Briefing by White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters, July 29, 2003

Briefing by White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters, July 29, 2003

Current Developments in Colombia in the Fight Against Drug Trafficking and Narcoterrorism

John Walters
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
July 29, 2003

1:30 P.M. EDT

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. We are very pleased today to be able to welcome back to our podium Mr. John Walters, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He has just recently returned from a trip to Latin America, specifically Colombia, and he will be giving us a briefing today on the current developments in Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking and narcoterrorism.

Mr. Walters will have an opening statement to make. After that, we'll be glad to take your questions. I ask that you use the microphones and identify yourself and your news organization.
Mr. Walters.

MR. WALTERS: It was my pleasure last week to return to Colombia and meet with President Uribe and his staff and have a chance to talk to some of the people, both U.S. personnel and many Colombian personnel, who have been working on the problem of substance and violence in Colombia. It was a particular pleasure because of the enormous change that's happened in just one year, a change that's been remarkable in how it's improved circumstances in Colombia.

From January to June of 2003 -- compared to 2002 -- terrorist attacks were down 53 percent, guerrilla assaults on rural population down 61 percent, kidnappings down over 30 percent, homicides down over 20 percent, and massacres down over 45 percent. Reductions in violence and reductions in loss of life of innocent people are always good news. I don't believe there's been a time in modern Colombian history where this kind of declines has occurred in the past.

It's also been parallel. Parallel declines in violence have existed with regard to economic improvement. I was pleased to see as I was in Bogotá that building has again started; people are investing and building for the future. What I've heard from people -- Colombians in the United States, Colombian-Americans -- whom I've reached, talked to sporadically, have begun talking about returning or talking about becoming more involved at a time when many of them were thinking about not becoming so involved because of the circumstances in their home country.

First quarter GDP for Colombia, as you may know, moved by 3.8 percent, seasonally adjusted figure of over 2 percent. We all want it to grow faster for all of our countries, but in regard to the region it is a real stellar improvement.

Unemployment is declining. Estimates are that more than 100,000 jobs have been created by some of the forces allowed to be released productively from the Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Enforcement Act.

In addition, in regard to the drug trade, eradication has reached historic levels. Over 150,000 hectares of coca have been eradicated since President Uribe was inaugurated last August. In one of the largest growing areas in the country, thus one of the largest growing areas in the world, Putumayo, there has been a reduction of 97 percent over the levels of cultivation in 2001, is the current estimate. That's coupled with reports of a 25 percent drop in opium poppy cultivation between 2000 and 2001, and it bodes well for the environment.

There's been some confusing talk about whether the environment is harmed or benefited by efforts to control the drug production, when, in fact, as those of you who cover this know, since 1985, over a million hectares of tropical rain forest have been destroyed by the cocaine trade cultivation. Over the last 20 years, the region has lost over 2.4 million hectares of natural forest.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of gallons of poisonous chemicals have been poured into the groundwater, soil, streams -- kerosene, concentrated hydrochloric acid, ammonia and acetone. The cost has been devastating to the environment in an area that we all know is a unique treasure for the whole world.

In addition to going after the supply of drugs and the supply of resources for those on the left and on the right, who have been so violent and obstructive in Colombia and in the region generally, in some cases, we have tried to return to a balanced strategy. Our effort to reduce demand has been substantial from the period of maximum consumption in the United States of the mid-1980s. From 1985 to the present, we've reduced by two-thirds the number of cocaine users in the United States.

The amounts of flow into the United States estimated to serve this use has been dropped by over half. We still have too many people who are dependent users, particularly of cocaine. That's why President Bush has asked Congress for over $600 million in additional money to treat those who are dependent over the next three years.

This year we will spend a total -- on top of the existing treatment money -- of $3.8 billion treating individuals who have a dependency on illegal drugs, substance abuse, generally.

We have tried to restore a balance to the full $11.5 billion that we will spend on drug control by the federal government; 47 percent of that $11.5 billion is spent on demand reduction, 53 percent on supply reduction including international programs, as well as domestic law enforcement and border security.

When I was in Colombia, I had the opportunity to visit a school that is in part helping to reintegrate child combatants from the paramilitaries far from the ELN back into society. Children who are taken, forced, recruited as young as eight years old, who had been involved in some of the most brutal aspects of war, aspects that sometimes break adults, that they have been subjected to, children who have been cut off from their families, children who now have to be guarded because of the fear of reprisal for those who have walked away from or have not maintained service to these various groups.

In that school, I met with 60 of the children that are there, who govern themselves, who take care of their own rooms, their own food, work to support their institution, as well as carry out their education, people from the right-wing paramilitaries and the left-wing insurgencies, living in peace, treating each other as brother and sister and working toward the kind of future that I think all of us, certainly all Colombians, would like for their country.

It's an inspiring example of those who maybe have suffered some of the worst of the violence trying to put the best hope for the future; some make the best hope for the future a reality. I think the whole nation is gratified at the progress that's been made by President Uribe.

And I think that progress is most tangibly seen not only in the particular examples, but in the larger example that desertions from the armed groups have been increasing and reaching record levels. And there is increasing talk, as you see in your press reports with all your own agencies, that those who have been fighting are looking for a way to negotiate an end; they want an exit strategy. You don't seek an exit strategy when you're winning. You don't seek an exit strategy when you think you're going to prevail. You seek it when the pressure is such that you don't see a future in the path you have struck.

We are proud to be able to stand with President Uribe and the people of Colombia, who are now seeing the possibility -- for the first time I think in some decades -- that the whole country will be one again to the extension of institutions, the protection of rights, the bringing of institutions and the rule of law to the municipalities throughout the country, for the first time in the country's history and give the groundwork for peace, prosperity and the full use of the talents and resources of the country of Colombia, which are, of course, immense.

And, with that, I'll be happy to take your questions.

MR. DENIG: The gentleman in the back there.

QUESTION: Yes, hi, Pablo Bachelet, with the Reuters News Agency, quick question. Are the drug -- is the drug interdiction program back on track? When is it due to start? Could you just bring us up-to-date on that?

MR. WALTERS: You're talking about the air interdiction program?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. WALTERS: The others have continued. We're in the final stages of negotiating the procedures for the restart of the air interdiction program. As you know, the terrible accident in Peru that ended the life of a mother and child led us to stand down our support for these programs, both in Colombia where there wasn't an accident, and in Peru.

We have been working to restart this, having examined the failures that we think caused the accident in Peru. We recognize that this is not an exercise that doesn't have some risks involved. And the only reason that we pursue it is because of the particular threat and the confidence that in confronting that threat, we will be able to operate in aS safe as possible an environment.

It's taken longer because we wanted to make sure we captured the lessons that we had to learn and that we had a common set of procedures, and we had training that allowed the resources of the United States and Colombia to work effectively together, so we would not have additional risks as a result of accidents or misunderstandings that were preventable.

It has taken longer than I think either one of us like. But the reason we have endured that is because we want it to be as safe as possible. We don't want to do harm in the effort to do good. I think that's everybody's common sense. This is a complex undertaking, but one I think we can expect to have start in the next couple of weeks.

MR. DENIG: Okay. Sonia.

QUESTION: Thank you. Sonia Schott, Globovision, Venezuela. Last week in Bogota, you said that the Venezuelan Government needs to cooperate more. Venezuelan territory cannot be a safe place for the narcoguerrilla. Could you elaborate more on that? Could you bring some more details in that? Thank you.

MR. WALTERS: Sure. I think there are growing reports in the press and elsewhere that some of the armed groups have been using Venezuelan territory for some of the safety and for operations. The Colombians have been quite vocal in pointing this out. There have been others, including members of the press, who have done reports in a similar fashion.

Obviously, at a time when there is additional pressure on these groups, and when there is additional pressure on the drug production business, all the countries in the region are particularly susceptible to being used as a way of avoiding the pressure from Colombian security forces.

It's important that these forces of violence not be able to avoid the pressure, and that they be brought to justice, and that they be encouraged as rapidly as possible to lay down their arms and get out of the business of marketing poison, that is, illegal drugs.

And in the case of the Venezuelan Government, it certainly has a variety of capabilities. It's a very able nation, we know that. I think that some greater attention to making sure that along border areas that are identified, there is a cooperative effort to make sure that criminal groups are not finding safe haven and support in those areas. And I think there were press reports – I’ll leave it at that -- that strongly suggest that not everything that could be done is being done.

QUESTION: It's because it has always been said that President Chavez has close ties to the Colombian guerrilla. Do you have anything on that?

MR. WALTERS: I have met President Chavez twice. I haven't discussed the nature of his sympathies or anything about his ties to these nongovernmental and terrorist groups. But I don't think that's the central issue. I think the central issue is these are terror groups. These are groups engaged in drug trafficking which is a crime for people throughout the world.

This region is the source of cocaine for the whole world. It destroys lives in the region. It destroys lives in Europe. It destroys lives in the United States and any place the trade can reach. We all, all humankind, has a debt of gratitude to those who are standing against this at considerable costs we're aware of, to themselves and their colleagues. And I think it's important that the neighbors that have resources here lean in.

We do not intend to allow this to be another example of the balloon effect. We do not intend to simply move the problem around. The goal is to shrink it. And for the first time I think in the last 25 years, the actions and the pressure and the results of an unprecedented campaign in Colombia is to dramatically cripple, certainly to put into recession, if you look at the eradication of retailing and production, the cocaine trade in the world, we want to put into recession and put it out of business. That's why it's important that people lean in.

And I trust the people I know from Venezuela, they don't want the drug business operating inside their country any more than anybody else does. Now is the time to lean in, to not let terror and narcoterror spread and become entrenched in Venezuela or some of the surrounding countries.

But in the particular case of the larger, more substantial reports of activity inside Venezuela, it's time for Venezuela to lean in and start being more aggressive in supporting the effort to put these groups out of business.

MR. DENIG: Okay. Let's take the gentleman in blue.

QUESTION: Hi, Jose Lopez of the Mexican News Agency. A story today, in this week's Time magazine, suggests existence of a huge invasion of Mexican drug traffickers to the U.S. National Parks where they have created these huge plantations of marijuana with only a few agents to deal with this seemingly growing problem.

Can you share with us how big this problem is now, as compared to before, the period before 9/11? And how do you respond to the charge that the U.S. is simply not allocating enough resources to fight drug cultivation and eradication at home?

MR. WALTERS: The problem has grown. And I think it may be a reflection -- we don't know for sure -- that the efforts both by the Mexican Government and at our own borders has increased the risk and the cost of moving these drugs across the border or to engage them in Mexico.

We also are now expanding our efforts at domestic eradication. We have had programs for some time. Most of them have involved manual eradication not unlike what happens in large parts of Mexico. We have some aerial eradication that's done in some areas. It has been in places like Hawaii.

My office has been meeting with federal agencies and state and local officials to step up our domestic marijuana eradication. We are concerned that we not allow this to move around and to become a bigger problem. It's become more aggressive. More of these organizations have acted in the United States.

They have used booby traps, and they have had armed people who attack individuals that may come across these groves in remote areas. It's a source of violence. Some of the same gangs that are some of the most violent organizations inside Mexico are operating and retailing into the United States. So, yeah, we take it very seriously.

We are stepping up eradication activity this fall, which is the harvest time in many of these areas of our country, and we intend to make this smaller in our own country, as well as throughout the world.

QUESTION: The story mentions the existence of an investigation against five Mexican families. Can you mention which families are those, and what kind of cooperation are you getting from the Mexican Government on this specific issue?

MR. WALTERS: Yes, the major organizations we can -- I'll provide you the public information we have. The major organizations have generally been the same widely known organizations that have been the target of enforcement efforts by the Mexican Government, as well as U.S. law enforcement.

What has happened and what I think is the encouraging news there is the unprecedented cooperation during the Fox Administration with our law enforcement. A couple of weeks ago, I stood with Attorney General Macedo De La Concha, as well as Attorney General Ashcroft, in San Diego and announced the reindictment of some of the Arellano Felix senior hierarchy and lieutenants. We did the indictment in a forum that is designed to conform our legal practice with Mexican legal practice so we can use, to the greatest possible extent, extradition, as well as common enforcement tools against these organizations.

I stated, at that time, a truth which is: These organizations have become more powerful and a bigger threat to both Mexico and the United States because of the money that American drug consumers have sent to these organizations. They have become more aggressively involved in the retail trade in our major cities. They have become more powerful. They have become more extensive in Mexico because we have given them the money in the United States to do that. We intend to cut that off both through better demand reduction, but also through more effective joint law enforcement.

And the Mexican Government has set an unprecedented record in the last several years of going after more of the senior hierarchy of more of the organizations than any country in recent history anywhere in the world including the United States. Our goal is to also define these organizations at a senior level from the production source to the retail source and systematically destroy them.

We, for the first time, have created a combined target list, some of which links organizations in Mexico and Colombia and Asia, among other places, to operations in the United States to more systematically destroy the business infrastructure. We want to do to this business what legitimate businesses always worry government is going to do -- make it impossible for them to operate in an effective and profitable manner.

We ought to be able to do that with the tools at our disposal more effectively, and we're trying to unite federal, state, local law enforcement and foreign law enforcement. And Colombia and Mexico have been outstanding examples of amazing achievements in the last several years.

MR. DENIG: Okay. Let's take the gentleman in the pink shirt, followed by the gentleman in the green shirt.

QUESTION: Sergio Gomez from El Tiempo of Colombia. For the first time in a decade, there was a 15 percent reduction of coca cultivation in Colombia. But, at the same time, that reduction was met with the opposite that there was an increment in Peru and Bolivia also.

Are we seeing here a balloon effect? Is this something that you have in your numbers and calculations that the drug is going to move towards this country while it disappears in Colombia?

MR. WALTERS: We are concerned about that. But I think it's important to note that the reduction in Colombia was massive. The increases, from a much smaller base in Peru and Bolivia, were very small. For the last year -- this would have been the year ending in 2000 – the estimate is, I think, that 35,000 hectares were eradicated in Colombia.

There has been more aggressive spraying since then. We're on the order of 2,000 and 4,000 hectares in growth in Peru and Bolivia, and we're not intending to minimize the fact that Peru and Bolivia, as well as Venezuela, as neighbors in this area, need to lean into the problem.

Now is not the time to allow the organizations to seek ways of producing drugs and staging terror and attacking institutions of justice throughout the region by using weakness in one place to hide from strength in another. That is important. But I don't believe that the magnitude of the changes in Peru or Bolivia, or those that we project for the next year, are conceivably capable of offsetting the destruction of the base of the business of cocaine in Colombia.

The magnitude of what's happening in Colombia is simply too great. Over time, we do need stronger and more effective control in the surrounding countries. And we continue to work with Bolivia and Peru, as well as Ecuador and Brazil and Venezuela, where we can to try to make sure that we have as strong an infrastructure as possible.

QUESTION: But isn't there a fear that -- I mean, in Colombia, when the coca cultivation shifted from Peru and Bolivia back in '90 -- beginning of the'90s, there wasn't a huge program. There's been reports of Sendero Luminoso and other groups starting to act again in Peru. So if the drug money starts, as it seems, starts picking up in these countries, then probably you are going to have another snowball going down in Peru in a couple of years.

MR. WALTERS: Yes. There's no question that if you don't act aggressively against it, you will get more terror, more violence and more attacks on institutions of law and the protections that they provide to human rights.

But there's 25 years of history here. Why does the drug trade need violence and terror? Because it's engaged in a business that has to both market dangerous, addictive substances to children -- if you do not start when you are a teenager, you are unlikely to go on and use later on -- and market these to people who are dependent. The single largest volume users are those who are addicted or dependent on drugs.

The drug trade depends on poisoning children and enslaving adults. That's what matters. No democracy, no people who claim to be concerned about human rights and human dignity, about freedom, about economic development, can accept the principles of the drug trade. All the crazy talk about legalization aside -- that's great if you're in a dorm room and you don't have any responsibility. When you live in the real world and you look into the faces of the people who are victims, you realize that civilized society is incompatible with illegal drugs and addiction, as any common sense citizen sees.

It's important, then, to recognize that the reason this business uses terror is that it must attack the principles of civilization and the institutions that support those principles in order to exist, because it's antithetical to freedom and human rights and human dignity.

So if you don't lean in to reduce the trade and reduce those who are criminals, you will get more and more powerful and virulent criminals. I think the history of Colombia, in part, shows the pain of that whole process. We do not want that repeated in other areas. And the gains that have been made in Peru and Bolivia need to be followed through on. The biggest problem in this area has been -- not that we can't push back and make a difference -- it's once we have pushed back and make a difference, people stop the urgency and don't follow through and finish the job. Our goal is to finish the job. President Uribe's goal is to finish the job. President Fox's goal is to finish the job. Those are the most important and hopeful things that we can look forward to. We need more of the leaders in the region to stand with them and to lean in so that we don't chase this problem around for years in the future.

QUESTION: Mitchell Prother from United Press.

Could you be more specific on the overall cocaine or coca cultivation production in the Andean region? Because even according to State Department documents that came out last week from a briefing on Capitol Hill, it seems as though this year will see only an 8 percent reduction throughout the region in coca cultivation, and even State is projecting increases in overall production in Andean coca production over the next two years. There is a drop-off from the production after the next two years, but they're seeing an overall increase in hectares of coca.

MR. WALTERS: Yeah, I saw the report of that, and it was so out of synch with other things I saw, I had to say, "What are these State Department documents?" And I found it was one AID briefing that was based on nothing that I have seen as a legitimate analysis, predicted increases in the future. I was reminded of the story I used to tell about President Truman, who gave a speech one time when there was a series of outrageous criticisms waged against him, to respond to them. And he started out by citing one of them and saying that's a lot of cow manure, and he explained why. And then he cited another and said that's a lot of cow manure and he said why. And it went on for a while, and then one of the members of the press leaned next to the White House staff and said, "Don't you think you need to get him to stop saying ‘cow manure’ so much?" And he said, "You have no idea how much work it took to get him to say ‘cow manure.’" (Laughter.)

In the words of President Truman, that's a lot of cow manure. All the projections that I think are done by both government and non-government agencies looking at the trends you see now show declines in production. The magnitude, the eradication, is accelerating. And the interdiction that's been going on, while we haven't had the air program going, the interdiction that's been going on in the north coast and the west coast of Colombia -- I was there, I was given an opportunity to thank some of the people that were involved in seizing another metric ton of cocaine in Colombia. They have been more aggressive.

You see the effect of this in the report of both paramilitaries and insurgents having trouble buying food and weapons. Obviously, desertions have increased because of the hardships operating in the field and having money cut off by the reduction in the drug trade.

Overall, we believe that there will be a continued sharp drop-off just because of the tempo of eradication that's going on in Colombia. We don't have the annual estimate. I can't give you here today, but again, since last August when President Uribe took office, over 151,000 hectares have been sprayed. That is more than the estimated area under cultivation. Now, there's been some replanting. There has been some pruning. The spray is not 100 percent effective in all areas sprayed. But the effect has been to devastate the source of production as never before.

Yes, we are concerned, and I repeat, we are concerned about reports of expanded growth in Bolivia and Peru. Those governments need to be more aggressive, especially at this time. We are concerned that there may be tendencies for some of the cultivation to spill over into Ecuador and Venezuela. I know that the Brazilian Government is worried about Brazil as well, as they should be.

But the fact is, the shock that is being applied by the tempo in Colombia is beyond what we believe is any legitimate estimate of the capacity of the market to correspond and buffer with replanting or other ways of avoiding it. But that even makes more urgent the need for other regional governments to be aggressive and leave the problem, as small as it is now, or make it smaller, rather than create a situation that will be horrible and certainly foreseeable given what happened in Colombia.

MR. DENIG: The lady in black, followed with the gentleman on the far right.

QUESTION: Laura Bonilla from [Agence] France Presse.

According to the DEA, the purity of cocaine has not dropped in the U.S. and the price of cocaine has not gone up, as the DEA expected it would. And also, it seems that there is no less cocaine in the streets of this country. When will you consider Plan Colombia to be successful and when will that progress be seen inside this country?

MR. WALTERS: We've had other operations in the past that have affected the flow either through interdiction or other actions on a broad scale against numbers of labs or other things in the past 25 years. Generally speaking, the disruption to the market that's then visible on the streets takes about 6 to 12 months. There's a kind of pipeline here. We're not sure. There are some reports that have been in the press that there may have been large cocaine stockpiles in the safe haven area of Colombia that was closed down, and those may have been pushed into the market after that was abandoned about a year and a half ago. So that would have buffered the effect of the eradication as well.

But we expect to see in the next 6 to 9 months significant disruptions in the purity and availability of cocaine throughout the world. The United States is a major market. Europe is a major market, obviously. Brazil is a major market and some other places. But the magnitude of this -- make no mistake, we're not running away from this. The magnitude of this ought to be visible in reductions in purity, probably first, and then some availability problems. This will not probably be seen uniformly because the market has a complicated infrastructure we don't entirely understand. Different groups apply different places. But we expect this magnitude to affect the whole market and it should be visible in the next 6 to 12 months.

MR. DENIG: The gentleman on the far right here, followed by the lady in white in the back.

QUESTION: Nestor Ideka, AP reporter for Latin America.

I just wanted you to get back on the air interdiction program. And you said that the program in Colombia would be restarting in a couple of weeks. And now, what about Peru? Is Peru being left aside of this program? And what does Peru need for getting its program restarted?

MR. WALTERS: We are also working with Peruvian Government officials to restart the air interdiction program in Peru. The difference there is that the Peruvian situation, aside from making sure that we put in measures that will reduce the likelihood of the accident that happened in Peru that closed the program down, in addition, the resources that Peru has been able to devote and its ability to maintain pilot qualifications, all the equipment involved and so forth, has been less. Colombia has more robust and sustained infrastructure for both personnel and equipment. Peru needs, unlike Colombia, to begin to both make sure that the aircraft and other equipment needed is serviced and up and running, which some of it is not, and it's going to have to re-qualify crews. Many of then have not had time in the aircraft in order to be qualified at this point.

Then we'll also have to start some training, so it will probably be several months longer. I think a tentative target date is the end of this year to start in Peru, but we are working with Peruvian officials, and the fact is there's more lead time because of the necessity to build back the capability that has degraded since the program was stopped.

MR. DENIG: The lady in the back.

QUESTION: Sandra Vergara with RCN TV from Colombia.

Mr. Walters, did you talk with Colombian Government about the paramilitary negotiations? And is your office going to support any kind of program with the paramilitaries who decide to find an agreement with the Colombian Government?

MR. WALTERS: We do have programs, of course, that are designed to help resettle people who either desert or have been displaced persons, both the adults and children, as I talked about the school I visited, and others.

In terms of the larger negotiation, no, we didn't talk about particulars. I was asked about the issue of those individuals that are leaders who have had indictments placed before them in the United States. I said then what I'll say now: We have indicted people who are serious and dangerous criminals. We have indicted them on evidence and on charges that are substantial.

And I think the fact that we don't indict people casually can be reflected in the reality that I believe 100 percent of the people who have been extradited have been convicted, and most of them, over time, end up giving evidence that helps us indict and convict others, and disrupts operations because of the certainty they have that they will face severe sentences, and the only way to reduce those sentences is to cooperate to some extent. They still receive serious sentences.

We intend to stand by those indictments. We intend to continue to seek to extradite those people for the harm they have done to Colombians, the citizens of the United States, and people throughout the world. Obviously, it is the Colombian Government's sovereign authority to negotiate for its national security, and I think it should be obvious that we all want peace here. And I think the fact that there are negotiations increasingly being sought is evidence that the path that President Uribe has set is a path to peace, that the groups are increasingly -- and increasing numbers of the components of those groups -- are seeking a way to stop the pressure that's on them. They want a way out. Surrender is the course you take when you're losing -- I repeat.

And I think the biggest and most powerful evidence that the people of Colombia are winning is the suing for surrender and the seeking of better and better terms. And I think, obviously, the courage of President Uribe in not letting talk be a shield for war, but for peace and negotiations to only be considered when they are a path to peace is important. We all know from past history people who have been under pressure and been threatened with justice have used talk of negotiations to take that pressure off, to use it as a shield for continuing battle.

President Uribe has made clear by his words and his actions he will not tolerate that, that the path is going to be one that is systematic and honest and ends in peace for everybody. So I think that's another example of the outstanding historic leadership he has offered, and he will make the decision, [together with] the people of Colombia, about how well that, of course, plays out.

But on the narrow issue of the indictments, we indict people for real cause with real evidence, and we'll stand behind those indictments.

MR. DENIG: Thank you very much, Mr. Walters. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

As of July 21, 2003, this document was also available online at http://fpc.state.gov/22857.htm