[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 69 (Thursday, May 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H3162-H3166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FORMULATING A RATIONAL DRUG POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Bono). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Madam Speaker, I come before the House again tonight to 
talk primarily about one of the major issues I am involved in in the 
United States Congress and as a Member of the House of Representatives.
  I have the privilege and opportunity to serve as the Chair during the 
106th Congress of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and 
Human Resources, and in that capacity it is my responsibility to help 
formulate a rational drug policy both for the House of Representatives, 
for the United States Congress and, hopefully, for the American people, 
to deal with a problem that is epidemic and devastating across our 
land. We do not fail to pick up a newspaper across the United States 
today or in my local community in central Florida and not read about 
some tragedy, particularly among our young people, some faceless, some 
unknown, some celebrities, some stars; one last week, I believe Mark 
Tuinei of the Dallas Cowboys. A 39-year-old healthy successful athlete 
died tragically from the results of a heroin overdose. I understand it 
was one of the first times he had ever used heroin. I understand it was 
also possibly in conjunction with another drug, possibly ecstacy. I am 
sure all this is to be investigated, but nonetheless he did die a 
tragic death, and we lost another young athletic star.
  But, Madam Speaker, it is my concern that we cannot get attention to 
this problem.
  This past couple of weeks the Nation has been focused and riveted on 
the tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado, and certainly this 
horrific act in Colorado and Littleton did cause all of us pause and 
concern about the state of violence in our school system and education 
and with our young people.
  But, Madam Speaker, there are three Columbine High Schools or the 
equivalent of the death and destruction among our population every 
single day in America. There are three Columbine High School tragedy 
equivalents across our land on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 
Friday, Saturday, Sunday and every one of the 365 days. Last year over 
14,000 Americans lost their lives to drug-related deaths. The 
statistics are mind-boggling when you stop and think that in the last 6 
years of this administration over 100,000 Americans, the equivalent of 
cities of significant population have been entirely wiped out by drug-
related deaths, and what is more disturbing is some of the policies of 
this administration which were instituted in the first 2 years when 
they controlled the United States House of Representatives, the other 
body, the United States Senate, and the White House, that in fact we 
are still reeling from the devastating effects of those policies on our 
country and particularly in the area of illegal narcotics deaths.

  We have seen a dramatic increase in both the use and abuse of very 
hard drugs including heroin. A heroin epidemic exists and rages across 
this land, in my own community. Our young people, our teenage 
population in the last 5 years, has experienced an 875 percent increase 
in heroin use. Now I am talking about our teen population, our youngest 
victims in again this epidemic of heroin.
  What has also caused the record number of deaths and I am sure will 
be attributed to the deaths we have read about just in the past few 
days in my local community and the death I cited of a Dallas Cowboys 
athlete is the high purity of heroin that is entering the United 
States. People today have no idea of the deadly effects of high purity 
heroin, and particularly when they are used with any other substance 
the results are devastating.
  In my local community, and I represent central Florida from Orlando 
to Daytona Beach, a very prosperous area, an area that has a high 
education level, a high income level, again relatively high prosperity 
across the district, we have a situation of heroin deaths now exceeding 
homicides in that, again, tranquil part of central Florida, and this is 
no longer a problem of one urban addiction population, a hard-core use 
in, again, center cities problem; this is a problem that now extends to 
every income level and, again, particularly is violent and prevalent 
among our young people and our teenage population.
  The cost of this epidemic is staggering. We have filled our prisons 
across this great land with almost 2 million Americans incarcerated. 
Estimates are now that 60 to 70 percent of those behind bars in our 
jails, in our prisons, in our Federal penitentiaries are there because 
of some drug-related offense. And many of these individuals are there 
because they committed a very serious crime, not small usage of illegal 
narcotics, but very serious felonies, and sometimes because they were 
on drugs or sometimes they were dealing in illegal narcotics, but the 
results are 60 to 70 percent of our prison population across this land 
is now again involved and has been involved with illegal narcotics.
  If my colleagues want to take an example of a human tragedy, take the 
area we are in, Madam Speaker, the Nation's Capital, an area that is 
visited by thousands and thousands of tourists daily. It should be the 
pride of every American, and unfortunately, my colleagues, Washington, 
because of illegal narcotics, has become a sad commentary on the abuse 
and misuse of illegal narcotics. Three hundred fifty to 400 young men 
in most instances, and mostly black males, in our nation's capital have 
died annually the past 6 or 7 years, tragic deaths, and most of them 
related to illegal narcotics. The situation is even worse when you look 
at the effect again on the minority population, the young black males 
who have so much potential in our society. In the District of Columbia 
nearly 50 percent of the male population is part of the judicial system 
on probation or behind bars, again an incredible human tragedy and much 
of it linked to the abuse and misuse and trafficking in illegal 
narcotics.

                              {time}  1715

  The cost in dollars, not to mention the human tragedy that I just 
mentioned, is phenomenal. As chair of the subcommittee, we are now 
trying to work with others in the Congress to formulate a package to 
address in dollars the direct cost of illegal narcotics, and we do not 
have all of the costs combined in this figure but we will be somewhere 
in the neighborhood of $18 billion that Congress is about to pass a 
supplemental appropriations, of which $6.9 billion can be attributed to 
the war in Kosovo and we are looking at double to triple of that direct 
cost in our budget to the war on drugs, which again is an expensive 
proposition.
  Madam Speaker, these are only the direct costs that I am referring 
to, this $18 billion we will consider for the next fiscal year. There 
are a quarter of a trillion dollars in additional costs, in lost wages, 
in incarceration, in costs to the judicial system, in welfare and 
support systems and social systems and the loss, the tremendous loss, 
of people involved and victims of illegal narcotic trafficking.

[[Page H3163]]

  So the loss in lives and direct human lives is incredible. The loss 
in dollars and cents to the taxpayers and the costs that the Congress 
must cover in expenses for, again, this situation and illegal narcotics 
is phenomenal.
  Again, some of the problems that we are facing today emanated from a 
change in policy. It may have been well intended. During the Reagan 
administration, and I had the opportunity to serve with Senator Paula 
Hawkins who initiated many of the anti-narcotics legislative and 
administrative efforts working with the Reagan administration in the 
early eighties, Florida was inundated with cocaine and other illegal 
narcotics trafficking, but a strategy to stop drugs at their source, a 
strategy to interdict illegal narcotics as they came from their source, 
a strategy to employ the military, the Coast Guard and other United 
States assets before the illegal narcotics ever got to our shores, all 
of these programs were put in place.
  Additionally, we had a First Lady who developed a program working 
with legislative leaders and the President and others. It was a simple 
program. She developed a program that said, just say no, to our young 
people. The results were pretty dramatic.
  If we look in the early eighties, we had high drug usage. We had 
increasing narcotics trafficking, and those statistics and figures went 
down steadily through the Reagan administration of the 1980s into the 
early 1990s when President Bush continued those policies.
  It was not until 1993, with this administration, that they began 
dismantling, first of all, the drug czar's office. We cannot fight a 
national or international effort without the proper resources, without 
the proper direction, and certainly with so many Federal agencies 
involved and responsible for various elements of combatting illegal 
narcotics, whether it is the Department of Education, HHS, the 
Department of Justice, the DEA, our Drug Enforcement Administration, 
the Coast Guard, which is under transportation and other agencies, 
unless there was a good coordinating operation which was established 
again under the Reagan administration, and with the position of drug 
czar, can you have an effective anti-narcotics, illegal narcotics, 
operation or administration at the Federal level. So the first mistake 
that was made was dismantling that office and cutting dramatically 
their resources.
  Next, the Clinton administration, and this is now history, cut the 
source country operations. If we look at how to stop illegal narcotics 
in huge quantities from entering the United States, we merely look at 
the sources. Now, if we had cocaine growing in every backyard or if we 
had cocaine coming from every nation on earth, it might be impossible 
to stop cocaine and coca production in every one of these sources, but, 
in fact, we have known that the three countries involved in the 
production of coca were Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. Ninety percent of 
the cocaine and coca was actually produced in Bolivia and Peru. 
However, again, changes from this administration have now made Colombia 
the major producer of coca and cocaine in the entire world, now 
exceeding what Peru and Bolivia had captured as the major source of 
production.
  So we had, again, a dramatic decrease, a cut of the source country 
programs that cost effectively stopped the production of illegal 
narcotics. We knew cocaine was coming from there. We knew heroin and 
other things, tough narcotics, were trafficking through Mexico, and we 
stopped programs to, again, stop drugs at their production source and 
then stop drugs at the second most cost effective stage, which is 
interdicting them before they ever get to the country, as they are 
leaving the source country. Dramatic cuts were made in these 
interdiction programs.
  Most of the military activities were sharply cut back, and 
additionally we cut the Coast Guard budget. When I say ``we,'' the 
Congress that was controlled, again, by the other side of the aisle, 
the Democrats, in 1993 to 1995. Again, they controlled both the 
legislative and executive branches of government when they made these 
cuts in the military, in the Coast Guard, in the eradication and 
interdiction programs.
  Now, they did dramatically increase the treatment programs, but if we 
fought a battle and we only fought the battle by treating the wounded, 
it is not much of a battle. If we did that in any of our conflicts, we 
would be decimated. We have been, in fact, decimated in the war on 
drugs, because basically this administration, through the direction of 
President Clinton, dismantled what we had in place as a war on drugs. 
That is how we got to the situation where we have seen an incredible 
increase in narcotics, particularly heroin and cocaine and 
methamphetamine, coming into the United States.
  Our subcommittee has looked at some of the problems relating to 
stopping drug trafficking, and I am pleased to inherit the 
responsibility I have for helping to develop this national drug 
strategy from the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
  Speaker Hastert, in his capacity as chair of the Subcommittee on 
National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations and the 
Subcommitee on Criminal Justice Drug Policy and Human Resources, on 
which I served in the last Congress, led the fight and the effort to 
put our real war on drugs back together; to restore the interdiction 
programs; to restore the eradication, again, at the source country 
programs; to bring the military and the Coast Guard back in to this 
battle so that, again, we have a real war and effort to stop the 
incredible supply and quantity of hard narcotics coming into the United 
States.
  If that is not a responsibility of the Federal Government to deal 
with the international problem, the supply coming into the country, I 
do not know what is a national responsibility for any Federal 
Government.
  I do want to give credit to Speaker Hastert, who in his capacity as 
chair of the subcommittee on which I served with him in the last 
Congress helped put together again these programs that were decimated 
by the Clinton administration and by the policy of the democrat 
controlled Congress from 1993 to 1995. He did an admirable job.

  Not only did Speaker Hastert restore some of the areas that are so 
important, eradication at the source, interdiction, use of the 
military, the Coast Guard and getting those resources to enforcement, 
he also shepherded through dramatic increases in education, because if 
we do not have a solid education program and make young people in 
particular, and all Americans, aware of the potential danger of these 
hard narcotics, then we cannot be successful in stopping drug abuse and 
the stream of illegal narcotics coming into the country.
  Nearly a billion dollars in increase in funding was appropriated, a 
very dramatic increase, to bring us up to the levels not even of 1992 
when they started dismantling some of these programs, but starting back 
to restore again and have an effective war on drugs.
  I hear some of the critics saying the war on drugs has failed. Well, 
Madam Speaker, there has been no war on drugs since 1993, with this 
administration. It is only in the last 2 years that we have again put 
the adequate resources to cost effectively stop these huge quantities 
of deadly narcotics from entering this country. So we have begun that 
effort and we need to pick that effort up.
  Another incredible mistake made by this administration was a decision 
to cut aid to Colombia. The Congress has provided aid to Colombia. Now, 
why should the United States provide aid, and what interest do the 
taxpayers and others have in providing aid to Colombia?
  As I said, there are two sources of cocaine where 90 percent of the 
cocaine came from in all the world; it was from Peru and Bolivia. This 
administration stopped resources, aid, assistance, ammunition, 
helicopters, spare parts, despite numerous protests from Congress, from 
going to Colombia. They stopped the shipment and supply.
  In that period of time in the last few years, 3, 4 years, now we have 
to understand there was almost no coca produced in Colombia some 5 
years ago, with the policy of this administration and stopping again 
that assistance from getting there, Colombia is now the major producer 
in the world of coca, the raw material, and the major producer of 
cocaine. Not only is it a producer of the raw material, and the major 
processor in the entire world, again through a very direct policy of

[[Page H3164]]

this administration, which was to cut off assistance, again, despite 
countless protests, despite letters, despite communications, despite 
pleas from Members of Congress, and I know this because I participated 
in this with Speaker Hastert, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), 
who chairs the Committee on International Relations, and numerous other 
Members of Congress who joined us in saying do not make this mistake, 
do not cut off this assistance to Colombia, so now we have, again, made 
Colombia, through an incorrect policy, the number one producer of 
cocaine.
  In the same period of time, since President Clinton took office, 
Colombia produced almost no heroin. There was almost zero heroin, zero 
poppies and opiates produced from the country of Colombia. What has 
happened, Madam Speaker, is absolutely incredible in this 5, 6 year 
period of this administration. The largest source of heroin, and not 
the heroin of the 1960s or 1970s or even the 1980s, but high quality, 
high purity heroin, the largest source, 75 percent of all the heroin 
entering the United States, devastating children and people of all ages 
in Florida and across this Nation, 75 percent is now coming from 
Colombia.
  Again, Colombia was not a producer of heroin of any quantity 6 years 
ago, and this policy of this administration has now made actually 
heroin so readily available its purity exceeds that of any other 
available drug, hard drug.
  The price has dropped. The supply is so great. It is available as now 
a drug that can be marketed to our young people, probably lower than 
the price of cocaine on our streets. So we have seen a deadly brand of 
heroin being grown from that country.
  It would be nice if people on my side of the aisle stood up and said 
what they have done and are doing about this situation, and it is 
incumbent on me not to just criticize the Clinton administration or my 
colleagues on the other side for their failed policies, but I think it 
is important that we state for the record what we have done.
  In fact, I cited that Speaker Hastert, who shared the responsibility 
for developing and putting back together our drug strategy, began that 
process, putting resources into, again, source country eradication 
programs, interdiction, getting funds and resources to the military and 
to the Coast Guard and others to fight this tremendous battle.
  Additionally, we put in over a billion dollars in education funding, 
$191 million last year, to begin public information education and a 
media campaign, which will be matched by private sector donations. So 
we should have close to half a billion dollars before we are through 
this effort to educate folks.
  On the front of Colombia, which has become our major source of 
production, it has been my pleasure to meet with President Pastrana, 
both in the United States here, soon after he took office, the end of 
last year, and visiting with him also in Colombia with other Members of 
Congress, to seek his cooperation, to seek Colombia's cooperation, and 
we are doing just that. He faces a very difficult challenge now that 
the Marxist guerillas, the FARC and ELN and others, have taken control 
of a large portion of the land area of Colombia, have dug their heels 
in and have now created an incredible war.
  If we think the problem in Kosovo is a tragedy, thousands and 
thousands of Colombians have died in this civil conflict, and certainly 
if we look at the national interest, if we looked at Kosovo and we 
looked at Colombia, our national interest with this being the source of 
the death of 14,000 Americans, the majority of 14,000 Americans who 
died, I am sure we could trace the narcotics right to Colombia.
  In Colombia, dozens and dozens of elected officials, 11 members of 
their Supreme Court, have been murdered, killed; over 3,000 of the 
national police have died in a conflict giving their lives trying to 
combat the narcoterrorists, which are again related to a Marxist effort 
and narcoterrorist effort to take over Colombia, but we stopped, again, 
any resources going down there, ammunition, helicopters, equipment, 
spare parts, and we now see again this leftist-initiated civil war that 
has killed tens of thousands of Colombians, thousands of officials, 
created terror and allowed narcoterrorism to flourish in that country.
  I might say that, again, we have begun to put this whole program and 
effort back together to deal with that situation. Several weeks ago I 
was so pleased to join with the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), 
who is chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, the full 
committee of which we are a subcommittee. I also had the pleasure of 
joining with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), who is the Chair 
of our Committee on International Affairs, two individuals who have 
fought for years to get resources to Colombia so we would not be in the 
situation we are in.
  I participated with them by going to a factory in Connecticut, near 
New Haven, Connecticut, for delivery of Black Hawk helicopters, 6 Black 
Hawk helicopters, which will be supplied in the war and effort against 
illegal narcotics, both the production and also going after 
traffickers. These 6 helicopters are long overdue. There should be 16, 
as I said in my remarks there at the ceremony in which they were turned 
over. Unfortunately, it will take some months before the pilots are 
fully trained and before they are in the air. We are doing our part, as 
a majority. Speaker Hastert again in his capacity began this initiative 
to make certain that now that those helicopters and those parts and 
that ammunition are delivered that we have a war on drugs, so that we 
have a cost effective operation at the source.
  Madam Speaker, if we know where the majority of cocaine and coca is 
produced and processed, and that is Colombia, and if we know where 75 
percent of the heroin coming in to the United States, and we know that 
without question because we have signature programs like DNA programs 
that can almost trace the heroin to the poppy fields where they are 
grown, if we know that 75 percent of this deadly heroin is coming from 
Colombia, why in heaven's name would we not be sending the adequate 
resources there?
  I am here to say tonight that we are sending some of those resources 
on their way, and I hope that this time that this administration will 
not block those resources from getting to where they can do the most 
cost effective job in stopping deadly heroin, deadly cocaine, from 
coming into the United States. There is no cheaper way of stopping the 
supply than stopping it at its source; again, hopefully to help in the 
resolution of a civil war that has taken thousands of lives, and which 
we know is directly financed by the proceeds of this narcoterrorism.
  So, again, I congratulate the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), 
the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, for his 
assistance and leadership, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), our 
chair of the full Committee on Government Reform, for their efforts and 
persistence in getting the resources to where they can be most cost 
effective.
  Madam Speaker, again, we try to address the issues dealing with drugs 
as they come into the United States and before they come into the 
United States in a cost effective manner. In that regard, last week my 
subcommittee held a hearing on the question of Panama, and the effects 
of the United States losing its flight operations and basically being 
kicked out of the Panama Canal Zone as far as any forward surveillance 
operations dealing with narcotics.
  On May 1, the United States was prohibited from launching any 
flights, any narcotics surveillance missions, from the Republic of 
Panama. This is an incredible blow to our capability to find drugs as 
they come from, again, their source country. Again, we have to think of 
the most cost effective way to stop drugs and we have to think of where 
these illegal narcotics are produced, where they are processed and 
where the beginning of the trafficking comes from. Our ability to deal 
with that has been as through an operation that has been found for a 
number of years in Panama, particularly at Howard Air Force base where 
we have had various surveillance aircraft, including AWACS and others 
tracking and monitoring illegal narcotics flights, trafficking, doing 
surveillance work in cooperation with countries.

                              {time}  1730

  Most Americans are not aware of it, but again, we were kicked out May 
1.

[[Page H3165]]

 The reason we were kicked out deals back to the Carter administration 
and the truth agreements that the United States must vacate. However, 
our subcommittee in Congress was led to believe that this 
administration was moving forward with negotiations with Panama so that 
we could, at a minimum, keep our narcotics surveillance operations from 
that base, which is just ideally located, again for the purpose of 
interdicting close to the source, illegal narcotics.
  Unfortunately, there is no other way to put it, but the State 
Department bungled the negotiations and this went on until the very 
last minute. We were in Panama in January hoping that there could be 
some resolution. Unfortunately, the negotiations failed. The United 
States lost all access.
  In fact, the United States stopped all flights from Panama on May 1. 
We had 15,000 flights, and we covered 100 percent of the area that 
needed to be covered to conduct surveillance of illegal narcotics 
trafficking and production.
  In the hearing that we conducted last week, unfortunately we could 
not be told as to how many operations have been relocated.
  Now, it would not be bad enough that we got kicked out and the 
negotiations were bungled, but part of the $18 billion that the 
administration has come to Congress to ask for to deal in the drug war, 
part of that, a large part of it, is $73 million to relocate what we 
had been not paying for in Panama, but to relocate operations to Aruba 
or Curacao with the Netherlands, and also to Ecuador.
  So what has been patched together, we learned through this hearing, 
are interim agreements, and we have no long-term agreements, not a 
single long-term agreement to replace our base operations in Panama, 
but at a cost of $73 million, which was originally proposed to us to 
move these operations, which now we cannot even tell how many flights 
are taking off from that area, but we know that they are less than 50 
percent of the coverage we had on May 1, or prior to May 1.
  We know it is costing us money, and we also know that a request came 
to our subcommittee in Congress for an additional $40-some million, I 
believe it was $45 million, on top of the $73 million that we are being 
asked to foot the bill for for dealing with, again, a failed 
negotiation.
  And we now have, again, less than 50 percent coverage, and it may be 
several years before we have any hope of having the coverage that we 
had from our Panama location. All this will be paid for by the 
taxpayers, and unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. We 
are also told that it may cost as much as $200 million to upgrade some 
facilities and some airstrips in some of these countries.

                              {time}  1745

  Unfortunately, again, we only have interim agreements, no long-term 
agreements. We also have a very short-term interim agreement with 
Ecuador, which is of concern because Ecuador has had very difficult 
political problems, economic instability.
  If we are to house a forward operating location there and expend 
money, we want some assurance that taxpayers' money would be properly 
expended.
  But we have really witnessed a small disaster, which has not been 
properly recorded by the press in the loss of our operations. The cost 
is phenomenal. It will probably be a half a billion dollars to replace 
these operations before we are through.
  We have lost over 5,600 buildings, not to mention Howard Air Force 
Base and its use for these surveillance operations. We lost $10 billion 
in assets that the American taxpayers paid for in the Canal Zone, all 
quietly closed down and again leaving an incredible gap in the area 
that needs protection and surveillance and overflight information.
  So we find ourselves in a very difficult situation trying to put this 
South American strategy and interdiction strategy back together. But, 
again, we are trying to do our best and do it in a cost-effective 
manner as we consider the appropriations in this budget.
  So we put some of the helicopters into place in Colombia. We have got 
equipment going back to Colombia as an initiative of the majority, the 
Republican side, and efforts again by those who fought these cuts, 
which have had such serious implications for us.
  We now are trying to piece together a forward-operating location for 
surveillance and interdiction of drugs at their source and do that 
again in a cost-effective manner, picking up the shred of disastrous 
negotiations by this administration as we quietly make our way from the 
Panama Canal Zone and pay for access to other countries.
  So those are a couple of the agenda items that our subcommittee has 
been involved in in trying to restore our war on drugs and our efforts 
to curtail this major national illegal narcotics problem.
  One of the other concerns that I have had, as a Member of Congress 
and also dealing with this drug issue, is try to come up with some 
solution to address what I will term the Mexican problem.
  Now, in addition to Colombia, and we have now cooperation equipment 
going there, we look at a strategy that deals from a national 
perspective, an international perspective, again stopping drugs at 
their source. I have already cited Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and their 
role in providing both the production and trafficking of illegal 
narcotics.
  The next biggest offender and really the biggest problem that we have 
facing us is the problem with Mexico. Unfortunately, this 
administration certified Mexico some weeks ago as fully cooperating in 
our efforts and with their efforts to stop the production and 
trafficking of illegal narcotics.
  Nothing could probably be further than the truth. Nothing could 
encourage a country to just kick sand in the face of the United States 
and ignore the will of the United States Congress and the American 
people than an action to certify Mexico as fully cooperating.
  Our subcommittee held a hearing on Mexican certification and 
decertification, and today we held another one on the question of 
extradition and particularly what Mexico has been doing to extradite 
major drug traffickers.
  Let me say, if I may, for way of explanation to Members of Congress, 
for the Speaker's edification, that the certification law which was 
passed in the 1980s is a simple law. It says that no country that is 
not fully cooperating with the United States will be eligible to 
receive foreign aid or foreign assistance if they do not take steps 
again to fully cooperate in an effort to curtail illegal narcotics 
production and trafficking. Simple law, simple concept. No assistance 
in stopping illegal narcotics and the trafficking and production, no 
foreign assistance.
  Again, this administration, for the past several years, has certified 
Mexico as fully cooperating. Why would anyone certify a country as 
fully cooperating who performed as follows: Mexico, first of all, in 
the last calendar year had a decrease in the number of seizures of 
heroin. Mexico had a decrease in the number of seizures of cocaine. 
Mexico also had a decrease in the number of vessels that were seized in 
narcotics trafficking.
  Mexico has ignored every request of the United States Congress and 
Members of Congress to deal with the hard narcotics. And 50 percent of 
the narcotics coming into the United States can be traced either as 
produced or trafficked through Mexico. That is 50 percent of the death 
and destruction, the 14,000 Americans last year, the 100,000 Americans 
in the last 6 years who have lost their lives to the effects of illegal 
narcotics. We can trace them, again, to inaction by Mexico.
  Not only do we have inaction and lack of cooperation, lack of effort 
on their part, we have had actually difficulty in trying to conduct any 
operations to stop money laundering and illegal narcotics with Mexico.
  I bring to the floor and to the attention of my colleagues and the 
Speaker the situation with Operation Casa Blanca. We asked for 
cooperation in Operation Casa Blanca, which was a multimillion dollars, 
in fact one of the largest money laundering operations ever uncovered 
in the Western Hemisphere, and it involved Mexican bankers.
  What did the Mexican officials do? Even though we know that they were 
alerted and aware of this operation, they threatened to arrest United 
States Customs officials who were involved in that operation.

[[Page H3166]]

  This is not fully cooperating by any standards. This is a close ally 
to which the United States, the Congress, and many Members on both 
sides of the aisle extended incredible trade benefits through NAFTA, 
extended incredible finance underwriting when their currency was 
failing.
  When their economy was faltering several years ago, we helped bolster 
and we do bolster through our international cooperation and finance, 
financing and the structure of support for international finance for 
Mexico. We give incredible benefits to that country, which, again, has 
not in any sense and in any term fully cooperated in meeting requests.
  I have tonight from the hearing that we conducted several little 
posters, wanted posters. We have Ramon Eduardo Arellano-Felix, who has 
pending U.S. criminal charges dealing with conspiracy to import cocaine 
and marijuana. He is a fugitive, a United States fugitive. He has not 
been arrested by Mexico.
  I used him as one example in the hearing we held just a few hours ago 
on extradition. We found again the request of Congress and repeated 
requests of the House of Representatives in particular has been for 
Mexico to cooperate in extraditing even one major narcotics trafficker.
  Through the hearing that we held this afternoon, we learned that in 
fact Mexico has been requested to extradite over 270 Mexican nationals. 
There are over 40 major drug traffickers that we are trying to 
extradite. To date not one single individual major drug trafficker, not 
one drug kingpin has been extradited from Mexico.

  We heard a tale today from the Department of Justice, Department of 
State how these drug lords with their oodles of death money are now 
subverting even the Mexican process and hiring legal experts and doing 
everything possible to avoid extradition.
  But this individual is only one of numerous requests that we have 
made of Mexico year after year for extradition. This Congress and this 
House of Representatives passed, 2 years ago March, several simple 
requests of Mexico. First was extradition of major drug traffickers, 
even one. Again, to date, nothing has transpired.
  Additionally, this House of Representatives 2 years ago asked Mexico 
to enter into a maritime agreement. That is so important because many 
of the drug traffickers use the sea lanes and water to transport and 
also as escape routes. It is so important that we have a maritime 
agreement. Still to date no maritime agreement with Mexico, another 
request of this House of Representatives.
  Additionally, we had asked for radar to be placed in the south of 
Mexico, because we knew that from Colombia and from South America 
illegal narcotics were coming in through Mexico. To date, no progress 
and radar to the south of Mexico. Another request completely ignored.
  We asked additionally that our DEA agents, our drug enforcement 
agents that are located in Mexico, be given the ability to protect 
themselves, in some cases arm themselves, because they are at 
incredible personal risk in this war there and exposed on every front 
in Mexico. To date, those requests have still been ignored.
  Then we asked that some of the laws that Mexico had passed to deal 
with illegal narcotics, trafficking and money laundering, we asked that 
those laws be enforced. Rather than enforcement, what the Mexicans have 
done, as I just cited, was kick dirt in our face in Operation Casa 
Blanca, threaten to arrest our United States Customs agents who 
uncovered multimillion dollar illegal narcotics trafficking.
  So by any measure, all of the requests that we have made as a House 
of Representatives, as individual Members, as members of the 
subcommittee have been ignored.
  Again we have this wanted poster. We had dozens of these at the 
committee hearing this afternoon of major drug lords, traffickers who 
have not been extradited, requests that have been pending year after 
year; and Mexico has ignored time and again the extradition of any of 
these Mexican nationals to the United States where they know and our 
DEA agents and our head of DEA has said that there is nothing that 
these traffickers fear more than coming to the United States where they 
will face justice, where they will face a jail term, and they will face 
punishment.
  In these countries, many of those who we have asked for extradition 
after we have indicted them have fled. Many of them are free and in 
Mexico.
  What is unfortunate, Madam Speaker, what is incredible as I conclude 
this evening is that this situation with Mexico again has rained 
tremendous damage on the United States of America who has tried to be a 
good friend, a good ally, and a good trading partner.

                              {time}  1800

  When a country which is a close ally and neighbor, and we have 
millions of great Mexican Americans in the United States who bring 
great diversity and tremendous contributions to our society, when we 
have this ally of Mexico not cooperating, it is a tragedy.
  What concerns me is that we are on the verge now of seeing Mexico 
become a narcoterrorist state. It is unfortunate, but the reports that 
we have is that the entire Baja Peninsula, all the Mexican territory of 
the Baja Peninsula below California, is now under narcoterrorist 
control. They control the police, they control the local government, 
they control the military. Basically, the entire Baja region has become 
a narcoterrorist state.
  Over 300 Mexicans were killed last year. Some 20 of them my 
colleagues may have read about were machine-gunned down, women and 
children, in violence we had only seen when the drug lords were in 
power in Cali and Medellin. So Mexico is about to lose the Baja 
Peninsula, or has lost the Baja Peninsula.
  Additionally, Mexico has lost the Yucatan Peninsula. When we met with 
Mexican officials and the Attorney General, who told us they were doing 
everything to bring the situation under control, we cited the 
corruption of the governor of Quintana Roo, the Yucatan Peninsula, that 
state where President Clinton went down and met with President Zedillo 
just a few months ago.
  They met in another narcoterrorist state, controlled by a governor 
who was corrupt, who we knew was corrupt and the Mexicans knew was 
corrupt. In fact, the Mexicans told us the only reason they had not 
arrested him is because in Mexico public officials have a certain 
immunity while they are in office, and they were waiting for him to 
leave office and then he would be arrested. And what took place there 
just a few days before the governor of Quintana Roo, the Yucatan 
Peninsula, was to leave office, he fled and is now a fugitive. So we 
did not even get one of the major traffickers in the Yucatan Peninsula. 
So another major land area in Mexico is now lost to narcoterrorism.
  Additionally, we have reports of mountain regions and other states 
and locales in Mexico being completely overtaken by narcoterrorism, and 
it is a different kind of activity than we have seen before with just 
corruption. Now we see real terrorism, where they are killing local 
officials and others who cross them in this incredible war that has 
been fueled by illegal narcotics trafficking.
  So tonight, as I close, I am disappointed with the Clinton 
administration and the problems they have created through their 
policies of 1993 to 1995, but I am pleased that we have taken a new 
direction and, with some help from folks on both sides of the aisle, 
Democrat and Republican, we now have more resources going into cost-
effective source country programs, to interdiction, as again we know 
where these drugs are coming from; for law enforcement, which is a 
tough way to go, but we must enforce the laws of our land and try to 
bring illegal narcotics trafficking under control; and also for 
education, so our young people know about the dangers and about the 
deadly heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine that is on our streets.

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