[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17165-17170]
[From the U.S. 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 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to return to the House of 
Representatives after our August recess and district work period and 
continue this series that I began nearly 18 months ago as chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, 
a series that I began on the topic of illegal narcotics and its impact 
upon our Nation.
  Tonight, I thought I would recap some of what has taken place during 
this congressional recess, some of the activities that have occurred 
relating to illegal narcotics and our attempts to bring illegal 
narcotics and drug abuse in some control and order in our society, and 
also give an update on some of the actions of the administration in 
this interim period while Congress was in recess.
  I think that it is important that we keep in perspective the history 
of the efforts by Congress and this administration and other 
administrations in trying to curtail what has become probably the most 
serious social problem facing our Nation and certainly the youth of 
this country. I think that the statistics that have recently been 
released about crime show that some of the murder rate in this country 
is down. And I think that, in the next week, our subcommittee is 
looking at some of the statistics that have been released; but I think 
they are startling figures that will show that more people are now 
dying as a direct result of drug abuse and misuse in this country than 
some of the murders that are committed. And I know that that is the 
case in the area that I represent.
  I represent a beautiful area in Florida from Orlando to Daytona 
Beach, the central Florida and greater Orlando area, and the headlines 
blurted out some nearly 2 years ago that deaths by drug overdoses had 
exceeded homicides in our area of central Florida. And I think that is 
now occurring, and we will be able to substantiate these figures, on a 
national basis. So if people are concerned about the use of firearms, 
about commissions of murder, mayhem in our society, I think that we 
have now reached the point where drug deaths and overdose as a direct 
result of illegal narcotics are now taking an even greater toll than 
other forms of murder.
  I will never forget that a parent who had lost a child in central 
Florida said, Mr. Mica, that in fact drug overdoses are a form of 
murder, and certainly when you have a son or a daughter lost to illegal 
narcotics, either someone providing them or the individual dying as a 
result of someone distributing to them illegal narcotics, you certainly 
view that as murdering or destroying the life of your loved one.
  But tonight, I want to try to shed a little light. I try not to do 
this in a partisan fashion. I do not think that our efforts to curtail 
illegal narcotics is a partisan matter. I think that both sides of the 
aisle are sincere in trying to find solutions. But I think we also have 
to look at some of the facts involved and some of the spin that is even 
put on what is happening at the national level, possibly for the sake 
of politics, maybe for the sake of applying some cosmetics to a record 
that is not too attractive. That is something that we have to deal 
with. And we must, in fact, deal with facts if we are going to find 
real solutions to the problem we face with illegal narcotics.
  So tonight I want to talk about the Clinton administration's attempt 
to blur some of their failure in Colombia in their shutdown of our war 
on illegal drugs and some of the steps that were taken even during this 
recess by the President to try to put a happy face or a successful face 
on really a policy of disaster that has taken place since the beginning 
of the Clinton-Gore administration in 1993 when they took office and 
began systematically dismantling any semblance of a real war on drugs.
  The President, as we know, visited Colombia with great fanfare for 
some 8 hours. He spent 8 hours there out of nearly 8 years in the White 
House. And again, I think, to put the best face possible on a situation 
that they helped in

[[Page 17166]]

fact create through some of their actions.
  Let me first review how we got ourselves into the situation in 
Colombia where the Congress had to, in an emergency fashion, dedicate 
$1.3 billion just in this fiscal year that we are approaching for aid 
to Colombia. According to the President's own drug czar last year, 
Barry McCaffrey, he called Colombia, and I will use his quote, he said 
it was a flipping nightmare last summer and then asked, in fact, that 
the President consider it an emergency situation. This is after tens of 
thousands of Colombians were slain, members of the police force, 
members of the military, civilians, legislators, members of their 
Congress, local and national judges, attorneys general and other 
officials from top to bottom in Colombia were slaughtered in a war that 
has been fueled by narcoterrorists. So finally the administration woke 
up last year and said the situation had gotten out of control, and in 
fact it had gotten out of control.
  Now, to get out of control, it was not easy. In fact, I believe some 
very specific steps by the Clinton administration, and I want to go 
over them tonight, led us to be forced really to pass an aid package of 
historic proportions. $1.3 billion for any country, we know there is 
something dramatically wrong. This did not happen overnight. It began 
with a systematic shutdown of assistance in combating illegal narcotics 
and the situation that was developing and deteriorating in Colombia.
  So let me first start by reviewing, if I may, the situation. Members 
know that most of the illegal narcotics are now coming from Colombia. 
This chart which was prepared by the drug enforcement agency shows that 
most of the cocaine and heroin, in 1997, and it is true today, is 
coming from Colombia. This was not the case as I will point out in 1993 
at the beginning of this administration. But this administration took 
some steps back in 1993 when they first came into office that turned 
out to be disastrous.

                              {time}  2000

  In 1994, the Clinton administration stopped providing information and 
intelligence to the Colombians regarding drug flights tracked by the 
United States, which, in fact, eliminated the effectiveness of 
Colombia's shootdown policy.
  Now, prior to 1994, Colombia was participating with shootdown drug 
trafficking planes, and Colombia was primarily a transit route for 
narcotics. And in that era, 1993, some 7 years ago, the beginning of 
this administration, it was mostly cocaine that was coming through and 
transcending or being processed. It was not grown in Colombia.
  This administration managed to turn the situation, where Colombia 
again was just a transit point and a transshipment point, into a major 
producing country. The first step, as I said, was the refusal to share 
intelligence.
  Now, this is an interesting chart we had prepared. In 1993, the 
cocaine production in Colombia was some 65 metric tons, very little, 
almost off the charts in 1993, 65 metric tons. The poppies grown in 
Colombia for producing heroin was almost zero in 1993. And in 1999, we 
have 520 metric tons of cocaine; and this, I believe, is in the 80 
percent range of all the cocaine produced in the world. They managed to 
develop a market in Colombia and, again, by some very specific policy 
decisions.
  These are the charts that the President certainly would not want to 
show and the administration would not want to show. Almost no heroin 
produced again in 1993, some 7 years ago. Now, this figure refers to 
probably 75 percent of all the heroin that is seized in the United 
States.
  According to DEA signature testing program, they can take the DNA of 
the heroin that is confiscated and seized and actually tell almost to 
the field where it is produced, but some 75 percent of all of the 
heroin produced in Colombia and seized in the United States comes from 
Colombia. Now, this took place in this administration.
  The first decision was to stop the shootdown policy, stop information 
sharing. Now, in this vast arena of going after drug traffickers at 
their source, which is most effective, because we stop shipment of a 
ton or quantities, we stop it at its source, once it gets into the 
United States and beyond these distribution points, it is costly, it is 
ineffective, and we are never going to get it all.
  One DEA official I met in the jungle of Central America described it 
so aptly. He said, Mr. Mica, down here we can stop the drugs at their 
source where they are produced cost effectively for a few dollars. In 
fact, when the coalition started cutting the source country programs, 
some of the DEA agents chipped in and put some of their own personal 
money to stop some of the production and activity down there, because 
they were so dedicated to the program, knew it would work.
  This agent said, Mr. Mica, trying to stop the illegal narcotics once 
they get to our shores is sort of like getting a hose, hooking it up to 
a spigot and then putting a 360 degree sprinkler out in your lawn and 
running around with coffee cans trying to catch the water as it 
sprinkles out. And that is the analogy that this agent used in the 
jungles to me. He said the best thing to do is to turn that spigot on 
and turn off the illegal narcotics. That would be a simple strategy.
  It was a strategy that worked under the Reagan and Bush 
administration and as far back as the Nixon administration. There was a 
heroin epidemic under the Nixon administration. He stopped it at its 
source. He went in and through purchasing and through other programs 
that he set up, President Nixon, they stopped that.
  President Reagan and President Bush created an Andean strategy, a 
Vice President's task force, and as my colleagues may recall, even when 
we had a Central American leader involved in narcotic trafficking and 
money laundering.
  Remember President Noriega of Panama? In 1989, President Bush sent 
American troops in. In fact, American lives were lost in that case, but 
they went in with force and with determination and stopped that 
trafficking at the choke point.
  In this case, it was Panama and the Ismus of Panama and the head of a 
country who was involved, and they captured him, as my colleagues may 
recall from television days, and put him in jail for dealing in illegal 
narcotics and for money laundering and corruption. So that was the way 
they dealt with it.
  The way the Clinton-Gore administration dealt with the problem is 
they stopped the shootdown policy. So the first thing they did is stop 
the shootdown policy and stop information sharing so we could not go 
after drug traffickers at their source. This policy so enraged Members 
of Congress.
  I remember my colleague, I just gotten elected in 1993 and the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) was elected the same year. In 
1994, when they did this, they took this first step, everyone was 
shocked, and the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) said, ``As you 
will recall as of May 1, 1994, the Department of Defense decided 
unilaterally to stop sharing real-time intelligence regarding aerial 
traffic in drugs with Colombia and Peru. Now, as I understand it, that 
decision, which hasn't been completely resolved, has thrown diplomatic 
relations with the host countries into chaos.'' That is 1994.
  Now, that was the Republican viewpoint in 1994 when the 
administration took this step.
  This is what the Democrats had to say. Remember, the Democrats 
controlled the White House. In 1993 to 1995, they controlled the House 
of Representatives by a wide majority. They also controlled the other 
body, the United States Senate. And this is what the Democrats said in 
August of that same year, 1994, committee chairmen of two House 
subcommittees blasted the Clinton administration yesterday for its 
continuing refusal to resume sharing intelligence data with Colombia 
and Peru that would enable those Andean nations to shoot down aircraft 
carrying narcotics to the United States.
  So we see the beginning of $1.3 billion problem developing through 
very specific policy decisions not criticized just

[[Page 17167]]

by Republicans, but this is how we got ourselves into this mess, with, 
again, stopping the information sharing, stopping having Colombia get a 
handle on this situation early on and repeated requests by both 
Republicans and Democrats not to take these steps.
  So these policy decisions had some very serious implications, and 
those implications resulted in a change in trafficking patterns and 
production patterns of narcotics.
  This is an interesting chart, because it shows Andean cocaine 
production. And we see in 1991, 1992 the situation; and this line that 
we have going through here is Bolivia. This line, the blue line going 
through here and down is Peru. And the line, the red line that we have 
we have going up here is Colombia, and this is cocaine production.
  What the administration did was, in fact, stop information sharing. 
Then in 1996 and 1997, the Clinton administration decertified Colombia. 
We have a certification law that I helped work on when I worked back in 
the Senate and develop, and it is a simple law. It says that every year 
the President must certify that a country is cooperating in stopping 
both the production and trafficking of illegal narcotics. The President 
must certify. The President sends that certification, and he says that 
they are cooperating. In return for when the President certifies that 
there is cooperation, these countries get foreign assistance; they are 
eligible for foreign aid. They are eligible for trade benefits of the 
United States of America, and they are also eligible for finance 
benefits.
  Benefits of our country are bestowed on them for their little bit of 
cooperation in stopping illegal narcotics. A nice trade we thought when 
we developed the law.
  Now, we found in developing the law that we wanted to make a 
statement and say that a country was decertified as not fully 
cooperating and cooperating, and that might have been the case with 
Colombia because of its leadership. But we also put in the law a 
provision that said you could decertify, but you could issue a national 
interest waiver, and even though a country was decertified, in our 
national interests, the interests of the United States, we could 
continue to give assistance to fight illegal narcotics.
  In 1996, 1997 this administration, Clinton-Gore, decertified Colombia 
without using the provision put in law so that we could continue to get 
aid, let them help us with the illegal narcotics problem. So what 
happened here is cocaine production, actual growth of coca in Colombia 
dramatically increased. Look, it just took off the charts, with their 
policy of not getting aid down there. What happened?
  Now, the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, 
and we were able to pass measures. We also took control of the other 
body; but we were also able to pass measures and funding to start two 
programs, and I know because I was involved with these, with the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now the Speaker of the 
House, Mr. Zellif, the former chairman of the subcommittee jurisdiction 
that I now chair, we went down to Peru and Colombia and Bolivia to see 
what it would take to get this under control.
  Again, this is not rocket science. It is a simple thing. We stop the 
production of these drugs at their source, cost effective; and we put 
very few million, maybe $20 million, $30 million, in some of these 
programs in Bolivia and Peru. And guess what?
  In our alternative crop programs, in our enforcement programs, in our 
eradication programs, look what happened here. In fact, we have reduced 
by over 50 percent, 55 percent the production of cocaine in Peru. 
President Fujimori has done an incredible job, not only in bringing 
stability to that country, but cooperation.
  Recently, I must commend him, he has shot down drug traffickers after 
the United States, again, after we went through the fiasco of not 
sharing information and intelligence for drug trafficking air 
shootdowns to these countries, we found that the administration 
repeated the mistake and even our own Ambassador from Peru was saying, 
continue to get information to us.
  This is in a report I got this last December. In the report the 
United States Ambassador from Peru, I believe in 1998, said they were 
making the same mistake and they should continue the information 
sharing. That information sharing, I believe now we have gotten some of 
that started again. President Fujimori has ordered the shootdown of 
drug trafficking planes, and they are given fair warning.
  We know that they are carrying death and destruction out of that 
country and across other borders and into our streets and our 
communities and our schools. So we have a situation in which we know 
what works.

                              {time}  2015

  In Bolivia, we put together a plan, and the plan has worked with the 
incredible cooperation of President Hugo Suarez Banzer, the President 
of Bolivia, who has cooperated. The vice president has helped lead the 
effort. And in the package that we are now sending, that we have now 
passed and are sending to Bolivia, and actually it is in the $1.3 
billion, there is $100 million for Bolivia of the total Colombian aid 
package, because we do not want this to continue here.
  We have the possibility within the next 24 to 36 months of completely 
eradicating cocaine production in Bolivia. I tell you, if you can do it 
in Peru, and I went to Peru at the turn of the last decade, 1990-1991, 
before President Fujimori took office, there was pure chaos. There were 
people sleeping in the streets, there was gunfire at night, the parks 
were full, the Shining Light Path Mao terrorists were blowing up 
buildings, power supplies, they had control of some cities, you could 
not travel there.
  Within a short period of time and two administrations, President 
Fujimori has not only brought stability and peace to that country and a 
stable way of life, but he also has dramatically decreased the cocaine 
and coca production in that country, and with very few dollars. He was 
punished some by this administration and by the liberals from the other 
side of the aisle because of his so-called human rights violations, or 
that his election was by popular election, an additional term and 
approved by the people. His opponent asked that the election be 
delayed.
  Could you imagine in this country that you do not like the results of 
the election, and you say, oh, let us have another election at another 
date? Fujimori again won the majority vote. Now there are those that 
are again giving President Fujimori, who has done an incredible job in 
assisting the United States, a difficult time. But this is a program of 
success. This will eradicate for very few dollars coca production and 
cocaine production.
  We can do the same thing in Colombia. Of course, the situation has 
deteriorated much more in that country, and, again, because of specific 
policies of this administration and specific steps that were taken by 
this administration that got us in this mess.
  So here we are with this production going off the chart. Here we are 
with the House of Representatives, the other body and the 
administration providing $1.3 billion now in aid to get our cart out of 
the ditch in Colombia, which is the major producer of heroin, some 75 
percent as we demonstrated by the other chart, and some 80 percent of 
the cocaine production for the entire world now out of Colombia.
  This was not easy for the Clinton-Gore Administration to achieve. I 
mean, to make this country into a disaster in 7 short years, the leader 
in production in cocaine, the leader in production in heroin coming 
into the United States, was no easy step, but they managed to do it by 
distorting the intent and also the provisions of the drug certification 
law.
  One of the interesting things you hear the administration talking 
about, and we even heard some of the leaders from South America talking 
about, is, first of all, having the United States abolish the 
certification process, and then turning that over to an international 
body.
  Could you imagine having the United States benefits of foreign aid, 
eligibility for finance assistance and trade

[[Page 17168]]

benefits, given to another organization outside the sovereign United 
States, to determine who is eligible for foreign assistance and 
benefits, trade and finance from the United States? It is almost 
ludicrous, but the administration has been nodding and bowing to some 
of these suggestions, and I would fear that they would fall into the 
trap of letting someone else determine who gets benefits of the United 
States. I cannot believe it, but it is being talked about.
  Repeatedly since the new majority, the Republican side, came into 
office, and even before that, I know we have requested that steps be 
taken not to allow the situation in Colombia to deteriorate. During the 
1993 to 1995 period when again the Democrats, the other party, 
controlled the House of Representatives in vast numbers, I had over 130 
Members request a hearing on our national drug policy, and in a period 
of 2 years there was really one hearing, if you did not count 
appropriations, routine hearings, on the question of our national drug 
policy and what was happening to it. I had 130 requests for hearings, 
and almost none were held.
  I am pleased to say we have probably done some 40 hearings, almost 
one a week, since I have chaired the subcommittee, looking for 
solutions, looking for ways in which we can tackle this great social 
challenge and social and health problem that our country is facing with 
the illegal narcotics, and really it has become a national security 
problem. But one hearing was held in 1993-1994.
  In 1995, when the new majority took office and control of the House 
and the other body, we again pleaded with the administration to get 
assistance to Colombia. We sent letters, we sent joint requests, we 
sent resolutions, and we actually even funded monies to go to that 
country. Each time the administration blocked assistance getting to 
Colombia.
  After tremendous pressure by the Congress, in 1998 we did get action 
by the administration to certify with a national security waiver by the 
administration, so finally some 2 years ago they granted this waiver.
  Now, they granted a waiver to allow narcotics fighting equipment and 
resources to get to Colombia. That was their so-called policy. But in 
practice what they did was a disaster. Let me just show you some of the 
things that they did.
  We funded money; they diverted money. They diverted resources. I am 
told the vice president had directed some of the AWACS aircraft that we 
had flying, surveillance aircraft, from the drug producing region to 
Alaska to check for oil spills.
  The President took money from what we had pledged to give to this 
region, the drug producing region, and diverted it to Haiti in his 
nation building attempts in that country. I could spend the rest of the 
night talking about the disaster of the Haitian policy, and Haiti has 
now turned into one of the major drug transit countries in the entire 
hemisphere and world, despite nearly $3 billion in diversion of some of 
the money that the Republican-led Congress had authorized for that war 
on drugs. They moved the money into Haiti. They moved the equipment 
into Bosnia and to Kosovo and to other administration deployments.
  So even when we finally got them to grant this waiver that is allowed 
to get the resources there, the resources were diverted in fact.
  Then what we found is we asked not only that appropriated funds by 
the Congress get there to help bring this situation which was 
deteriorating in Colombia under control, and we saw the production 
dramatically rising, which the charts supplied even by the 
administration confirm, but the other thing that we always asked to 
help if you are going to have a war or effort or a fight to assist in 
tackling a problem is you need equipment and resources.
  This is an interesting article from last year, ``Colombia turns down 
dilapidated United States trucks.'' We tried to get surplus equipment. 
Okay, if you will not take the money that the Congress has 
appropriated, the Republican-led Congress has said to get there to do 
the job, how about just supplying some of the surplus? Heaven knows we 
have tons of surplus equipment in our downsizing, and some of it is not 
used or is in mothballs. They took these trucks, which actually I am 
told were designed for a northern or arctic climate, and sent them down 
to Colombia, and sent equipment that could not be used or was so 
expensive to repair or convert for use in the jungle or the tropic 
application that it was useless.
  Now, this would not be bad enough, but the Congress saw this coming, 
and again the Republican-led Congress tried to do its best to get the 
resources to Colombia in a timely fashion. Again, the policy of not 
sharing information, of stopping the shoot down policy in 1994-1995 
created a disaster. In 1996 to 1998 they decertified without a national 
interest waiver, so no aid was going down. 1998, they finally granted a 
waiver to allow aid to go down. They send down aid that cannot be used.
  The Congress passed some 2 years ago a $300 million appropriation to 
send Blackhawk helicopters and equipment resources to Colombia to get 
the situation under control. Now, you would think that with the 
direction of the Congress, the administration could carry this out. 
Wrong. Until January of 1999, I am sorry, until January of 2000, this 
year, we were not able to get the helicopters to Colombia in a fashion 
that could be used. Almost an incredible scenario of bungling, of 
mismanagement in delivering the Blackhawk helicopters, which arrived, 
sent by this administration to Colombia without proper armoring and 
without ammunition.
  What made it even worse is some of the ammunition that we ended up 
asking be sent to Colombia ended up during the Christmas holidays, from 
December to January looking for this ammunition, which should have been 
there over a year ago, ended up on the loading dock of the Department 
of State, another bungled disaster in trying to get aid that the 
Congress, the Republican-led Congress, had worked since 1995 to get to 
Colombia in a timely fashion, and, again, aid that could be used in an 
effective manner.
  So the major expenditure of the $300 million that we asked some 3 or 
4 years ago to get these resources and funded several years ago, the 
major component of this package were these helicopters which they need 
to get to high altitude to go after both the traffickers and also do 
the eradication. Other equipment will not work, but we know what will 
work, and we could not get that there. In a very limited quantity it 
finally got there the beginning of this year, but not armed, not 
properly armored, and not properly equipped, with the ammunition that 
was outdated.

                              {time}  2030

  So one does not get oneself into a $1.3 billion disaster emergency 
appropriation by accident. One does not get oneself where we have a 
country which is a transit country for narcotics into the major 
producing country now in the world for the supply of hard narcotics 
coming into the United States, we do not get this accomplished by just 
a couple of easy steps. Unfortunately, we take some steps that I have 
outlined here tonight that in fact turn the situation into a disaster, 
and cause the Congress to expend hard-earned taxpayer dollars to sort 
of mop up the mess.
  All this was now sort of blurred by the President in his 
grandstanding and going down to Colombia for some 8 hours to make this 
all look good. I am sure his action, the reports I have, are poll-
driven that in fact the situation had deteriorated so badly, not only 
in Colombia, and the public was aware of it, but also with illegal 
narcotics flooding into the country in unprecedented quantities that it 
began to affect the credibility of this administration and those 
running for higher office.
  I will quote from the New York Times. I do not want to prejudice 
this, because I am a partisan from the Republican side, and I do not 
want to prejudice it with my statement, but we will take the New York 
Times August 30 article.
  It said, ``The U.S. authorities describe Colombia's drug trade, which

[[Page 17169]]

supplies about 80 percent of the world's cocaine and two-thirds of the 
heroin on U.S. streets, as a national security concern. But analysts 
suggest domestic politics rather than foreign policy may be behind the 
timing of Clinton's trip.''
  I did not say this, the New York Times said this. Let me quote again 
from this article:
  ``Since Clinton took office in 1992, Colombia's cocaine output has 
risen more than 750 percent, to 520 metric tons last year, leading to 
Republican charges that the Democrats have soft-peddled on drugs.''
  The rest of the article says, ``Diplomatic sources say Wednesday's 
trip will give Clinton the perfect stage to strike a tough pose on 
drugs and allow Democratic Party presidential candidate Al Gore to say 
the current administration did not fall asleep at the switch.''
  This is the New York Times article. I did not say that, they in fact 
said that.
  But these accidents in fact have created a disaster. The failed 
policy in Haiti has created a disaster, turning Haiti into the key 
transit zone for illegal narcotics coming through the Caribbean today. 
Again, do not take my word, let us take the administration's drug 
czar's word.
  General Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of Drug Policy, said 
``My only broad-gauge assessment is that Haiti is a disaster. We've got 
a weak to nonexistent democratic institution, a police force that is on 
the verge of collapse from internal corruption, and eroding 
infrastructure that is creating a path of very little resistance. We 
are watching an alarming increase.''
  This is, again, not my comment but the comment of our drug czar. This 
is after the administration's policy of nation-building, after spending 
probably some $3 billion in Haiti and much of the funds in the 
institution of nation-building, building the police force and building 
the judicial system, building a legislative body, and this is the 
assessment by the administration's drug czar that this has turned into 
a drug haven.
  I have not gotten into Panama. I just described how the policy of 
President Bush was to go in and go after a drug trafficker. In this 
case it happened to be the President of a country, Noriega, who he sent 
our troops for, who captured him and jailed him.
  The contrast is that the Clinton and Gore administration allowed 
Panama to be given up, which it did have to be given up, we will give 
them that, as far as our base, but they turned over $10 billion in 
assets. We requested that we at least be allowed to lease and use the 
bases which we had established there, even if we had to pay for them, 
as a continuance of our forward drug surveillance operations.
  We have to remember that before May 1 of last year all of our drug 
surveillance operations for this entire region of the Caribbean, where 
all these narcotics are grown and sourced and transited from, all of 
that surveillance operation was located in Panama at our bases.
  In a bungled negotiation with Panama not only did we lose everything 
as far as the canal is concerned, and we were expected to lose that, 
but we lost all of the other assets. The Air Force bases, all of our 
strategic locations, and every operation for our forward drug 
surveillance and intelligence operations were housed at Howard Air 
Force base in Panama. This was, again, a total loss, and it is sad to 
report to the Congress and to the American people that the 
administration is now trying to still piece together a substitute for 
Howard Air Force Base.
  So rather than pay a little bit of rent or assistance for using the 
facility that we had even built in Panama for this operation and other 
national security operations, we are now paying Ecuador, and we will 
probably pay over $100 million to build an airstrip, and we will have a 
limited contract with that country. We are going to pay for 
improvements and facilities at Aruba and Curacao, and we are going to 
pay additionally in El Salvador.
  But what has happened, since May of last year, until we are now told 
today it is 2002, we have a wide open gap. So not only do we have 
Colombia producing incredible quantities, actually producing heroin, 
actually poppies that produce heroin and they come from there, but we 
have cocaine coming from there in unprecedented quantities, and also 
the coca bean grown there.
  We have this incredible producing country, and our surveillance 
operations cut dramatically. In fact, we are told until 2002 that we 
will not be up to where we were when Howard Air Force base was opened.
  What is of even more concern is the administration, when they came in 
in 1993, took some very specific steps, Clinton-Gore, in closing down 
the source country programs, in closing down the interdiction programs. 
They have great disdain to begin with for the military, and they wanted 
to make certain that they took them out of the war on drugs.
  Now, of course, Members can hear the comments that the war on drugs 
is a failure. The commentators are always saying that. But the war on 
drugs, Mr. Speaker, basically closed down with the advent of this 
administration. That was in 1993. They stopped the interdiction 
programs, cut the source country programs, took the military out of the 
surveillance operations, and last year we lost the forward operating 
location.
  So if Members wonder why we have a disaster in Colombia, there are 
specific steps that led to that. If Members wonder why our streets are 
flooded with heroin in unprecedented quantities and cocaine in 
unprecedented amounts, there is a reason for that. That is that 
surveillance operations are basically closed down, and are in the 
process of being replaced at great expense to the American taxpayers. 
The latest estimates are probably in the $150 million range, in 
addition to what we lost in assets in Panama.
  That is some of the situation that we got ourselves into. The 
President went down with great fanfare, and we would think that he had 
solved the problem when in fact he helped to create the problem through 
some very specific steps that I think I have documented here tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do is just talk for a few minutes 
about another thing that has taken place during the recess.
  During the recess, we had with great fanfare not only the President 
visiting Colombia to make it look like they had done something, and of 
course I did not describe what they did tonight in detail about how 
they got us into this pickle, but we heard just in the last few days 
the drug czar and Donna Shalala, our Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, come out and proclaim that illegal drug use is down among 
teens. Of course, there is this headline in the Washington Times that 
says also that it is up for young adults.
  They were trying to stage during this recess, in addition to the 
President's staging appearance in Colombia, that drug use was down 
among teens. What they had to do really was to counter the other 
headlines and reports that had been coming out one after another.
  This is from the Washington Times: ``Threat of Ecstasy Reaching 
Cocaine, Heroin Proportions.'' This is August 16 of 2000. This is a 
report, and we had before my subcommittee the folks from the Centers 
for Disease Control who issued a stinging report that said ``High-
schoolers Report More Drug Use.'' This is the New York Times. This is 
from Friday, June 9, 2000.
  So the administration staged an event to try to make it look like 
they had gotten a handle on teen drug use, and it was in response to 
these reports coming out, the Centers for Disease Control and other 
reports that we have.
  What disturbs me as chair of the subcommittee is that it is almost a 
deceitful use of statistics. We passed a $1 billion program to combat 
illegal narcotics use and drug abuse, an anti-drug media campaign some 
2 years ago, and some $200 million plus per year is being expended over 
a period of time to try to get this situation under control.
  When we passed that we wanted some measurable results, and we 
required in the law that we passed that there be measurable performance 
standards and a report back to Congress. I didn't think that the drug 
czar's office could do this or the administration would do

[[Page 17170]]

this, but they took statistics and they molded them in this 
presentation as a follow-up to the President's staged appearance in 
Colombia, and used them in a fashion which I think was deceiving and 
which violates the intent.
  In fact, there is an article which says the administration may have 
violated the law by not properly reporting to the Congress as required 
by the law.
  But what they did was they took the perceived drug use as harmful of 
12th graders, and they took a 1996 baseline that we started out with, 
and showed that 59.9 percent in 1996 perceived drug use as harmful, 
these 12th graders. Each year that had decreased.
  We wanted to find out if the $1 billion we are spending is effective. 
They came out with a report, and what they did was they changed the 
baseline. They changed the baseline from 1996 to 1998 so that they 
could show it was a smaller baseline.
  In this drug control strategy we require that they set a goal, so we 
know that we are getting something for our money, and we try to reach 
this goal. The goal they set was for 80 percent of the use, the 12th 
grade use to perceive this as harmful, drug use as harmful. What we 
have seen is actually a deterioration in this.
  The administration cleverly took, and it was not discovered by our 
subcommittee but by a reporter, and changed the baseline to 1998, used 
the new baseline. They shifted from 12th grade, because they had 
slightly more favorable statistics for eighth-graders, and used those 
statistics. So what they did was they said they were getting closer to 
their goal, and eighth-graders were 73 percent more likely to perceive 
drug use as harmful, and said they were 7 percent from reaching their 
goal, when in fact they had actually deteriorated in the 12th-grade 
range, and researchers will tell us that 12th grade is a better measure 
of long-term drug use. Twelfth-graders usually set the stage for their 
lifetime action with the illegal narcotics.

                              {time}  2045

  So we have seen a clever and rather deceitful distortion of a law 
that we passed to try to gauge performance and find out if we are 
meeting our objectives, and I find that very disturbing. I do not know 
if time permits to bring folks in and to conduct a hearing; but we 
certainly will be, if necessary, subpoenaing records to find out how 
they could take the intent and law passed by this Congress to set 
meaningful goals, to set performance standards, and then evaluate and 
report back to the representatives of the people.
  So I take this matter very seriously that the law, intent and spirit 
of the law may have not been measured up to by this administration in 
an attempt to make it look like they have done something to help us, 
when in fact, if we start looking at statistics, we find that Ecstasy 
use is absolutely skyrocketing. This shows the Ecstasy use.
  If we look at methamphetamine, almost no methamphetamine back at the 
beginning of this administration. These charts were given to me by 
another agency of this administration. We see from 1993 to 1999 the 
country, these colored parts here showing methamphetamine going at a 
rapid rate.
  If we look at 12th grade drug use and the charts that again were 
provided and information by this administration, we still see serious 
increases, some leveling off. If we look at the prevalence of cocaine 
use, we see again dramatic increases under the watch of this 
administration.
  So I do not particularly like to call this to the attention of the 
Congress and the American people, but I think it is a distortion of the 
intent of Congress to try to get measurable results and effective 
expenditure of our dollars and our antinarcotics effort.
  So tonight, I appreciate the time and patience of my colleagues. I 
will try to return maybe again this week and finish the rest of this 
report. But we still face a very serious illegal narcotics problem that 
is taking a record number of lives, destroying families, and imposing 
great social devastation across our land.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate again the attention of the House.

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