[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 28014-28020]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                              {time}  2130

      ILLEGAL NARCOTICS AND AMERICA'S NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Riley). 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, it is good to come to the floor again tonight 
to talk about a subject which I try to address the House on each 
Tuesday, if possible, but at least once a week, to come before the 
forefront of the House of Representatives and the American people what 
I have as a congressional responsibility, and that is the issue of 
illegal narcotics and our national drug control policy.
  In this session of Congress, I have been responsible as chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources 
for helping to bring together a coherent national drug policy, and also 
carry forward a program started by the new majority to restart the war 
on drugs.
  I will talk about what has happened with the so-called war on drugs 
in my remarks tonight. I will try to review a little bit of some of the 
current controversy concerning the war on drugs, and how to attack the 
problem of illegal narcotics and drugs, and then to trace some of the 
history and problems we were not able to get into last week, 
particularly on how we got ourselves into this situation with Colombia 
and the current situation with Panama that has made the news with many 
of our operations being closed down there, not only from a military 
standpoint, but also from the standpoint of trying to curtail illegal 
narcotics from their source from Panama as a forward operating 
location.
  Tonight I feel a little bit caught between the left and the right on 
the issue of illegal narcotics. I took over the chairmanship and 
responsibility of trying to develop a policy that would be more 
effective, and inherited that responsibility, as I said before, from 
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now the Speaker of 
the House, who did a tremendous job in restarting our national effort 
to combat illegal narcotics.
  I took on this responsibility without a whole lot of preconceived 
notions, but again, a philosophy that is probably on the tough side of 
the agenda in dealing with illegal narcotics. But I found myself again 
this week sort of attacked a little bit from the right and a little bit 
from the left on the issue, both by some national columnists and some 
local columnists.

[[Page 28015]]

  We have done our best to provide an open, honest forum in our 
subcommittee hearings to intelligently discuss the options at hand and 
look at things that we have done in the past relating to illegal 
narcotics and our approach, and see what went wrong and how we go 
forward, because this problem does have an incredible social cost.
  As I have said, it is not just dollars and cents, but there is a 
human cost in tragedies across this Nation. There are hundreds of 
thousands of people, nearly 2 million Americans, in jail, and some 70 
or 80 percent of them are there because of illegal narcotics crime 
activities. There have been 15,200-plus deaths, up almost 8 percent 
over the previous year, drug-induced deaths.
  The social cost is estimated at a quarter of a trillion dollars, a 
tremendous social cost in the problem of drug abuse and illegal 
narcotics, and then the cost to our judicial system, our health care 
system, our economic system, with lost unemployment, not to mention 
lost opportunities for so many Americans.
  But as I said, I am trapped a little bit tonight between the right 
and left. Some are saying that we have to learn to live with drugs, 
such as Ethan Nadelmann, who wrote this story which actually appears 
today in the Washington Post, I think it is a national column.
  Mr. Nadelmann is director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy 
institute with offices in New York and Chicago. I am told he is funded 
by Mr. Soros and some others who have advocated a little bit more 
liberal drug policy approach.
  He does attack the current approach to illegal narcotics, and he says 
in his article, ``Let's start by dropping the `zero tolerance' rhetoric 
and policies and the illusionary goal of drug-free societies.''
  I think we have only to look at comparing, and I have done this 
before, a zero tolerance tough enforcement approach versus a more 
liberal approach, laissez-faire, towards illegal narcotics. We have 
good examples in the United States, and I have cited them before.
  One, of course, is Baltimore. I have had this chart up several times 
before. Baltimore adopted sometime ago a very laissez-faire, liberal 
drug approach, much as has been advocated by the administration in this 
budget battle that we have had in the past few weeks in funding the 
District of Columbia, one of the 13 appropriations measures we must 
pass to fund the government, and a Federal responsibility.
  But tucked in within that legislation to fund the government were 
provisions to liberalize needle exchange, to liberalize some of the 
approaches to marijuana, and a more liberal approach towards what are 
now illegal narcotics.
  We cite, again, a great example of Baltimore, which in 1996 had 
almost 39,000 drug addicts. This is the liberal approach. Now, they 
have gone from 39,000 in 1996 to somewhere in the range of 60,000 
today. So today we have one in 10, and a city council person whom I 
have quoted before from Baltimore on the city council there has 
estimated that the real figures may be closer to one in eight.
  If we took this model, and we have a population of the United States 
we will say rounded off to 270 million, 280 million people, and if we 
had one in 10, our Nation, using this model, would have some 27 million 
to 28 million people addicted to drugs.
  Not only do we have the problem of drug addiction, we have the 
continual problem of death and other incredible costs, social costs. 
Baltimore is one of the few major cities that did not have a reduction 
in deaths. In fact, it remained the same from 1997, and in 1998 the 
figures were 312 deaths in the city, for a liberal policy. So we had a 
huge increase in addiction with the liberalization. This is an example 
of that liberal policy.
  The zero tolerance policy, which is bashed in Mr. Nadelmann's column 
today advocating, again, dropping this zero tolerance rhetoric, zero 
tolerance, Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York, has employed that, and 
it has worked very well. We have gone from over 2,200 deaths to 629 
deaths. Again, think of Baltimore, which has a small population, 
600,000, and 15 times that population in New York City, and half the 
deaths in Baltimore, 312 in one year versus 629 for a city of a multi-
million population. This is the zero tolerance policy Mr. Nadelmann 
would like us to drop in his article today on the liberal side.
  I think this is part of the flaw of his reasoning on this. Again, we 
have some pretty hard evidence here. He goes on, and I would like to 
also cite his article in today's Washington Post.
  He says,

       With some foresight today, drug policymakers might finally 
     grasp that their relentless efforts to eradicate coca crops 
     have little impact on availability, price, or use of cocaine 
     anywhere in the world.

  This is his statement today, November 2.
  I just wanted to share with my colleagues and the American people the 
latest information I have today. This chart actually was provided to me 
this afternoon by the vice president of Bolivia, who was visiting 
Washington. He met with me this afternoon. He presented this chart, 
again, the same day this article appears. He says, ``. . . the 
policymakers might finally grasp their relentless efforts to eradicate 
coca crops have little impact on the availability.''
  Well, here is a project that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Hastert) started several years ago when the Republicans gained control 
of the majority. As we can see in the early nineties, we saw some 
decrease. This is under the Bush administration, the end of the Bush 
administration. We see the beginning of the Clinton administration, 
where we see the increase in coca cultivation.
  What happened here is that the international programs were cut by the 
Democrat majority. Now, they had a complete majority to do basically 
anything they wanted to in the House of Representatives and in the 
Senate, and President Clinton controlled the executive agency, so what 
they did in fact was slash the budgets for the number one 
responsibility, which was stopping the production at their source, the 
most cost-effective. So we saw an increase in production in the Clinton 
years, 1993 over here to where the Republicans take over in 1995.
  It took us from 1995 to 1996 really to get in place a very cost-
effective program. I asked the vice president, how much American money 
would you estimate that has gone into coca eradication and alternative 
crop programs? And it is about $30 or $40 million over the past several 
years.
  So with very few dollars out of $17.8 billion, $30 or $40 million in 
several years, and again, if we go back to what happened in the Bush 
administration, we could trace this back to the Reagan administration, 
in very few years we have cut, for almost no money in comparison to 
what we are spending these huge amounts on for other efforts, we have 
cut coca cultivation.
  Again, Mr. Nadelmann is wrong. His facts are wrong. The production in 
just Bolivia is cut some 50 percent in 2 or 3 years, and we have a 
program working with them now with very few dollars to eradicate the 
production.
  Now, if I put up Peru, Peru and Bolivia, they accounted for about 90 
percent of all the coca cultivation back in the beginning here, in the 
1992 area, when the Clinton administration took over. Bolivia has had a 
50 percent reduction, Peru has had a 60 percent reduction. Both have 
tough zero tolerance policies, and both with a little bit of help from 
their friends, very little U.S. money, but a determination for a zero 
tolerance for going after coca cultivation.
  The only chart that we would show where there has been an increase in 
cultivation would, of course, be Colombia, where the administration 
blocked assistance, aid, and stopped everything for a number of years. 
We saw that soar, until just the last year they have awakened to the 
problem that they have created through their policy of not stopping 
drugs at their source.
  Again, we have been able to affect this. We have also been able to 
affect the consumption and use of cocaine, which has dropped, and 
again, another chart shows the long-term prevalence of cocaine use 
here. We saw in the

[[Page 28016]]

Reagan administration this levelling out, a dropping under Bush, the 
Bush administration, and again, the beginning of an increase when 
President Clinton took over, and now we see a drop in 1998 for the 
first time. We are seeing a drop again because of the decrease in 
availability of cocaine, particularly from Peru and Bolivia, where we 
have been successful.
  However, we have been unsuccessful in Colombia, where the 
administration has fought every attempt to get resources and assistance 
there for the past several years, and turned Colombia from a non-
producer, it was a transit and processing country, into a producer of 
cocaine.
  So I think both of these charts demonstrate exactly what has happened 
when you have a tough policy, and when you have eradication programs 
that are cost-effective in countries such as the Bolivia model here and 
the Peruvian model, which would be very similar to what is shown here 
and presented by the vice president of Bolivia to me today.

                              {time}  2145

  So, again, hit from the left by Mr. Nadelmann, we do search for the 
most cost effective means to deal with this problem. But I think he has 
missed the point, again, based on the facts and information that we 
have.
  Then a good friend who is a local columnist, but also a national 
columnist, Charlie Reese, who is well respected from the conservative 
side, last week, he gave us a broad side on the narcotics issue. He 
said, what do prohibition and drug war have in common, is his question. 
Sure failure.
  One of his comments is, if we ended the war on drugs, legalized these 
drugs, and allowed people to buy them by prescription or from carefully 
licensed and regulated dealers, would everyone in the United States go 
to Haites and everyone become an addict?
  Well, again, I will cite one of the best examples we have of a 
liberal policy, which I think will soon be changed after this election 
in Baltimore because of the devastation that it has done in that 
community. But we have seen an addiction problem turn from a small 
problem into an incredible problem where 1 in 10 are some of our 
official statistics, but 1 in 8, again according to elected local 
official there, are now addicts.
  Now, addicts do not come cheap. They have a tremendous cost on the 
health system, on society dealing with their addiction. I would imagine 
if we compared the cost of dealing with someone who is addicted and has 
an addiction problem and, again, their lost productivity, their health 
problems, supporting their addiction, loss to their families, and 
employment, economic opportunity, I think we would see a very serious 
charge in cost to society. We have seen that with the degradation of 
the community, both from an economic standpoint and from a life-style 
standpoint in Baltimore.
  So I can answer the question for Mr. Reese, does everyone become an 
addict? No, everyone will not become an addict. But 1 in 10 might 
become subject to addiction under this liberalized policy.
  There are some countries where they have tried to liberalize some of 
the access to drugs like marijuana; and I would cite here the 
Netherlands. The Netherlands has legalized in small quantities, they 
did try this, marijuana. It is sold across the counter in limited 
quantities, as I said.
  In talking with officials recently from the Netherlands, we found, 
first of all, they have reduced the amount that is available. Secondly, 
they have not only reduced the amount, but they have increased the 
penalties. They have gotten tougher on enforcement because they found 
that the liberal approach did not work. And others that took advantage 
of this situation, they found themselves also with higher addiction 
rates.
  So we have one example of one narcotic, both with tremendous 
problems, and both with trying it and then backing off from it. That is 
just dealing with marijuana.
  Mr. Reese in his article goes on to say there is nothing inherently 
evil in morphine, heroin, marijuana, or cocaine. They each produce 
certain effects just as other drugs do. But those effects do not cause 
people to commit crimes.
  Here again, I would have to differ with my good friend and columnist 
on the conservative side, Mr. Reese. We know that these drugs do cause 
some very serious side effects. I try to cite, not only the statistics 
in the drug-induced deaths, some 15,200 we were up to last year, the 
societal costs, which I have cited again tonight, but then some of the 
other cases that are not reported.
  We took the case, I believe it was Baby Sabrina, where the father 
allegedly was high on cocaine, according to some tapes that were 
obtained. The baby, everyone in Florida and around the country was 
concerned about its disappearance, and we find that the child may, in 
fact, have been a victim of a parent who was involved with cocaine.
  The Sheppard case which is so celebrated, the anti-gay case in 
Wyoming is another case, if one reads below the lines, the individuals 
involved there admit to being high on narcotics and alcohol. I am 
certain that that influenced their action.
  The New Jersey bus driver we cited who was under the influence of 
marijuana and some 20-plus people died in that bus accident. Plus we 
have seen what crack cocaine and the effects of other illegal narcotics 
have upon people.
  So I would have to disagree with Mr. Reese that the effects do not 
cause people to commit crime. He says what causes the crime is drug 
prohibition. Again, I would have to disagree with him.
  Not to mention the tremendous problem we have with growing illegal 
narcotics, which is methamphetamine. Now methamphetamine is so common 
that it has become epidemic through the Midwest and through the West, 
much of it produced, we have found through our subcommittee hearings 
and investigations, in Mexico and finding its way into the United 
States.
  But we find that, in fact, methamphetamine and some other drugs, 
where they have done these brain scans, a normal brain as shown here, a 
brain on meth for a short period of time, one can already see the 
change in some of the brain activities. The next figure here shows meth 
after some continued use. It almost patterns the last image here which 
is Parkinson's disease.
  So we know that certain illegal narcotics, and that is why they are 
illegal, have very serious damage to the bodies and the brain. This is 
what can happen. So we do have this problem in dealing with illegal 
narcotics.
  So I am a little bit hit from the right, a little bit hit by the left 
on the issue. We are trying to find out what are viable solutions. We 
have looked at the questions of decriminalization, of treating some of 
the drug problem more as a health problem. But that has very serious 
cost implications.
  We have also seen that, as we take the liberal turn, we have 
increased addiction. We have a serious problem with our treatment 
programs in that very few of them are effective the first time around, 
and sometimes the second and third time around, and sometimes not at 
all.
  So we increase the level of addiction. We increase the level of 
potential people who cannot be helped and who have become wards and 
charges because of their addiction to the State and to the Federal 
Government, of course to communities and families throughout the 
country.
  So we do take a very serious look at trying to find alternatives to 
the current way we go after illegal narcotics and drug abuse. But, 
again, nothing can be more effective than stopping illegal narcotics at 
their source and stopping the production at their source and then 
stopping illegal narcotics before they get to our borders. Once they 
get to our borders, it is pretty much a tough situation for law 
enforcement.
  One time a DEA agent described this to me when I was visiting in 
South America, he said, ``Mr. Mica, this is a little bit like having a 
garden hose and having a sprinkler with a 360-degree radius.'' He said, 
``You can get cans and

[[Page 28017]]

go out and try to catch all of the sprinkles from that 360-degree 
sprinkler or'', he says, ``you can come up here to the hose, and you 
can choke the water at its source, and it stops.''
  That is a little bit of what our Federal responsibility is, with 
limited number of dollars, we try to stop the illegal narcotics first 
at their source; and then, as they leave the source, once it gets to 
the streets and into the communities and schools, neighborhoods, it is 
almost impossible for our enforcement people to handle.
  But we do find that where we do have the zero tolerance policies that 
we have a much better success rate in dealing with the problem and 
stemming addiction, stemming illegal activity with again zero tolerance 
as opposed to the liberalized policy which has been advocated.
  Now, that brings us to the point that I also raise about what has 
taken place. The war on drugs basically was closed down in 1993 with 
the advent of the Clinton administration, with the advent of a majority 
in both the House and Senate.
  If we look at the areas, again, that I have talked about tonight, the 
international areas of spending, we see, again, the first 
responsibility and most cost effective way to deal with illegal 
narcotics is to stop them at their source.
  This chart shows, again, 1991, 1992, in the Bush administration, 
advent of the Clinton administration, the cutting of international 
programs. Federal drug spending on international programs, that is 
stopping drugs at their source, declined 21 percent in 1 year after the 
Clinton administration took office. Federal drug spending decreased 
from $660 million in 1992 to $523 million in 1993. This chart shows 
exactly what took place there.
  Now, this is one key element to stopping drugs at their source. The 
other one, as I said, is the interdiction program; and that is, 
stopping drugs as they come from the source.
  The same thing happened. Again, we have in the beginning of this 
chart here the expenditures during the end of the Bush administration, 
the beginning of the Clinton administration, the Clinton 
administration, the Republican Congress. In interdiction, Federal drug 
spending on interdiction declined 23 percent 1 year after the Clinton 
administration took office. Federal drug spending decreased from $1.96 
billion in 1992 to $1.5 billion in 1993. So basically we closed down 
the two primary areas of Federal responsibility.
  We cannot have State and local governments and other communities 
really dealing with these source countries or getting drugs stopped at 
the border. That is clearly a Federal responsibility.
  What is interesting is if we took these charts and we took drug use, 
and I have had this chart up once before that our staff produced, but 
these are exact statistics, again, the Reagan administration, it says 
Reagan administration right here, we go into the Bush administration, a 
decline in the prevalence of drug use. This is all drugs.
  Then we see the Bush administration ending and the Clinton 
administration, the change in policy, the change in stopping drugs at 
their source from coming into the country, we saw a flood of drugs 
coming in. We saw the end of programs to stop drugs at their source. 
That was a Federal war on drugs. That basically ended. We see this 
dramatic increase.
  This chart, again, every American and every Member of Congress should 
be aware of, we get to the beginning of the Republican administration 
where we have restored money back to the 1991, 1992 levels, and small 
amounts of money in comparison to an $18 billion program. This is maybe 
5 percent, 10 percent of that entire program expended on a source 
country and also on interdiction.

                              {time}  2200

  But this shows, without a doubt, that that policy does not work; that 
we did not have a war on drugs; that when we have a war on drugs, we 
see a decline and when we do not have one, we see an increase. When we 
have more of a zero tolerance policy, the same thing, the same pattern 
occurs.
  So, again, in those areas, we have not met our responsibility, or at 
least the old majority did not meet their responsibility. The new 
majority did. And we are trying to put things back to the 1991-1992 
level as far as our efforts to keep illegal narcotics coming into our 
country.
  What is interesting is we often hear, and some of the liberal 
columnists and the liberal side also say that we should just spend more 
money on treatment. And that was part of the mantra of the Clinton 
experiment that failed. Federal drug spending on treatment programs 
increased 37 percent during the Clinton administration in 1992 to 1993. 
We went from $2.2 billion to $3.2 billion.
  Now, I will say that I believe treatment is very important. We have 
had problems with programs not having high success rates, and with high 
failures rates we do need to sort through that. There is nothing wrong 
with spending every available dollar we can on treatment programs. But, 
in fact, that was the policy that we had here, and we see the decreases 
in the two areas which I mentioned that are so important, and then the 
emphasis on just treatment.
  Federal drug spending on treatment increased 12 percent from 1993 to 
1995. Even under the new Republican administration, and we are accused 
sometimes of reducing spending too much, in this important area we have 
had a 12 percent increase from the time we took responsibility here to 
the current funding year. So we have continued to put money into 
treatment all through this period, but again a change in emphasis.
  So those are some of the points that I wanted to make about the war 
on drugs being a failure, again being attacked by the right and being 
attacked by the left and some of those folks in between. But we have, 
as a new majority, tried to act responsibly. We have put some of these 
programs back together under a Republican-controlled Congress. Under 
the new majority, Federal drug spending on interdiction was increased 
84 percent from 1995 to 1999, and that was to get us back to the level 
of 1991 and 1992 spending.
  Federal drug spending on international programs, stopping illegal 
narcotics from their source to our borders, was increased 170 percent 
during the Republican-controlled Congress from 1995 to 1999, again, 
getting us back to the levels that we were at when we so effectively 
dealt with the problem of illegal narcotics.
  Now, we all know that we have been able to curtail some illegal 
narcotics coming into the United States, and I demonstrated tonight two 
examples, very cost-effective examples, both in Bolivia and Peru. I 
have also spoken about Colombia. Right now about 70 percent of the 
illegal cocaine and heroin coming into the United States comes from 
Colombia. How did we get into a situation where Colombia, which some 6 
years ago was really not even on the radar screen as far as production 
of coca, for cocaine, or production of heroin? In fact, there was 
almost no heroin produced in Colombia.
  I think it was a series of very strategic errors by this 
administration that got us to the situation we are in. And let me cite 
a little bit of the history of how we got to where we are with Colombia 
now being the source of about 70-plus percent of the hard narcotics 
coming into the country.
  In 1994, the Clinton administration stopped providing information and 
intelligence to the Colombians regarding drug flights tracked by the 
United States, which eliminated the effectiveness of Colombia's 
shootdown policy. So a very sharp directive by the Clinton 
administration, a change in policy, first stopping in 1994 the 
providing of information-sharing.
  The Colombians were using information and intelligence we gave them 
to go so far as to shoot down those trafficking in illegal narcotics. 
This is the first step in the beginning of the disaster that we are now 
inheriting, and the American taxpayers will have the tab for in a few 
more weeks, once we get passed this current appropriations discussion 
and resolution.
  The next step in this failed policy of bringing Colombia to the 
forefront of illegal narcotics production and activity was in 1996 and 
1997. The Clinton

[[Page 28018]]

administration distorted the certification law that Congress had passed 
back in the mid-1980s and decertified Colombia because the 
administration said Colombia was not doing enough in the fight against 
drugs, effectively stopping all United States anti-narcotics assistance 
to Colombia.
  Now, we passed in the mid-1980s a law that was called the 
decertification law that basically says that each year the 
administration must assess if countries are assisting in, one, stopping 
the production, and, two, stopping the trafficking of illegal 
narcotics. That is what must be certified. If they are certified as 
cooperating, then they are eligible for United States foreign aid, 
financial assistance, and trade benefits. However, we provided in that 
law, and I remember working on the law with Senator Hawkins and others 
in the mid-1980s when it was passed, a national security interest 
waiver.
  And certainly it is in the national security interest of the United 
States to make certain that assistance to a country like Colombia, 
which was producing illegal narcotics and was a source of illegal 
narcotics, might be decertified because some of their officials were 
not cooperating. But also we could grant a waiver, which would allow us 
to continue giving resources just for the fight against illegal 
narcotics.
  So a law that was carefully crafted to take into consideration 
situations like Colombia was ignored by the administration. In 1996 and 
1997, the administration blocked every bit of assistance into Colombia. 
So first we had the 1994 shootdown policy and information-sharing 
policy fiasco and then in 1996 and 1997 a distortion and misapplication 
of the decertification law by the Clinton administration.
  What did that harvest? What were the results? What we did here, after 
a tremendous amount of effort in 1998, last year, after pressure from 
many Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, when we saw what 
was happening, we finally got Colombia certified with a national 
interest waiver so that equipment and resources could go to Colombia to 
fight the war on drugs there. And again, we have to remember that they 
stopped all of the assistance going into Colombia from basically 1993-
94 to 1998.
  The results were devastating for Colombia. In fact, according to a 
New York Times article, published October 25, a few weeks ago, 35,000 
Colombians have been killed in the past decade because of the country's 
internal conflict. And the conflict there is Marxist terrorist groups 
financed by illegal narcotics activities. According to an Orlando 
Sentinel article published October 10, 23,000 people were slain in 
Colombia in 1998 alone.
  So if we look at the results from 1996 to 1998, when we stopped all 
of the aide and assistance, we had 23,000 people killed in Colombia 
alone in that 1 year. The Colombia National Police reported that since 
1990, approximately 4,600 Colombian policemen have been killed in the 
line of duty, and many of them in fighting against the illegal 
narcotics trafficking. Again, we withheld aid and assistance for many 
years.
  According to The New York Times, another recent article, 1.5 million 
Colombians have been misplaced in the last decade because of the 
country's internal conflict. And I am told in 1 year, over 300,000 were 
displaced, a tragedy, a disruption of a society equal to Bosnia, equal 
to the conflict that we have seen in the Balkans, in Kosovo, not only 
in number of lives taken but in displaced individuals from their homes 
and their communities.
  Now, my colleagues might say, and I have heard some people say this, 
that I need to tell what the Republicans have done to deal with this. 
As I said, we put tremendous pressure last year on Colombia. But to go 
back to 1994, we urged the change in the policy, the shootdown policy 
and information sharing. We finally did get some minor changes in this. 
And just in the last few months, the administration has gone back to a 
policy of providing information sharing. But repeatedly, time after 
time, we requested the administration to go back to providing 
assistance.
  What was very sad is during this period of time, even resources that 
we appropriated, the President took some of the money, we know, and 
diverted it to Haiti. Some of it was diverted to Bosnia. The Vice 
President, I am told, directed U-2 overflights, which provided 
information so they could go after drug traffickers and the rebel 
activity there, he ordered those U-2 planes sent to Alaska to check for 
oil spills. In the meantime, thousands dead, a civil war financed by 
illegal narcotics, profits raging, and tremendous disruption.
  So Republicans, at every juncture, and since we took the majority, 
have provided funding, assistance, and requested the administration to 
move forward. Last year, we provided $287 million to Colombia. This 
morning, I was to have a meeting with representatives from the 
Department of State, Department of Defense, National Security Council, 
and others, who are involved in expending this money and making certain 
that it gets to Colombia, for a report on where that money has been 
spent. Unfortunately, that was canceled by the administration this 
morning.
  I think their strategy is to keep as quiet as possible about how the 
money has been spent, to not come forward and answer questions as to 
why equipment, resources and what the Congress, the Republican 
majority, provided to deal with that situation, what has been done with 
those funds and how that has been expended and what has not been done.
  There is also a great reluctance to talk about the $1.5 billion plan 
that was presented but not officially introduced to the Congress some 
weeks ago to deal with the escalating problems now that the 
administration faces.

                              {time}  2215

  We face a Bosnia and Kosovo right in our own backyard here with 
Colombia financed again by narco-terrorists.
  What is sad is I held hearings as recently as August of 1999 and 
found that helicopters, riverine patrol aircraft, crop spraying 
aircraft, and support equipment that were supposed to be delivered 
still had not been delivered. And again, under the Republican Congress, 
we provided resources and hard dollars that should have been there.
  As of October 1999, only a fraction of that assistance has been 
delivered. Unfortunately, again the administration canceled a meeting 
today to report on what they have done with the balance. I think that 
is partly due to trying to get the Congress out of town before they 
present the Congress officially and the American people with a multi-
billion-dollar tab for their mistakes and errors in Colombia.
  This is a big business, though, for the guerillas in Colombia. They 
earn, according to a Reuter's report, up to $600 million a year profits 
from the drug trade. So the Marxist terrorist guerillas are disrupting 
this country and the region by fueling it and financing it through the 
profits of illegal narcotics.
  In fact, General McCaffrey, who is our drug czar, has said that there 
is no line and no distinction between the terrorists and narco-
terrorists' illegal drug activities. So we have now seen what has 
turned from a minor problem at the beginning of this administration 
that could have been contained with the proper policy into a major 
problem and a disruption of the entire region.
  General McCaffrey, again our drug czar, stated in a hearing that we 
had, ``The United States has paid inadequate attention to a serious and 
growing emergency.'' I would like to echo his statement.
  Unfortunately, now the huge bill and tab comes forward; and, 
unfortunately, now to this date, we still do not have before the 
Congress a solid plan to deal with that. And I think they are 
embarrassed because of the current budget battle and appropriations 
battle of coming forward with that plan at this point. But we are 
looking for probably a $1.5 billion tab on those mistakes.
  This situation is so serious that last week we had an estimated 2 
million people in Colombia who went into the streets and demonstrated 
for peace. I wish I could tell those Colombians that our policy had not 
gotten them into this situation but, in fact, it has. And now we are 
going to pay very dearly.

[[Page 28019]]

  What is sad about the situation in Colombia, and let me put this up 
here, we have Colombia down here and we have Mexico through here and we 
see that narcotics are coming up in Colombia through the Isthmus of 
Panama, Central America into Mexico. This is, basically, the pattern 
that we see today.
  I have a little better chart showing Colombia specifically and 
Panama. This shows some of the guerilla activity. But here is Panama 
right here, a very strategic location. Colombia, the darkest areas are 
the opium growing areas here. A little bit lighter areas here cocaine.
  Now, again, in 1992 there was almost no production. This was mostly a 
transiting and a processing country. And now we see these production 
areas. Again, I think all beneficiaries of a failed policy. But we see 
the strategic location with Panama. And again, if I had the other chart 
up here, we would see the transiting through Mexico into the United 
States and the sea routes and these circles here showing the guerilla 
activity, and now they control about two-thirds of the land area in 
Colombia.
  What is of particular concern to some of us who have responsibility 
in this area is that this whole problem is now escalating and affecting 
the region. This region produces, I am told, about 20 percent of all 
the oil consumed in the United States comes from this region.
  Panama, who has been a strategic location, and we have as of today 
this headline in the Washington Post. It says, ``U.S. Air Force Leaves 
Panama. A little quiet, but finally yesterday the last wave of U.S. 
airmen and women pulled out of Panama yesterday when Howard Air Force 
Base reverted to Panamanian control closing eight decades of U.S. air 
power.''
  Now, we had all of our forward operating drug locations out of Panama 
right in this area. We have lost that capability in Panama. What is of 
concern are the reports that I am getting.
  Here is a report from a news account last week. It says, a leading 
Panamanian clerk says continuing incidents along the border of Colombia 
could affect future Panama Canal operations.''
  And this clerk, again his name is Romulo Emiliani, a Roman Catholic 
bishop, said, ``If Panama falls into instability, the Panama Canal 
could lose its users.''
  Well, in fact, yesterday with a news account that I read, we did lose 
our base at Howard Air Force Base, not only the strategic military 
location, but this was the site of 15,000 annual flights into South 
America, into Central America over the drug producing region. Again, we 
provided information, sharing, to the Colombians, the Bolivians, the 
Peruvians and others to interdict illegal narcotics at their source and 
we were restarting these again in Panama.
  One of the problems we have is we have lost this installation. 
Yesterday, the last Air Force folks moved out. May 1 all flights 
stopped. That did not come at any small price to the taxpayers. The 
United States is surrendering 70,000 acres of land to Panama as they 
assume control of the canal.
  The United States has also lost 5,600 buildings to Panama and the 
resources at the canal. The United States is, in fact, surrendering in 
the next few days here some 10 to 13 billion dollars in infrastructure 
to Panama.
  There is a great contrast between what the Republicans have done on 
the narcotics issue in Panama and the Democrats. It is ironic to know 
that some 10 years ago George Bush sent American troops into Panama 
because Mr. Noriega, the Panamanian leader, was we know involved in 
illegal narcotics trafficking and drug smuggling through this region. 
We sent troops in there and actually Americans died taking back this 
area and arresting him, and he now is in prison.
  This year the Clinton administration is turning back the Panama 
Canal. What is sad is they have turned the Panama Canal back to 
primarily red Chinese dominated firms. And that would be bad enough by 
itself, but in fact almost everyone who has looked at this say they 
were illegal or corrupt tenders that allowed the Panamanians to give 
the control, both the Pacific and Caribbean port access, to again red 
Chinese interests, a great contrast again between what the Bush 
administration did and what the Clinton administration is doing in the 
next few weeks here.
  What is also a particular concern is that again the instability from 
Colombia, and this cleric does cite that, will influence Panama has 
caused destabilization on the Venezuelan side. And even Equador is 
having difficulty in keeping these narco-terrorists from invading into 
their border.
  So we see what has turned into a small problem a big problem. The 
price of moving our forward operating locations from Panama now down to 
Manta, Equador and up to Caracas, Aruba is also of great concern to me 
as chairman the Subcommittee on Drug Policy. It is a concern because 
right now we only have a fraction of the previous overflights and 
information, so we have the possibility of more illegal narcotics 
coming into our country when we are trying to, in fact, restart these 
programs.
  What concerns me is the administration came forward with their first 
proposal with $70-plus million to move these locations. Of course, we 
just lost 10 to 13 billion dollars in getting kicked out and losing 
5,600 buildings. So now we have to replace that with infrastructure and 
expenditures in Equador and also in the Netherlands Antilles. But 
again, we have the administration having failed to negotiate any long-
term agreements with either the Antilles or with Equador.
  We have a short-term agreement with one for several more months and 
another one that expires in April. Then the administration came back 
after asking for $70-plus million and asked for another $40 million.
  I sent some of our staff down to look at what the cost would be, and 
we may be at a quarter of a billion dollars, according to our staff 
report and their investigation of this situation, plus not operating at 
anywhere near full capacity in this arena, which is so important now in 
trying to keep some of this activity curtailed and on the verge of 
spending $1.5 billion that the administration, we expect, as the 
November surprise after Congress exits stage right and resolves some of 
the financial problems that we have right now.
  So that is a little bit of the situation we find ourselves in 
tonight. It is not a pretty scene. It is complex both in addressing the 
drug abuse and illegal narcotics activities in the United States, let 
alone the international problems and challenges we face.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joined by the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Souder), who is a member of our subcommittee who has done 
incredible work at great personal sacrifice, tremendous time and effort 
on the illegal narcotics problem, one of the stars of our subcommittee.
  Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Riley). The gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Mica) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Souder).
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to congratulate the chairman on his 
leadership and his diligence in coming down here to the House to keep 
America informed as to this process.
  I was privileged to join the chairman when we were in Colombia, 
Bolivia, Peru, Panama again this last winter, as we have been multiple 
times.
  This week we finally have Blackhawk helicopters going into Colombia 
that we fought 4 years to get there. It has been a very frustrating 
process, and I commend the persistence of the gentleman.
  The President is quick to make promises to Colombia, as he did to 
President Pastrano when he was recently here when the cameras were 
going. But when the rubber hits the road and we are in the budget 
negotiations, all of a sudden there is not any money for their anti-
narcotics force.
  I really appreciate the leadership of the gentleman to keep that 
pressure on, and it is a privilege to work with him and his 
subcommittee.

[[Page 28020]]


  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for 
his efforts and others in the Congress, both sides of the aisle. Some 
serious mistakes have been made in the past. We cannot afford to make 
them in the future. A lot of hard-earned taxpayers' money is going into 
this effort, whether it is eradication, interdiction, treatment, 
enforcement, whatever the expenditure. And then we have an incredible 
loss of human life and resources that are in this country. So we will 
continue our efforts.

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