[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 28, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H1468-H1473]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ILLEGAL NARCOTICS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House on the floor tonight
to talk once again in regard to what I consider the most serious and
devastating social issue facing not only the Congress but our entire
Nation and that is the problem of illegal narcotics and the heavy toll
they have taken on our Nation, particularly our young people.
Tonight, I am going to try to cover some material some may have
covered before but I think in light of tomorrow's action on the
proposal for an emergency supplemental in the House of Representatives,
I will focus some on the story of how we got to an emergency situation,
particularly as it involves narcotics and the primary source of those
narcotics, Colombia, the country of Colombia, and the South American
region where those illegal narcotics are coming from.
Then I hope to also touch upon some of my committee work for the
benefit of my colleagues and the American people as chair of the
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee. I know
the hour is late. Many folks are tired. But I hope that they will
listen tonight, because the message I have is an important one for the
Congress and again for the American people. It will really detail some
[[Page H1469]]
of what has taken place, how we got ourselves into a situation where
tomorrow the House of Representatives must bring forward a record
funding emergency proposal to deal with a problem that has been
festering, and I submit caused by very specific actions and policies
and directives of this administration and now the American taxpayer
will pay the bill.
It would not be bad enough if I just came here and talked about a
price tag of $1.5, $1.6, $2 billion in emergency assistance that is
going to go into an effort to stop the conflict, the trafficking, the
production of most of the illegal hard narcotics coming into the United
States. Talking about just that cost is bad enough. I have not
translated that into the human toll in which we have in the last
recorded year, 1998, I do not have the 1999 figures yet, 15,973
Americans dying as the direct result of illegal narcotics.
The toll is heavy. We are probably reaching 100,000 since the
beginning of this administration. And I submit our action tomorrow will
be just as important in shoring up the defense of this Nation for the
many deployments that have been ordered by the chief executive but also
to stop the biggest threat coming into our country. No American was
killed in Kosovo in fighting there. Fifteen to 16,000 were killed last
year in the streets, communities and schools of our Nation. No one died
in Kosovo as a result of action of this Congress.
We tried our best to deal with this administration to stop death and
destruction in that region of the world. It is in some of our national
interest to do it, and if that is in our national interest to do it as
far away as Kosovo where we have no direct American casualties and we
did have disruption of that region and killing in that region,
certainly an area to the south of us that produces the death and
destruction of thousands and thousands of Americans annually, and the
toll continues to rise.
We have imprisoned close to 2 million Americans in our jails and
prisons across the country, and 60 to 70 percent, I am told, in some
areas I am told even higher, 80 percent of those individuals are
incarcerated because of narcotics-related offenses and many of them
there for many felonies committed and crimes committed not only while
under the influence but also trafficking in illegal narcotics. So again
we have an area that is of extreme importance, an issue that is of
extreme importance and we must deal with that tomorrow.
{time} 2145
The record, as I said, is a rather sad action of this administration.
I will detail some of the time it has taken to get the supplemental
from this President. I was interviewed on an NPR radio program this
afternoon and they had, I believe, a Time or Newsweek reporter also on
the program. They were citing that this administration did not act
until the information they had, because a poll was conducted and found
that Americans are alarmed. Maybe my colleagues have read about that
poll that was conducted. That poll said that the Democrats could be
held accountable in the election and that this administration would pay
the penalty for not attacking and taking action on the drug war.
We finally had word that a proposal was coming back in the late fall
last year and again, that was delayed; and finally, not until a few
weeks ago did we receive the President's budget proposal for emergency
assistance to Colombia. We will deal with that matter in just a second.
Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely startling to me how the President of
the United States can talk about everything except illegal narcotics
and their impact on our young people. Most recently we had two
incidents, and those incidents involved, first of all, a 6-year-old
that killed a 6-year-old and took a gun to school; and the focus
immediately was on legislation to impose trigger locks and a host of
other peripheral laws to deal with the question of gun control.
What the President failed to mention, and attention was not focused
by the media on it, is this 6-year-old came from a crack house. The
father was in jail. The gun was stolen. He lived in a pig sty. Now,
this is the family setting that this child came from. We can put all
the trigger locks in the world on, and we can pass all of the
additional laws in other areas; but if we do not focus on the root of
the problem, illegal narcotics, and I am certain that that is what
destroyed that family. Illegal narcotics in that crack house sent that
father, and drug dealing, sent that family into despair and disruption,
and illegal narcotics provided a stolen weapon and access and a
destroyed family for that child. Where is the thinking in the
leadership of this Nation?
Then, most recently, we had a 12-year-old who brought a gun into
school. This was in an elementary school in Lisbon, Ohio, I believe was
the town, and the child, a 12-year-old, brings a gun into the school.
He brought it in school and immediately it was broadcast across the
country that this child had brought that gun there and we must
immediately do something about, again, gun control.
Now granted, we may need to impose some additional laws and
restrictions, but a simple look, even a simple examination of the
situation, and let me read from the account: The boy said before that
his biological mother was in jail and he wanted to visit her.
Authorities did not release information on the mother's situation, but
the Akron Beacon Journal said that the mother was in prison on a drug-
related charge.
Where is the media? Where is the leadership of this country in
ignoring the illegal narcotics problem? A 12-year-old taking his
father's weapon into school, and it had been stored, according to this
report, on a dresser top with a fully-engaged trigger lock. It was
absolutely incredible to hear the Vice President of the United States
commenting on this situation and then asking for more gun control.
Mr. Speaker, I have never in my life seen more diversionary tactics
to get away from the root problem of 12-year-olds who have parents in
jail, when they have their family disrupted, when the parent is in jail
for drug trafficking, when there is no family structure to support
them. When we have had a society that has become tolerant of illegal
narcotics trafficking, we will have, no matter how many laws this
Congress passes, these situations. I still cannot believe that the
media will not focus on this, nor will the leadership of this Congress
or this administration.
Mr. Speaker, I really want to also focus tonight on a tale of two
cities. I have had the opportunity to spend time since I took over
chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Drug Policy a
little over a year and several months ago now to look at again some of
the problems we hear about in the media, and focus on what different
communities are doing to deal with that problem.
Once again, I was absolutely stunned by a recent article by a
columnist, Judith Mann, and Judith Mann, who I believe is the columnist
in the Washington Post. She did a column that absolutely caused me to
come unglued last week attacking, in her liberal fashion, Mayor Rudy
Guiliani, without a hint of facts, just dealing in fiction, to try to
put forth liberal propaganda and unsubstantiated fiction about what
Mayor Guiliani has done.
Last year, after taking over this subcommittee, I called Mayor
Guiliani in to testify. There had been comments and questions about
what he had done in New York City and we held an entire hearing on what
was happening there. At the time we had two cases, very controversial
cases. I think it was the Diallo case and another case of police
brutality that got tremendous national and international attention. We
also were interested in what Mayor Guiliani had done, because his
community had been successful in curtailing on an unprecedented basis
the murders in New York City since taking office, in stemming crime in
that community, and in developing innovative programs.
The first part of Judith Mann's recent piece, which was entitled
``The War on Drugs Can't Help Run Amok,'' which criticized New York
City's mayor and the police force on their program. Again, I believe
this is an affront to facts. It is manufactured fiction. In this
article, in this little editorial piece, she had the audacity to try to
say that murders were up in New York City under Mayor Guiliani. What
she tried to do was take one comparison of 2 years, the last 2 years,
and
[[Page H1470]]
blow that into something that the mayor's program had not worked on.
In fact, this is the record of Mayor Guiliani as far as murders are
concerned: just before he took office they were in the 2,000 range;
right in the 2,000 range. He has brought murders down in New York City.
In 1998 and 1999, between 629 and I think about 679 the last recorded
year. She took the slight increase last year and tried to make it look
like crime was out of control, like the police program that he
instituted and zero tolerance program he instituted somehow failed.
Now, where is the liberal mentality when Mayor Guiliani has saved,
since just from coming into office in 1993, somewhere on average of
1,000 lives, every one of these years; if we average this out, how many
thousands of lives he has saved with his policy. People who live in New
York City can now live and work in that community and have one of the
lowest crime rates in the entire Nation. What the mayor did in New York
City has had so dramatic an impact, they also impact even the national
statistics. The gall of the liberal media is absolutely astounding.
The facts are, since Mayor Guiliani took office, and this is murder,
listen to the rest of these in the seven major crime areas in New York
City: crime overall is down 57.6 percent. I would match that among any
community of any size in the Nation. Murder is down 58.3 percent.
Judith Mann should get a life. Rape is down 31.4 percent. Robbery down
62.1 percent. Think of the thousands and thousands of New York City
residents and tourists and other people who visit from around the
country and around the world. Robbery down 62.1 percent. Felony
assaults are down 35.4 percent. Burglaries are down 61.7 percent. These
are the facts, Judith Mann, Miss Liberal. These are the facts the
American people should be paying attention to, the people in New York
State should be paying attention to. Grand larceny down is 41.9
percent. Grand larceny auto is down 68.8 percent. These are some of the
most dramatic figures, and rather than applauding someone who has
accomplished so much, we see the liberal diatribe on Mayor Guiliani and
the police of New York.
What is absolutely astounding is if there is any reason for a slight
increase in murders last year, I can tie it directly to actions of this
administration in failing to provide surveillance, failing to provide
equipment, stopping the flow of assistance to Colombia in a repeated
fashion, and helping to close down one of the most successful programs
we have had in Peru, which has slashed 66 percent of the cocaine
production in just a few years, and now is being sabotaged by
withdrawal of U.S. surveillance information to Peruvians and a lack of
equipment getting to Colombia. Even equipment we requested several
years ago and appropriated several years ago still has not been
adequately delivered to that country to combat the flow of illegal
narcotics.
I am surprised it is not up more in New York City. In my community it
is up slightly, even in central Florida, as a result of, again, this
administration letting down its guard in stopping illegal narcotics at
their source or interdicting them before they come to our shores is
certainly a Federal responsibility.
Here is a local responsibility taken on in an unbelievable fashion. I
hope every American, every Member of Congress can look at this chart
and see how the policy of Mayor Guiliani, not just in this program, but
in other innovative programs, has dramatically curtailed murders,
robberies, rapes, every type of crime that I mentioned and the numbers
that I mentioned.
Mr. Speaker, I have to again just be amazed at the liberal media and
the trash that they peddle to the American people. Again, Miss Mann
talks about a policy that has run amok and the drug war cannot help but
run amok. Now, the facts are for Miss Mann and other die-hard liberals.
Let me read from the testimony of Mayor Guiliani and just see
historically where Mayor Guiliani fits in in this question of police
brutality and incidents involving force or, again, violence from police
officers.
{time} 2200
This is the testimony from our hearing when the mayor appeared last
year after the Diallo case. This is Mr. Giuliani speaking:
``First of all, I do not think you have ever listened to my voice.''
How prophetic for him to say that, and he could say it again. ``I have
said over and over again, including that--'' he was responding to a
question--``that was a long question. You've got to give me a chance to
answer it, if you are being fair.'' This was a question about police
brutality at that time in the city.
Listen, again, to his testimony: ``The fact is that I have over and
over again said that police officers have to be respectful. We have
taken action against police officers who have acted improperly. One of
the cases that you mention, it was my administration that fired the
police officer in question, even though he had been kept on by prior
administrations. We have worked very, very hard to make this police
department more respectful and more restrained. In your selective use
of statistics,'' and they did it to him last year, and people like Ms.
Mann and others are doing it to him now, ``you leave out the fact that
incidents such as the one you are talking about have occurred in New
York City for the last 20 to 35 years.'' Again, with some 30,000 or
40,000 police officers historically, I just add that, those are not his
words, you do have incidents of police misconduct.
Back to Mayor Giuliani's statement: ``That police brutality and the
issue of police brutality has not been an issue just exclusively of my
administration, or while I have been mayor of New York City. You've got
to start looking at, if you are interested in fairness rather than
demagoguery, you have to look at the number of incidents. The number of
incidents of police brutality, for example, are less in my
administration,'' he is speaking about the Giuliani administration,
``than in the administration of Ed Koch or David Dinkins.''
Now, I am sure that Ms. Mann would not want to deal with the facts,
and reveal to her reading public or the people out there that deserve
the truth and the facts that the number of incidents of police
brutality are less in the Giuliani administration than the Ed Koch or
David Dinkins. She wants to say that Giuliani's war on drugs has
failed.
``That is something you did not mention,'' again, I am quoting from
the mayor, ``1993 was the last year of David Dinkins' administration. I
just happen to have these statistics with me.'' He brought the
statistics, and under oath to the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,
Drug Policy, and Human Resources of the House of Representatives, this
is the testimony and the facts he submitted and we checked.
``There were 62 percent more shootings by police officers per capita
in the last year of David Dinkins' administration than the last year,
which was my administration.'' Why does she not print that, Ms. Mann
and other diehard liberals?
``Where were they when there were 62 percent more shootings by police
officers under David Dinkins' administration? In every year of my
administration, something you left out of your statement, in every
single year of my administration the police officers have grown more
restrained in their use of firearms, even as we have added 10,000
police officers and given them automatic weapons.''
He increased by 10,000 the number of police officers, gave them
automatic weapons, and the record is one of less incidents, more
constraint. Again, these are the facts that liberal reporters do not
want to deal with, or those inclined to bad-mouthing the mayor's
efforts and those who support zero tolerance in these types of
programs. These are the exact numbers.
``In 1993, there were 212 incidents involving police officers in
intentional shootings. In 1994,'' the mayor's first year, ``there were
167.'' He testified, I believe, in early 1999. ``In 1998, it was down
to 111, just about half the incidents from the Dinkins' administration.
These are incidents involving police officers and intentional
shootings.
Members will not read this in Ms. Mann's liberal column or any of the
other liberal trash that is pumped out by the other side. They will be
telling us, well, we have to introduce more gun laws, we have to
introduce more laws in the Congress, we have to put trigger locks on
for kids, and this will solve the problem.
We do not hear that with even a zero tolerance policy, that they were
able to
[[Page H1471]]
have less than half the number of incidents. Let me again continue with
what Mayor Giuliani testified and the liberals will not listen to, or
the media will not report.
``In 1993, David Dinkins' last year in office, there were 7.4
shooting incidents per officer.'' That is 62 percent less per capita
with Giuliani. We have to take it on a per capita basis. Also, we have
to remember, again, Rudy Giuliani increased the police by some 10,000,
probably a 20 percent increase in police officers in that city.
``Yes, we do have difficulties. Yes, we do have lots of things that
we have to work on. Yes, I have spoken about it a hundred times or a
thousand times. I was at a police graduation last week. I said to the
800 police officers that what we expect of them is restraint, almost an
inhuman ability to be restrained when they have to be.''
Can Members imagine the incidents, can Members imagine the pressure
on police officers in New York City, one of the most densely populated,
probably the most difficult area to govern, not only in the United
States but the entire world? Here is a record, and I take great offense
at the trash the media pumps out, particularly Ms. Mann, who knows that
Mr. Giuliani and everyone who supports a zero tolerance in a tough
enforcement policy that we know works beyond a reasonable doubt.
The mayor not only had a zero tolerance policy that was successful
and resulted in fewer murders, but let me just cite, and again this is
part of the testimony that he submitted in February of 1999 to our
subcommittee, facts that were submitted.
``In New York City in 1991, 1992, and 1993 when crime was at historic
heights, narcotics arrests were at a 10-year low. In 1993, the city
made just 65,043 narcotics arrests. Last year, with the city
dramatically safer, that number had risen to 124,000, a 91 percent
increase in arrests.''
Some people are confused by this statistical correlation. This is
information that was given to me by the DEA former administrator Tom
Constantine. It is an interesting chart because it shows narcotics
arrests and the crime index comparison in New York City.
In 1993, the figures I spoke to, 64,000, or 65,000, this is the
number, I believe, and let us make sure we have this, all other
commands and the narcotics division. The narcotics arrests here again
are low. As Mayor Giuliani takes office and he gets up to this point
that we talked about, we see the index of crime, and this is where the
crimes were 432,000 crimes, almost 433,000 crimes, start to drop.
If that does not show us a correlation, that as we increase narcotics
arrests, the crime goes down, I am a monkey's uncle. It is absolutely
unbelievable, again, that people do not look at what has been achieved
by the most outstanding mayor this Nation has seen in this decade of
death and destruction with illegal narcotics, and use this as a model.
Drug confiscations increased 166 percent between 1993 and 1998,
rising from 11,470 pounds to 30,510 pounds. Surprise, Mr. Speaker. We
seize illegal narcotics, we seize hard drugs, and the crimes go down.
It is not a magic formula, it is a simple formula. It is just beyond me
how the liberals can twist and turn. They will tell us that the war on
drugs is a failure. That is their next line.
I tell the Members that the war on drugs was closed down by the
Clinton administration in January of 1993, when they came into office.
How can we fight a war on drugs when we first of all do not target the
source or cut out the source programs, to stop drug production at their
source?
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out where narcotics are
coming from. Seventy-five percent of the cocaine and heroin, back in
1993 there was almost zero cocaine grown in Colombia, almost zero
poppies which produce heroin in Colombia, and today it is up over the
70 percent range grown in Colombia. Again, it does not take a rocket
scientist, it is coming out of Colombia.
So where would we target? We would spend a few dollars in
international programs to target Colombia.
Let me take this chart first, which deals with, and again, we know
where the drugs are coming from. It is not rocket science. That is why
we are going to be here talking about Colombia, because the drugs are
produced in Colombia.
This is the record of the Clinton administration. They came in in
1992-1993 here, and we have to remember, we still had a Democrat-
controlled Congress in this period. We did not take over until
somewhere in 1995. In 1995, we have to get or we are already with the
budget passed by a previous Congress.
Look what they did. This chart is Federal drug spending for
international programs. That is stopping drugs at their source, and the
entire program is like $633 million back in 1999, $660 in 1992 under
President Bush.
Tomorrow we are going to be talking about two and three times that
for just the mistake they made in closing down these programs in
Colombia. They closed them down. They closed down the international
programs, the most cost-effective. We were spending the smallest amount
of money. Every time we get away from the field where that peasant is
getting a couple of pesos or less than a few dollars for the coca, for
the poppy, for the raw material or even processed material down there,
they stop the programs.
I have to bring this chart up. I wish I had an overlay. I need to get
an overlay, because this chart shows, again under the Reagan
administration, developing a war against drugs. They did a real war
against drugs. They put resources in the source country, they started
the Andean strategy. The Vice President's task force occurred. They
went after drugs at their source, and they put some dollars behind the
effort to eradicate crops there.
Do Members see what took place? Every year, and this is the long-term
trend in lifetime prevalence of drug use. This is so important, because
this is the measure of long-term drug involvement with our population.
We see this during the Bush administration, and we see a takeoff like
a rocket with Clinton, here. If Members look back here, they will see
the takeoff is a result of stopping the international programs. We have
a flood, a supply.
I asked the question to somebody today, do you have an HDTV? They
said, no. Most Americans do not have an HDTV. Why? Because there is not
a supply and the price is high.
{time} 2215
This is, again, simple economics. We have flooding into this country
an unprecedented amount of cocaine, which is only grown three places in
the world: Bolivia, Peru, Colombia. Only three places, and it cannot
transfer to that many other areas. There are a few other Andean
locations. In the bill tomorrow at the insistence of the Speaker of the
House, who had that responsibility who started the successful programs
in Peru and Bolivia, where we have had 55 to 66 percent reduction when
we had a program in effect, until the administration also messed that
program up in the last year or so, we had dramatic decreases of cocaine
flowing into this country. This is an incredible record.
But what should also be looked at is the interdiction. Stop drugs at
their source and then stop them before they get to our borders. Is that
or is that not a Federal responsibility? We see here again gutting of
the figures for interdiction. Taking the military out. They have great
offense to begin with for anything military in this administration,
except to deploy them around when there is a lot deployment to demand
it for some reason or another distraction.
But we see here an incredible pattern of slicing the spending. This
is the slowdown. This is the sabotaging. This is the destruction of the
war on drugs. Again, we take this, invert it and see what has happened
to our young people. Look back at this chart and we can see what this
Republican Congress has done with this light blip downward in some of
the programs that we have instituted, again, in Peru and Bolivia that
have been so successful.
I said I would tell the ``tale of two cities.'' We had heard the tale
of New York City and we received the facts about New York City. I have
talked quite a bit about the contrast in Baltimore and the liberal
mayor that, thank God, they got rid of who is a disgrace to Baltimore,
and what he did to Baltimore driving Baltimore into despair
[[Page H1472]]
with his liberal policy. We saw the figures I showed for New York City
with dramatic decreases. This is the liberal Judith Mann policy that
drugs are okay, and this is a health problem. Do not pay any attention
to it. The police are going to be brutal and it is going to be
horrible, even though the actual facts show to the contrary.
Mr. Speaker, these are the facts. These are the dead in Baltimore,
312, 1998. In 1999, it is also 310, 308 range. This is a record of a
liberal policy in which they went for needle exchange. They went for
all of these liberal programs. I heard the new police chief say they
did not participate in the high-intensity drug trafficking area on a
basis in which they had entered into an agreement on. So they basically
had let up enforcement, adopted a liberal policy and the slaughter in
Baltimore has been horrible.
We heard from the new mayor, and thank God there is a new mayor, a
new mayor that recognized that the liberal policy, and he testified to
it, was a failure. That the lack of enforcement, he showed a playground
with bullet holes in the door a few months before he took office and
they have already started enforcement and starting to clean up 10 drug
markets. Hopefully, they will even clean up additional open air
markets. But this is the policy.
The testimony is absolutely astounding on the liberal policy of what
it created for this city. It created a population of addiction almost
unparalleled in the history of the United States. The statistics we
have are from 40,000 back here with this chart in 1996 to somewhere
between 60 and 80,000 drug addicts today in Baltimore, Maryland. One of
the most historic, beautiful cities. It decimated the population of
that city. Who wants to live in Baltimore?
A judge, Judge Noelle, testified before our subcommittee in Baltimore
that in fact his best success in rehabilitating individuals that he got
into court and were involved in drugs was to get them out of Baltimore,
because there is no hope there.
Who would invest? What individual, what businessperson would invest
in Baltimore when we have murders and mayhem and disruption? The same
thing is true in South America in Colombia. The peasants will never
have jobs or opportunities and the right wing and the left wing will be
killing each other down there. We have in Colombia, from that region,
20 percent of the oil supply that we have in the United States. We have
15,900-plus Americans who died from the drugs.
If we just took 75 percent of the illegal narcotics which we can
trace to the fields in Colombia, we, in fact, know that those drugs are
coming from there, we could attribute 75 percent of the deaths in my
community, 75 percent of the deaths in Baltimore, and 75 percent of the
deaths to the failed policy of this administration, which to this day
still cannot get the equipment that this Congress asked for several
years ago to Colombia.
This is an article, it would almost be a joke, ``The Delay of Copters
Hobbles Colombia in Stopping Drugs.'' We acknowledge the drugs are
coming from Colombia. It is not rocket science. We have the DEA
Signature program which can identify the fields where the heroin is
coming from. No heroin produced there in 1993; now coming in in droves.
What do we need to stop it? Helicopters that can get in there and do
eradication and assist both the national police and the military, which
President Pastrana has radically reformed in going after the people who
are financing the disruption of that Nation on both the right and the
left by drug trafficking.
Back in 1998, the helicopters that we requested and appropriated
before still were not delivered. And it is almost farcical to announce
to the Congress that after we did get a handful of these Blackhawk
helicopters that can do the job, they were not provided with armor so
they were not usable until just a few days ago. The ammunition was
delivered to the back-door loading gate of the State Department during
the holidays rather than to Colombia.
Then we requested let us get our surplus material to Colombia if we
are going to have a war on drugs, and the administration reacted by
getting some of the equipment there and only a fraction of the
equipment. Some back to 1998 still was not delivered. I held numerous
behind-closed-door meetings so as not to embarrass the administration
asking when is the stuff going to be there? This almost became a joke
last December, Colombia turns down dilapidated U.S. trucks. They sent
trucks that were being used in the Yukon Territory, not suitable to
Colombia.
So that is why we are here. That is why we are here tonight. That is
why the Committee on Rules is meeting to develop a rule to bring forth
a bill to be discussed on the floor of this House tomorrow about
Colombia. That is the inheritance that this administration has provided
this Congress, the American people. And it would not be so bad if they
just learned by some of their mistakes. This is not only the gang that
cannot shoot straight; this is the gang that could mess up a one-car
funeral.
We asked, in order again to fight a real war on drugs, one has to
have intelligence. We stop drugs where they are grown, so we have to
have overflights and surveillance information. Why does some reporter
or liberal person like Judith Mann not say, ``Mr. Vice President, I
understand you moved some of the AWACS out of that area to look for oil
spills in Alaska''? Why does some reporter not ask the President of the
United States, ``I understand you moved some of the surveillance
capability over to your various deployments.'' The information so
critical getting to Peru and Colombia and Bolivia to go after the
production of that stuff at its source, that is the most cost
effective. And we do not even have to do that. All we have to do is
give them the information. Give the country the information and they
will do it.
Here is the latest. This is just March 23. I cannot believe this
crowd. It says, it is a response from Claudio De La Puente, the Charge
d'Affaires of the Embassy of Peru. It said, ``In the past 4 years, Peru
has decreased area production of cocaine by 66 percent.'' Which I
stated before. This was due to a strategy to strengthen borders against
drug trafficking. The Peruvian Air Force intercepted 91 aircraft
involving drug trafficking between 1992 and 1997. Key to these results
was the provision of monitoring of U.S. intelligence information.''
Mr. Speaker, there was one period in here when Clinton came into
office, they even stopped the surveillance stuff. We had to pass,
Congress, and clarify the law to allow the information sharing, because
some liberal attorney in one of the departments, Department of Defense
or Department of Justice, had misinterpreted and said we cannot share
that information. They might shoot somebody down. It was the intent of
the Congress of the United States to shoot down people who were
carrying death and destruction. When we gave that information to
President Fujimora and to the Peruvian Air Force, they acted and shot
down.
That may be tough for some people to deal with, but these people had
death and destruction on those planes. They were given every warning,
but they never succeeded in bringing that death and destruction to our
borders.
What is absolutely stunning is that the United States, since 1998, it
says, the Peruvian Air Force has not been able to continue its
interdiction operations because of lack of monitoring formerly provided
by the U.S. AWACS and other aircraft.
We saw in Mr. Giuliani's and my community we are having more murders,
a few more murders in the past year. Here is 1998 when they stopped
providing that information. Here is a report that our subcommittee
asked from GAO about what was going on with DOD assets. Is there a war
on drugs? They replied to me, the flying hours had declined from 1992
to last year 68 percent. The maritime tracking had gone down some 62
percent. This is the report. I did not produce it. We had GAO produce
it.
So stopping drugs at their source is not a priority or interdicting
drugs at their source and helping countries that are producing to deal
with the problem.
Here is the United States ambassador. Let me read from this report.
The United States Ambassador to Peru warned in an October 1998 letter
to the State Department that the reduction in air support would have a
serious impact on the price of coca. And then we see here in news
reports the price of
[[Page H1473]]
coca has gone down. That is because the supply is up. Again, a no-
brainer. And we see murders and crimes up even slightly in those areas
that have tough enforcement policies.
So this is a no-brainer. With 12 minutes left, I do want to try to
cover a couple of the areas that I have not in the bill. Some people
may say this is just a partisan Republican coming up and commenting
tonight. And I will admit to being partisan. I do not think this drug
issue is a partisan issue. I have tried to work with my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle. I have tried my best, and heaven knows we have
tried our best to work with this administration. Holding numerous
closed door sessions so I would not embarrass them by revealing the
bungling in this effort.
But we are here now on a very serious matter. This stuff is coming
in. They have diverted assets. I spent 6 hours in Puerto Rico and met
with DEA and Customs and other officials and all of the band that the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House, set up
several years ago has been dispersed. Haiti, which we will be doing a
hearing on in a few more weeks, has become the Atlanta for drug
trafficking in the Caribbean. This is a country in which we spent
billions and billions of taxpayers dollars building the police force
and so-called ``nation building'' and judicial system and legislative
building. The legislature does not even meet. We have replaced one
dictator with another and turned Haiti, with all of this money, into
one of the biggest trafficking points in the Caribbean.
The situation in Puerto Rico is back to disaster level, and again
heroin flooding in through Haiti, the Dominican Republic, over to
Puerto Rico. Once it is in Puerto Rico, it is in the United States and
it is flying to our airports.
{time} 2230
Again, a record which is just incredible, a record which defies
logic, but a record we are going to have to pay for with a very big
price tag tomorrow as the House of Representatives considers this
monumental piece of legislation to fund these programs.
Again, we know what it will take to stop illegal narcotics. We have
asked GAO to look at what took place, and they tell us basically that
the war on drugs is closed down.
Here is the facts. Assets DoD contributes to reducing the illegal
drug supply have declined. Pretty clear. What is sad is, even those who
are charged with trying to stop drugs again at their source are coming
into the United States, interdicting them. In this case, it is
SouthCom, the Southern United States Military Command. Again, they are
not firing at anyone. They are not going after drugs. They are
providing surveillance and basic information which we share with those
countries.
We heard what is going on with the countries not getting the
information. In the Clinton administration these past few years, we
have seen the requests in this, I am a little color blind so it is
either blue or purple here depending on one's ability to detect colors.
But I definitely know this is red. The red is the assets provided by
DoD declined. Requested and provided by DoD.
So we know that the job has not been done. We know that the Congress
must intercede at this important juncture; that we must pass this. We
must not get into a debate about getting this equipment here.
Unfortunately, the bill has been added to. We have had a series of
natural disasters in North Carolina and other areas. We have had
problems in agriculture. Certainly nothing has been more impacted than
the military.
The reason why DOD assets have declined is because we have got them
off in some dozen deployments that the President has chosen as a
priority. The priority, I submit, is not to Kosovo today. The priority
is in our own backyard. It is in our neighborhoods. It is in our
school.
When I go to areas like Sacramento, where the gentleman from
California (Mr. Ose) lives and his family resides, and hear the stories
of illegal narcotics and how parents in a community of 200,000, 600
abandon their children, there is a program to restore their children
back to their families. Less than 5 out of 35 take their children back
because drugs have so destroyed their minds and their lives and their
capability even to care for their offspring. There is something wrong.
But we are going to take this message to the floor tomorrow. We are
going to take this message to the American people during this campaign.
I am going to conduct hearings across the country from now until the
last day of my term in office this year.
We will get some results. We will make a difference. If Rudy Giuliani
can do it in New York, if one wants to say a tough town, New York is a
tough town with tough people. We can have a mayor with the success that
he has had. But how disappointing it must be, how deflating it must be
to him, he who has worked so hard, had made so many tremendous
improvements, when we went to Baltimore, what did we use as a drug
treatment example? The people from Baltimore asked to hear what they
were doing in New York City in drug treatments. So not only was there
success in stopping the murders, but in treating the individuals and
successful programs they developed.
But it is not found on the liberal pages of the Washington Post and
the other publications that want to demean the mayor of New York and
others who are on the frontline who have successful programs. But they
will not ask any questions to those who have left us behind and who
have destroyed real war on drugs, who have dismantled any efforts to
stop most cost effectively, before they ever get to the streets of our
communities, illegal narcotics.
Well, we can have a Baltimore or we can have a New York City. We can
have a nation. If we had 80,000 drug addicts in Baltimore with 600,000,
a declining population, we can certainly have one out of eight
Americans. Certainly that has a tremendous toll.
We can have people, like in California we heard in testimony at field
hearings in the district of the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose),
abandon their children. Is that what we want?
Well, the choice will be ours tomorrow. The choice will be ours in
the next few months. Some serious mistakes have been made. If we do not
learn by those mistakes, they will be the cries of the families and
mothers and sisters and brothers and relatives of more than the 15,973
that were lost in 1998. They will be the cries and sadness of a whole
nation.
We must move together on this. We must learn by the mistakes of the
past. I know we can do a better job. Certainly that is our
responsibility.
____________________