Speech by Rep. John Boozman (R-Arkansas), July 8, 2003

Speech by Rep. John Boozman (R-Arkansas), July 8, 2003

Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) mentioned, this past weekend I had the pleasure of going to Colombia by invitation of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis). I am a member of the Speaker's Drug Task Force, and we are going to celebrate the third anniversary of the Colombia Plan. We have spent a lot of money in Colombia; and we have tried to thwart the growing production and distribution of drugs, primarily heroin and cocaine. I really wanted to see firsthand if we were being effective, if we were spending our money wisely.

What I saw was beyond my expectation. I think we are doing very, very well in that area. The Colombians, with our help, are working very hard to eliminate the illegal drug production. They do this by spraying, by intercepting drugs by land, sea and air, and are actively breaking up drug laboratories, places of production.

I had an opportunity to ride in the boats that they use to intercept the drug traffic on the high seas. These are little speed boats. They will basically be watching the radar and they will see a little blip. They run out and jump in the boat and race out and intercept the ship, the boat, whatever. We had an opportunity to do this, and it was a lot of fun to see these guys in action, and they did a great job. I was very, very impressed with their professionalism and the fact that they were doing such a good job. And yet after we left, after the Americans left, the Colombians were there and went about their business. Since then, they have intercepted trafficking in cocaine, heroin, whatever.

The Colombians are fighting this battle. Certainly we are providing some help and resources. We were able while I was there to go to a Colombian hospital and see some of the soldiers that had been injured in the last few weeks. One of them had lost a leg. One of them had shrapnel blow up in his face and lost an eye and part of his face. But their spirits were high. The young man that lost his leg was talking about going ahead and trying to remain in the military and continue to fight the battle.

So the Colombians are making great headway. They are taking back their country from the terrorists and thugs that are financing this effort by kidnapping their own people and ransoming them and producing illegal drugs. I think what I like about the way that the Colombian Plan is structured is in the sense we have an exit strategy. We are providing a lot of resources, a lot of know-how, but the Colombians have done a tremendous job of picking up on that.

I have a good friend that is an ophthalmologist, an eye doctor; and he will go to Africa and he will work on the natives and do cataract surgery and glaucoma surgery. And while he is there, he will help a lot of people; but where he really helps is while he is there, he teaches the surgeons there how to do the procedures so when he leaves, the surgeons that are there go on about their business and continue to care for people, continue to do a good job.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) for asking me to go on the trip. I appreciate the gentleman's leadership in this area, and I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) for taking on this scourge that is a problem to America and so many other places in the world. I really feel like the Colombia Plan is doing just what we want it to do.

As of July 9, 2003, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r108:@FIELD(FLD003+h)+@FIELD(DDATE+20030708)