[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 14, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H979-H983]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ILLEGAL NARCOTICS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized 
for half the remaining time until midnight, approximately 30 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor of the House again at this 
late hour to talk about an issue that I always try to address the House 
on Tuesday nights on, and that is the question or problem relating to 
illegal narcotics.
  It has been several weeks. We have had some intervening business and 
time away from the House of Representatives, but some things have 
happened, and I wanted to report on my activities as chair of the 
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

                              {time}  2300

  I also wanted to highlight some of the reports that have filtered 
through the media on this subject and bring my colleagues up to date on 
where we are and where we are going.
  Since I last addressed the House, there have been some serious 
incidents in our Nation. One that has sort of riveted and focused the 
attention of the Congress and the American people was a situation with 
a 6 year old killing a 6 year old. The method was by a gun, and all the 
attention has focused on the gun. But like many of the other stories 
about tragedy in our society today, they fail to focus on the real 
problem, the situation that led to that tragedy.
  In this instance, we had a 6 year old who, unfortunately, came from a 
crack house setting. The belief is that the father was in jail, a 
family without any normal nuclear bounds, and a situation where you 
had, I believe, a stolen weapon. No one focused that the root of the 
problem was, indeed, illegal narcotics, drug trafficking, drug 
addiction, crimes related to illegal narcotics.
  I had an opportunity to conduct, at the request of Members, a hearing 
this past week when the Congress was in recess, traveled to Sacramento, 
the capital of California, and also down to San Diego to visit our 
joint agency task force operations in Alameda, California to see how 
our war on drugs and our problems with illegal narcotics in that area 
of the country are progressing.
  The story I heard in hearings in California was as horrible as the 
death of this 6 year old, but magnified many, many times in stories of 
deaths of young people that I had never heard of and I am sure the 
American people had not heard of.
  We had testimony by a lady by the name of Susan Webber Brown on one 
of the occasions of hearing, and I believe this was the one in 
Sacramento. Susan Webber Brown, who is involved with a program out 
there to help drug-addicted families, gave us some incredible and 
powerful testimony.
  She talked about a 15 month old who overdosed on methamphetamine in 
Rancho Cordova. That is a 15 month old. A 5 month old tested positive 
for methamphetamine and succumbs to death with 12 rib fractures, a 
burned leg, and scarred feet by a methamphetamine addict in Los 
Angeles, California. Not killed with a gun, but murdered by illegal 
narcotics.
  She testified to a 13 month old who died of heart trauma, broken 
spine, and broken neck by a methamphetamine addict. She was also raped 
and sodomized. This was in the California high desert.
  Susan Webber Brown testified about a 25-month-old Oregon toddler who 
overdosed on methamphetamine. She testified to us about a 2 month old 
who dies on methamphetamine, who had methamphetamine in her system in 
San Jose, California.
  Another death that we did not read about or was not publicized was 
the 2 year old who ate methamphetamine from a baby food jar in 
Twentynine Palms, California; a 14 month old who drinks lye and water 
from a parent's methamphetamine laboratory, hospitalized permanently 
with severe organ damage in Fairfield, California; a new baby who died 
from mother's breast milk laced with methamphetamine in Orange County.
  An 8-week-old, 11-pound boy dies from methamphetamine poisoning found 
inside a baby bottle in Orange County. An 8 year old watches and hears 
mom die in a methamphetamine laboratory in Oroville, California. A 6 
month old overdoses, semicomatose, seizing, and hospitalized who drank 
methamphetamine from a bottle. A 4 year old who tested positive for 
methamphetamine, beaten and hair pulled out by the mom's boyfriend 
in Chico, California.

  One of the worst stories that was told and video pictures presented 
at our hearing was of a young child, a young girl who was beaten and 
tortured by her parents who were both on methamphetamine. When they 
finished beating and torturing this child, Susan Webber Brown told a 
stunned audience that they basically scalded their daughter to death, 
high on methamphetamine.
  Now, we have heard about a 6 year old killing a 6 year old with a 
gun, but we have not heard these stories of babies even younger being 
victimized. Hidden behind the other stories are the facts that this 6 
year old, again, came from a home setting, if one could call it a home, 
of illegal narcotics.
  I was absolutely shocked by the methamphetamine epidemic in 
California and the Midwest. I have held hearings in Washington, and we 
have talked about it. We have heard testimony here about it. But until 
one hears individuals, visits the locale, and sees firsthand the damage 
that has been done by methamphetamines, one cannot imagine the damage 
that has been done.
  It is amazing that the President of the United States, it is amazing 
that the leadership of this country, it is amazing that the media of 
this country can focus on a tragedy like a 6 year old shooting a 6 year 
old, not focus on the root causes of that death and the deaths I have 
cited here.
  In fact, we are now up to 15,973 drug-related deaths in this country. 
That is the 1998 count, and the count continues to skyrocket. Many of 
these are silent deaths, not making the front page, not being discussed 
in the talk shows or the subject of the root causes of the death and 
the tragedy, not coming forward or part of the discussion. But I intend 
to make it part of the discussion.
  Methamphetamine production, trafficking, and use has increased in our 
rural communities and midsize cities, according to a published paper 
that came out January 26 this year. The report stated that lab 
seizures, the drug labs that were seized by the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, have increased sixfold in the past 5 years, from 263 
seizures in 1994 to 1,627 labs in 1998.
  We heard testimony, not only in Sacramento, but also down in San 
Diego about methamphetamine. We had law enforcement officials who 
brought methamphetamine to Sacramento and

[[Page H980]]

showed us that methamphetamine. They know where most of it is coming 
from or at least part of the main ingredients of methamphetamine, and 
that is Mexico. We know that the largest amount of methamphetamine 
reaching our country is coming through Mexico.
  Unfortunately, we have not had a national strategy in place to deal 
with the problem of methamphetamine or other narcotics now coming 
through Mexico. In fact, in the last several weeks, this administration 
has, again, certified Mexico. Mexico is now the source of nearly 70 
percent of the illegal narcotics entering the United States.

                              {time}  2310

  Now, it is a fact that 70 to 75 percent of the heroin and cocaine is 
produced now in Colombia, but some 70 percent-plus of the hard 
narcotics coming into the United States, the vast majority of illegal 
marijuana, is coming through Mexico.
  The United States Government and the administration is required under 
our Federal law to certify whether or not a country is participating 
and cooperating with doing two things: stopping the production and also 
stopping the traffic of illegal narcotics. This administration says 
that Mexico is cooperating on both accounts. I tend to believe that 
that is not the case. I believe the administration acted in both 
conflict with the facts and also contrary to the intent of the law that 
was passed that requires an assessment of cooperation and then gives 
the countries who do cooperate trade, finance, and other aid benefits 
from the United States.
  So I think, in fact, this administration has misused the 
certification process, particularly with a country like Mexico that is 
failing to even meet minimal requests of the United States for 
cooperation in combating the production and trafficking of illegal 
narcotics.
  In last week's Washington Times there is an article: ``Mexican Ruling 
Party Soft on Drugs, Foe Said.'' There are two major candidates for the 
Presidency of Mexico and one is a gentleman by the name of Vincente 
Fox. He is a Conservative National Action Party member. He said that, 
in fact, the current administration in Mexico is in league with the 
drug bosses, to use his quote. They have been part of the problem. They 
have negotiated with the narcos. And many PRI members have been jailed 
for being narcos.
  He went on to say that, in fact, Mexico and this ruling party have 
made a joke out of the certification law. He said that this entire 
process has been made a charade by Mexican officials. Let me quote him. 
He said, ``The government's attitude was making a mockery of the annual 
assessment by Washington of efforts by Mexico and other countries to 
combat drug trafficking, a ritual known as certification, which is 
widely resented in Mexico. This is just making a fool of the United 
States, and this certification business is no use at all.''
  He went on to say, ``Each time certification comes around, the 
Mexican government arrests two or three drug bosses, puts them in jail, 
and acts as if it is getting very serious with drug trafficking,'' he 
said. ``Then certification is awarded and the Mexican government 
forgets about the whole business and does not think about it again 
until the following year.''
  This is the comment of a gentleman who may very well become the next 
president of Mexico and one of the leading officials there, attesting 
publicly as to how Mexico and the current government makes it a joke 
and makes a fool of the United States in this process.
  I was so pleased, in fact I sent a personal note to our United States 
ambassador, Jeffrey Davidow, who just previous to Mr. Fox's 
pronouncement, the candidate for the Mexican presidency, had the 
courage to finally be one of the first few Clinton administration 
officials to tell it like it is. He said, ``The fact is that the 
headquarters of drug trafficking is in Mexico, just like the 
headquarters of the mafia is in Sicily.'' Ambassador Davidow was 
speaking in Spanish before a group of alumni of Southern California in 
Mexico City. He was very frank. This made all the papers down in 
Mexico.
  But even the Mexicans are shocked by recent events, which we also 
looked at in our hearing in San Diego, where just across the border, in 
Tijuana, just a few days before we arrived there, the chief of police, 
and this was actually the second chief of police, was slaughtered in an 
assassination. A brutal assassination. And again, the second police 
chief so assassinated by drug lords and drug gangs in that city.

  In fact, Tijuana, which is located in the Baja Peninsula, has been 
the scene of not only corruption but now extreme violence, with 
hundreds and hundreds of drug-related murders. And Tijuana has one of 
the highest murder rates of any city in the Western Hemisphere. And 
almost all of these slaughters are done by drug traffickers. Yet this 
administration has certified Mexico as fully cooperating.
  I have been a critic and, based on the hearings that we have 
conducted, have said that in Mexico, I believe from the office of the 
president, the current president, there is no doubt about the past 
president, in fact the past president's family, Salinas, was involved 
in narcotics trafficking and profits from narcotics up to their 
eyeballs and packed away hundreds of millions of dollars in accounts 
around the world; but even within the current president's office we 
have had evidence, both public accusations and also behind closed 
doors, and information about the level of corruption all the way to 
that office.
  I had said also to the attorney general's office, and I am not saying 
that the attorney general or the President of Mexico personally are now 
involved, but within those offices, the highest offices of Mexico have 
in fact been corrupted. I had repeated that not knowing that in fact 
the headlines would be just a few days ago that in a box rented to a 
senior official at the Federal attorney general's office a public 
servant with a modest salary had sitting $700,000 in cash. That 
official committed suicide some few days ago. Yet another example of 
tremendous amounts of money involved in corruption at the highest level 
of Mexican officials' offices.
  I just read in the last 2 days that a legal adviser to the Mexico 
City attorney general's office had been found strangled in his home, 
along with his two elderly sisters. They said that Salvador Cordero, 
64, had apparently been tortured before he was killed in his home some 
30 miles west of the Mexican capital. Again, the rampant violence in 
Mexico, that corruption is now leading to incredible acts of violence, 
this has raised the concern of both of the Mexican candidates for 
president. And we heard the comments of one Mexican high official, 
again a leading candidate, and the joke they have made out of the 
process of certification that the United States relies on to try to 
enlist cooperation from Mexico.

                              {time}  2320

  Now, we have not asked a lot from Mexico. We have asked that our DEA 
agents be armed and adequately protect themselves, the limited number 
that Mexico allows. That still has not been granted. We have asked for 
a sign and an executed maritime agreement. That still has not been 
granted. We have asked for the extradition of one major drug lord from 
Mexico. To date there has not been one Mexican national drug kingpin 
extradited to the United States.
  So the corruption, the killing goes on. The amounts of money in this 
corrupt process are absolutely astounding. Again, we held a hearing 
that documented from a former United States Customs official that one 
Mexican general had attempted in a sting operation to place $1.1 
billion in drug profits in American financial institutions.
  So the corruption is in the military, it is in the President's 
office, the Attorney General and cabinet members' office, in the 
police, in the States.
  We saw in the Yucatan Peninsula, Quintana Roo, which is the Yucatan 
Province, we saw the governor there who we knew was involved heavily in 
drug trafficking and immune from prosecution because of his status that 
he holds in Mexico. They do not go after sitting officials. And a few 
days before he was to leave office, he fled the country and has not 
been located. But we know that the entire Yucatan Peninsula and the 
government there is run and directed by narco-traffickers; and again 
this all has implications in the United States, the methamphetamine 
coming in in unbelievable quantity.

[[Page H981]]

  We had testimony from officials in Wisconsin and Iowa, in addition to 
the hearing that I held in California, talking about Mexican drug 
cartels operating in the Midwest bringing this death and deadly 
destruction.
  The effects of methamphetamine I had no idea could destroy people in 
such a fashion or cause such incredibly savage behavior as we have 
heard in these hearings.
  Now, this is not a rocket scientist. We know where illegal narcotics 
are coming from. As I said, we have Colombia, which is the source now 
of over 70 percent of the heroin and 70 percent of the cocaine. It is 
interesting to note that Colombia did not produce at the beginning of 
the Clinton administration almost any heroin. There was none produced 
in Colombia. There was almost no coca produced in Colombia at the 
beginning of the Clinton administration.
  But I will be darned if this administration, through one bungling act 
after another, could not make Colombia into the largest source of 
illegal narcotics. Now, we are talking about producing. We know that a 
hundred percent of all the cocaine in the world comes from Peru, 
Bolivia and Colombia.
  Through a program instituted by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Hastert), Mr. Zeliff, some of the others here who worked on it in 
reinstituting source country programs, we have been able to cut 
production of cocaine and coca in both Peru and Bolivia by some 60 
percent.
  In Colombia, this administration has done everything possible to 
bungle and thwart and stop assistance for international programs to aid 
Colombia in dealing with illegal narcotics production and trafficking. 
They have done everything imaginable. And I will detail those in just a 
minute. But those illegal narcotics are coming up in trafficking and 
now they form cartels with Mexican traffickers and they are coming up 
through the United States.
  We know how this traffic pattern has emerged. We also know what works 
and what does not work. I cannot believe the media and the garbage that 
they continue to publish and the misstatement that the war on drugs has 
been a failure. And it is repeated over and over.
  The war on drugs existed in the Reagan and the Bush administration. 
The war on drugs was closed down by the Clinton administration in some 
very specific acts.
  This chart, let us take just a minute and look at the war on drugs. 
This was the trend with Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and we saw the 
long-term trend in lifetime prevalence of drugs.
  This is percentage of 12th graders, a pretty good indication of where 
we are going on the narcotics issue and use of illegal narcotics, going 
down, down, down. This is the beginning of the Andean strategy. This is 
the beginning of the war on drugs bringing the military in, the Vice 
President's task force. And look at what happened to the use of illegal 
narcotics.
  Then we have the election of Mr. Clinton. Let me, if I can, quote 
some facts on what took place with the election of Mr. Clinton.
  First of all, we have a question of international programs to stop 
illegal drugs at their source. That would be source country programs. 
Look at this here. Source country programs, international programs 
under Mr. Bush and previously Mr. Reagan. We had increases in 1993, 
1994, 1995. And it does take a little while to get a budget in place 
for a new administration and a new Congress. We are a little bit ahead 
of the curve. But Federal drug spending on international programs was 
cut 50 percent during the Democrat controlled Congress from 1992 to 
1994. Fifty percent of that means to stop drugs at their source. What 
we had been successful in stopping drugs at their source, they cut 50 
percent.
  On interdiction, which is the next most cost-effective way to stop 
illegal narcotics is to get the drugs not only where they are produced 
at their source, because that farmer is getting a few dollars or a few 
pesos, and the most effective thing is to stop the illegal narcotics at 
the next level and that is to interdict them.
  You can interdict them through intelligence and provide that 
intelligence to another country, which was part of the strategy that we 
had with the Bush and Reagan administration, very cost effective. And 
then that country goes after the plane or the trafficker, whatever, and 
stops it.
  Federal drug spending on interdiction was cut 33 percent during the 
Democrat controlled Congress from 1992 to 1994. Again, part of the 
strategy to close down the war on drugs. And when you close down the 
war on drugs, and you see the chart here, let us look at this chart 
here for a moment, because you see us getting back up to in 1999, 
basically, if you look at dollars and use 1991 or 1992 dollars to 1999, 
we are back where we were at the end of the Bush and Reagan 
administration and their anti-narcotics programs.

                              {time}  2330

  So basically some of the comments and one of them that really 
irritated me is a column by Marjorie Williams. I do not know who she is 
but she put it in the Washington Post Friday, March 10, and she said, 
despite two decades of proof that interdiction and tough law 
enforcement will do nothing to stop the sale or use of drugs, this is 
the type of trash that the media puts out and convinces people that the 
war on drugs is a failure. In fact, the war on drugs was specifically 
closed down.
  Let us go back up to this chart here. Go back to this chart here. The 
Clinton administration, go back to 1992, 1993, they slashed, first of 
all, the drug czar's staff from 112 to 27. They cut the source country 
programs, which I just cited. If you put another one of these dots 
where they appointed Jocelyn Elders as Surgeon General you can see 
another little surge in use.
  In 1994 and 1995, they stopped U.S. intelligence information-sharing 
with Colombia and Peru and slashed the U.S. military and Coast Guard 
anti-narcotics program.
  Is this showing that that is a war on drugs? In fact, they dismantled 
the war on drugs. In 1996 and 1997, they blocked the antidrug 
assistance to Colombia. They also distorted the program that we have to 
certify countries as cooperating, decertified Colombia without a 
national interest waiver and blocked and stopped the equipment getting 
to Colombia.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayes). There being no other Member 
claiming time, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized for 
the remainder of the hour.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I will try not to take that but as one can 
tell, I am just getting warmed up tonight. I do get excited about this 
issue, Mr. Speaker, because it has some incredible impact, not only six 
year olds killing six year olds but thousands and thousands of lives 
lost across this country and families destroyed by illegal narcotics.
  We know what works in this effort. We know what does not work. We 
know that, again, the Clinton administration blocked aid to Colombia 
and that is why we are here in the next few weeks and about to pass 
$1.7 billion, $1.5 billion, whatever we end up with, in aid to 
Colombia, because the situation this administration created by these 
specific actions has created such a disaster. This is not something 
that just jumped up on us. This is something that was predicted in 
hearings, and I participated in some of those hearings.
  I took out a quote not from me but a quote from the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Horn) and he says, ``As you recall, as of May 1, 1994, 
the Department of Defense decided unilaterally to stop sharing realtime 
intelligence regarding aerial traffic in drugs with Colombia and Peru. 
Now, as I understand it, that decision, which has not been completely 
resolved, has thrown diplomatic relations with the host countries into 
chaos.'' The gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) said this August 2, 
1994, the beginning of the end of the situation in Colombia, the 
beginning of presenting this Congress and the American people with a 
bill for $1.7 billion, a direct action of this administration to close 
down sharing that information. Not only did they do this in 1994, they 
turned around and did it again, according to a GAO report that I asked 
be conducted of the current operations the last couple of years in that 
region. I received a report in December, just a few months ago, that 
the administration, despite the requests of their appointed ambassador 
in Peru to increase, again, the surveillance, who said that if you do 
not do this you will get more cocaine produced, even

[[Page H982]]

though the Congress and the Republican Congress put into effect a very 
effective eradication and crop substitution program, in spite of what 
we had done their own ambassador said, hey, do not do this again, or do 
not do this in fact; you will have problems.
  In fact, we have seen an increase in production because, again, they 
made the same mistake just in the last 24 months that they made in 
1994. We saw this coming. We asked them not to do it.
  Let me also bring up another headline, 1994. How do we get ourselves 
into these incredible situations? This is Thursday, August 4, 
Washington Post, U.S. Refusal to Share Intelligence in Drug War Is 
Called Absurd.
  We did it in 1994, we cut off aid and assistance. Was this a partisan 
attack, something the Republicans did? I cited my colleague, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), a fellow Republican. These are 
the comments of Robert Torricelli who at that time was chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs on the Western Hemisphere and the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), chairman of the Subcommittee on 
International Security, denounced as absurd the administration's 
argument that current law might expose U.S. officials to prosecution. 
They distorted the law with some liberal interpretations to close down 
information-sharing to stop going after drug traffickers, basically 
sharing information allowing the other countries to, if necessary, 
shoot down these planes.
  There is nothing more effective than shooting down drug traffickers 
to stop illegal narcotics. These are direct actions that got us into 
this situation today. These are the actions that require a 1.6, 1.7, 
who knows how many billion dollars, to get us out of this predicament. 
Colombia produces and that area around Colombia produces 20 percent of 
our oil supply, and if you have paid for gasoline lately you can see 
why the source of oil production is a strategic value to the United 
States.

  What is interesting is that, back to Mexico for a minute, I received 
these reports from DEA on heroin production and they can tell us where 
heroin is coming from on what is called a signature program. It is 
almost sort of like reading DNA from a blood test, and they can tell me 
almost the country and the field that heroin is grown from. You have to 
remember again that the policy of this administration allowed in 6 or 7 
years a country which produced no heroin, they did not produce any 
heroin, any poppies at the beginning of the Clinton administration in 
Colombia, and this shows now South American production, by 1997 they 
got it up to 75 percent of the heroin seized in the United States came 
from Colombia. That is where it is coming from. Fourteen percent came 
from Mexico.
  This administration just certified in the last few weeks Mexico fully 
cooperating. That means they are helping reduce production and reduce 
trafficking. Two criteria, reduce production, reduce trafficking. I got 
the report from 1998. You have not read about this. No one will talk 
about this. Mexico is up to 17 percent. Now, simple mathematics will 
say that is a 20 percent increase in production. It shows a slight 
decrease in America but we are getting more from the country that the 
administration just certified, Mexico; in fact, a 20 percent increase 
in heroin production in one year.
  This, again, does not require a rocket scientist to know where the 
heroin is coming from. We know that it is coming from Colombia. We know 
it is coming from Mexico. We heard it in the hearings this past week in 
California, which is also seeing a recurrence and proliferation of 
extremely deadly and high purity heroin in addition to incredible 
volumes of methamphetamine. This is from the country the administration 
just certified, where corruption is so rampant, where the leading 
candidate says, ha, ha, we made a fool out of the United States in its 
own process that grants trade, finance, benefits to Mexico.
  These are the headlines that we see now with a country that the 
administration just certified: Drugs Flood in From Mexico. This is not 
necessarily a conservative publication the last time I checked, the 
Washington Post. ``Increase in traffic on land and sea alarms U.S. 
officials,'' and it should alarm U.S. officials because the U.S. 
officials are the ones that allowed it to get into that situation.
  Let me show this chart.

                              {time}  2340

  This is part of a chart from a report that I also requested from GAO. 
This report, given to me just a few weeks ago, shows me that assets DOD 
contributes to reducing illegal drug supply have declined.
  If you look at the red here, these are provided by DOD, and these are 
requested by SOUTHCOM. SOUTHCOM is our Southern Command, which is 
asking for surveillance assistance, or to conduct surveillance, and 
equipment and resources to conduct surveillance. Requested by SOUTHCOM, 
requested by SOUTHCOM, 1997, 1998, 1999, requested by SOUTHCOM. This is 
what they got.
  This is a war on drugs by destroying any effort to have combat, and 
to have combat the first basic thing you need to do is stop the 
activity at its source. Then the next thing you would do is get 
surveillance and information. This report told me that the surveillance 
flights declined 68 percent from 1992 to 1999, 68 percent in 
surveillance, and this shows even less attention by this administration 
to stop drugs at their source or do anything about it, and a 62 percent 
reduction in maritime activity, anti-narcotic activity by the 
administration.
  So what you have had is a closing down of any semblance of a war on 
drugs, and this is in spite of the fact that this Republican Congress, 
which took over in 1995, has done some very positive things in trying 
to restart the war on drugs. In fact, we have been successful in that 
effort, which Mr. Zeliff and now the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker 
Hastert) went down personally and began the efforts to start the 
eradication of cocaine in Peru and Bolivia, and that program has shown 
some 60 to 65 percent reduction in just several years. Speaker Hastert 
and the Republican Congress led an effort for a supplemental 
appropriation that put $800 million into the anti-narcotics effort. 
That is where you saw that bump up. But even with the money there, the 
funds are diverted, the reported by DOD tells us, from the war on 
drugs. Even our vice president has taken some of the assets I have 
found for surveillance, our AWACS, and diverted them to check oil 
spills in Alaska.
  So the resources that the Congress appropriates and tries to get to 
Colombia, including $300 million of assistance which we appropriated a 
year before last October, those assets still have not gotten there.
  Most of the money was for Blackhawk helicopters which can be used for 
eradication or going after drug traffickers in the high altitudes. We 
know where the stuff is grown; we know who is trafficking. If you have 
the capability, and the Colombians have the capability, just like 
President Fujimora had the capability and went after drug traffickers, 
wiped them out, stopped the destabilization, the terror in that 
country, which was also financed and run by drug traffickers, the same 
thing can be done in Colombia, but we cannot get even the basic 
equipment we funded over a year ago there.
  Most of that, as I said, was in several of these helicopters we have 
tried to get to the national police force there, and this 
administration, in fact, is the gang that can't shoot straight. They 
cannot even get the helicopters there. In fact, the helicopters that 
were sent there sat on the tarmac and did not have the armoring that 
could be used. In one of the greatest fiascoes of this entire effort by 
this administration, they delivered the ammunition that should have 
gone 2 or 3 years ago to Colombia to the back door of the State 
Department loading dock during the holidays. This in fact is an effort 
that has been a disaster by this administration.
  Every time I think the administration cannot bungle anything else, I 
am shocked. I was shocked to have people come in from my locale today 
and show me their pre-census mailing that was sent out. 
This administration that runs our census, that is a scary thought right 
there, sent out 120 million mailings, and sent out the wrong Zip Code 
on all 120 million of them. One of my cities they sent out the wrong 
name to the entire city in Florida. When I think that they cannot 
possibly bungle it any further, I am always amazed.

[[Page H983]]

  This is, again, a very sad story for the United States, because we 
have a good friend and a good neighbor in Mexico, wonderful people. 
They are tremendously gifted. They are hard-working, dedicated people, 
and their country has been taken over by drug traffickers, and those 
drug traffickers are so emboldened that now they are offering rewards 
and bounties on United States agents, $200,000 reward as reported by 
drug traffickers. This is how emboldened they have gotten. This is from 
the country that has been certified as cooperating in this war on 
drugs.
  Again we find this administration, the gang that can't shoot straight 
or get a war on drugs together, in The Washington Post, March 13, just 
a few days ago, U.S. officials cite trend in Colombia. Lack of air 
support hindering drug war.
  Well, my friends, there has been no drug war, as you can see, since 
1993, with the exception of what the Republican majority has been able 
to get in dribbles and drabs and in spite of the bureaucrats who have 
fought us every inch of the way, in spite of the administration who has 
blocked aid, assistance, ammunition, anything that you could possibly 
use in a war on drugs from getting to the source.
  Finally, now the situation has deteriorated so that even this 
administration is coming forth with a very expensive plan, and it is an 
expensive plan because they made very costly mistakes. This is also a 
repetitive mistake, because of lack of air support and the surveillance 
that is so incredible for any type of mission, military or anti-
narcotics mission. And our military does not fire or fight in this war 
on drugs or arrest people. They merely provide surveillance and 
information. In this case we are not asking for United States troops or 
anyone to go in there. We are only asking to get that information to 
countries that are beseeched by drug traffickers like Colombia, like 
Peru, and like Bolivia.
  It is a very difficult situation we have been put in. I know there 
are some Members who are concerned about expending those dollars in 
this effort. Some are concerned on the Republican side of the aisle 
because we have attempted to spend money on a real war on drugs, and 
every dollar we have spent has either been diverted or not gotten to 
the source, or handled in such an incompetent manner that nothing is 
accomplished. That does bring some criticism from the Republican side 
of the aisle.
  The other side of the aisle, we hear the human rights concerns. I 
share human rights concerns. Anyone who commits human rights abuses 
should be held accountable, and whether it is from paramilitary right-
wing extremists, or from left-wing terrorists on the communist-
socialist side, the murder they commit is not justified and should not 
be tolerated. But both of these activities I am told are financed in 
Colombia by narco-terrorists, people who are living and also promoting 
their criminal, murderous behavior with the proceeds and supported by 
the profits from illegal narcotics.

                              {time}  2350

  That has destabilized Colombia. There have been 35,000 people killed 
in that war; there have been over 800,000 in just 2 years, displaced as 
many as Kosovo; and Kosovo I do not know has imported any drugs or 
produced any drugs that is killing 15,700 Americans in 1998 and 
destroying thousands and thousands of lives, so certainly this is in 
our national interest to proceed.
  So I appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I am sorry 
that it is so difficult for this administration to learn lessons of 
what it takes. I am so sorry that they have also convinced the media 
that the war on drugs is a failure. We, in fact, have doubled the 
amount of money for treatment. We need even more treatment. But those 
liberal, the liberal programs, in fact, do not work. We know that tough 
enforcement programs, the Rudy Guiliani programs. Rudy Guiliani, just 
stop and think about this, took office and over 2,200 people died in 
murders in the years in which he assumed office. That figure was down 
in the 600 range. Tough enforcement works.
  Take another example, the liberal Mayor Schmoke who turned his back, 
instituted a needle exchange program, had liberal narcotics policies in 
Baltimore. Baltimore had 312 deaths, murders in Baltimore in 1997; they 
had 312 in 1998; and they had 60,000 heroin and drug addicts in 
Baltimore; 60,000, one in eight a city council member told the press, 
one in eight. Imagine, taking that model and imposing it on the rest of 
the United States. Think of one in eight Americans under a liberal 
policy for narcotics. We could do that and we would have one incredible 
society. We think it is expensive to support 2 million people in our 
prisons; imagine supporting somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million 
Americans as drug addicts. It is not a pleasant thought.
  So we know it works. We know we can stop drugs at their source. 
Richard Nixon did it; the Chinese have done it. We have done it in Peru 
and Bolivia; we can do it in Colombia. We can also cooperate with 
others, even the United Nations; and Pino Arlacchi who heads the United 
Nations Office of Drug Control Policy, the former Italian prosecutor 
who helped rub out organized crime, and who we have worked so 
effectively with the last couple of years since he took office in 
stopping the rest of the drugs at their source in Afghanistan and 
Burma, in Colombia and other countries where we do not have the best 
relations. But a simple plan; not a great deal of money needs to be 
expended. Because we could put 100,000 a year; we could put 500,000 
more police on the streets, and we will not get it all, but we know we 
can stop it cost effectively at its source.
  If we do not have tough enforcement, it does not work. If we do not 
have tough prosecution, it does not work. It is unfortunate that we do 
have so many Americans hooked on illegal narcotics and so many have 
succumbed to the philosophy that if it feels good, do it; and they have 
become addicted and victims in this whole disaster that has rained 
terror on the United States and so many of our families.
  Mr. Speaker, the hour is late. I hope to come back and finish and 
also update the House on additional information we have received, our 
subcommittee has received. We look forward to working with Members on 
both sides of the aisle, both in passage of this Colombian effort, plan 
Colombia in our efforts to rid our Nation of illegal narcotics and also 
assist other countries in stopping the production and trafficking of 
hard drugs.
  We also look forward to enhancing our treatment programs and 
rewarding programs that do a good job and encouraging our young people 
not to take the path of illegal narcotics and the path of death and 
destruction of their lives.

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