[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE STUDY OF PLAN COLOMBIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 2, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-24
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
76-478 WASHINGTON : 2002
________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800
Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JIM TURNER, Texas
DOUG OSE, California THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia ------ ------
DAVE WELDON, Florida
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Christopher A. Donesa, Staff Director
Sharon Pinkerton, Professional Staff Member
Conn Carroll, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 2, 2001.................................... 1
Statement of:
Beers, Rand, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement, Department of State; Donnie Marshall,
Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration; Robert J.
Newberry, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict,
Department of Defense; and General Peter Pace, USMC,
Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Southern Command, Department of
Defense.................................................... 69
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Beers, Rand, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement, Department of State:
Information concerning an appropriated $300 million...... 143
Information concerning Blackhawks........................ 78
Information concerning on-the-ground dollars............. 122
Information concerning Presidential 506 drawdowns........ 146
Prepared statement of.................................... 72
Davis, Hon. Jo Ann, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 68
Gilman, Hon. Benjamin A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 62
Marshall, Donnie, Administrator, Drug Enforcement
Administration:
Information concerning AWACS aircraft and aircrews....... 151
Prepared statement of.................................... 83
Newberry, Robert J., Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict,
Department of Defense:
Information concerning Tethered Aerostat Radar Site
Status................................................. 141
Prepared statement of.................................... 96
Pace, General Peter, USMC, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Southern
Command, Department of Defense:
Information concerning lift capability................... 134
Prepared statement of.................................... 107
Schakowsky, Hon. Janice D., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Illinois, prepared statement of............... 9
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 4
THE STUDY OF PLAN COLOMBIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES
----------
FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Gilman, Mica, Souder, Mrs.
Davis of Virginia, and Ms. Schakowsky.
Staff present: Christopher A. Donesa, staff director;
Sharon Pinkerton and Charley Diaz, professional staff members;
Tony Haywood and David Rapallo, minority counsels; Michael
Yeager, minority senior oversight counsel; Ellen Rayner,
minority chief clerk; and Teresa Coufal and Lorran Garrison,
minority staff assistants.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will now come to order.
Good morning and thank you all for coming to our first
subcommittee hearing for the 107th Congress. This is the start
of an early series of concise hearings on our Nation's drug
policy in which we hope to examine critical issues of both
supply and demand.
Today we will begin, or really, continue looking at Plan
Colombia, an issue that is not only a key to American and
Andean drug strategy but also a vital national interest and a
cornerstone of our strengthening relationships with Latin
America.
Plan Colombia is coming to the forefront of the
congressional and national agenda. Vice Chairman Gilman,
Congressman Mica, and I have just returned from a subcommittee
delegation to Colombia and several other Latin American
nations. Over the President's Day recess, our Embassy in Bogota
also hosted five other congressional delegations, one of which
included Congresswoman Schakowsky, who I welcome to our hearing
today.
Earlier this week, Colombian President Pastrana met with
President Bush at the White House. With the increasing
attention, we scheduled this hearing to examine the current
status of the implications of Plan Colombia and review
requirements for continued U.S. support.
We will consider other aspects and implications of Plan
Colombia in future hearings in this series, including the views
of outside groups and experts and specific issues such as human
rights, support to law enforcement and alternative development.
In fact, in an upcoming hearing, we will focus more
specifically on the drug certification and human rights
certification processes not only regarding Colombia but also
including Mexico, Burma, Haiti, and other nations.
We will move quickly to the witnesses' testimony and
questioning, but first I want to emphasize a couple of points
about Plan Colombia.
First, it is important to understand that Plan Colombia is
fundamentally, as it should be, an initiative of the Colombian
Government and of the Colombian people. Any lasting or
meaningful solution must come from within Colombia, and the
Plan is an effort to address a broad spectrum of social,
economic, and political issues which cannot and properly should
not be resolved in any other way.
It is equally apparent, however, that American assistance
and cooperation with the plan is critical to make it work, and
that the full support and commitment of the administration and
Congress is essential to protecting our clear and vital
national interests within our hemisphere. Our assistance is
urgently needed and cannot come in half measures.
Second, and along the same lines, Plan Colombia is not just
about Colombia but is representative of an approach which we
hope we can reinforce to spread throughout the entire Andean
region, as Secretary of State Powell recently observed. In
Bolivia, our delegation witnessed firsthand the remarkable
success, which I think has been inadequately reported, that the
government has had in virtually eradicating coca growth against
tough odds.
At the same time, we met with Peruvian officials and
learned of the many difficulties their current interim
government is facing. And earlier in the year, I met with
Ecuadorian officials as well, who are concerned about
traffickers moving along the border of Putumayo. All of this
highlights great potential and great challenge and the constant
need to consider the big picture as we proceed.
Today, we have invited witnesses from the administration to
discuss the current status of implementation of Plan Colombia
and our assistance to Colombia. From the Department of State,
we will hear from Assistant Secretary for International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Rand Beers, who I would
like to thank for having his Deputy, Ambassador Jim Mack, join
our delegation at the Interparliamentary Drug Control
Conference in Bolivia. From the Drug Enforcement
Administration, we have the administrator, Donnie Marshall, who
took a substantial portion of his time to accompany and work
with our delegation. From our Defense Department, we have
Robert Newberry, Principal Deputy for Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. From
the U.S. Southern Command, we have Commander-in-Chief, General
Peter Pace, who I particularly thank for rearranging his
schedule.
Thanks to all of you for your willingness to testify on
short notice and for accommodating us in your schedules.
Along the same lines, I would like to recognize and thank
our new ranking member, Congressman Cummings, who was unable to
be here today due to schedule conflicts; but we have an
arrangement to go ahead with this hearing and include some of
his concerns in the upcoming hearing.
Congresswoman Schakowsky, a member of the full committee
and formerly of this subcommittee, will be sitting in his stead
and again I welcome her.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I would now like to recognize Ms. Schakowsky
for an opening statement on behalf of the minority members.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Congratulations on your appointment to chair this important
subcommittee. I appreciate your indulgence of my request to sit
in on this hearing.
As you know, I have been actively involved in the
subcommittee's oversight of Plan Colombia in the past; and I
will continue to closely follow the subject during the 107th
Congress.
I have a statement I would like to make and, in the
interest of time, would like to submit a number of materials
and some questions for today's witnesses for the record.
Mr. Chairman, I recently had an opportunity, as you
mentioned, to visit Colombia along with Congressman McGovern
and a number of congressional staff, journalists, and others on
a trip that was organized by the Washington Office on Latin
American. We had a very busy 6 days which we had an opportunity
to travel around Colombia and to meet with other various
sectors of society that are impacted by the current U.S.
policy. In addition to meeting with President Pastrana, the
Minister of Defense, the Attorney General, the head of the
National Police, the head of the Colombian Army and numerous
other Colombian and U.S. officials, including Ambassador
Patterson, we were able to hear testimony from hundreds of
Colombian people.
We heard from farmers and human rights workers in Putumayo.
We met with nongovernmental organizations like Peace Brigades
International and ASFADES. We met with communities of displaced
people living in poverty because of the violence in Colombia.
We met with Ambassadors from other countries and
representatives from the United Nations, and we visited a peace
community in San Jose de Apartado.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, during previous hearings in the
subcommittee about U.S. aid to Colombia, I raised numerous
questions that U.S. aid to Colombia is too heavily weighted in
helicopters and military hardware, instead of support for civil
society, democratic institutions, and human rights defenders.
I shared with my colleagues my fear that U.S. military
involvement in Colombia may actually escalate the current
conflict in that country. I have stated on numerous occasions
that, in my belief, our current policy toward Colombia and the
billions of dollars we are poised to send in addition to the
over $1 billion appropriated last year will not achieve the
stated goal of reducing the flow of illegal drugs to the United
States.
I have called attention to the fact that dollar for dollar,
it is more effective to invest in treatment and prevention as
opposed to interdiction and eradication at the source.
I have also questioned whether the United States can be
actively involved in counternarcotics efforts in Colombia
without being drawn into the violence that rages in that
country.
Unfortunately, my recent trip has only reinforced and added
to many of the concerns I had before going to Colombia. It is
clear to me that collusion continues between the Colombian
military and the paramilitary death squads in Colombia.
The military has made ineffective and insufficient efforts
to protect civilians who are targeted by paramilitary and
guerrilla forces.
Our fumigation efforts in Putumayo may be causing health
problems for the local population, including children. And,
despite the Embassy's enthusiasm about the accuracy of our
spray planes, I heard testimony from farmers whose legal crops
were destroyed, leaving them and their families without a
source of income or food. Fortunately, Ambassador Patterson was
with us in Putumayo; and she agreed to send medical
professionals there to do more research on the possible human
and environmental effects of aerial fumigation.
This is a human rights emergency in Colombia. Peaceful
civilians are harassed, robbed, and attacked on a daily basis.
Entire communities have been displaced by the violence in
Colombia; and despite their dire situation and commitments by
the United States and Colombian Governments to help, there are
hundreds of thousands of displaced Colombian people struggling
to survive and failing to receive basic services actually
estimated up to $1.8 million.
The press in Colombia, while uncensored by the government,
is censored by intimidation. Numerous journalists have been
killed or forced into exile.
While helicopters are on the way, fumigation is in full
force, and U.S. military personnel are on the grounds,
desperately needed funds for those charged with protecting
against and investigating human rights abuse are still being
held up by the United States.
While I was in Colombia, there was a massacre in Cauca; and
the human rights units of the Colombian prosecutor general's
office did not even have the money to send investigators to the
scene. The $3 million promised to the unit held up apparently
because of a dispute between the State Department and the
Department of Justice. The Human Rights Division of the
National Police in Colombia has an operating budget of just
$140,000. And, as you know, Members of Congress earn even more
than that.
Clear violations of human rights remain unpunished even
when evidence of the perpetrators exist. The Santo Domingo
massacre that took place on December 23, 1998 during which 17
civilians, including 6 children were murdered, remains an
unresolved case, despite extensive evidence of Colombian
military involvement and a cover-up. The Colombian Air Force
unit and others implicated in the case remain cleared to
receive U.S. military aid despite the fact that this appears to
be a clear breach of the Leahy law.
A few days after I returned from Colombia, the State
Department released its human rights report, and I am not going
to read much of it, but let me just say that overall the
government's human rights record remained poor. I recommend
that everybody look carefully at that State Department report.
My constituents are very concerned about the situation
there. They want to help the Colombian people and so do I. So I
don't want a mistake that my criticism is that we should not
help fund Colombia, I believe that we should.
What is even more troubling is that, despite the expressed
will of Congress in attaching human rights conditions to the
aid approved last year, the President saw fit to waive these
conditions, a decision that has sent a message to the Colombian
military that they can keep doing what they are doing and U.S.
aid will continue to pour in.
Let me just summarize my last concern, less than 2 weeks
ago, U.S. citizens working for the private military contractor
Dyncorp came under fire from FARC guerillas. The privatization
of our military and police assistance to Colombia raises
important oversight questions as we get drawn deeper into
Colombia's war.
The most obvious question is why do we need to outsource
and privatize our efforts in Colombia? I think we need to
examine this. And I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, a possible
oversight hearing on this issue, on the outsourcing of the war
and the contracting that we are doing in Colombia and its
potential for drawing us further in.
When we begin to consider additional aid for Colombia this
year, I hope all of my colleagues will take a close look at
what we will be trying to accomplish. I will also be working to
include strong and enforceable human rights conditions on any
future aid that cannot simply be waived.
And, again, I really do appreciate your indulgence, and I
would like to submit my full statement for the record and the
questions that I have remaining.
Mr. Souder. I thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. It gives me great pleasure to introduce and
recognize the new vice chairman, the distinguished vice
chairman of the subcommittee, Congressman Gilman of New York.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Chairman, we commend you for taking on the
responsibilities of the problems in international narcotics in
this committee. I want to thank you for conducting this
important hearing today on Plan Colombia.
Our congressional Souder delegation returned just a few
days ago from visiting Colombia, visiting Bolivia and our
Forward Operating Locations in the Americas; and we were able
to participate in a very important international drug
parliament conference in Santa Cruz, where we were elated to
find that 30 countries were represented at that forum and over
170 delegates attended.
We were also pleased that Donnie Marshall was able to join
us, the Director of DEA, as well as representatives of the INL
and many of our DEA personnel from that region were present.
As we all know, Bolivia is a major drug-fighting success
story within a sea of pessimism, as has been portrayed by the
media, who contend that little can be done about illicit drugs.
However, it has been demonstrated that where there is a
political will and international support we can eliminate
drugs, just as Bolivia is on the verge of doing at the present
time.
Bolivia can be held up as a model to the world in its
successful efforts to eradicate its drug production. Within a
few weeks, we think that will be reduced to a subzero.
On the other hand, Colombia has become a basket case.
Colombia's weak government is carving its nation into zones of
impunity to appease the narcoguerillas. FARC, in turn, have
responded to peace talks and gestures with more and more
hostile attacks; and it is reported that the FARC have
increased the coca production in its region by some 32 percent,
that is 32 percent of an increase in that DMZ. And by some
reports, it can go to even a higher figure this year.
Regrettably, we have in Colombia a peace process without
any peace. We have kidnappings, smuggling, drug production, all
taking place within that zone of impunity.
No sooner had President Pastrana claimed that the peace
process was back on track, in recent days, the FARC responded
by killing 10 innocent hikers. While we were visiting Colombia,
the FARC shot down a Colombian National Police Huey II
helicopter on a coca relief eradication and temporarily put out
of commission one of the new CNP Blackhawks, just an hour after
we had inspected it, by severing its fuel cell with hostile gun
fire. Some peace process.
With regard to U.S. policy, our bureaucracy reflects some
frustrating confusion on the role of the counterdrug police in
Colombia in comparison to that of the Colombian Army, as that
recent Huey II shot down clearly demonstrated while we visited
that beleaguered nation.
Following 4 days of formally requesting the Colombian
Army's assistance for security on the ground in that particular
coca eradication effort in Caqueta, the Colombian police began
their eradication without having any protective Army support,
even though they had requested support for that eradication
effort 4 days prior to undertaking it.
As a result, the Huey II was shut down, a police pilot was
hospitalized in Bogota, where our staff was able to visit with
him. We were informed that the Colombia Army's counternarcotics
battalion did not help, because they were out destroying low-
level coca leaf processing labs, which normally is a law
enforcement function supposed to be conducted by the police.
In Plan Colombia, we were led to believe it was going to be
clear that the police would do the eradication after the Army
first secured the area to avoid any aerial shoot downs. The
morale of the Colombian counternarcotics police regrettably
today is at a low point due to this conflict in policy.
The Army has been claiming credit for all sorts of things
like eradication, which the police have been doing. In many
cases, as the shootdown incident points out, the Army is not
doing what it needs to be doing, needlessly exposing valuable
police assets and officers and in some cases without any prior
consultation and eradication operations when they need help.
This certainly is not a pretty picture, and our Nation's
policy lacks clarity. Clarity that is sadly needed right now.
As we learned in Vietnam, that can result in real trouble.
In addition, we are now finding that the scarce Colombian
police drug-fighting resources are being diverted to the
Colombian Army and away from any effective drug police who have
a spotless human rights record--I might point out to our
gentlewoman from Illinois, a spotless human rights record by
the Colombian antinarcotics police--and their effective
performance record in eradicating the illicit drugs to which
both we and our DEA can attest to.
A strong case that points to the erosion of support is that
we learned of cheap, 50 caliber ammunition of Korean-era
vintage, 1952, being foisted upon the CNP to be used in their
defensive weapons on these new Blackhawks despite the fact that
it violates the $750,000 gattling gun manufacturer's warranty
resulting in a jamming of their weapons.
This ammo cost saving, we have been informed, is to try to
preserve money-per-round fired, while ignoring the cost of
trying to secure $14 million helicopters that have been
purchased at the costs of taxpayer money. Never mind protecting
the priceless lives of courageous CNP officers and the men
flying these choppers and fighting our fight. I think we have
our priorities a little bit misconstrued and out of whack.
This inexcusable list of problems goes on and on. Yes, we
support the Colombia plan, but we want it to be an effective
plan. We don't want the arm-chair generals diverting the funds
that are needed by the warriors out there, who are doing a job,
to other sources.
Three of the six new Blackhawks that we gave to the CNP are
now grounded. Why are they grounded? Because of a lack of spare
parts which we have never shipped to the counternarcotics
police.
Two of the three police supply planes used to move vital
fuel and herbicide to the front are also grounded, again, due
to a lack of supplies.
The police now have to rely on commercial trucks driven
over dangerous roads or on commercial cargo flights, neither
reliable in wartime and subject to a sudden FARC cutoff. Those
commercial flight are costing up to $15,000 per day for moving
few supplies alone.
Does that make sense? These cargo planes have been
requested by the police now for over 2 years, and still no
response from our bureaucrats.
We all recognize what such a supply problem means. We were
told by the military on the ground that the supply line problem
is Plan Colombia Achilles heel. Let me repeat that. That the
supply line problem is Plan Colombia Achilles heel. If we mean
what we say by Plan Colombia of over $1 billion to fight this
war, then why aren't we giving the important equipment to the
people who are fighting that war?
Yet when we pressed and pressed from this committee, no one
offered any plan for addressing the supply line problem, a
question that we raised now for an undue amount of time.
If the DOD and the State Department witnesses here cannot
tell us today that they will make it a priority to get the CNP
the kind of supply aircraft that they need now, I don't intend
to support one more dollar for this plan; yet, I recognize how
important the plan is and how needed it is.
In addition, and I will end with this complaint, which is
most troubling of all, we learned on the congressional
delegation, the Souder delegation, and our visit that
eradication of opium by the CNP with the new Blackhawks that we
gave them last year was stopped, stopped while the coca
eradication in the south took a priority. Yes, that coca
eradication is important, but so is the eradication of opium in
the north.
In calendar year 2000, the police eradicated a record 9,200
hectares of opium in Colombia, the key ingredient in the deadly
heroin that has been flooding our Nation.
This year we are told that they are going to do less than
one-third some 6,000 hectares of opium eradication. As a
result, more of our young people caught up in the current
heroin crisis here at home will die needlessly for a lack of an
effective U.S. heroin strategy directed at Colombia where 70
percent of our problem now originates.
As the FBI, the DEA, and the U.S. Customs told our House
Committee on International Relations 2 years ago, opium
eradication is the only real viable heroin strategy that truly
works. Regrettably, we predicted this mess in my November 14th
letter cosponsored by a number of my colleagues to General
McCaffrey. Copies are available for all. I called then for a
mid-course correction and clarity in our U.S. policy, and I do
so again today.
It is clear that the CNP antidrug unit should be doing the
police function and fighting drugs. As a Nation, we must also
consider and debate clear and unambiguous counterinsurgency aid
to the Colombian military to help preserve its democracy
without any distorted effort and confusion in our antidrug
policy, especially within our State Department, which has been
making unwise arm-chair military decisions as we observed
firsthand on our recent visit and after talking to the people
out on the front line.
We need today a high-level interagency task force to take
control of our American policy in Colombia, working with our
Colombian allies to preserve their democracy and at the same
time stopping this massive flow of drugs from Colombia into our
Nation.
I intend to take this up with Secretary Powell urging him
to clean house at Bogota and here in Washington as well, and in
INL in particular and our State Department.
We can and must make a mid-course correction before it is
much too late. Our national security, our families, our
children deserve nothing less. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. We are also joined this morning by subcommittee
member and distinguished immediate past chairman, Congressman
John Mica of Florida.
Do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Chairman Souder; and I am pleased to
remain on the panel under your chairing this new effort to get
our real war on drugs back in place in action.
I share the concern of members of the panel who have
expressed their outrage at Colombians who have been killed by
either the right or the left. I think it is more than 30,000 to
date in that country, which is such a beautiful country and a
great neighbor. However, I am just as concerned that last year
we surpassed 16,000 Americans who died as a direct result of
illegal narcotic overdoses in the United States.
So if we take the last 2 years, we have exceeded basically
what has taken place in Colombia's civil war for some three
decades on the streets of our communities, the silent war and
death going on. I am very concerned about what is happening in
our country.
If you look at the homicides in this country that are less
than the 16,000, probably half of those are also drug related.
And then if we take the figures given to us by the former drug
czar, Barry McCaffrey, he said if you extend that out and take
all the deaths related last year, it exceeded 50,000. And
nobody seems to give a wimp, particularly in the press. They
are more concerned about hurting the hair on the back of some
leftist narcoguerilla.
I, too, returned and learned some interesting things. I
learned that our Plan Colombia is still in shambles; that the
history of the former administration is an absolute disaster,
that they, in fact, displaced drug production, coca, in
particular, and now heroin and poppy from Bolivia and Peru to
Colombia first through their 1993 measures of stopping
information sharing.
How can you fight a war on drugs when you close it down,
which they did in 1993? Not sharing information with those who
could stop the production and trafficking of illegal narcotics.
How can you fight a war in 1995 when they decertified and
made a joke of our certification process without granting a
national interest waiver and blocking for a number of years any
real assistance to Colombia to stop the production, stop the
growth of narcoterrorism? So what we have inherited from this
administration is a disaster.
The last several years, Mr. Gilman; myself; Mr. Souder; the
Speaker of the House, former chairman of the subcommittee; we
attempted to get aid to Colombia; and it was blocked. And then
when they sent aid, they sent ammunition, we heard, that
wouldn't fire. We asked for helicopters to be sent there,
because in order to eradicate the drugs, you need helicopters
or some way to get to these areas where they are first
producing and dealing in the drugs.
We finally got six helicopters, Blackhawks, to the National
Colombian Police. We saw and we were told that three of them
are operational, one is being cannibalized for parts and two
were not operational.
Now, how can you get the police there? Even in Colombia,
the military are not law enforcement agents just like in the
United States, they only can do surveillance, surround, and
protect an area for defense purposes, and that is what they do
for the police. Now how in heavens name can you get the police
there when the main source of delivery is C-130's or
helicopters?
You heard here that one was shot down while we were there
with inadequate defense of systems, also inadequate spare
parts, inadequate maintenance, inadequate training, but how can
you get troops there to protect that local populous and the
police to do their law enforcement work when they have nine C-
130's and only one of them is operational?
A military man from the United States told me that one
national guard unit or possibly several on rotation could go
down and in a few months train these people, and we could also
supply spare parts which would be a unique approach to conduct
this.
So what we have had is the gang that can't shoot straight,
trying to put together a $1.3 billion package. We have seen
what works. We visited Bolivia. Bolivia pulled by hand the last
few thousand acres of coca. They did it the hard way.
We are spraying it. And I am pleased to report in the last
90 days we have sprayed 29,000 hectares, which, if we could
continue that program and get our equipment operational, with a
little bit of determination and not much money, we can get a
handle on coca and heroin production which are killing our kids
in unprecedented numbers.
We also learned that the Forward Operating Locations, which
were formerly out of Panama and which the administration failed
to negotiate a lease of that base, which could have cost us
several million dollars, a small amount to lease from Panama,
where we already had $10 billion in infrastructure, we are now
building it at a cost of $150 million runways to replace
Panama's forward surveillance operations in the drug war.
We found that that is still 2 years off; that we don't have
agreement by Netherlands to locate in the Antilles, and then we
found that we are building runways for planes that we don't
have, the AWACS which were diverted by the Clinton
administration aren't even available even when the runways will
be available.
So there are many questions raised about the execution of
the plan. It is my hope, and I join Mr. Gilman, if we don't
have this together, I will not support another penny, if we
don't have the proper leadership-executed plan.
It doesn't take that much money. In Bolivia, about $40
million, the plan that we worked on with President Banzer and
the Vice President and others, they eradicated coca. We do know
alternative development will work. And so far the U.N. has had
about the best program, and we gave $5 million for alternative
development in a contract so far out of a $1.3 billion program
to the U.N. Office of Drug Control Policy, which is much better
equipped than the United States and much more credible to deal
in alternative development programs.
We know the carrot and the stick does work. It has worked
in Bolivia. Peru used a different approach. They shot the
bastards down, and that worked. They caged the guerillas and
that worked, and they jailed others and suspended civil rights.
Well, that will work. I am not advocating that in each country.
Each country has its problem, and Colombia, in particular,
is a unique situation. But there is no reason in the world why
we can't stop illegal narcotics production. And, yes, the
liberals will say, oh, it is a treatment thing, and we can just
put our money in treatment. Well, I will tell you, if you take
that approach and not start a real war on drugs, you can use
the Baltimore example, which went from a few thousand heroin
addicts to 60,000.
One in eight in the city of Baltimore, because of a liberal
philosophy, tolerant philosophy, lack of law enforcement
philosophy, is now an addict. And, thank God, we held a hearing
there 1 year ago last month when the murders continued to hover
over 300 consistently and decline in population increase in
murders.
I am pleased to report with higher--with one of Mr.
Guliani's assistants that has fallen to about the 260 range
with the help and the efforts of this subcommittee. So tougher
enforcement, eradication, interdiction, and, yes, a balanced
approach with treatment will work.
It is a little bit lengthy statement, but as the former
chairman, I get a little slack. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
We are also joined by Congresswoman Davis of Virginia, a
new member of our subcommittee. We want to welcome you. Do you
have an opening statement as well?
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure to be here, and I look forward to serving on the
subcommittee.
I do have an opening statement, but for the sake of time, I
would ask that it be entered into the record.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jo Ann Davis follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Before proceeding, I would like to take care of
the procedural matter first.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative
days to submit written statements, including the opening
statements, questions for the hearing record; that any answers
to the written questions provided by the witnesses also be
included in the record.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits,
documents, and other materials referred to by Members and the
witnesses may be included in the hearing record; that all
Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
As an oversight committee, it is our standard practice to
ask all of our witnesses to testify under oath.
If the witnesses will now rise and raise your right hands,
I will administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that all the witnesses have
answered in the affirmative.
We will now recognize the witnesses for their opening
statements, and I would like to thank you again for being here
today.
You all are experienced witnesses. We have heard from each
of you in this subcommittee, as well as other subcommittees on
the Hill. But I will remind our audience that we ask our
witnesses to limit their opening statements to 5 minutes and
include any fuller statement they may wish to make in the
record.
Secretary Beers, do you have an opening statement?
STATEMENTS OF RAND BEERS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL
NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF STATE; DONNIE
MARSHALL, ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION;
ROBERT J. NEWBERRY, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND LOW INTENSITY CONFLICT,
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND GENERAL PETER PACE, USMC, COMMANDER-
IN-CHIEF, U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir. Thank you for taking my longer written
statement for the record. Thank you for the opportunity for all
of us to appear here today to talk about this enormously
important subject of the implementation of Plan Colombia.
As an overall judgment at this particular point in time
recognizing that we are still early in this process, I believe
that our efforts to date have been good, but that a great deal,
a great deal more needs to be done, and a great deal of
constant attention and effort both by Washington and by our
people in the field will be necessary to carry this through in
association with the people of Colombia, the forces of
Colombia, but also other peoples and forces within the larger
region.
Last week, we were informed of our annual estimate with
respect to Colombia, and I am disappointed to note that the
overall coca cultivation in Colombia went from 120,500 hectares
to 136,200 hectares. This represents an 11 percent increase
from the proceeding year, and any increase is bad.
I would add, however, this is the smallest increase that we
have seen in several years, that the increases that did occur
occurred mostly away from the areas of aerial eradication, and
it does not include any information related to operations which
began in Putumayo on December 18th.
We are looking forward in the year ahead for the full
effect of Plan Colombia to begin to help an overall effect on
drug cultivation, but we are only at the beginning of that
effort at this time.
I have a longer list within my written statement, but let
me just say with respect to the acquisition program that was
requested and is being implemented in Plan Colombia, all of the
aircraft that were to have been ordered have been ordered,
except for one; and I will speak to that in a moment and all of
the deliveries are, in fact, underway and have been briefed to
this and other committees, including the 1N helicopters which
are all in country, the Blackhawks which will arrive in July,
the spray aircraft which will begin to arrive in July, the
interceptors which will begin to arrive in July.
With respect to the Huey IIs, we have completed an
interagency review of the configuration for those Army
helicopters; and we are in the process of negotiating a
contract with U.S. Helicopter, even as we speak, in order to
establish an appropriate delivery schedule for those aircraft.
Having said that, I have to say that the issue of pilots
and crews for all of these aircraft continue to remain an issue
that we are working with the Colombians on and will continue,
and that these schedules are all going to require constant
attention and determination on the part of all of us to ensure
that we can continue this significant buildup within Colombia
in order to deal with these problems.
In the area of alternative development and judicial reform,
we have begun programs there, but we need to move faster. As
was alluded to earlier by some of the opening testimony, we did
begin Plan Colombia operations in Putumayo. We have sprayed
25,000 hectares there between December 18 and February 5, and
since then, another 10,000 hectares elsewhere in the country.
We have disrupted more than 70 labs, including 5 cocaine
hydrochloride labs; and we have 2,900 hectares of cultivation
under contract with communities to be eliminated in association
with alternative development.
Finally, I would add, that with respect to the regional
program, while $180 million was devoted to that effort in Plan
Colombia, most of which went to Bolivia, this administration,
the Bush administration, is intending to move forward with a
much broader Andean regional initiative. It will encompass, in
addition to Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecquador, Brazil,
Venezuela, and Panama.
We do not have a final number for that request level yet,
although the administration's guidance is that it will be
larger than $500 million for the region overall.
We expect to be prepared to brief that fully at the
beginning of April along with the rest of the administration's
budget.
Let me stop there and turn to my colleagues for their
statements. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beers follows:]
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Mr. Souder. In working this schedule for this morning, Mr.
Gilman switched his schedule around to be here; and he asked
me, because he has to leave, if he could ask Mr. Beers a few
questions which I am sure Mr. Beers is looking forward to.
These are the questions that we would like to have answered
on the Colombian National Police items.
Mr. Beers. One of my greatest pleasures is answering
Congressman Gilman's questions.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Beers and I have had some other dialog in the past.
Mr. Beers, 9 of the 10 Colombian Air Force C-130 transport
planes are not flying, and only one of the three CNP DC-3s
needed to move vital fuel and herbicide are flying, even before
the next round of helicopters will arrive that will require
more fuel.
They tell us this supply line problem is the Achilles heel
of Plan Colombia. And in your testimony, I regret to see that
there is no mention of providing transport planes.
Can you tell us, are there any plans to do that?
Mr. Beers. Sir, we have two C-27 aircraft in Colombia,
which belong to the air division of INL, which are flying in
support of the Colombian National Police principally within
Colombia.
In addition to that, I can assure you that we will work to
get those DC-3s up and running within Colombia. It has been a
constant source of irritation to you and to me as well. The
situation there is unacceptable, and we will work to deal with
that.
With respect to the C-130's----
Mr. Gilman. Let me just interrupt in a moment. Will that be
at an early date, Mr. Beers?
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gilman. How soon.
Mr. Beers. Except for one of them, which is a deadline for
major maintenance and corrosion control, which, unfortunately,
is going to take some time, but we will get the other one back
on-line.
With respect to the C-130's that are Colombian Air Force, I
will work with the Defense Department and U.S. Southern Command
to see what we can do about those. Those have not been part of
our regular program to date.
Mr. Gilman. Of those 10 planes, 9 are not flyable right
now. And with regard to the Blackhawks, to find that they are
cannibalizing new Blackhawks in order to provide spare parts is
incredible. They showed us the racks where spare parts are
supposed to be there. They were cleaned out completely.
What are your plans for providing the kind of spare parts
that are needed?
Mr. Beers. We will be signing a $29 million contract today
with the Colombian National Police which will go toward filling
these spares shortfalls. But I would add, sir, that your
information about three of the Blackhawks only being mission
capable was, unfortunately, incorrect. There were five that
were mission capable on the day that you were there, only one
of them was down, and it was down for 500-hour maintenance
requirement.
While it was down for the maintenance requirement, it is
true, that some of the parts for that plane were borrowed in
order to keep the other five aircraft mission capable. But on
that day, sir, on that day, five of those aircraft could have
been used in operations had the Colombian National Police
chosen to do so.
Since the beginning of this year, the operational readiness
rate averaged over all of the days has been 66 percent, and for
last year, the operational readiness rate for all of those
Blackhawk helicopters was 78 percent, which is not unusually
low. In fact, it is not considered to be a low rate.
Mr. Gilman. 66 percent certainly isn't a high rate.
Mr. Beers. I was talking about last year, sir. I'm sorry,
this year the 66 percent is lower than we would like it to be.
Mr. Gilman. What is the operational capability today of the
Blackhawks? How many are capable today, this very day?
Mr. Beers. I will get that for the record, sir. I can't
tell you what the flight line is.
Mr. Gilman. Will you provide that for the committee? I ask
that it be made a part of our record.
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Gilman. Is there going to be any additional supply
plane moneys for the CNP in the fiscal year 2002 budget?
Mr. Beers. Sir, we haven't finally determined the full
specific programmatic content of that budget, and I am not in a
position to say that at this particular point, sir.
Mr. Gilman. Are you going to make a recommendation?
Mr. Beers. I will look at that issue, and we will make a
determination.
Mr. Gilman. Not look at it. Are you going to make a
recommendation that this Achilles heel be corrected, that we
are going to provide supply planes by putting it in your
budget?
Mr. Beers. I said that I would make an effort to ensure
that there is adequate lift transport. If that requires buying
another aircraft, we will look at that option, yes, sir.
Mr. Gilman. I understand the C-27s that you referred to are
used by the Dyncorp Corp. and not by the CNP; is that correct?
Mr. Beers. No, sir, that is not correct. They are used by
Dyncorp to fly CNP assets.
Mr. Gilman. But they are devoted to Dyncorp and not to----
Mr. Beers. No, sir, they are devoted to the program overall
and that includes support for the CNP. They do not fly
resources for the Dyncorp for the air wing only. They fly
resources in support of Plan Colombia.
Mr. Gilman. But Dyncorp is the people who are flying them;
is that correct?
Mr. Beers. That is correct; yes, sir.
Mr. Gilman. Dyncorp is a contract agency; isn't that
correct?
Mr. Beers. It is a contract agency of the----
Mr. Gilman. It is not the counterdrug police, the
counterdrug police agency; isn't that correct?
Mr. Beers. Sir, we have one team; and we are conducting one
fight down there. And the distinction between our air wing and
the CNP is an unfair distinction. We are working together with
them.
We are supporting them. Not every asset that is in Colombia
belongs to the Colombian National Police, and some of those
assets do belong to the air wing, and they do fly in support of
the Colombian National Police.
Mr. Gilman. Are you saying we have a separate U.S. air wing
down there.
Mr. Beers. I am saying that we have for years had an
American air division within NRL which has supported
counternarcotics throughout the region, including in Colombia,
and they have flown aircraft in Colombia.
Mr. Gilman. Why are the counternarcotics police having
trouble getting the supplies to the bases and have to do it by
truck and by commercial airline when we have a separate air
fleet of our own?
Mr. Beers. Sir, we are supporting everybody. We are all
working together. And, yes, there is a deficiency of aircraft,
which I regret, and which we will work on. But I am saying it
is not just focused within the CNP and the effort is not just
from the CNP. This is an effort by the United States and the
Government of Colombia working together.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Beers, we found this to be a real problem
when we were down there. We were there right on the front line,
and we hope that you are going to correct this at the earliest
possible date.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman; thank you for allowing
me to intervene at this point. I have to get back to New York
very quickly. I changed my schedule in order to be here at this
important hearing, and we thank you for doing it.
I want to commend our DEA and commend DEA Director Donnie
Marshall for being with us throughout this CODEL that was led
by Mr. Souder. You added a great deal to it.
We want to thank Customs, too, who were present with us in
this CODEL.
I want to thank our military. General, our military has
been doing an outstanding job in the forward-operating
locations. However, I think the point raised by Mr. Mica with
regard to having prematurely left Panama and then going out to
try to get these forward-operating locations underway, we find
it has left a lot to be desired. It will be 2 or 3 years before
they will be fully operational. Some are partially operational.
They, too, don't have the equipment that is needed.
The cost of this will exceed, I understand, some $130
million before they are done, if not more; $132 million to
complete the construction and to provide the kind of effective
forward-operating activity that we had at Panama. I hope our
administration is going to reexamine the possibility of getting
back to Panama despite the fact that we are moving ahead with
some of these FOLs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. We will put any additional questions
you have into the record with Mr. Beers.
We will go and proceed now in regular order with Mr.
Marshall and your testimony.
Mr. Marshall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
having me. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and indeed the
entire committee for the support that you have given to DEA
over the years and, particularly, to the courageous men and
women of DEA.
I will make my comments brief. I do have a complete
statement that I would like to submit for the record.
I would like to start by pointing out that the
international trafficking organizations that are based in
Colombia do, I think, pose a substantial serious threat and a
challenge to the national security of the United States.
We have had some successes against the Medellin and Cali
cartels over the years and those successes have resulted in a
decentralization of the cocaine trade, and what we are seeing
in the world today is a second generation of cocaine
traffickers or, actually, a new type of cocaine trafficking
organization.
These organizations operate both through Mexico and through
the Caribbean, and they control the production and distribution
of cocaine and the flow of cocaine, but they no longer totally
control the distribution of drugs inside the United States as
Colombian traffickers once did.
The vast majority of the cocaine base and hydrochloride
destined for the United States is produced in laboratories in
southern Colombia, and over the last 5 years, unfortunately,
Colombia has become the major source of heroin in the United
States. Now, as the Colombian Government expands and sustains
their coke eradication operations, I would predict, I believe
that any initial spillover effect may be limited to Colombia,
moving back into the traditional growing areas of central
Colombia and perhaps new cultivation in northern Colombia.
Eventually though, if we sustain this, we could see coca
cultivation and processing driven into Ecuador and Venezuela,
perhaps Brazil, and perhaps back into Peru and Bolivia.
Now, DEA is trying to guard against that by developing and
promoting a regional strategy of intelligence gathering and
criminal investigations. We have been instrumental in
encouraging multilateral operations, operations across common
borders, and, in fact, we have an international drug
enforcement conference this year, April 3 to 5, in the
Dominican Republic, and the theme of the conference is
multiregional investigations and operations.
The next thing that I am concerned about in Colombia is the
connection between the FARC in Colombia and the drug trade. For
quite a few years now, there has been an association between
these leftist organizations and as well as right-wing
paramilitary groups and the drug trade. They charge a surtax
for protection and other services to the traffickers based in
Colombia.
The presence of those insurgents in the eastern lowlands
and southern rainforests, I think, really hinders the Colombia
Government's ability to conduct counterdrug operations in those
areas. The paramilitary groups right now don't appear to be
involved, as far as DEA sees, in any significant opium or coca
or marijuana cultivation, but one of those leaders of one of
the paramilitary groups has, in fact, stated in public that his
group receives payments similar to the taxes levied by the FARC
from coca growers in southern Colombia.
Now, the Colombian National Police continue to pursue some
very significant drug investigations in cooperation with DEA,
and, in fact, those CNP results have been nothing short of
remarkable over the last several years, and the actions of
their CNP officers have been nothing short of heroic.
We continue, DEA continues, to direct assets and resources
at the command and control structures of the major
international and Colombian drug trafficking organizations.
That is our job, and ultimately all DEA programs in Colombia
and, in fact, throughout the world ultimately focus on the
identification and immobilization of these criminal drug
organizations.
We support that a number of ways, through our sensitive
investigative units, the Andean Initiative, intelligence
collection programs, and those units work simultaneously not
only with the Colombians and regional law enforcement agencies,
but also with DEA domestic offices in coordinated multinational
transnational investigations.
The programs that are in effect and in place in Colombia
and throughout the region, I think, serve to complement Plan
Colombia. Although DEA didn't receive any direct appropriations
under Plan Colombia, we are about to receive $5 million in
order to increase the capabilities of Colombian law enforcement
agencies and the conduct of legal telephone communication
intercepts. That is very badly needed because thus far that
ability has been limited.
I am concerned about one more thing, and I will try to end
up very briefly here. I am concerned about extradition reform
in Colombia. There was an extradition reform act of December
1997 that was passed by the Colombia--it was an amendment to
the Colombian Constitution. That has resulted in the successful
extradition of 13 Colombian traffickers thus far. But a recent
Supreme Court decision in Colombia requires that Colombian law
enforcement authorities investigate subjects that we seek for
extradition. If their involvement in Colombia is such that they
could be indicted there, then a technicality or a double
jeopardy-type clause kicks in that may interfere with their
extradition to the United States.
That is so important to us because extradition is one of
the absolute most valuable tools that we have utilized against
the Colombian traffickers, and it is really the one element of
our program that is most feared by the Colombian traffickers
and, for that matter, traffickers throughout the world. So we
will continue to focus on our main objective of identifying,
immobilizing, indicting, prosecuting and hopefully imprisoning
the command and control leaders of these organizations.
The involvement of Colombian military and indeed other
elements of their government is necessary, it is laudable. At
the same time, we have to continue to very aggressively support
the civilian antidrug agencies such as the CNP in Colombia, as
well as other law enforcement agencies throughout this region,
because no one agency and no one country can win this fight
alone.
Once again, I thank you for the opportunity, and I will be
happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. We will insert your full statement
in the record and hopefully draw some of those out in the
questions as well.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marshall follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Newberry.
Mr. Newberry. Thank you for the opportunity to testify
before the committee on the status of our implementation in
Plan Colombia. I will just give a short, brief oral statement.
Thanks to the supplemental resources the Congress provided
us last year, both the Department of Defense and State
Department are providing Colombians with some of the best
equipment and training we have to offer. Of course, because
some of this equipment is being procured new, some of the
support is actually upgrading old systems, and some of the
support involves base infrastructure construction, it will take
probably a year or two before we complete the effort. But I
think the initial equipment and training that the Department of
State and DOD has provided the Colombians has quickly jump-
started the Colombians' tactical operations in the southern
part of Colombia, and I think you have seen the results. The
success is already apparent.
That said, there is a long way to go. The push in southern
Colombia is only a couple months new, and they have to maintain
their current OPSTEMPO. The momentum alone achieved by success
in southern Colombia is not automatically going to transfer to
the rest of Colombia. It is a difficult situation, and I am
sure they are going to need continued support from the United
States and other countries, the support to sustain the
equipment and the people we are already working with and
support to enhance their capabilities even further.
Last, I do want to reiterate one item regarding the
activities of the U.S. military people in Colombia. We
certainly have numerous policy and legal restrictions that
frame our limits for counterdrug support in Colombia. Suffice
to say the process is comprehensive, but every deployment order
says in no uncertain terms that DOD personnel are not to
accompany host nation personnel on operational missions. Our
people there are to train and not to advise.
Thank you very much. I will await your questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Newberry follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I want to thank General Pace again for being
here and for arranging the briefing we had at on our CODEL to
set out and lay out SOUTHCOM's framework of how we are working,
and also having representatives at each of the four landing
locations to explain how we are developing those airfields, and
our conversations we had in Ecuador as well as here in
Washington. I look forward to your statement.
General Pace. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank the
members of the committee and indeed the entire Congress for
your very strong bipartisan support of not only
counternarcotics, but also all the military does for you.
I, too, would like to ask you to accept my written
statement for the record.
As you know, sir, I have been in command of the U.S.
Southern Command for just over 5 months, and, during that time,
I visited 19 countries, to include each of the Andean Ridge
countries, several of those multiple times. In fact, this past
weekend I just completed my seventh visit to Colombia.
In each country that I visited, I have met with the key
leaders, and in each there has been a long discussion about
counternarcotics and the effects that the illicit drug trade
has had on their societies, and essentially in Colombia the
attack that this illicit industry represents on the foundations
of that democracy.
I am proud and I appreciate very much your comments and
those of Mr. Gilman about the U.S. military efforts in support
of our friends in Colombia right now. The Counternarcotics
Battalion and Brigade training is ongoing, as you know. The
Brigade headquarters and two of the three battalions have been
trained, and there are efforts ongoing in the field as we
speak. The third battalion is being trained, and that will be
completed this May.
The integration of these DOD-trained battalions with the
Department of State-provided helicopters and crews has done
exceptionally well, and we have seen very good coordination and
cooperation between the police and the military, especially in
the Putumayo. There is certainly more that can be done there,
but the initial efforts in cooperation with each other has been
very, very good.
Again, sir, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before
you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of General Pace follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Let me start with Mr. Beers.
In the comments from Mr. Newberry--and I wanted to make
clear for the record that Plan Colombia, some of the public
perception is that we have spent $1.3 billion, and what are the
results that are occurring in Plan Colombia? Approximately how
much of the dollars that were allocated are actually on the
ground at this point in Colombia?
Mr. Beers. Sir, in terms of actual on-the-ground dollars, I
will have to give you a specific answer to that for the record.
I don't have it.
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Mr. Beers. I would tell you as a general proposition that
most of the money with respect to Colombia at this particular
point in time is not yet in Colombia. The helicopters, which we
have provided in the form of the UH-1N helicopters, are in
Colombia and operating. That is Plan Colombia money. The
training and equipping that DOD and we have done is on the
ground in Colombia and operating, and there are beginnings in
other areas. But as Mr. Newberry quite correctly said, what we
have done is contract for and established delivery schedules
for the equipment which was appropriated for, and those will be
delivered in Colombia on the schedule that is in my statement,
and I can go into it in detail if you would like, sir.
Mr. Souder. We will have the statement in the record.
My primary concern is I want to make sure the record shows
that while this committee has had differences with the past
administration about how soon and how aggressive that effort
should have been, the full impact of Plan Colombia is not being
seen yet at this point, and that is to be measured over the
delivery period of the equipment and the training.
Another question in framing the Plan Colombia debate we are
about to have in Congress in this year's budget, you said that
the proposal coming to us will be in excess of $500 million. Is
that for Plan Colombia and the Andean region combined?
Mr. Beers. It is for Andean region initiatives which will
include seven countries, sir. It is Colombia and the other six,
yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. There has also been a misnomer that I have seen
in print and heard from other Members that we went from zero to
$1.3 billion and now have this sustaining effort. Roughly what
were we putting into the Andean region and Colombia pre-Plan
Colombia?
Mr. Beers. The INL contribution in that regard on an annual
basis was between $150 million and $200 million a year. I would
allow Mr. Newberry to talk about what the Defense Department
contribution was.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Newberry.
Mr. Newberry. Yes. The baseline was probably around $100
million, and the supplemental gave us specifically for
Colombia--from DOD perspective was about $250 million. So you
had a spike in fiscal year 2000 that carries out as we procure
and build the installations, and then we will probably go down
to our baseline, which will be approximately $100 million.
Mr. Beers. That is for Colombia only.
Mr. Newberry. For Colombia only. That is specific Colombia.
There are things that support Colombia that is not captured in
that. It doesn't capture aircraft support for detection and
monitoring. Those things are sort of broadly covered under a
different budget line. This is specific Colombia support.
Mr. Souder. I just want to make sure the record shows as we
evaluate that we didn't go from zero to $1.3 billion to
whatever number this year's number is. We, in fact, had a trend
line of investment that doesn't include the DEA investment
which is not directly part of Plan Colombia, but which has been
an increase in resources in the Andean region that has been
fairly steady. In other words, whether or not we have a Plan
Colombia, we are going to have a major investment there. This
is a ramping up to see if we can turn the corner and get ahead
of that.
I would also like to note that--as you had in your written
statement--that the 25,000 hectares, which is not necessarily
what--that is not the final--in other words, you are going to
give a report only what actually was shown on the ground as to
actually and permanently eradicated, or semipermanently. That
is roughly about 2.5 acres per hectare for people to
understand, 62,000.
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. That, given the new projection of 136,000, it
is still roughly 20 percent of the entire acreage under
cultivation in Colombia. I would like you to provide for the
record an explanation of why you concentrated all the resources
in December on the coca, and what that window of opportunity
was. What would a typical month in eradication be as opposed to
the 25,000 that were sprayed?
Mr. Beers. Typically in a given month prior to this, which
is a 45-day period, sir, prior to that, a good month, a high-
quality month, of eradication of coca has been on the order of
12,000, 10,000 to 12,000 hectares a month. We sustained an
effort that was double our best month.
Mr. Souder. And was that partly because you had the
military units on the ground?
Mr. Beers. That was because we massed for the first time
ever all of our spray aircraft, and because we had a joint
police-military operation which reduced the amount of problems
with respect to security. Even then, sir, we still had some bad
weather days. We did not fly every day during that period. In
one case we went a week within that 45-day period without
flying.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you. Let me get right into a line of
questioning that the chairman started out.
OK. The eradication, Mr. Beers, of coca, has been, you
said, 25,000 and 10,000, so we are up to 35,000 hectares. What
is the total coca?
Mr. Beers. The current estimate for the end of calendar
year 2000 is 136,200 hectares.
Mr. Mica. So in 4 or 5 months we have eliminated what, 20
percent?
Mr. Beers. In 45 days.
Mr. Mica. What cost was that?
Mr. Beers. You mean the dollar cost?
Mr. Mica. Just a ballpark. A couple million, $5 million,
$10 million?
Mr. Beers. No, sir. It was on the order of, and I am not
costing the cost of the aircraft, only O&M dollars, only the
basis of that, on the order of about $5 million, sir.
Mr. Mica. $5 million can get rid of 20 percent. I can't for
the life of me not believe we can't get a few more bucks in. I
know we are getting the stuff first that is easiest to get; is
that correct?
Mr. Beers. We are hitting the most concentrated area. But,
please, sir, before you go on with that line of analysis, I was
very careful to say I didn't give you any figures associated
with the infrastructure and the aircraft and the people who are
required to be there in order to use the gasoline and spare
parts in order to effect this effort. We bought small planes,
we bought helicopters.
Mr. Mica. It is a very small part of $1.3 billion. The $1.3
billion, of course, half of it goes to the military,
approximately, or less than half, $516 million; the National
Police, $115 million; $228 million for economic development. I
get into a question on that. My point is a little bit of money
can eradicate a lot of potential drugs.
Mr. Beers. If everything is in place.
Mr. Mica. OK. The other thing, too, is we are concerned a
little bit about poppy eradication. What is the schedule and
what is the record on poppy eradication, which, of course,
produces heroin? Has one been done at the expense of the other?
Mr. Beers. If you want to follow that line of analysis, you
can, sir. What we have chosen to do last year was to work with
the CNP, and they sprayed about 9,000 hectares of opium poppy.
Mr. Mica. Out of a total of how many that exists of poppy?
Mr. Beers. Sir, there are 2,500 hectares of opium poppy
estimated to be in Colombia.
Mr. Mica. It is possible to concentrate, and we will have a
program that eradicates both; is that correct?
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir. But what we have done is focus our
forces in one place----
Mr. Mica. Can we get rid of half of it in the next year?
Mr. Beers. Of the opium poppy, sir?
Mr. Mica. Both, with the spray schedule and others?
Mr. Beers. If things are fortunate and we are able to
contain additional growth, that is a possible objective. But if
I could go back to the poppy for just a moment, sir, the
discrepancy between the number of hectares we sprayed, which is
well in excess of the number of hectares that exist, is because
opium poppy grows in 90 days and you have to go back and spray
it again and again and again in order to convince the campesino
not to continue to grow it, because it is such an easy crop to
grow.
Mr. Mica. That is important. The most successful pattern
that we could follow would be Bolivia. They pulled it out by
hand, as I said, the hard way, but they also were replacing it
with alternative development.
Mr. Beers. Right. And we have a program for that.
Mr. Mica. I met with the head of U.N. Office of Drug
Control Policy, and I asked him how much work on alternative
development had been contracted to them, because they have
probably the best record in the world, and also more credible
than the gringos or the United States going in and doing this
or other folks. They said they got a $5 million contract.
What are we doing as far as alternative development and
contracting that out or getting it done, because it has to be
done in sync, right?
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir, that is the way that it works the
best. We have had in association with the Government of
Colombia a 3-year, $15 million program of alternative
development with respect to opium----
Mr. Mica. 3-year, $15 million program.
Mr. Beers. Sir, with respect to opium poppy only. We are
now going into the third year.
Mr. Mica. What about the coca?
Mr. Beers. We began this year with the funds that were made
available from Plan Colombia.
Mr. Mica. Out of $228 million, there is what, about $90
million available?
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir, for programs related to that, and
there are Colombian Government programs.
Mr. Mica. How quickly can we get that in, because, again,
we are concerned about the peasants who are growing this stuff
and that they have some alternative, and we found that if we
eradicate it, they will go back to it if there is not some
alternative. So it would have to work in sync.
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. What would be your schedule on getting the $90
million?
Mr. Beers. Our schedule with respect to the overall program
is to work community by community to develop projects in
which--and this is United States and Colombian Government
working together, not United States only. These are Colombian
officials executing these projects to work community by
community to establish projects for up to 30,000 hectares over
a 2-year period. We have now--thus far the Colombian Government
has now thus far established projects to cover about 3,000
hectares and 1,400 families. We hope by the beginning of April
to have that total up to nearly 7,000 hectares.
Mr. Mica. If you could give the subcommittee a schedule of
what you intend to do and how we intend to disburse that,
because by the end of September, that money is programmed
through that time, and that is 10 percent of what we are
eradicating, if we are doing----
Mr. Beers. Sir, we are not intending to do alternative
development with all of the coca in Colombia.
Mr. Mica. Heroin also?
Mr. Beers. No, no. We have categorized it into two
different threats. There is industrial coca and small plot-
holder coca. We are only going to do the alternative
development with the small plot-holder coca. We are not going
to pay large agriculture industrial enterprises that are
narcotraffickers to go into some sort of other business. They
are criminals. We are going to deal with them that way.
Mr. Mica. Absolutely. We have a good model. We have had
someone who has conducted this. I strongly support the U.N.
Efforts. That is coming from a pretty conservative Republican
over, let's see, this is my right side, OK. But I have seen
what they have done, and they have the credibility. So I think
we could get some of that money out there, get somebody to do
it, and give them an alternative as soon as possible.
What kind of herbicide are you spraying?
Mr. Beers. We are currently using a herbicide called
glyphosate, sir.
Mr. Mica. I had reports when I was down there that the drug
dealers are using glyphosate to kill the weeds around the coca
and the poppy plants.
Mr. Beers. It is an herbicide.
Mr. Mica. It is pretty dangerous stuff, isn't it?
Mr. Beers. No, sir.
Mr. Mica. It is killing the peasants.
Mr. Beers. No, it is not, sir. We don't have any evidence
to indicate it is killing peasants, sir. We tested it in the
United States.
Mr. Mica. They have severe health problems. We had the
other Members on the other side who are down there hugging the
guerrillas and the peasants saying that we are spraying them
with toxic material.
Mr. Beers. Sir, with all due respect to the reports that
have come out----
Mr. Mica. Has this stuff been tested?
Mr. Beers. This has been tested and approved for use within
the United States.
Mr. Mica. Actually people are using it in their backyards
to eradicate weeds?
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. You are telling me it won't hurt the hair or harm
the skin of any little guerrilla?
Mr. Beers. Sir, if you were to drink a concentrated
substance of this, it would hurt you. We spray this in such a
density that there is about a milliliter of this substance
which lands on a square meter of ground. That is the way it is
dispersed.
Mr. Mica. The New York Times had a picture of a spray plane
spraying peasants. Is this your effort to go after these little
folks? We heard also testimony or an opening statement today
that you are wiping out the livelihood of little peasants. Is
that how you targeted this to start out?
Mr. Beers. No, sir. We target--we go in in advance, we look
where we are going to spray, and only then we come back and
spray. We monitor what we have done after we have sprayed to
make sure that we are hitting what we are trying to. If there
is cultivation of legal crops within coca fields, we do not not
spray that because it is a coca-producing field. If they are
choosing to try to deceive us by putting legal crops within an
illegal field, it is an illegal field. If they put their crops
separately from the illegal field, we don't spray them.
Mr. Mica. You heard great concern about getting parts,
spare parts, down there. You said today you are going to sign
an agreement with the police. I know this will work, I mean, if
we can get this all together, and I appreciate what you have
done, Mr. Beers. Sometimes there has been different signals
from different folks about putting this all together, but it
can work, and I know you have a lot of responsibility, and it
is a huge project.
So we are not here to beat you up, although that is fun
sometimes. We do want it to work, and we really--if you see
something that is missing in this, we have gone down and we are
giving you our observations, and there is no question again
with a little bit of money and getting this together that we
can eradicate a lot of the supply.
Mr. Beers. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Mica, let me take a turn, and I will get
back to you.
Mr. Mica. I haven't gotten to Pace. I will get Pace in the
next round. Get some of that military to block the door there.
Mr. Souder. I also want to move to Mr. Marshall next in the
questioning. Could you elaborate on what you think the heroin
problem is becoming in this country? Do you see that as a
declining or growing problem in relation to cocaine?
Mr. Marshall. I think it is a growing problem, Mr.
Chairman, and we are quite concerned about that because we have
seen that we are sort of a victim of our own success. We had a
lot of success over the years until wiping out the Southeast
Asian market or suppliers to the U.S. market, and to a certain
degree the Southwest Asia suppliers. What we saw then
unfortunately was that the Colombian traffickers saw that
opportunity, and they took advantage of it to move into the
U.S. market.
What they did was they aggressively marketed this product,
which is a pattern that we see with the Colombia-based and
Mexican-based traffickers. They did such things as offering low
prices and high purities in particularly East Coast markets. We
had a lot of reports early on that they did such things as
giving away free samples, they did such things as selling a few
kilos of heroin with a shipment of cocaine as a condition of
selling that cocaine. Their goal was to create a market for
heroin.
So with all of those elements coming together, they did
manage to successfully introduce it into the United States. The
reason I think the market is growing is because they have
managed to market this brand of heroin, this more potent
product, to a new type of user in the United States. It used to
be that heroin was associated with junkies, with needles, with
very just grungy, unsanitary conditions, and a lot of people,
middle-class, middle-income, younger people, college students,
didn't want any part of it because of the needle aspect of it
and the filth associated with it.
Well, because of the purity of Colombian heroin, this
product could be inhaled or snorted in a similar fashion as
people use cocaine. So you had naive people thinking that
because it was used that way, it would not become addictive. So
college people, professionals, people that never ordinarily
would have touched it started using it. They quickly found that
it was just as addictive, and they quickly--we quickly saw that
they moved to the needle and really became traditional junkies
in a large sense.
We saw that particularly in Operation White Horse, where we
worked very closely with the Colombian National Police and
authorities in New York, Philadelphia, Delaware, and we took
out an entire Colombia trafficking organization, heroin
trafficking organization that was marketing that product to
essentially weak and vulnerable people in those areas.
So it is growing in regard to coke. I apologize for making
that answer so lengthy, but I think it is important that we
understand the situation.
Mr. Souder. In the United States, would you say that--what
percentage of the heroin in the United States would you say is
coming from Colombia?
Mr. Marshall. I think our estimate right now is 65-70
percent from Colombia, of the U.S. market.
Mr. Souder. And what was that--you said Asian heroin is
declining. Has that shift occurred in the last year to 2?
Mr. Marshall. It has occurred in the last 5 to 6 years, I
would say. We managed to wipe Southeast Asia heroin largely out
of the market in the early mid-nineties as a result of working
with the Thai authorities, and again extradition was involved
in an operation--the name of it escapes me right now, but we
got a lot of the Southeast Asia heroin kingpins that we
extradited back here. At the same time, the Thai authorities
did a magnificent job over there and basically we hit them when
they were vulnerable and the Colombians stepped in. That is
really in the last 5 or so years. That operation was Tiger Trap
that we did in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Souder. When we first started this debate most heavily
in 1995 after the Republicans took over Congress and started
focusing on cocaine, we, generally speaking, were focusing on
the cocaine problem. You are telling us over that period of
time when we have been focusing on the cocaine problem in
Colombia, we have seen the traffic move from Asia in the mid-
nineties to Colombian heroin, and, second, are you seeing a
rise in domestic use of heroin simultaneously?
Mr. Marshall. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Souder. Is there a particular reason why heroin would
be grown in Colombia and not in other countries--or poppy, I
should say?
Mr. Marshall. Well, I am not an agricultural expert and I
am not sure what specific conditions you have to have to grow
the opium poppy. It is grown in many parts of the world. It is
grown in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Burma, Mexico, Colombia.
I would just assume that the temperatures and the growing
season and the soil conditions are right in Colombia.
If you would like, I will do a little research on what kind
of soil conditions and that sort of stuff. But certainly the
conditions in Colombia lend themselves to growing the opium
poppy.
Mr. Beers. And we are beginning to see indications in Peru
as well.
Mr. Souder. We heard in Ecuador they have some concerns,
although not much evidence. Have you heard anything in Ecuador?
Mr. Beers. I think the point that Donnie is making is
absolutely correct. This is not a particularly geographic-
specific crop. It can be grown essentially everywhere, and it
is an issue where the traffickers want to organize themselves
to market it.
Mr. Souder. Is it true it is best at 8,000 feet?
Mr. Beers. It grows at lower altitudes as well, but that is
what happens to be convenient in Colombia, and they are also at
high altitude--the indications in Peru are also it is high
altitude there. It would appear in part to be because that is
more isolated, more difficult for government presence to effect
law enforcement actions against it or for any government
programs, for that matter, to be made available.
Mr. Souder. Also I wanted to ask Mr. Marshall, in Colombia
do you feel that, particularly as the--kind of the pressures
increase, both in cocaine and heroin, that you have sufficient
resources in DEA in Colombia?
Mr. Marshall. Well, certainly if you ask me if I need more
resources in Colombia or anywhere else, I would have to say
that, yes, I do need more resources. We did in fact work and
put in several requests for resources within Plan Colombia.
Unfortunately, we did not receive any of those. We are about to
receive $5 million or so for wire intercept program within our
regular budget. We had requested, I believe, something on the
order of seven new agent positions and three support positions
for Colombia in the--we requested it for several years, but
most recently in the 2002 budget, I believe, and have not
received that thus far.
But, yes, I would like to have not massive amounts of new
resources, but modest amounts of new resources.
Mr. Souder. Aren't most of the major operations we do
dependent on intelligence?
Mr. Marshall. Yes.
Mr. Souder. Because when we are looking in the Caribbean
Sea or the Pacific region, how else would we identify which
airplanes are prospects?
Mr. Marshall. Well, we identify--I mean various
intelligence information comes to us in various ways. I mean,
we have human sources, we have undercover sources, we have
domestic investigations that feed into the whole picture, we
have State and local law enforcement agencies that feed into
it, and we have our aspect where we attack the communications.
Frankly, when we combine them all, our ability to attack the
communications is really, I think, our most beneficial, our
most useful, our most productive element at the moment.
There is so much cocaine being shipped into the United
States, when you look at the amount of sea that the Coast Guard
has to cover, you look at the amount of traffic coming over the
Mexican border, you look at the amount of containers in the
port of Miami or Los Angeles, you have to have intelligence
information to really impact that.
Mr. Souder. When we look at the map of Colombia and see in
green, the biggest coca regions in the DMZ is in between those
two regions. Do you have concerns based on your information
that might be solidifying their operations, or they are using
that as a base to in effect hide out?
Mr. Marshall. Well, yes, that is certainly our concern. I
have to confess that since we can't get in that area, we don't
know totally what is going on. That is a concern of the
National Police, our counterparts, as well.
I don't think we have any real hard numbers or evidence to
know what is going on in there. But I think it is reasonable to
assume that since you have cultivations on the other side, that
there is probably at least some of that going on inside the
zone as well.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are a number of
months into Plan Colombia and it is difficult sometimes from
the time Congress appropriates until the time things are
brought on line. I would like, Mr. Beers, if you could provide
the subcommittee and, General Pace, if you could provide the
subcommittee, with any recommendations for altering any of the
funds that we have appropriated to date. It got to be a feeding
frenzy sort of at the end, and whoever was the biggest gorilla
on the block got the most money. We have also got quite a bit
of money into nation building.
Maybe you could give us a candid assessment of what is
doable, expendable, and where our gaps may be. I would like
that to come to the subcommittee within the next 2 weeks in
case we need to go back to the appropriators or somebody and
shift this around or look at where our gaps may be coming up.
Mr. Chairman, would that be acceptable?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Mica. General Pace, we have one trained operational
unit to date. Is the second one now completely trained?
General Pace. Sir, there are a brigade headquarters and
three battalions. The brigade headquarters and two of the three
battalions are trained and operational in the field now.
Mr. Mica. Trained and operational?
General Pace. Yes. The third will be done the last week in
May, sir.
Mr. Mica. You have all of the equipment and resources ready
to move?
General Pace. Sir, it is either on the ground or en route.
Mr. Mica. Can you provide the committee with a schedule,
again in writing, of what the date is for the third unit, what
is missing from being on the ground or en route, as you said?
Could you do that?
General Pace. Certainly, sir. The date is around May 25th,
sir. It may be 1 day on either side.
Mr. Mica. You heard Mr. Gilman and myself express our
frustration about--of course, we have the police with
helicopters that are not flying or cannibalized for some
reason, and I think that is all because today they are going to
sign the agreement. Now, with the military, we were told, I
believe, there is 1 out of 10, or 1 out of 9 C-130's that can
transport troops and equipment. Is that the Air Force?
General Pace. Sir, that is the Colombian Air Force; yes,
sir.
Mr. Mica. Why in heaven's name can't we do something to get
those planes flying?
General Pace. Sir, we certainly can.
Mr. Mica. I was told by one of your colleagues down there,
a couple of National Guard units could come down or some
technical people, or actually if we don't even want them there
we could take folks out and train them someplace else to get
that equipment going, maintained; but you can't have a Plan
Colombia, you can't have any plan if we can't get it
operational and get the troops and the equipment back up where
it needs to go. Can you report to us in some way, some fashion,
what you need to get that lift capability in place?
General Pace. Sir, I can certainly report to you.
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Mr. Mica. The same thing with the helicopters. The Hueys, I
guess, are doing the same thing. Can you do that, General? Some
plan. My God, you guys, I know you can do it, and any time we
assign the military and give them an order, they do it. They
don't whine, they get it done. So I am looking from you what it
is going to take to get that done, again because the police are
doing the law enforcement function. But we can't have the
police function without the military providing the protection
and also getting equipment and resources there, right?
General Pace. Sir, it is not yet part of my mission, as you
know, to do the Colombian Air Force or the Colombian
helicopters. My mission is to train----
Mr. Mica. Who do you need permission from to get that? You
are just training the troops and we have no way to get them
there?
General Pace. Sir, I am training the troops.
Mr. Mica. Who is in charge of the whole thing? Who makes
the decision?
General Pace. Sir, that is a policy decision.
Mr. Mica. Who? Tell me who. Come on. Who would pick up
the--if someone picked up the phone and called you and said do
it, who would do it? I mean, I am only 1 of 435. Turn that
thing off, it bothers me.
General Pace. Sir, I understand. I am not sure which one of
your questions to answer first. I will try the last one.
Mr. Mica. Do you need the Secretary of Defense?
General Pace. I get my missions from the Secretary of
Defense, yes, sir; and yes, we can in fact determine on the C-
130's----
Mr. Mica. We need a letter from the subcommittee to the
Secretary of Defense. The whole thing won't work if we can't
get the resources to where they need to go. It is that simple.
This isn't rocket science. If you were going to fight a war and
the strategy was only to treat the wounded, what would happen?
General Pace. I don't understand the context of the
question, sir.
Mr. Mica. If you were going to fight a war and you were
given orders, only treat the wounded, that is your only
mission, what would happen?
General Pace. Sir, I presume we would lose the war. But I
still don't understand the context of the question.
Mr. Mica. Well, you have answered it. Do you have any say
or can you get the National Guard involved in any training
missions?
General Pace. Sir, the National Guard can be involved in
these training missions if those assets are provided to me by
the Secretary of Defense. They don't need, in my opinion, they
don't need assistance in the Colombian Air Force on how to
maintain airframes. What they need is assistance with getting
the parts that they do not have to maintain their Air Force. So
it is a dollar-and-cents issue, not a training issue.
Mr. Mica. You are better at this. We were down there for a
couple of days. You have seen it and your folks have seen it.
If you can get to us in the next 2 weeks just a list of what it
would take, and then we will go to whoever provides that.
One of the things that concerns me, we visited JTF Bravo in
Honduras, and they told us that they only had permission for 9
or 10 days for narcotics--anti-narcotics effort, and that order
came from SOUTHCOM.
General Pace. Sir----
Mr. Mica. They are there building hospitals and bridges and
doing good works and drilling wells and they are doing training
and other things, but they said that they are limited to 9 or
10 days, I forget what it was, but a very small number of days
by SOUTHCOM.
General Pace. Sir, I am SOUTHCOM, so they get their orders
from me.
Mr. Mica. Why is there a limit?
General Pace. They have a limit on the number of hours they
can fly per month, sir. The helicopters you saw at Soto Cano
Air Base in Honduras fly more hours per month than any
helicopters in the U.S. Army inventory.
Mr. Mica. Right. We were told that. Why can't they do more
anti-narcotics work?
General Pace. Sir, they certainly can. We have an exercise
called Central Skies.
Mr. Mica. I love helping people, but, my God, there are
people dying in our streets. What did we have nine----
General Pace. Sir, we have 18 helicopters there; 10 are
Blackhawks that are troop carriers, four are Blackhawk Medivac,
four are CH-47 heavy lift helicopters. Central Sky, sir, is the
exercise that in fact is the exercise that we use to conduct
lift of host nation police and military to eradicate primarily
marijuana, but now assisting them in being set up to interdict
cocaine shipments.
Mr. Mica. And hopefully heroin, too.
General Pace. Hopefully, sir.
Mr. Mica. But can you relook at that? Because it seemed
like we have--I mean, we landed there, and, my God, we had
helicopters all over the place and resources. We said oh, this
is great. We said how much of this is being devoted toward
anti-narcotics efforts. Well, about 10 days. And who made that
decision? SOUTHCOM.
General Pace. If I may, sir, there is much more to my
responsibilities than counter-narcotics. I certainly will take
a look at that. I have the rest of engagements for all of
Central America that I have to do with those helicopters.
Mr. Mica. Again, we are facing a national crisis. How many
wars do you know where we lost 16,000 Americans in a year on
our soil? If they were lobbing bombs at us, you guys would sure
as heck be down there responding.
OK, FOLs. We don't have--we have a signed agreement with
Aruba and Curacao, but we don't have the other Netherlands
approval. Is that doubtful, Mr. Beers, or what do you think?
Mr. Beers. Sir, I don't think it was doubtful. I thought
that was signed as well. I will have to get back to you.
Mr. Mica. No, the Netherlands has not approved it, so we
can't start any construction.
Mr. Souder. Their legislature hasn't approved it yet.
Mr. Mica. The Netherlands Parliament, the local
authorities, and I guess they are sovereign, but there is the
connection to the mother country, but the Netherlands
Parliament has not approved it, and I have been over twice and
we have talked to them, and I was surprised when I got there
that it still is in dispute. So we aren't going to put $40
million in one location and $10 million in another location
until we have some contract signed, correct?
Mr. Beers. You have to ask Mr. Newberry and General Pace
about that, actually.
General Pace. Sir, we will not expend the money that has
been allocated to upgrade Aruba and Curacao until the
government in the Netherlands verifies the treaty.
Mr. Mica. Curacao, you have to refresh me, is that being
designed to also take AWACS?
General Pace. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. Then we visited Manta, and I am told that Manta
is going to be closed down for 6 months.
General Pace. Correct, sir.
Mr. Mica. Of course, with that closed down we do have a
alternate plan to take up the slack; is that correct?
General Pace. That is true, sir. Between Curacao itself and
Compala at El Salvador, although the legs are longer, therefore
you have less time for the airframe in the target area, you can
in fact fly from El Salvador, you can fly from Curacao, to get
to the area.
Mr. Mica. But we have a plan when we close that to
reinforce the runway in place to take up for the slack.
General Pace. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Mica. I am also concerned we will have plenty of these
locations for AWACS. In fact, I was told in Honduras you could
land AWACS on that runway. I think they told me it would take
the Space Shuttle, it is so big. But then I was told we don't
have the AWACS to support the mission. What is the plan there?
General Pace. Sir, like any commander, if you ask me do I
have enough assets, the answer is no, I do not. However, I feel
that----
Mr. Mica. Are we building runways at a cost of $150 million
or improving them for planes that we don't have?
General Pace. No.
Mr. Mica. But you don't have them now?
General Pace. I have one now, sir, that I have on a
recurring routine basis, and I am competing with my fellow
CINCs who have other U.S. responsibilities; and we put our
requirements on the table, sometimes I get the assets, and
sometimes someone else with a higher priority gets the assets.
Mr. Mica. Do you have a request in for an additional AWACS?
General Pace. Sir, we do. We have a standing request in
with the Joint Staff that when the asset is available, I can
utilize two AWACS full-time.
Mr. Mica. You don't have to give us publicly, but can you
give the subcommittee a history in the last year, up to date,
if possible, the use of AWACS in that arena?
General Pace. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. One last question. I got a report that the Air
Force has taken down the aerostats on the Gulf Coast of
Florida. Mr. Newberry, do you know about that?
Mr. Newberry. Yes, sir, I am aware of that.
Mr. Mica. What is happening?
Mr. Newberry. Well, they are not down yet. They are still
there. As you recall, Congress asked us to put together a
report with Customs on the aerostat issue.
Mr. Mica. About transferring them over.
Mr. Newberry. Transferring them over. In that report also
their effectiveness, their use, which will also address the
Gulf State aerostats.
Mr. Mica. Where are you?
Mr. Newberry. We are still working the report with Customs.
Mr. Mica. They are not down?
Mr. Newberry. They are down for different reasons. They are
not being closed down at this moment. But, that said, the
Department of Defense has also a certain amount of funds and
certain priorities and certain missions----
Mr. Mica. And this isn't a priority. Who makes that
decision? Who would say whether they go up or down? Give me a
name.
Mr. Newberry. Well, I will give you my name, sir. Bob
Newberry. Use my name.
Mr. Mica. Well, there is great concern. I mean, we have
over-the-horizon radar that takes in certain things. We have
limited surveillance operations going on out there. We know the
drug traffickers come in at low altitudes and are not detected
by some of these gaps.
Mr. Newberry. That is one of the areas we are looking at.
In fact, our assessment shows the Gulf Coast routing never has
been a problem, it is not a problem, and is probably the least
priority of our problems for transiting drugs into the United
States.
Mr. Mica. Could it be because we had them there?
Mr. Newberry. No, actually they have not been there that
long. They are probably the last ones that were built. We had a
lot of pressure from obviously the southeast States and a lot
of unsubstantiated reports about aircraft trafficking in that
area. But as of this date, that probably is not an air
trafficking route into the United States.
Mr. Mica. OK. We want to see where they can be best
utilized if they are going to be taken down or transferred.
Maybe we could get them all to Customs, work together, and then
utilize them. We do know they are a deterrent, we do know they
are a great detection source. We do know that drug dealers come
in under radar and they have the capability to detect some of
that. So can you give a little report to the chairman of the
subcommittee and let us know, before anything comes down, or
what you are going to do with them?
Mr. Newberry. Sir, the report--we owe you an official
report to Congress due in May, and nothing will come down
before that report reaches the Congress.
Mr. Mica. OK. Staff is screaming behind me that they are
already down.
Mr. Newberry. Sir, there are aerostats down all the time
for different reasons. Hurricanes blow them down, they fall
down.
Mr. Mica. Give me a little record. There are no hurricanes
in this month. I come from Florida. Can you please give us a
record of when they have been up and down and what they are
doing with them? Before May.
Mr. Newberry. The current status of the aerostats.
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Mr. Mica. Finally, Mr. Chairman, if you will indulge me, I
asked General Wilhelm about the status of the Riverine Project,
because we know when we get them in the air they go to the
river or to other areas. And this was a hearing, House of
Representatives, March 12, 1998. He promised to give me a
quarterly report on what is happening there. The Department of
Defense, I believe, has been derelict in that. General Pace,
you have taken over. Can you give us an update on the Riverine
status, where we are? We had some trouble getting, again, the
equipment there and getting it operational?
General Pace. In Colombia, sir?
Mr. Mica. Sir.
General Pace. Sir, I will take that for the record to give
you an accurate answer.
Mr. Mica. I think we are OK in Peru, but if you could give
us an update as far as anything we are involved in Riverine
equipment there.
The final thing, Mr. Beers, 2 years ago we appropriated
$300 million for this effort.
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir, $232.
Mr. Mica. Right. Is all of that expended?
Mr. Beers. I will have to get you that report for the----
Mr. Mica. Can you get us that report?
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir.
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Mr. Mica. Then prior to that we have been asking for
surplus equipment. What number is that? 506 drawdown. Has all
of that been delivered?
Mr. Beers. I will get you that for the record. We do report
that on a regular basis with the Department of Defense and we
will get you the most updated report on that, sir.
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Mr. Mica. Mr. Chairman, the defense rests.
Mr. Souder. I have some additional questions, and then we
will wind up.
First, I would like to ask Mr. Beers on the GAU-19
ammunition question which we ran into again in Colombia, that
there is no question that some of the guns are jamming and they
believe it is because of the ammunition. We heard that Crane
had given some evaluation that the ammunition that was sent,
the 50-year-old ammunition, would be workable. Is that where
you received the information that the ammunition for the GAU-
19s would be workable?
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir, we did receive that information from
Crane, and that ammunition is currently being used by the Air
Force, the Colombian Air Force. They have fired, I think, maybe
1 million rounds already of that ammunition. It works if you
turn the select or switch to 1,000 rounds per minute instead of
2,000 rounds per minute.
But I would also like to correct, at least from our
understanding, none of the GAU-19s that the Colombian National
Police used were down because of this ammunition. They only
fired it once and that was a test firing. There have been some
instances in which the GAU-19s are not operating, but it is not
related to the ammunition.
Because of that original General Dynamics indication that
older ammunition shouldn't be used, they have not used it. But
the Air Force is perfectly prepared to use it for their own
mini-guns and use it successfully.
Mr. Souder. For the record, I would like some sort of copy
of whatever document or information you received from Crane
that provided that analysis, and also whether or not any
American units used that type of ammunition with that gun.
Mr. Beers. All right, sir, we will get that for you. Thank
you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. On the training question, as you
heard from Congressman Mica, and you have heard from me in
different forums, there is a concern about the training
process. You heard from Congresswoman Schakowsky, too, about
the contracting out. It was still unclear to me from the
discussion here that prior to the troops going on--in other
words, SOUTHCOM was providing training for the military units.
Once they are trained, is there any followup training and is
anybody working with those units in dealing with problems?
General Pace. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
We have had refresher training with the first two
battalions that were trained, and it would be a normal part of
a sustainment to send back teams of about 8, 10, 12 individuals
who assist to make sure that the trainers who we--have been
trained are still executing properly.
So although I don't have that planned beyond these three
battalions into the following year, because that still is a
resource allocation decision to be made by the current
administration, that would be a reasonable thing to continue to
do.
Mr. Souder. One of the concerns that popped up in a number
of the testimonies is whether or not there is helicopter pilot
training; and the helicopter pilots are the largest group
contracted out, is that correct?
General Pace. Yes, sir.
Mr. Beers. With respect to the military helicopters, the
UH-1N program has been funded and supported by the INL budget
line. And we have used the INL air wing as the support entity
that does that, and they do use Dyncorp, and some
subcontractors actually implement that program in the field.
We chose that route--that is, we, the U.S. Government chose
that route, at a time in the fall of 1999, when it was a
question as to who had the funds and who could move the
quickest with respect to their authorities in order to
undertake that program.
With respect to the Blackhawk program, while we have been
using State Department funds for the procurement, the training
of the pilots will be handled by the Department of Defense.
With respect to the Huey II program for the Colombian Army,
we are still in the final determination stage as to who will
execute that and who will fund that, but it will be executed,
and it will be funded.
Mr. Souder. I think I can speak for both the conservative
Republicans and the liberal Democrats. We would like to see
proposals from the State Department and the Defense Department
to accelerate the training of Colombians, so we don't have to
do the contracting out, who are largely Americans.
Mr. Beers. No, sir, that is not true.
Mr. Souder. The Dyncorp is not largely Americans.
Mr. Beers. No, sir. What we have done with respect to the
UH-1 program, and let me be very clear about this, because it
is very important, we have U.S. instructor pilots, two of them
who have been working with that training program. They are only
permitted to operate in a training mode in a training area.
They are not permitted to go on operations.
While it is true that the pilots in some of the seats of
some of those helicopters are contract pilots, they are not
U.S. citizens. They are Colombians. They are Colombians who are
hired out of the private economy, because the Colombian Army
did not have and does not currently have sufficient pilots to
man those cockpits. Rather than wait for the time that would be
necessary in order to train those pilots and make them
proficient in those cockpits, we went out on the civilian
economy and found people who had that experience, and they are
in those cockpits.
They have been instructed, yes, by INL, but it has been
coordinated--the program of instruction has been coordinated
with the U.S. military, and that is who is actually out there
flying the operational missions, not U.S. people.
Mr. Souder. So you are saying they are not U.S. Government
people. Can the Colombian private sector contract with American
nationals?
Mr. Beers. I don't know the answer to that, sir, but we are
controlling that contract, and I am telling you how that
contract is being controlled.
Mr. Souder. When the helicopter was shot down and the
helicopter went in to rescue them, our understanding was that
those were U.S. pilots, not necessarily government, but U.S.
nationals.
Mr. Beers. There are a mix of helicopters that go on every
mission that is flown with respect to eradication. And with
respect to the individual helicopter which went in to pick up
the pilot and crew from the first helicopter, the first
helicopter that went in was manned entirely by Colombian
National Police and extracted the pilot, the one who was
injured, and some of the crew.
The second helicopter that went in was an aircraft that had
two medical rescue personnel on it who were private U.S.
citizens, and I believe one of the pilots in that aircraft was
a U.S. citizen contract pilot.
By and large, with respect to the way that the operations
are run overall, Colombian operations of the Colombian National
Police which have heretofore, until we got to this operation,
essentially been focused entirely upon the opium and poppy
effort have been entirely Colombian operations.
The coca operations have included U.S. individuals flying
some, but not all, of the spray airplanes all the time and
some, but not all, of the accompanying aircraft. That is, the
helicopters that provide gunship support and they provide
search and rescue support have been piloted by or copiloted by
a contract employee who is a U.S. citizen.
The rescue personnel for this part of the operation have
been up to this point U.S. citizens. The Colombians have their
own rescue capability, which they use in association with their
activities.
So that, on a day-to-day basis, there are some U.S.
citizens who are flying some of those support helicopters, but
it is not a U.S. operation entirely. None of the armament is
manned by U.S. citizens, and none of the orders for any of the
arms to fire are made by U.S. citizens. That is entirely a
Colombian National decision chain, and the operations are in
every instance commanded overall by Colombians.
Mr. Souder. I appreciate that clarity for the record.
I think it is safe to say that in working between the State
Department, the Defense Department anyway we can make--move
that toward to a 100 percent Colombian operation, whether it is
through the military, the State Department, the Guard or
whoever does the training. That is certainly going to be a
combined goal of the U.S. Congress.
We do not need the West Wing scenario that was on TV to
occur or you will have a political backlash in this whole
operation.
This is a country that is a 200-year democracy. It is not
like Vietnam. They have a military and a national police. They
have been flooded with narcodollars threatening their country.
But to the degree that a portion of the program becomes
critical--I am not criticizing how you got to the point where
you are now, because we escalated the effort and they are not
trainees, but to make sure that component is a priority in the
mix is very important in this package plan, because Americans
do not like to hear about Americans being on the ground even if
they are not shooting the gun but being put at risk.
Mr. Beers. Yes, sir, and that is our objective. I
appreciate your indulgence in understanding how we got here.
But that is our objective. And at a meeting of our air wing,
which I had just this week, I stressed that point again. It is
our objective that those--the individuals, certainly, that are
on operational missions be Colombian.
We will be working with the Colombians in areas for some
time to come, because of the interface between our logistical
system in terms of getting things to them and their acceptance
of that and maintaining of this equipment. So between ourselves
and the Department of Defense contracts and personnel, we will
have a presence there. But it is our objective to reduce that
to the absolute minimum.
Mr. Souder. Also, in the parts question that we discussed
earlier, as to who is in charge and how that gets done,
clearly, we do not want to have--almost every military
operation in American history, the parts supply and support
mechanisms are the vital lifeline in whether or not a project
is going to be successful. And we can't just have the
helicopters and $300 million in legal building and human rights
building and not have the supply mechanism in place.
We understand that this was a quick rampup and
acceleration, but those questions do need to be focused on.
Certainly, it will be followed up in the future.
Mr. Beers. We are fully committed to that, sir.
Mr. Souder. I also want to make sure that in the budget
proposal and in the operational execution, some of which
wouldn't be in a budget proposal, that intelligence operations
are sufficient. Otherwise, we wind up looking for needles in
haystacks, and that includes the internal decisions on where to
put the AWACS. If we are putting $50 million to $60 million up
in the Netherlands Antilles and over in Manta for facilities
for AWACS, we need to make sure we have AWACS there, or this is
an incredible waste of American taxpayer dollars.
We heard constantly that while we had Rather coverage and
others in the northern part, there is some concern about East-
West and to make sure that gets in our mix if there needs to be
additional intelligence capabilities.
General Pace, and then Mr. Marshal.
General Pace. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the
opportunity to respond to that. I will provide to the committee
the information on the AWACS. But, just as you know, there are
other airframes that utilize those airfields. It is not just
AWACS specific. It is P3 airplanes and many other types of
airplanes that collectively assist us. So I will get the data
about the AWACS to you, but there is much more to it than that,
as you know, sir.
Mr. Souder. Yes. I believe that--each location, however--
the runway length and the hanger capacity was costing more
because we assumed there would be AWACS there and additional
people.
General Pace. That is true.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Marshall.
Mr. Marshal. If I can followup on your intelligence
comments, I would like to point out in my earlier answer I said
there were several iterations of requests for DEA resources,
but in the final analysis, when we got down to the final push
for our request in Plan Colombia, all of our requests in
connection with Plan Colombia were intelligence-related. And,
if I may, I will submit a detailed itemized listing of those
for the record.
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Mr. Souder. Well, thank you all very much for rearranging
your schedules on short notice to come today.
Also, for the record, Ms. Schakowsky asked to put her
schedule into the record of where she was in Colombia. And
while Mr. Mica did not get specific, she, in fact, did not meet
with any of the leftist guerillas, and I think the record
should show that.
With that, the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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