown or

maritimed into Mexico. But the 30 percent that moves through the

Caribbean, do you think we could have the ability if we had the

assets to stop that from reaching our shores?

Admiral YOST. I think that if you add assets to that equation,

you are going to reduce the amount of drugs coming across the

Caribbean. Whether that will drive it back to the land bridge or

back on the Pacific side, I don’t know. I would guess some of it

would try to go that way. So you can’t add assets in the Caribbean

without also being ready to stop it wherever it is coming through,

both the transit zone and the source country, which have to work

in unison, as I said.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Admiral. Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. One thing we did hear when we were down in

South America is that because we were putting cost pressures, reducing the payments to the campesinos growing it, some of them

were looking for alternatives for the first time, which is one of the

other affects you have, a change in the cost structure. I was intrigued, you worked in the Vietnam interdiction?

Admiral YOST. I did.

Mr. SOUDER. I have heard both from Asian sources and American

sources that there is some concern that as we presumably move toVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:25 Jun 26, 2002 Jkt 078984 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41842 pfrm09 PsN: 41842
58

ward some form of normalization with Vietnam, that Saigon could

become a major point for having heroin trafficking. They are concerned over there; we are concerned over here. Do you share some

of those concerns, and how would you start to look at this down the

road?

Admiral YOST. I don’t share those concerns, only because I don’t

know.

What I brought out of Vietnam was having the responsibility for

closing off the coast of Vietnam to the importation of arms from either—well, the Vietcong or whoever, that we had compared to drug

interdiction, which had almost an unlimited amount of assets.

We had ships, aircraft, patrol boats, 7 days a week, 24 hours a

day. We patrolled those coasts and we were in a war. When somebody tried to come through the blockade, we sunk them, and people

lost their lives. It was a war, and we shut it down there and we

could shut it down here.

But we will never here get the rules of engagement because it

is not a war and we will never get the assets we had in Vietnam

on a war. We will never get the command and control that we had

with one commander who commanded the whole thing.

Here we have multiple agencies, FBI, DEA, Customs, Coast

Guard, and we have a drug czar who is not in command of these

things. He is a coordinator. As I said last time, and it was probably

a poor analogy, but I kind of like it, if General Eisenhower standing on that heavy cruiser at Normandy was the czar instead of the

supreme allied commander, I wonder how much cooperation he

would have gotten when he said: ‘‘You guys in the Air Force, would

you like to fly today? You guys in the Navy, would you like to land?

How about you Coast Guard guys, are you ready to put the landing

party ashore?’’ It is a difference between a coordinator, a czar or a coordinator,

and a supreme allied commander.

I am not saying we will ever have a supreme allied commander

this war, because it is not a war, and we don’t have the assets and

we don’t have the pyramid structure and we don’t have all the

rules of engagement.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony, even

though it is pretty discouraging. As Congressman Mica likes to say,

it shows we are in a skirmish, not a war.

Admiral YOST. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. Admiral, we certainly appreciate you being here

today and your testimony.

I want to thank all of today’s witnesses for this excellent testimony we have had. This hearing and the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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