[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRANSNATIONAL DRUG ENTERPRISES: THREATS TO GLOBAL STABILITY AND U.S.
NATIONAL SECURITY FROM SOUTHWEST ASIA, LATIN AMERICA, AND WEST AFRICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 1, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-61
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
----------
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DIANE E. WATSON, California LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
GERRY E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
Columbia AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JACKIE SPEIER, California
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
------ ------
Ron Stroman, Staff Director
Michael McCarthy, Deputy Staff Director
Carla Hultberg, Chief Clerk
Larry Brady, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island DAN BURTON, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
PETER WELCH, Vermont LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BILL FOSTER, Illinois PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio JIM JORDAN, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
Andrew Wright, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 1, 2009.................................. 1
Statement of:
Olson, Eric L., senior advisor, security initiative, Mexico
Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars; David Mansfield, research fellow, Carr Center for
Human Rights, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University; Douglas Farah, senior fellow, International
Assessment and Strategy Center; and Vanda Felbab-Brown,
fellow, 21st Century Defense Initiative, Brookings
Institute.................................................. 4
Farah, Douglas........................................... 32
Felbab-Brown, Vanda,..................................... 50
Mansfield, David......................................... 16
Olson, Eric L............................................ 4
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Farah, Douglas, senior fellow, International Assessment and
Strategy Center, prepared statement of..................... 35
Felbab-Brown, Vanda, fellow, 21st Century Defense Initiative,
Brookings Institute, prepared statement of................. 52
Mansfield, David, research fellow, Carr Center for Human
Rights, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University, prepared statement of.......................... 18
Olson, Eric L., senior advisor, security initiative, Mexico
Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars, prepared statement of............................ 7
TRANSNATIONAL DRUG ENTERPRISES: THREATS TO GLOBAL STABILITY AND U.S.
NATIONAL SECURITY FROM SOUTHWEST ASIA, LATIN AMERICA, AND WEST AFRICA
----------
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, Flake, Murphy, Welch,
Quigley, and Luetkemeyer.
Staff present: Adam Hodge, deputy press secretary, full
committee; Andy Wright, staff director; Elliot Gillerman,
clerk; Talia Dubovi, counsel; Brendan Culley and Steven Gale,
fellows; Rachel Charlesworth and Jesse Schwartz, interns; Adam
Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member liaison, Mitchell
Kominsky, minority counsel; Christopher Bright, minority senior
professional staff member; and Glenn Sanders, minority Defense
fellow.
Mr. Tierney. Good morning. A quorum now being present, the
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs' hearing
entitled, ``Transnational Drug Enterprises: Threats to Global
Stability and U.S. National Security from Southwest Asia, Latin
America, and West Africa,'' will come to order.
I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking
member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening
statements. Without objection, that is so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept
open for 5 business days so that all members of the
subcommittee will be allowed to submit a written statement for
the record. Without objection, that is so ordered.
Today, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs turns its attention to a longstanding and growing
threat to U.S. national security, the transnational illicit
drug trade.
Illicit drugs from Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean
are no strangers to our shores. The issue of illicit drugs is
also no stranger to this House and Congress. In March of this
year, we held a hearing on Money, Guns, and Drugs to examine
whether U.S. inputs were fueling drug-related violence on the
U.S.-Mexico border. This subcommittee has also held numerous
hearings on Afghanistan, producer of 95 percent of the world's
poppy crop that forms the basis of the heroin trade.
Today's hearing builds on that record. It raises a central
question about the relationship between the global illicit drug
enterprises and their collective threat to our national
security. The United States has had a geographic or country-
specific drug control strategy ranging widely from the Balkan
States of Eastern Europe to Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, and
more recently to West Africa. While each country's conditions
dictate a unique drug control strategy, today's hearing
examines some of the underlying trends and the related
implications for U.S. national security.
There is compelling evidence that illicit drugs create
enormous financial power that allows traffickers to corrode
government institutions. Bribes undermine confidence in the
very institutions we rely on to protect us as corruption
reaches judges, prosecutors, police, and correctional officers.
When bribes fail, traffickers use ruthless violence and
unrelenting intimidation to expand their illegal enterprises.
Over time, bribes, violence, and intimidation take their
toll, especially in weak states. The net effect of these
assaults is to undermine a nation's rule of law, cripple its
civic institutions, and reinforce the public's view that
government is ineffective. The downward spiral of drug money,
violence, and intimidation, once it has begun, is difficult to
reverse in weak states.
But this is just half the story. With a degraded or
weakened rule of law environment, non-drug actors from the
criminal world and their transnational counterparts step in and
further exploit an already unstable situation. While drug
trafficking may be the most lucrative component of
transnational crime, it is hardly the only line of business.
Money laundering, weapons trafficking, commercial espionage,
human trafficking, smuggling, and piracy all flourish alongside
illicit drug enterprises. Further declines in the rule of law,
public confidence, and national governance are the consequence.
The magnitude of money from illicit drugs probably cannot
be underestimated. The United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crimes estimates that the global proceeds from illicit drugs
range between $100 billion to more than $1 trillion per year.
Illicit drug money flows have been estimated to be the largest
segment of the Afghan GDP, just over 50 percent in 2007. In
West Africa's Guinea-Bissau, it has been reported that drugs
and drug-related money is the single biggest slice of their
gross domestic product, and growing.
Drug trafficking, wherever it thrives, presents a serious
threat to the national sovereignty of the afflicted state. But
it is the intersection of drugs with other illegal
transnational threats, especially terrorism, that makes it so
treacherous. This so-called drug-terror nexus links the
monetary proceeds from drugs with filling the coffers of
terrorist organizations like the FARC in Colombia, the Taliban
in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
According to the latest U.S. intelligence, terrorist groups
in more than a dozen countries across three continents are
significantly bankrolled by illicit drug moneys. According to
the Drug Enforcement Administration, 19 of the 43 groups the
United States designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in
2007 were involved in the drug trade or other criminal
activities.
In addition, drug trafficking organizations' efforts to
weaken or topple local governments significantly undermines our
ability to achieve vital diplomatic, development, and economic
assistance goals overseas. Threats from these groups not only
test state stability, but also undermine the goals of regional
political bodies like the Organization of American States and
boldly challenge international institutions like the United
Nations.
At today's hearing we will learn from experts about the
linkages between illicit drugs, weak states, and the U.S.
national security in the context of Latin America, Afghanistan,
and West Africa. The subcommittee plans to hold a second
hearing with the relevant government agencies and departments
to examine the U.S. national drug control strategy and the
planned use of the nearly $15 billion that has been requested
for that purpose this year.
With that, I turn to Mr. Flake for his opening remarks.
Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman. He made the point that it
is the intersection of drugs and money that it garners for
terrorist activities and other things that are most concerning
to us. I am particularly interested in illicit drugs in Mexico
affecting the border region like Arizona--I am sure Mr. Olson
will have some things to say about that--and also the situation
in Afghanistan, obviously, with narcoterrorism there.
So I welcome the witnesses. Thank you for taking the time
to come here, and look forward to the hearing.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
This morning we will receive testimony from the witnesses,
but before they begin, I would just like to give a brief
introduction of each, starting from my left.
Mr. Eric Olson serves as a senior advisor on security at
the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars. He has specialized in the America's region, but
he has also worked on human rights issues in Africa, Asia, and
the Middle East. From 2006 to 2007, he served as a senior
specialist at the Organization of American States, and from
2002 to 2006 as Amnesty International's Advocacy Director for
the Americas. He holds an M.A. from American University.
Mr. David Mansfield is a fellow with the Carr Center for
Human Rights at Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government. He also works as an independent consultant for a
range of organizations, including the United Kingdom
Government, the World Bank, and various non-governmental
organizations on policy and operational issues with regard to
illicit drugs in Afghanistan and on alternative livelihoods. He
has previously worked on overseas drug and development issues
in each of the major drug producing regions in South and
Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Mr. Douglas Farah is a senior fellow at the International
Assessment and Strategy Center. In 2004, he worked for 9 months
with the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, studying
armed groups and intelligence reform. For the two decades
before that, he was a foreign correspondence and investigative
reporter for the Washington Post and other publications
covering Latin America and West Africa. From 2000 to 2004, he
was the Washington Post West African bureau chief based in the
Ivory Coast. He holds a B.A. and a B.S. from the University of
Kansas.
Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown serves as a fellow at the 21st
Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, where
she specializes in the interactions between illicit economies
and military conflict. Dr. Felbab-Brown also serves as an
adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown
University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she was an
Assistant Professor prior to assuming her current position at
Brookings. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D.
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
So I want to thank all of you for bringing your substantial
credentials and your experience here before the committee
today. It is the policy of the committee to swear witnesses in
before they testify, so I ask that you please stand and raise
your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. I ask that the record reflect that all of the
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
As I mentioned to you before the hearing, your written
remarks will be placed in the record, and I will share with Mr.
Flake that I read the remarks, as you have, and I think, if
they were to give them here today, it would be about 35 minutes
each. So I have asked everybody to condense that as close to 5
minutes as possible, and then we will have some questions and
answers from our members of the panel here.
So, Mr. Olson, can we begin with you, please?
STATEMENTS OF ERIC L. OLSON, SENIOR ADVISOR, SECURITY
INITIATIVE, MEXICO INSTITUTE, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL
CENTER FOR SCHOLARS; DAVID MANSFIELD, RESEARCH FELLOW, CARR
CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, JOHN F. KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; DOUGLAS FARAH, SENIOR FELLOW, INTERNATIONAL
ASSESSMENT AND STRATEGY CENTER; AND VANDA FELBAB-BROWN, FELLOW,
21ST CENTURY DEFENSE INITIATIVE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE
STATEMENT OF ERIC L. OLSON
Mr. Olson. Thank you, Chairman Tierney and Ranking Member
Flake. It is my pleasure to appear before you today and the
distinguished members of the subcommittee on behalf of the
Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars.
Established by an act of Congress in 1968, the Wilson
Center is our Nation's official living memorial to President
Woodrow Wilson. As both a distinguished scholar, the only
American President with a Ph.D., and a national leader,
President Wilson felt strongly that the scholar and the
policymaker were ``engaged in a common enterprise.'' I hope I
can represent successfully President Wilson's vision of
bringing together the scholarly and the policy dimensions
today.
As you have noted already, the tragic and disturbing
headlines about drug violence in Mexico have horrified and
alarmed Americans about what is happening to our neighbor and
strategic partner to the south. It raises real questions about
the safety of Americans traveling and for the safety and
security of the United States. And given the proximity of the
violence, the fact that it spills into the United States, and
that organized crime groups in Latin America have formed
strategic partnerships with organized crime in the United
States, the decision to hold this hearing is not only timely,
but essential.
In the brief time that I have, I would like to talk about
three things: the dimension of the problem of organized crime
and transnational drug trafficking in Latin America, why and
how organized crime is able to take root and prosper in the
region, and, finally, a policy framework the United States and
governments of Latin America may want to consider in addressing
this problem.
First let me describe the problem a bit. We know that the
United States is still the world's largest market for illegal
drugs. This enormously lucrative market results in roughly $35
billion, give or take a billion, in illegal proceeds laundered
back to Mexico and Colombia every year. Profit margins are so
large, in fact, that according to some drug traffickers they
can lose three out of four loads of cocaine and still turn a
profit. Beyond that, it is not profitable. If we were to take
this as fact, it would mean that drug traffickers could lose 75
percent of their inventory and still turn a profit. Imagine if
Ford or GM could do the same.
According to the 2009 International Narcotics Control
Strategy Report, all cocaine originates in the Andean countries
of Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. In 2008, the Interagency
Assessment of Cocaine Movement estimated that between 500 and
700 metric tons of cocaine departed South America headed to the
United States, slightly less than was coming up in 2007.
While there are many different ways cocaine is moved from
the Andes to the United States, one method is to employ small
private planes to move the loads from Colombia to Central
America, where bundles are either dumped in the sea and
retrieved or planes land or are purposely crashed on tiny
landing strips in remote areas. Whatever the exact route,
roughly 90 percent of cocaine entering the U.S. transits
through Mexico.
In Mexico, there are at least five major drug trafficking
organizations, many more splinter groups that are defending
their territories, competing with one another, trying to set up
new routes. Some of the recent violence that we have seen in
the press is the result of intra-organizational and inter-
organizational conflicts and competition, as we see second tier
lieutenants, spinoff organizations, and cartels competing with
each other as the heads or kingpins of a rival group are
arrested or assassinated. So there is a lot of inter-
organizational and intra-organizational violence.
A third source of the violence is what one could expect
when the government aggressively pursues them and the cartels,
the trafficking organizations fight back, and that is, of
course, understandable.
In Colombia, where there has been a major weakening of the
armed guerilla movements, both the FARC and ELN, there is
evidence that both continue to be engaged in drug-related
activity. Likewise, the disbanding of the umbrella structure of
paramilitary forces--this is the paramilitary demobilization
that President Uribe undertook--has atomized the fighting
forces. But there are new alliances being formed between local
commanders, demobilized forces, and drug traffickers. In some
instances, the FARC is joining with a paramilitary and ex-
paramilitary to continue trafficking.
Sadly, despite the formal dismantling of the AUC and the
weakening of the guerrilla groups, Colombia still remains the
largest cultivator of the coca bush in the hemisphere.
Organized crime has been quite agile in establishing new
alliances that fit their business model, and they could care
less about anyone's particular ideological persuasion, whether
communist, leftist, anticommunist, or capitalist. To paraphrase
Michael Corleone, it is not ideological, it is strictly
business.
Finally, it is important to point out that organized crime
in Latin America is not limited to drug trafficking, but
involves trafficking in other goods, such as pirated and
counterfeit products, autos and auto parts, and cigarettes, to
name a few, as well as illegal activities such as kidnapping,
human trafficking, and even ``legitimate'' or quasi-legitimate
businesses and enterprises. In many instances--and this is
important--the same organizations that traffic in illegal drugs
also traffic in products such as weapons or people, or engage
in apparently legitimate businesses like real estate and
construction.
Bottom line, there is a two-way flow of trafficked goods,
money, and humans. Drugs and other pirated goods and human
trafficking move north, while money, possibly half of it in
cash, weapons, autos, auto parts, cigarettes move south.
Now, let me say a little bit in the time that is remaining.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Olson, you know what I am going to
suggest? Because, having read yours, I know you have some good
suggestions on where to go with this--we will ask that question
when the round comes in, as to where do we go from here. I
think you have laid a great groundwork for why we need to
attend to this problem.
Mr. Olson. OK. Sure.
Mr. Tierney. And then if it is fine with you, we will, on
the question and answer period, get to your suggestions for a
strategy going forward.
Mr. Olson. All right. Good.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Olson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Mansfield.
STATEMENT OF DAVID MANSFIELD
Mr. Mansfield. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member
Flake. You will have to forgive me, this is a bit of a novelty
for me in the sense that I find myself in unusual surroundings.
I have spent the last 18 years essentially looking at drugs
from a rural development perspective. I am far more used to the
company of opium farmers and traders in Afghanistan.
Mr. Tierney. Well, I hope you find our company almost as
good. Could I ask you just to put the mic a little bit more
directly in front of your mouth?
Mr. Mansfield. Sure.
Mr. Tierney. I think that will be helpful. Thank you. Thank
you.
Mr. Mansfield. For me, it is clear illicit drugs thrive in
marginal areas. These are areas that are marginal economically,
politically, environmentally. They are areas that are often in
conflict with what is essentially a weak state. That conflict
can be ethnic, military, and the cultivation takes place in
disputed territory, borderlands.
Attempts to address drug production have often involved the
government actually penetrating these marginal areas,
establishing state presence in all its functions, not just
security apparatus, and to provide support to the provision of
public goods, roads, education, and health, and create an
environment for the private sector to work. In Pakistan, this
process saw cultivation move from one area to another as the
state extended its writ into these areas, from Brunair to
Gaduna Mazi to Deer to Bijour Mamand. This process has also
been successful in Southeast Asia.
For me, given my background of 12 years in Afghanistan,
Afghanistan is the anomaly. In Afghanistan, the bulk of drugs
are grown in areas that are accessible, not remote; it is not
the borderlands. These areas have irrigation, fertile soils,
and in many cases the cultivation takes place right next to
provincial centers. In Afghanistan, it is not, as in other
countries, a weak state trying to penetrate marginal areas, but
a marginal state trying to move beyond its provincial centers.
In Afghanistan, the impact illegal drugs have on U.S.
national security interests are clear, given U.S. strategic
interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the presence of U.S.
troops, and the considerable investment the United States has
made in governance and security and development in the area.
But the question is how to respond and how to respond in a way
that does not worsen the situation. For example, there is no
doubt that drugs are ``fueling the insurgency.''
But this is not as clear cut as much as the current
narrative and analysis in the media often suggests. Much of the
current discussion focuses on the Taliban and drugs, and the
funds that they own from the illegal drugs trade. Estimates
range from $70 to $500 million, suggesting there are some
calculation issues there. And there are claims of centralized
taxation systems around opium.
What I feel is this discussion neglects the decentralized
nature of the Taliban; the fact that there is no single
insurgency, but a disparate collection of insurgent groups;
and, fundamentally, it neglects that in the south of the
country there is a widespread view that, whether right or
wrong, it is corrupt government officials that are more
involved in the drugs trade than the Taliban or groups
associated with them. In this case, we have to question how
much of the insurgency is a reaction to government. After all,
people expect insurgents to fund themselves in whatever way
possible; theft, kidnap, drugs. But they don't expect their
government to do so, or those in government to do so.
The policy response to the current narrative on the Taliban
and drugs funding is to prioritize those traffickers with links
to insurgent groups. But does this not potentially increase the
market power of those corrupt officials involved in the drugs
trade? If so, it seems it would do little to reduce the flow of
drugs from Afghanistan and actually reduce the legitimacy of
the government of Afghanistan in the eyes of the people.
A further example of policy that can potentially exacerbate
the impact of illicit drugs is that of eradication. There have,
in the past, been a push for aggressive eradication, and these
calls persist. They may even increase if cultivation increases
in the 2009-2010 growing season, which seems probable. I
believe eradication and the threat of it can play a catalytic
role in areas where farmers have viable alternatives. I have
seen it work in districts around provincial centers in the east
and the north of the country.
But where farmers don't have alternatives--and there are
many areas--due to the resource base that they have or
insecurity, alternatives simply don't exist. In these areas,
eradication leads to economic problems and, in consequence,
growing insecurity and provides an entry point for insurgent
groups. In these areas, development investments are the
priority. And we have to recognize a level of opium cultivation
is a reality for some time to come.
Ultimately, there is a need to see illicit drugs in
context. We need to recognize the threat they pose, but we need
to ensure that the response does not exacerbate that. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mansfield follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. That was well done. Even if you saw
that the trap door didn't open on Mr. Olson, you still managed
to finish in 5 minutes, so we appreciate that.
Mr. Farah, please.
STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS FARAH
Mr. Farah. Chairman Tierney and Ranking Member Flake, thank
you for the opportunity to talk about something that I do
believe is a true national security threat to the United
States, Latin America, and West Africa.
What we are seeing in globalization is the development of
flexible criminal and terrorist pipelines, where key
facilitators are vital to the operations of both sets of actors
and they are highly adaptable and forward-thinking. These
pipelines or recombinant chains of actors and commodities now
have the ability to move illicit goods around the globe to
wherever the environment is most tolerant. The most lucrative
commodities, as noted, are cocaine and heroin, but they are the
same pipelines that serve weapons traffickers, human smugglers,
fraud and contraband.
While the cocaine from the Andean region traditionally
moved through Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, West
Africa has been a new and extremely challenging part of the
distribution network. The growth of transcontinental drug
trafficking structures in recent years, with the capacity to
project their operations from Latin America to West Africa, is
a sobering reminder of the wealth and creativity of these
structures and their ability to coopt already weak and failing
states.
There are several causes of concern for the United States
in the emerging cocaine nexus. The first is the presence of
Mexican drug trafficking organizations, particularly the
Sinaloa cartel in West Africa. The second is the presence of
the FARC there. The FARC in the past decade has morphed into
one of the world's largest cocaine trafficking syndicates, and
both the United States and the European Union have designated
it a terrorist organization.
The presence of the Mexican organizations and the FARC in
West Africa and that cocaine pipeline mean that these groups
can repatriate their profits even if the United States were to
make significant progress in reducing the flow of drugs across
its own southern border. The market for the drugs may change,
but the beneficiaries of these illicit gains largely remain in
Mexico, Colombia, and in our hemisphere.
While the FARC has suffered a series of defeats in the past
18 months, its ability to move cocaine to the U.S. market has
been severely curtailed. But with the tolerance, if not
complicity, of the Venezuelan government, the FARC has managed
to significantly reroute its movements from Venezuela to West
Africa, with destinations such as Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-
Conakry, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana.
Another important point is that ungoverned spaces of West
Africa are providing a meeting ground for criminal and
terrorist groups to make new alliances. What I have observed in
more than two decades of dealing with drug trafficking
transnational and criminal organizations is that when they are
able to meet in neutral territory, they often form alliances
that would not be possible under other circumstances.
Already in Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Ghana, and Sierra
Leone, we are seeing members of Mexican, Colombian, Venezuelan,
Surinamese, and European organizations operating in the same
territory and plugging into the same pipeline, often
commingling with the Lebanese crime syndicates that control the
contraband and blood diamond trade.
Just as the blood diamond trade allowed groups like the
Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone to purchase advanced
weapons to become a more legal force, the influx of cocaine
cash will allow the criminal and militia groups in the region
to acquire more sophisticated weapons, trainings, and
communications. At the same time, the weak host states have
severely limited ability to confront these groups.
As noted the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime conservatively
estimates that 40 to 50 tons of cocaine, with an estimated
value of $1.8 billion, passed through West Africa in 2007 and
this trade is growing rapidly. The Pentagon's Africa Command
and other intelligence services estimate the amount of cocaine
transiting West Africa to be at least five times that estimate.
Using U.N. figures, the only legal export from the region
that would surpass the value of cocaine is coca from the Ivory
Coast. If the higher numbers are used, cocaine could dwarf the
legal exports of all the region combined and be worth more than
the GDP of several of the region's nations.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. The changes across
the globe have been swift and dramatic in recent years, with
the number of failed states growing from 11 in 1996 to close to
30 today. More than half of those, 18, are in Sub-Saharan
Africa. This trend is important because these growing areas
that are either stateless or governed by states that are in
practice functioning criminal enterprises give rise to hybrid
organizations that make the traditional distinctions between
terrorism and organized crime, particularly drug trafficking,
meaningless.
One of the reasons for the dismal state of governance in
West Africa is that since the 1990's the region has suffered a
series of conflicts centered on natural resources, such as
diamonds, timber, oil, and gold. These resources, while
valuable, pale in comparison to the money the cocaine trade
generates. For example, at the height of the blood diamond
trade in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the total value of diamonds
being smuggled out was less than $200 million. The potential to
fuel conflicts over the cocaine pipeline, the most lucrative
commodity so far, and one whose profits are several order of
magnitudes larger than diamonds, is truly frightening.
There is a broader potential danger that must be kept in
mind as we assess the emerging trends in West Africa. I
mentioned hybrid criminal organizations such as the FARC. In
West Africa, it is Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Shia Muslim
organization that has long maintained an operational presence
on the ground and has a significant role in the blood diamond
trade and other illicit activities. It is inevitable that these
organizations and the drug trafficking groups will encounter
each other and mutually benefit because each has something the
other one wants.
More worrisome on our hemisphere is evidence of Hugo
Chavez's direct support for Hezbollah, including the June 18,
2008 OFAC designations of two senior Venezuelan citizens,
including a senior diplomat, as Hezbollah supporters. Given
Iran's ties to Hezbollah and Venezuela, Hezbollah's ties to
Iran and the FARC, and the FARC's history of building alliances
with those groups, and the presence of Hezbollah and other
armed Islamist groups in Latin America and West Africa, it
would be dangerous to dismiss the possibility of an alliance of
these actors. The histories of these groups indicate that they
will take advantage of the corrupt and weak states in West
Africa to get to know each other, work together, learn from
each other, and exploit areas of mutual interest.
Unfortunately, the primary area of mutual interest is a hatred
of the United States.
And I will leave it there.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Farah follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much for those
remarks.
Doctor.
STATEMENT OF VANDA FELBAB-BROWN
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I
am honored to have this opportunity to address the committee on
this important issue. I will focus my comments on some general
dynamics of the drug conflict nexus and then provide a
comparative assessment of the significance of these
manifestations of the drug conflict nexus to U.S. national
security. And, if time permits, I will conclude with some
recommendations for U.S. policy.
The penetration of illicit economies by terrorist or
insurgent groups provides an especially potent threat to states
and regional stability, since, unlike crime organizations,
belligerent groups usually tend to have bigger goals, including
to completely eliminate the existing state's presence in
particular locales or countries.
Illicit economies provide for belligerent groups the
opportunity to increase their power along multiple dimensions,
not simply in terms of financial profits. Financial profits are
very important because with increased financial profits
belligerent groups can increase their fighting capabilities,
hire a greater number of better paid combatants, buy better
weapons, and simplify their logistical and supply chains; all
critical for the conduct of violent opposition to a state.
But crucially and frequently neglected in policy
considerations, belligerents who participate in illicit
economies frequently also obtain what I call political capital,
namely, legitimacy with and support from local populations who
are dependent on the illicit economy for basic livelihood. And
they obtain this political capital by protecting the
populations from government efforts to repress the illicit
economy in the absence of legal livelihoods.
They also provide a variety of other protection and
regulatory services. With this political capital and the
ability to provide these regulatory services and protection
services, they have the capacity to transform themselves from
mere violent actors to violent actors that take on the
functions of a protostate.
Although the political capital that belligerents obtain is
frequently very thin, it is nonetheless sufficient to motivate
the population not to provide intelligence on the belligerents
to government, and this is critical. Such human actionable
intelligence is critical for the success of counterinsurgency
and counterterrorism efforts, as well as for the effectiveness
of law enforcement.
Several factors influence the size of the political
capital, but, in a nutshell, it is strongest in areas where the
country is poor, the illicit economy is labor intensive and,
hence, can provide employment opportunity for hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of people, thuggish traffickers are
present, and the government is suppressing the illicit economy
in the absence of legal livelihoods.
Policies that focus on degrading the belligerents' physical
resource, such as stopping their financial flows, are
frequently ineffective because it is extraordinarily difficult
to attempt to bankrupt belligerent groups through eradication
or interdiction measures. Yet, they are also counterproductive
if they target the wider population dependent on the illicit
economy.
Counternarcotics policies need to be weighed very carefully
with a clear eye toward the counterinsurgency and
counterterrorism implications. Seemingly quick fixes, such as
blanket eradication, in the absence of alternative livelihoods,
but only strengthen the insurgency, not accomplish the goal of
bankrupting the insurgency, while compromised state building
and ultimately counternarcotics efforts themselves.
Nowhere is the nexus of drugs and insurgency so vital and
so counterproductive for U.S. national primary security
interests as is in Afghanistan. We have already heard that
drugs are fueling the Taliban. They are also corrupting the
government and undermining the legitimacy of the Afghan
government. But the seriousness of the threat and the strategic
importance of the stakes do not necessarily imply that
aggressive counternarcotics suppression policies in Afghanistan
today are inappropriate policies. Indeed, premature eradication
will only make matters worse, as it has already. So the Obama
administration's new policy for counternarcotics in Afghanistan
gives hope that the deficiency of the existing policies will be
redressed.
Moreover, success in suppressing poppy in Afghanistan may
well increase threats to your security in other ways. Given the
persistent global demand and, in fact, increasing global demand
for opiates, the illicit economy will simply shift elsewhere.
There is a very good chance and a worrisome chance that poppy
will shift back to Pakistan to the areas that Mr. Mansfield
already mentioned, but also possibly to Kashmir and even parts
of Punjab.
In that case, Jihadi groups of the greatest danger would
not only have the capacity to increase their profits, but, most
dangerously, increase their political capital. Right now, all
they can afford the local populations is ideological succor. If
the poppy economy shifts to Pakistan, they will be able to
provide real-time benefits and greatly strengthen the struggle
against the state.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Felbab-Brown follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
We definitely want to get into all the other things that
were in your written remarks, and, if we don't by the end, we
are going to give you an opportunity to go back and cover
anything that you think we should have questioned about and may
not have hit on.
Now, we are going into a section of the hearing where we
will do 5 minutes of questioning per Member. Since there are
only about five or six of us here, I think we may do several
rounds on that, if it is OK with the witnesses.
Let me start by noting, Mr. Olson, you indicate that these
people can lose 75 percent of all their inventory and still
report a significant profit.
Dr. Felbab-Brown, you say that there is not a single case
where eradication has ever bankrupted a belligerent into
defeat, and that attempts to turn off income through other
systems are highly intelligence and resource intensive.
Mr. Farah, you talk about revenue from drugs far exceeding
natural resources like that from diamonds and timber and
things, and indicated that in Colombia it went from 95 percent
of the coca produced to 54 percent, but that just meant that
Peru and Bolivia picked up.
So we seem to have this cyclical thing going here. How are
we going to take the profit out of this? Nobody mentioned what
I think is the 800 pound guerilla in the room, which is
decriminalization or legalization of this, just take the profit
out of this thing. How do we take the profit out of this
enterprise if we are not going to do that?
And I will just start with whoever wants to go first on
that. Doctor.
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Mr. Chairman, it is absolutely critical
that we address global demand for narcotics. This has been the
most under-emphasized component of U.S. counternarcotics policy
for many decades. Although nominally it is on the books, it is
always the most under-resourced, least privileged policy; this
applies to both treatment and prevention. The Obama
administration has committed itself to addressing demand a key
priority. We have yet not seen it in the current budget, but
perhaps as the next budget will be drafted the shift in
balances will take place.
It is also vital that we help other countries around the
world address demand. Our supply side policies, as important as
they are, and there is a definite role for law enforcement,
including for eradication if it is sequenced well, must also
focus much more on global demand and demand increases. In fact,
we have seen many new markets emerging, perhaps not as high as
the U.S. market, but are nonetheless very significant--Russia,
China is back, Brazil, other parts of Asia--and yet our supply
side policies do very little, if nothing, on helping countries
growing demand.
Mr. Tierney. I guess I hear what you are saying, but it
gets me back to my question. Demand reduction would probably
take a significant amount of time, it is not going to happen
overnight, certainly not in a couple years. Our supply side
policies have been fairly ineffective, and they are effective
incidentally, case-by-case, but certainly they haven't reduced
the amount of drugs on the street and the amount being
produced. As you said, there are new areas developing all the
time, whether it is Russia or Brazil or somewhere else. So I go
back to my question. How do we really and dramatically take the
profit out of this to make a serious impact?
Mr. Farah.
Mr. Farah. Well, I do think that we have a 40 year or
longer record in the war on drugs, and I spent 25 years
covering it fairly closely, and every new strategy that comes
along has some success and then eventually the traffickers are
able to adapt around it or fairly quickly. I am not sure that
the country is ready for a debate on decriminalization and
other aspects, but I think it is clear, if you look at--I mean,
the fact is, as Eric said, you can lose 75 percent or you can
move your coke from Latin America to Africa, and then north,
indicates that the profit margins are huge.
So I do think we have to come at it I think, as Vanda said,
when we reduced our oil consumption by 3 or 4 percent, the
price of oil dropped from $140, $150 a barrel to $40 a barrel.
And I am not sure, when you are getting at decriminalization or
other things, that is any more quick, any quicker a solution
than focusing very heavily on the consumption side, because
that is clearly the way, if you are selling less, you are going
to lose less money.
One could debate decriminalization, but I think it would be
a long and drawn out debate in the country right now. I don't
think there is any consensus on which way to go on that. So I
would second what Vanda said about the need to really focus on
the use reduction, because that is what is going to make them
able to sell less and give them less money. It is the quickest
thing we can do efficiently now.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Olson.
Mr. Olson. Well, the Woodrow Wilson Center hasn't taken a
position or wouldn't take a position on decriminalization or
legalization or harm reduction. I do note that three countries,
three major countries in Latin America now are experimenting,
if you will, with the idea of decriminalization. Argentina,
Chile, and Mexico have recently taken steps that dramatically
reduce criminal penalties. We will see if that helps in any
way. All those countries, especially Mexico, have a growing
consumption problem, so if that is what it takes--personally, I
think it has to be a combination of efforts.
There is no magic bullet here. I think Doug was right. We
try new things, they work for a little while, then they fall
apart. I think having a consistent multi-dimensional, multi-
faceted approach that looks at decriminalization as an option,
but also looks at raising the cost of doing business for
traffickers and does some things in terms of international
cooperation--I don't think any of them by themselves will solve
this problem, but we have to hit them on all fronts, if you
will, and that is, I think, the best we can hope for.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Thank you and thank you to all the witnesses.
Mr. Olson, you mentioned the inter- and intra-party cartel
battle that is going on in Mexico, and certainly we have seen
that going on for a while. Has that caused a realignment yet of
these cartels? Have we seen much change? We are often told in
Arizona that we haven't seen really a spike in violence; this
is a necessary thing because Calderon has finally gone after
the cartels. Have you seen an improvement between Mexico's
ability, the government's ability to control these cartels
given what has gone on over the past several months?
Mr. Olson. You know, I think the Mexican government is
doing some things well. I was there a little over a month ago
and they are clearly investing a lot in building a national
police force that is modern, strong, professional, and capable.
There are aspects of their policy that are lagging behind, and
what has happened in, say, particularly the case of Ciudad
Juarez, right on the U.S.-Texas border, El Paso, is that you
have had the military and police move in and somewhat scatter
the Juarez cartel to other parts south, and then as that
happens, the Sinaloa cartel in particular has tried to take
advantage of a weakened Juarez cartel. So what we have seen
over the last 6 months is a spike in violence, then a decline
in violence as the Juarez cartel was scattered, and now an
upward tick, a quite serious upward tick in violence.
So, you know, I don't think we have seen the end of it yet.
They haven't gotten to somewhere where the cartels themselves
are so weakened that they can't carry out incredibly violent
operations. There are exceptions like the Familia Michoacana,
which is another animal altogether, but cartels in general
don't like to engage in this outrageous violence; they are more
interested in the business aspect of it. But they do, I think,
engage in that kind of violence when they are competing for
territory and routes amongst themselves.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Mansfield, you mentioned, in Afghanistan, that the
marginal state is, I guess is how you put it, moving beyond its
boundaries, suggesting that some of these drug organizations
have had free reign up to now. What is the effect of having a
policy of eradication for a while? We seem to have backed off
from that now; will likely be back to it a while later. What
does that for the long term and is that--obviously, it seems to
be problematic if we can't decide on a policy.
You and others have mentioned that there are other products
that can be produced economically, but we have not really seen
that, whether it is pomegranate or whatever else. The
government certainly hasn't pursued a policy that would replace
those crops. I guess I am wondering what is the net effect of
moving toward an eradication policy and then backing away from
it and then possibly back to it again?
Mr. Mansfield. Thank you. I think the debate on eradication
is often a little simplistic, and I do see this pendulum swing
that is taking place, and I have some reservations about it. I
think too often we neglect the fact that there are areas in
Afghanistan that do have viable alternatives, where--I can cite
them, introduce you to farmers who have moved out of poppy
cultivation. They weren't dependent on it; they have a range of
other crops they can produce. They are near the provincial
center; they have markets for their crops. They are growing
maybe five crops on one unit of land instead of opium poppy.
And if you look at the net returns on those crops, they are
more attractive than opium poppy. Opium poppy is incredibly
labor intensive. Once you start importing labor to grow this
crop, it cuts your profit margins. These other crops, five
crops for one is attractive, one unit of land rotated. Some of
them have multiple harvests; gives you a steady income flow.
They give you different season, different harvest at different
points; again, steady income flow. And because there is a
market, traders are turning up at the farm gate and they are
buying them; they are reducing the transaction costs of moving
goods to market, they are reducing the transportation costs,
not unlike opium used to be in these areas.
So where you have the kind of security governance and
economic growth taking place, farmers are moving out and, as a
consequence of growing other crops, they free up their labor.
These aren't as labor intensive as opium poppy. So then members
of the family go off and work in the city. So the combination
of the inter-cropping, multiple crops, and then, subsequently,
the labor means that the returns are higher than poppy. So in
those areas the threat of eradication or eradication is
credible and it actually acts as a catalyst.
The problem has been that we have had too much of an idea
of a comprehensive eradication; let's eradicate everyone, let's
wipe out all the poppy in Nangahar, all the poppy in
Afghanistan. Now, some areas can cope, they can actually
thrive. Some areas do not cope because they just don't have
those facilities; they are not near the markets, they are
inaccessible, they are remote. Every time they travel down the
road, they are asked for bakshish, they are asked for a bribe
from the police moving their tomatoes to market.
Mr. Flake. So you are not opposed to eradication
specifically, in certain areas or as part of the program, but
not as just a general policy.
Mr. Mansfield. No. For me, I have written on this many
times. It is under what conditions it works and under what
conditions it is counterproductive. The danger I think we have
is there is a real potential for poppy cultivation to go up
this year, as a function of a whole range of different things.
The price of wheat and poppy is significantly changed. Over the
last 2 years, wheat has actually been an attractive crop
because the global wheat price was so high, and opium price has
been low. It has made more sense in many areas to grow wheat on
your land, because you get more wheat from doing that, than to
grow opium poppy on your land. The terms of trade were
different. That has changed now. We are back to a situation
where opium poppy is once again attractive. So that factor is
in place, meaning people will go back to poppy in many areas.
The other side is the politics. Certain Governors will be
rewarded or punished in relation to the election; they will be
moved on, as they say, to a better place or worse; and they
have been quite active in reducing poppy. So the politics is
shifting, the economics is shifting, and there is a danger that
because there is a perception that there is no eradication this
year, that gets blamed for this shift. That shift was set in
place some time ago.
So then we end up with more poppy, it is due to the fact
there is no eradication, we need aggressive eradication again.
So it comes around again. And I think we need to stop dealing
with poppy farmers as if they were a homogenous entity. I am
sure wheat farmers in the United States are not a homogenous
entity; some have small land, some have large land, some have
combines. It is too simplistic, some of this discussion.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Quigley, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The gentleman from Arizona touched on the issues in Mexico,
but it is something that is interesting in reading your written
testimony and, Mr. Mansfield, some of your oral testimony. It
is often described as a weak state issue. While not a world
power, clearly, as compared to the other countries we are
talking about, Mexico is much different. What does it suggest,
as it relates to an issue of whether or not we are dealing with
weak powers here, that Mexico seems to thrive so much?
Mr. Olson. I am sorry----
Mr. Quigley. I don't think Mexico can be described as a
weak state as compared to the others, yet it seems to thrive in
much the same way. What am I missing or what can we learn from
that?
Mr. Olson. Well, I think you are absolutely right, you
can't overgeneralize. You can't compare Mexico to Haiti, for
instance, or Mexico to Honduras. Mexico is much wealthier, and
has great resources. The issue in Mexico, however, is that it
is a much more complex problem. You have, for instance, in the
case of Mexico, a federal police force that is roughly 30,000
persons, and they have authority or control over about 8
percent of the crime. The vast majority of the crime happens at
the local level, and these organized crime groups will operate
at the local level; and the local police, the state, municipal
police, especially in states like Chihuahua, are ineffective,
are weak, basically.
So I am not making a broad generalization about weakness of
the Mexican state, it is more the fact that in particular areas
of the government, of the country, in particular states, in
particular localities, organized crime has found a foothold and
has been able to penetrate the municipal governments, even the
state governments in a way that it can't probably at a federal
level, and that has allowed that cancer, if you will, to grow
and expand over a period of time.
I would never say that Mexico, as a whole, is at risk of
failure or is a particular weak state, but certainly at
localities it is, and that is what they are battling with right
now.
Mr. Quigley. Doctor.
Ms. Felbab-Brown. To followup Mr. Olson's comments, Mexico
is also a democratizing state and in many ways an under-
institutionalized state. Law enforcement apparatus, for
example, is deeply flawed in Mexico. And although Mexico is
finally taking important policy reforms, in fact, Mexico has
attempted to undertake these policy reforms at least since the
late 1980's to little effect, and though there are some
encouraging signs today, Mexico is still really struggling in
the provision of public safety and law enforcement, not simply
in relationship to organized crime, although that is absolutely
vital, but also with respect to street crime. And as long as
Mexico's police forces cannot assure its citizens that safety
and governance presence will be effective, susceptibility to
mobilization by armed actors, by crime groups will be high.
Mexico is unaltered, in many ways, from the discussion that
we were having because the major aspect of the illegal economy
is not labor intensive, it is mainly trafficking, and that,
fortunately, greatly limits the power that crime groups can
acquire in Mexico, along with the very high brutality. Yet, at
the same time, the cartels' ability to penetrate informal
economies in Mexico--sales of DVDs that Eric mentioned, for
example--allows them still to function as providers of both
employment, as well as at least minimal security in the absence
of the state.
We also have to realize that despite Mexico's status as at
least a middle income country and impressive wealth, at least
40 percent of its population still exists in condition of
poverty that is actually increasing. Many of these marginalized
people, both in rural areas as well as in urban settings, have
access to only minimum public goods provided by the state.
So it is vital that Mexico reconceptualizes its approach to
the cartels from thinking about them simply as NARCO-drug
enterprises that can be eliminated through limited interdiction
actions toward thinking about them as much more than that, for
providing these various social functions for the populations
and, hence, try to develop socioeconomic component of the
policies in addition to interdiction, in addition to police
reform, in addition to intelligence capacity building, to sever
the link between the population and the cartels. Then
intelligence flows will improve greatly and the effectiveness
of law enforcement will be far greater than we have seen so
far.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Quigley.
The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Luetkemeyer.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am very interested in Mr. Mansfield's comments from the
standpoint that my State and my area where I come from just
sent over the second group of National Guardsmen to work with
the Afghan farmers to try and train them on how to grow other
crops other than poppy, so it would appear to me that if
Afghanistan, if I am not mistaken, is 95 percent of the world's
heroin come from there, is that right? So if we could do
something there to transfer them from growing that to other
beneficial crops.
It seems to me that in order to be able to grow beneficial
crops, they have to have viable markets for the products that
they sell, and I was interested in your remarks there when you
said something about that, that they were trying to do that and
it was based on profit whether they actually did it or not. So
I assume from that, as well--I am kind of rambling here, but I
want to try and get in enough questions here that I can get my
5 minutes in.
But it would appear that the farmers actually grow their
own crops, that they are not grown by the drug folks
themselves, and then they sell the crop, I guess, to the drug
folks, is that correct? And then if they own their own crop,
they can make the decision what to grow. So I assume from that,
then, that the drug folks actually don't grow the crops
themselves.
So if you could just kind of elaborate on the ability of us
to impact the growth of something besides poppies over there,
as well as just sort of a little quick primer on how the drug
trade actually operates over there, if you would, please.
Mr. Mansfield. I should have brought my neshtar and rumbai
to explain the opium poppy cultivation process, but I suspect I
wouldn't be here, I might be in some kind of prison if I tried
to enter the country with that.
Again, we need to be clear on what farming looks like in
Afghanistan. We have a picture here of a farmer standing within
his poppy field, but what we don't see there is also the area
of land that is grown with wheat, which he needs to consume. We
don't see his family plot of vegetables that they grow to feed
the family. Some might be sold, depending on circumstance.
So it is this particular narrative of the poppy farmer we
see. Most farmers in Afghanistan grow a range of different
crops, and it is a question of the distribution of crops that
they grow, the proportion of land that would be poppy. So part
of this is about raising the risks associated with poppy and
reducing the risks associated with engaging in an illegal
economy. Many of the goods they produce simply don't have a
market; they grow them to consume. And when they try and take
them to market, if they are in a remote area, they get hit with
checkpoints asking for money. In some cases we have had
commanders, officials of the government commandeering that
crop, buying it at a low price.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. If I could interrupt just for a second. Is
there an effort to try and develop these markets, though, so
that if they produce a crop in excess? Could there be an
incentive for them to produce more and therefore change over
from poppy crops? And I guess the second part of the question
is is it realistic to believe that we can eradicate poppy
growing in that area or is that just a pipe dream?
Mr. Mansfield. Sure, there are a lot of investments in
this, but the question is: where does the market lie? The
market of Kabul, the market of Jalalabad, they are big. But the
markets of Lashkigar and Helmand are limited. If you are
growing poppy, if you are growing a range of different crops in
Helmand, you are not selling it in Lashkigar.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Is there an effort, though, to increase
these markets or develop markets for these folks so that there
is an incentive to do that?
Mr. Mansfield. Part of it is there are those efforts, but
part of it is the security environment. If I can't get down the
road--I have farmers who grow onion in Nawa who we have been
interviewing for a number of years. It is very near Lashkigar,
but they know the market for onions in Lashkigar is limited;
Kandahar is the real market. But he knows that if he moves his
onions to Kandahar, he has 14 checkpoints along that road who
are going to ask for money. He knows that the hauler who moves
that crop wants extra money because it is a dangerous road to
drive down. So the markets don't function.
And the great thing about opium poppy for these farmers is
it functions. I don't have to take the physical risk of
traveling down the road and I don't have to take the economic
risk of getting to market and being a price taker and finding
that I can't sell my onion at a profit. I have farmers who
basically have grown onion, realize they can't make a profit,
have basically taken what they need, offer the fellow villagers
what they need, and then left the rest to rot.
So one issue is the security side. On the market side, as I
say, you have finite markets, size of markets, so one of the
big questions is the issue of local procurement. How do we
stimulate the market? We keep looking for export markets, these
miracle crops; pomegranates, apricots, saffron, mint, one thing
after another. Most of those crops have foreign markets.
But actually there is a foreign market within Afghanistan,
which is the international community. Actually stimulating the
market for legal goods by us, the international community,
buying more local produce would be a major advantage. I think
also not only economically, but politically the whole issue of
we eat the same food. I mean, I have sat in some PRTs, one in
Orzgo, and you are constantly thinking where is the market for
the goods. They grow fantastic apricots and almonds and these
other things. Where is the market? We have to get it to
Kandahar. The road is dangerous; they have just sort of got rid
of the highway police. Instead of robbing people officially,
they are now robbing people unofficially. So where is the
market? The PRT. We sat among 6,000 soldiers. We are part of
that market.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir.
Gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch.
Mr. Welch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olson, what factors, in your view, are at play in
spurring the big rapid growth of cocaine in West Africa?
Mr. Olson. I probably should defer here to Doug.
Mr. Welch. Well, we will defer to Doug if you want us to .
Mr. Farah. The factors in Mexican trafficking moving their
product to West Africa, sir?
Mr. Welch. Right.
Mr. Farah. Well, part of it is that U.S. interdiction
efforts have been very good. It is harder for the Colombians to
get their product from Colombia through Central America to
Mexico. And I think the opening of the Venezuelan avenue for
moving products from Colombia via Venezuela to the west or to
the east is now much more attractive than it was before,
particularly the FARC with its relationship with Chavez, is
able to take advantage of that, as are the Bolivians. What you
saw for many years was that the Bolivian traffickers growing
coca were not allowed to produce ACL, the final product,
because the Colombians wanted that for themselves. They are no
longer able to control the Bolivians or the Peruvians.
Mr. Olson. If I might, I would add a couple more things.
Mr. Welch. Yes, go ahead.
Mr. Olson. Which is when we saw a spike in trafficking to
Europe through West Africa, it also coincided with a very
favorable exchange rate in Europe. In other words, by exporting
and as the exchange rate improved for the consumer. In other
words, it got cheaper, consumption went way up. So it is a
market and they move in that direction. Then the possibility of
shipping it to Europe opened up, as Mr. Farah said, because
Western Africa was a very weak open area that they could
exploit as a transshipment.
Mr. Farah. One final thing is that Brazil has become a very
big market and a lot of the Bolivian and other stuff moves
through Brazil to the Portuguese speaking parts of West Africa,
where they have a language advantage, particularly Guinea
Bissau and Angola. So you have a language--and if you look
geographically, they are quite close. Brazil has become a very
large consumption market and the Bolivians and Peruvians find
it much easier, in some cases, to go through Brazil out to West
Africa, where, again, the Brazilian ability with language
particularly is a very useful thing to have.
Mr. Welch. OK. Are there links that have been established
between some of the terrorist organizations and Africa, Al
Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb in criminal drug trafficking
elements?
Mr. Farah. I think what you are seeing in terms of the
small shipments that move toward the Tuareg smuggling networks
and things from West Africa through the transit hill region,
going up north, is that you are seeing an increasing amount of
small cocaine shipments, but not the major shipments going
through that route. And what you see is the Tuaregs and other
groups that will have to have a relationship with Al Qaeda and
Islamic Maghreb now buying a lot of Chinese weapons with that
money, so they are much better armed and they are much more
lethal than they were before, which can rebound to the benefit
of Al Qaeda and Islamic Maghreb.
But sort of official ties, I don't think we have seen that
yet. I think that you are seeing 1 and 2 and 3 kilo loads
moving that way; they still prefer cigarettes, gasoline, other
things that they can smuggle, they know how to smuggle. But I
think the potential you are in an ungoverned space, where
groups will need the same facilitation with their product, I
don't think it is irrational to assume that will at some point
take place.
Mr. Welch. Thank you.
Doctor.
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Thank you for the question. It brings
into focus the larger issue of how terrorist groups,
belligerent groups penetrate illicit economies, and we
frequently fall into the idea that the illicit economy becomes
altogether captured or dominates by the belligerent group. Take
for example Al Qaeda and Islamic Maghreb and some of the known
participation in the Moroccan drug trade. Well, it is true, but
it would be incorrect to imagine that the entire Moroccan
marijuana hashish trade is dominated by Al Qaeda and Islamic
Maghreb. In fact, I would posit that their size of the trade is
very small.
Similarly, in Afghanistan, although the Taliban is
profiting and benefiting in multiple ways, very many other
actors also participate in the drug trade, and it is far from
the province of the Taliban. In Colombia, yes, the FARC is part
of the drug trade, as is the ELN, but to a much larger extent
former paramilitary groups that in many cases were essentially
identical to drug trafficking groups dominated the trade more,
and there still today are very many independent traffickers and
independent trading organizations.
In fact, it would be very rare and quite unusual for a
belligerent group to have the capacity to completely dominate
the entire illicit economy, especially in the case of extensive
labor intensive economies.
The flip side of that is the belligerent groups rarely rely
on simply one illicit economy for their funding. The case of
Taliban, FARC, many others, Al Qaeda, are certainly prominent,
where they have highly diversified portfolios with much money
coming from ordinary fundraising, from donations, from
participation in other illicit economies, from taxation of
legal products in areas where they function; and it is this
diversification and multiple sources and the ease with which
they can move from one funding to another that makes efforts to
suppress the money by targeting the illicit economy or by
trying to undertake antimoney laundering measures so very
difficult.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Welch.
Mr. Murphy, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Those
buzzers indicate that we have votes on the floor, so I will be
brief, but I wanted to followup on Mr. Welch's line of
questioning.
To Mr. Farah, specifically to the issue of Hezbollah's
presence in West Africa. In your testimony you spend a decent
amount of time talking about their presence there, the amount
of money moving from West Africa back to the Middle East, and I
just want to sort of ask the question that Mr. Welch asked
specific to Hezbollah. What are the prospects, moving forward,
for there to be a greater degree of reliance potentially in
West Africa upon the drug trade to potentially add to the money
going back. So let me just ask that question. What do you see
as the current nexus between Hezbollah specifically and the
growing drug trade in West Africa and what do we worry about in
terms of trends going forward?
Mr. Farah. Well, I think that is a very important question
to which I don't think we actually know the answer. Hezbollah
is on the ground there, but let's say the blood diamond dealers
that I dealt with there, they weren't organically Hezbollah.
Hezbollah would tax them and take part of their money, as I
believe the same is true in tri-border area in Latin America
and other parts. Hezbollah doesn't run the trade; Hezbollah
profits mightily from the trade by the taxation ability in
providing protection, but they are not organically linked to
Hezbollah.
I think that as the Colombian and Brazilian and other
organizations move into West Africa, they are either going to
have to cut a deal with the traditional Lebanese crime families
that dominate or it is going to get very bloody, and it has not
gotten bloody, which to me indicates--if you have product that
you want to move from West Africa to Europe, you almost have to
go through the Lebanese networks, because that is the pipeline
that exists and they know how to move stuff.
When Al Qaeda wanted to move its diamond profits, it didn't
set up its own thing in West Africa, it went to the Hezbollah
network and moved diamonds that way. And I think that is what
is happening with the drug trade. I think it is going to
strengthen the Hezbollah folks because they are going to profit
from providing protection and movement for those particular
products. Whether that becomes organically linked to Hezbollah,
I doubt it will because that is not the way Hezbollah tends to
operate, but I think that it will strengthen all the criminal
networks because cocaine is a product that is useful to the
pipeline and the pipeline is useful to cocaine traffickers, so
there is a symbiosis that has to take place; and if it doesn't
get really bloody, which it hasn't, then I would say that
indicates a level of cooperation that is growing.
Mr. Murphy. Then let me ask this followup, which is part of
the comments, especially from Dr. Felbab-Brown, was about the
fact that even if we were to do something to try to prevent a
growing reliance or a growing connection between the drug trade
and terrorist networks--I am probably oversimplifying what you
said, but that it may not matter because they will be able to
go other places.
So my question is to the extent that we do have a worry
that the networks become much more interdependent and
interlinked, what are our strategies as a Nation to try to
prevent--I mean, we obviously want to do something about drug
trafficking on its own, but what are our strategies that we
take to try to prevent those connections from being made in the
future relative to Hezbollah or relative to other operations in
Africa specifically?
Mr. Farah. Well, I think it is very difficult because as we
have all said, you have pipelines that will move almost any
given product you put into it from one point to another, be it
human trafficking, drugs, weapons, or money moving either way;
and Hezbollah, particularly in West Africa, has perfected the
art of bringing down all kinds of illicit stuff into the region
to sell that would normally be licit, but they move it in
illicit fashions.
So I think our strategy has been largely fairly simplistic.
I think we have been looking at drug trafficking, terrorists,
sort of organized crime as different entities and not at the
overlap and interconnectedness of it. I think our presence on
the ground in places like West Africa is so slim that we are
really flying blind there.
I think that our ability and I say in my testimony--at the
end of the day, our only real option, is twofold: One is to
develop vetted units that can work on the ground there with the
Colombians, the Brazilians and the other thing is to get Europe
to engage much more robustly, because, it is their market that
is being penetrated by the drugs. They have the long history
and they know--I have dealt with the Belgians extensively on
this--the Lebanese criminal networks very well, much better
than we will ever know.
The French know the criminal networks that go into France.
And yet they also are viewing this in sort of piecemeal
fashion. So the Europeans will have to engage in a much more
robust fashion to look at how these groups overlap, because
they know these groups much better than we do and than we will
in the next 20 years.
Ms. Felbab-Brown. If I can add. It is very important that
we seek to prevent dangerous belligerent groups from
penetrating illicit economies, and we have to ask ourselves in
each case several questions: What illicit economies do they
have access to? Do they have accessible labor intensive illicit
economies? And this is especially where we should try to
prevent them from accessing, because if they do so they get
much more than money, they get support from the population.
This has not yet happened in the case of West Africa, where the
trade is mainly traffic, not labor intensive; it is not
cultivation. And we should make an effort to see that
cultivation doesn't relocate there, for example.
The second question we need to ask, if our goal is to dry
up the money by targeting the illicit economy, is that likely
going to switch the belligerent group to try to develop another
illicit economy or penetrate another illicit economy that might
be ultimately even more harmful for our interest? The case of
FARC is important. While I do not believe that eradication did
decrease ultimately in the long term financial resources of the
FARC, although the FARC is beaten, I think it is largely
irrespective or despite eradication.
At least for a while we have seen decreases in cultivation
and limits on funding. And one of the resulting effects was
that the FARC has tried to acquire enriched uranium or uranium,
I should say, as a way to resell and make money. This is an
illicit economy far more dangerous to the United States than
the continuing cultivation of coca.
And the third question we need to ask in policy is if we
suppress the illicit economy, where is it going to shift? If we
suppress poppy in Afghanistan, are we going to sell wholesale
transfer to Pakistan and going to set up even more dangerous
problem for U.S. national security interests?
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. I want to thank all of
our witnesses. It is very untimely to have these floor votes at
this particular point. We don't have control over that,
although I wish we did. I am going to ask you this. Mr. Flake
and others have hearings that, if we were going to go straight
through, we would be able to finish on that, but given the fact
that these votes are going to take a half hour or more, maybe
45 minutes or an hour, they have other classified briefings
they have to go to. May we submit to you some questions that we
didn't get to today in this hearing and give you homework, if
you don't mind, to submit back?
I do want to explore some of the priorities. We talked
about strategies of reducing demand, of eradication or
disruption in some areas, and resolving underlying economic
factors, governance and all those issues. I want to ask is
there a priority for that? Is one approach more important than
another?
I want to talk more about Mr. Mansfield's response to
illicit drugs in Afghanistan when they think the government may
be as involved as other parties; the prospects of what is going
on in Venezuela, can we get Venezuela's cooperation with our
country as opposed to the FARC and others? What is happening in
Guinea Bissau on that basis, how failed is that; and, what is
the role of human intelligence?
I know that is a serious matter. Are we farming the same
problems there in terms of language and other setbacks that we
have in other areas; and how do we engage the international
community. Doctor, you mentioned India in some of your remarks.
Why aren't they more engaged or are they engaged? What is their
role there? The Belgians and others too?
So, with your permission, we will submit those records and
ask for any other comments you want to make on what we ought to
be doing on that. As I said, we have another hearing coming up
with government agency witnesses and we would love to be able
to have that information to get their response to it.
Can I just say thank you for coming in and for giving us
your expertise and taking your time and energy, as well, to do
that? We appreciate it a great deal. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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