[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 23, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7530-S7532]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GRASSLEY:
  S. 1271. A bill improve the drug certification procedures under 
section 490 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.


                 most favored rogue states act of 1999

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to 
help clarify for the administration certain aspects of drug policy that 
seem to have caused confusion. The confusion seems to lie in how to 
think about our friends and enemies when it comes to drug policy. There 
seems to be a willingness to overlook the actions and activities of 
certain rogue states when it comes to their involvement in drug 
production and trafficking.
  The purpose of our international drug policy is to establish a 
framework for achieving results that sustain the national interest. As 
part of that, the goal is to identify countries that are major 
producers or transit zones for drugs. It is also to determine whether 
those countries are committed to cooperate with the United States, with 
other countries, or are taking steps on their own to stop illegal drug 
production and transit. This goal is clearly in the national interest.
  Most illegal drugs used in this country are produced overseas and 
smuggled to this country. In accomplishing this, international drug 
thugs violate our laws, international laws, and, in most cases, the 
laws in the source and transit countries. Those drugs kill and maim 
more Americans every year than have all international terrorists in the 
last 10 years. In addition, they have made many of our schools, 
workplaces, our streets and our homes unsafe and dangerous.
  There are few threats more direct, more immediate, and more telling 
in our everyday lives than drug use and the activities of those who 
push them on our young people. We pay the costs in our hospitals, in 
our jails, and in our families. It is a devastation that we share with 
other countries. And the problem overseas is growing worse. Not only is 
drug production up but so is use. The source and transit countries are 
now facing growing drug use problems. Thus, in addition to attacks on 
the underpinnings of decent government from criminal gangs, many 
countries now face epidemic drug use among young people.
  What other countries do or do not do to confront this threat is of 
interest to

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us. The nature of the drug trade, production as well as transit, is an 
interconnected enterprise with international reach. Many drug 
trafficking gangs have contacts with each other. They share markets, 
expertise, and facilities. In some cases, they can count on the 
complicity of foreign governments or of significant individuals in 
those governments. This means that a serious policy to get at the trade 
and its connections must be international, coherent, and integrated. It 
cannot be piecemeal, episodic, and disjointed. But that is what we have 
today.
  Congress has over the years repeatedly pushed for an integrated, 
coherent approach, often over the reluctance of administrations. 
Dealing with the drug issue is often messy and uncomfortable. It 
disturbs the pleasantries of diplomatic exchanges. Progress is hard to 
achieve and difficult to document. And sometimes taking drug policy 
serious upsets other plans.
  This seems to be the case in this administration's dealings with 
several major drug producing or transit countries. It seems the 
administration would rather not know what these countries are up to on 
drugs, lest knowing make it difficult to pursue other goals. In several 
of these cases, the countries involved are not friends of the United 
States. One, Iran, is a sworn enemy. It has used terrorism and other 
tactics to attack U.S. interests and to kill Americans. it is also a 
drug producing and transit country.
  For many years, the lack of cooperation or reliable information of 
Iranian counter drug efforts placed them squarely on the list of 
countries decertified by the United States. Last year, however, the 
administration removed Iran from the list. it did so on feeble 
pretexts, with limited information, and in a less than forthright 
manner. The administration used lawyerly interpretation of statute to 
drop Iran from the so-called Majors' List. Doing this meant the 
administration could then duck the question of whether to certify Iran 
as cooperating on drugs or not.
  To accomplish this little sleight of hand, the administration had to 
ignore the interconnectedness of drug trafficking, congressional 
intent, and the national interest. So far as I can determine, it did 
this in the vague hope that a unilateral gesture towards Iran on drugs 
would see a reciprocal gesture leading to detente. It is hard to 
account for the change otherwise. And even so it is hard to comprehend. 
Never mind Iran's continuing hostility, its past and current support of 
terrorism aimed at the U.S. and American citizens. Never mind the 
facts. Never mind drug production and transit. Never mind the national 
interest. This is another case of the triumph of hope over experience 
that seems to be the lodestar of this Administration's foreign policy.
  What makes the case even more disturbing is the apparent subterfuge 
the administration resorted to in order to evade explaining this major 
shift in policy. I say major because Iran had been on every drug list 
since its inception and Iran has been decertified for that whole 
history. I say subterfuge because of the pettifoggery the 
administration resorted to.
  Given the facts of Iran's past, what is reasonable to assume would be 
a responsible way of dealing with the issue? It is the clear intent of 
the law on these matters that the administration would consult with 
Congress before making a major change in policy. But what did it, in 
fact, do? Not only did the administration not consult, it nitpicked. 
The law requires the administration to submit the Majors List by 
November 1. Instead of complying with this known statutory requirement, 
the administration delayed by over a week the submission of the list, 
conveniently waiting until after Congress had adjourned. Mere 
coincidence? Well, the administration did precisely the same stalling 
routine the year before when Syria was similarly spirited off the list. 
Without any prior notice to Congress. Once is accidental, twice is 
beginning to look like a pattern.
  Weeks after this move, the administration finally provided an 
explanation. It deserves a full retelling to appreciate. First, some 
basic facts. Iran has a long history of drug production, most opium. It 
is a major transit country for opium and heroin from Afghanistan and 
Pakistan. Major Iranian criminal gangs have been involved in the drug 
trade for years.
  Since the Iranian revolution, it has been difficult for any outsiders 
to determine what, if anything, the Islamic Government is doing to stop 
this trade. It is also important to understand that Iran was on the 
Majors List as a producing country. The law requires that any country 
that grows more than 1,000 hectares of opium poppy be put on the list. 
Iran met this qualification. The standard for classifying a transit 
country is not so precise and it is this imprecision that the 
administration exploited.
  Here, in brief, is the administration's explanation for dropping Iran 
from the list: Iran no longer grows more than 1,000 hectares, and the 
transited heroin does not come to the United States, so it does not 
qualify for the list.
  This latter rationalization is based on the administration's own 
favored way of reading the law. In this reading, a major transit 
country does not qualify for the list if current intelligence 
information does not show a direct flow to the United States. Since the 
underground nature and fungibility of the international drug trade is 
hard to quantify precisely, this leaves a lot of room for interpreting 
the facts to reach a politically correct conclusion. This, of course, 
leaves aside the question of whether such an exception was ever part of 
congressional intent or is consistent with the law or the national 
interest. The reasoning is shaky on both policy and information. It 
also ignores the nature of international drug trade and criminal 
organizations and what must be done to get at them. And it relies on 
how little we know about what goes on inside Iran.
  In reality, the administration's approach is a resort to 
technicalities and convenient interpretations to dodge the real issues. 
But as we have been instructed, it all depends upon what the meaning of 
``is'' is. But let's remind ourselves that what is being done here is 
to base a weighty policy decision involving serious issues of national 
security and well being on lawyerly gamesmanship. And this on the 
unanchored hope that the gesture, and that's all it is, might get a 
friendly reaction in Iran. What did Iran actually do in response? What 
you would expect. It thumbed its nose in our direction. But let me 
illustrate a little further the way facts have been employed.
  Recall that Iran used to be on the Majors List for producing over 
1,000 hectares of opium. Drop below this number, in the 
administration's reasoning, and you automatically fall off the list. In 
this very careful parsing of meaning, I would suppose that if a country 
produced 999 hectares, no matter what other facts applied, it wouldn't 
qualify. But is this the case in Iran? The administration's explanation 
is that they could not find opium production in Iran in 1998, ergo, 
they do not qualify on this criteria. But this so-called objective 
assessment needs a little closer look.
  In most cases, we base our estimates of illicit crop production on 
overhead imagery and photo interpretation. While we are pretty good at 
it, this is not a precise science, whether we're talking vegetables or 
missiles. And it is, by the way, even more difficult when it comes to 
counting vegetables. Good analysis is dependent of weather, adequate 
overhead coverage, information from corroborating sources, and a track 
record of surveying that builds up a reliable picture over time. What 
was the case in Iran? Before the so-called objective, imagery-based 
assessment in 1998, the last overhead coverage of Iran had been in the 
early 1990s.
  The 1998 decision was therefore based on a one-time shot after years 
of no informaiton. Corroborating information is also scant. But the 
situation is even more dubious.
  Based on the past estimates, Iran cultivated nearly 4,000 hectares of 
opium in various growing regions across the country. The 1998 survey 
concentrated in only one of those traditional growing areas. Although 
in the early 1990s it was the major one, it still only accounted for 
some 80 percent of total cultivation. The 1998 survey could find no 
significant growing areas in these areas. But if we are to believe 
Iranian authorities, they have specifically attacked this cultivation 
with vigorous eradication efforts. The imagery would seem to support 
this claim. But we also know that growers

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adjust to enforcement. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to assume 
that drug producers might shift the locus of cultivation to less 
accessible areas and resort to measures to disguise production. The 
1998 survey did not examine other areas.
  We cannot, of course, prove a negative, but that should not lead us 
to jump to conclusions, especially when those conclusions are what we 
want. Let me illustrate the point. If 20 percent of Iranian opium 
production--a number based on earlier assessments--was in areas other 
than those checked, that figure alone gives us close to 800 hectares. 
Since those other areas--which cover an immense amount of countryside--
were not checked, we cannot know if there was any production for sure. 
But, it would only require a little effort on the part of growers to 
shift a small amount of production to get us to our 1,000 hectare 
threshold. Also remember that opium is an annual plant. In some areas 
it has more than one growing season. Thus, a region that only had 500 
hectares of opium at any one time but had two growing seasons, would 
have an actual total of 1,000 productive hectares per year. I do not 
know that this was the case in Iran, but neither does the 
administration. It doesn't know because it didn't look. It didn't look 
because it was not convenient.
  I would suggest, even if you agree with the assumptions the 
administration is making about the intent of the law, that there are 
enough uncertainties in estimating Iranian opium production to counsel 
caution in reinterpreting the data. And even more caution in using this 
to revise policy. All the more so, given the nature of Iran's past 
actions and attitudes towards the United States. But even if you buy 
all the rationalizations leading to a decision to drop Iran from the 
Majors List, we are left with this: Is it responsible or creditable to 
make such a major shift in policy without even the pretense of 
consultation with Congress? Without an effort to explain the decision 
and shift to the public?
  If there are grounds for reconsidering Iran's counter narcotics 
efforts, why was it necessary to resort to gimmicks? Is there something 
wrong with presenting the facts publicly and reaching a reasonable 
consensus consistent with the national interest? Not to mention that in 
this decision on Iran and the earlier one on Syria that we did not 
consult with Israel, our most consistent ally in the region? Was it 
necessary? Was it wise?
  Is this the way we conduct serious counter drug policy as part of our 
international efforts? But this is not the only disturbing case.
  I earlier alluded to a similar situation with regard to Syria. I will 
not review the details of that case. Suffice it to say, they are in 
keeping with what was done about Iran. The case I would like to look at 
more closely is that of North Korea. Here we have another rogue state 
and enemy of the United States that seems to get favored treatment when 
it comes to drugs.
  There is credible and mounting evidence that North Korea is a major 
producing country of opium and processor of heroin. Stories of these 
activities have circulated for years, including details provided by 
defectors. Information that is further supported by the arrests of 
North Korean diplomats in numerous countries for drug smuggling using 
the diplomatic pouch. Defectors have indicated that illegal opium 
production and heroin sales have been used to fund North Korea's 
overseas activities and its nuclear program.
  These reports also indicate that opium cultivation in North Korea far 
exceed the 1,000 hectare level, ranging from 3,000 to 7,000 hectares 
depending on the climate and growing conditions. In a country plagued 
by famine, precious arable land has been turned to illicit opium 
production by the government to fund terrorism and the development of 
nuclear weapons. Until this year, however, the administration did not 
report on these activities. It was not until Congress required such a 
report that we have even a hint of all of this in official reporting. 
When I asked the administration two years ago to supply data on opium 
cultivation in North Korea, it responded by saying they did not have 
any detailed information. Why? Because the administration was not 
looking for it. Under pressure, it is now beginning to look. While I 
welcome this, I am concerned that this search for information will be 
handled in the same manner as was used in the case of Iran. Information 
will be collected, but it will be carefully scripted and narrowly 
interpreted.
  I find it puzzling that we should be willing to cut such corners. 
What is it about nations that are declared enemies of this country and 
many of our allies that we look the other way when it comes to drugs? 
What do we gain from empty gestures? And why do we make these gestures 
on an issue as basic to the national interest and well being of U.S. 
citizens as drug policy? I am at a loss to explain it. So, rather than 
trying to guess at motives, I am offering legislation to clarify the 
situation and to require more overt explanations. I therefore send to 
the desk the Most Favored Rogue States Act of 1999 and ask my 
colleagues to join me in supporting it. It addresses a serious issue 
that needs our immediate attention.
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