Special order speech by Rep. John Mica (R-Florida), March 14, 2000

Special order speech by Rep. John Mica (R-Florida), March 14, 2000
ILLEGAL NARCOTICS (House of Representatives - March 14, 2000)

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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized for half the remaining time until midnight, approximately 30 minutes.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor of the House again at this late hour to talk about an issue that I always try to address the House on Tuesday nights on, and that is the question or problem relating to illegal narcotics.

It has been several weeks. We have had some intervening business and time away from the House of Representatives, but some things have happened, and I wanted to report on my activities as chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

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I also wanted to highlight some of the reports that have filtered through the media on this subject and bring my colleagues up to date on where we are and where we are going.

Since I last addressed the House, there have been some serious incidents in our Nation. One that has sort of riveted and focused the attention of the Congress and the American people was a situation with a 6 year old killing a 6 year old. The method was by a gun, and all the attention has focused on the gun. But like many of the other stories about tragedy in our society today, they fail to focus on the real problem, the situation that led to that tragedy.

In this instance, we had a 6 year old who, unfortunately, came from a crack house setting. The belief is that the father was in jail, a family without any normal nuclear bounds, and a situation where you had, I believe, a stolen weapon. No one focused that the root of the problem was, indeed, illegal narcotics, drug trafficking, drug addiction, crimes related to illegal narcotics.

I had an opportunity to conduct, at the request of Members, a hearing this past week when the Congress was in recess, traveled to Sacramento, the capital of California, and also down to San Diego to visit our joint agency task force operations in Alameda, California to see how our war on drugs and our problems with illegal narcotics in that area of the country are progressing.

The story I heard in hearings in California was as horrible as the death of this 6 year old, but magnified many, many times in stories of deaths of young people that I had never heard of and I am sure the American people had not heard of.

We had testimony by a lady by the name of Susan Webber Brown on one of the occasions of hearing, and I believe this was the one in Sacramento. Susan Webber Brown, who is involved with a program out there to help drug-addicted families, gave us some incredible and powerful testimony.

She talked about a 15 month old who overdosed on methamphetamine in Rancho Cordova. That is a 15 month old. A 5 month old tested positive for methamphetamine and succumbs to death with 12 rib fractures, a burned leg, and scarred feet by a methamphetamine addict in Los Angeles, California. Not killed with a gun, but murdered by illegal narcotics.

She testified to a 13 month old who died of heart trauma, broken spine, and broken neck by a methamphetamine addict. She was also raped and sodomized. This was in the California high desert.

Susan Webber Brown testified about a 25-month-old Oregon toddler who overdosed on methamphetamine. She testified to us about a 2 month old who dies on methamphetamine, who had methamphetamine in her system in San Jose, California.

Another death that we did not read about or was not publicized was the 2 year old who ate methamphetamine from a baby food jar in Twentynine Palms, California; a 14 month old who drinks lye and water from a parent's methamphetamine laboratory, hospitalized permanently with severe organ damage in Fairfield, California; a new baby who died from mother's breast milk laced with methamphetamine in Orange County.

An 8-week-old, 11-pound boy dies from methamphetamine poisoning found inside a baby bottle in Orange County. An 8 year old watches and hears mom die in a methamphetamine laboratory in Oroville, California. A 6 month old overdoses, semicomatose, seizing, and hospitalized who drank methamphetamine from a bottle. A 4 year old who tested positive for methamphetamine, beaten and hair pulled out by the mom's boyfriend in

Chico, California.

One of the worst stories that was told and video pictures presented at our hearing was of a young child, a young girl who was beaten and tortured by her parents who were both on methamphetamine. When they finished beating and torturing this child, Susan Webber Brown told a stunned audience that they basically scalded their daughter to death, high on methamphetamine.

Now, we have heard about a 6 year old killing a 6 year old with a gun, but we have not heard these stories of babies even younger being victimized. Hidden behind the other stories are the facts that this 6 year old, again, came from a home setting, if one could call it a home, of illegal narcotics.

I was absolutely shocked by the methamphetamine epidemic in California and the Midwest. I have held hearings in Washington, and we have talked about it. We have heard testimony here about it. But until one hears individuals, visits the locale, and sees firsthand the damage that has been done by methamphetamines, one cannot imagine the damage that has been done.

It is amazing that the President of the United States, it is amazing that the leadership of this country, it is amazing that the media of this country can focus on a tragedy like a 6 year old shooting a 6 year old, not focus on the root causes of that death and the deaths I have cited here.

In fact, we are now up to 15,973 drug-related deaths in this country. That is the 1998 count, and the count continues to skyrocket. Many of these are silent deaths, not making the front page, not being discussed in the talk shows or the subject of the root causes of the death and the tragedy, not coming forward or part of the discussion. But I intend to make it part of the discussion.

Methamphetamine production, trafficking, and use has increased in our rural communities and midsize cities, according to a published paper that came out January 26 this year. The report stated that lab seizures, the drug labs that were seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration, have increased sixfold in the past 5 years, from 263 seizures in 1994 to 1,627 labs in 1998.

We heard testimony, not only in Sacramento, but also down in San Diego about methamphetamine. We had law enforcement officials who brought methamphetamine to Sacramento and showed us that methamphetamine. They know where most of it is coming from or at least part of the main ingredients of methamphetamine, and that is Mexico. We know that the largest amount of methamphetamine reaching our country is coming through Mexico.

Unfortunately, we have not had a national strategy in place to deal with the problem of methamphetamine or other narcotics now coming through Mexico. In fact, in the last several weeks, this administration has, again, certified Mexico. Mexico is now the source of nearly 70 percent of the illegal narcotics entering the United States.

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Now, it is a fact that 70 to 75 percent of the heroin and cocaine is produced now in Colombia, but some 70 percent-plus of the hard narcotics coming into the United States, the vast majority of illegal marijuana, is coming through Mexico.

The United States Government and the administration is required under our Federal law to certify whether or not a country is participating and cooperating with doing two things: stopping the production and also stopping the traffic of illegal narcotics. This administration says that Mexico is cooperating on both accounts. I tend to believe that that is not the case. I believe the administration acted in both conflict with the facts and also contrary to the intent of the law that was passed that requires an assessment of cooperation and then gives the countries who do cooperate trade, finance, and other aid benefits from the United States.

So I think, in fact, this administration has misused the certification process, particularly with a country like Mexico that is failing to even meet minimal requests of the United States for cooperation in combating the production and trafficking of illegal narcotics.

In last week's Washington Times there is an article: `Mexican Ruling Party Soft on Drugs, Foe Said.' There are two major candidates for the Presidency of Mexico and one is a gentleman by the name of Vincente Fox. He is a Conservative National Action Party member. He said that, in fact, the current administration in Mexico is in league with the drug bosses, to use his quote. They have been part of the problem. They have negotiated with the narcos. And many PRI members have been jailed for being narcos.

He went on to say that, in fact, Mexico and this ruling party have made a joke out of the certification law. He said that this entire process has been made a charade by Mexican officials. Let me quote him. He said, `The government's attitude was making a mockery of the annual assessment by Washington of efforts by Mexico and other countries to combat drug trafficking, a ritual known as certification, which is widely resented in Mexico. This is just making a fool of the United States, and this certification business is no use at all.'

He went on to say, `Each time certification comes around, the Mexican government arrests two or three drug bosses, puts them in jail, and acts as if it is getting very serious with drug trafficking,' he said. `Then certification is awarded and the Mexican government forgets about the whole business and does not think about it again until the following year.'

This is the comment of a gentleman who may very well become the next president of Mexico and one of the leading officials there, attesting publicly as to how Mexico and the current government makes it a joke and makes a fool of the United States in this process.

I was so pleased, in fact I sent a personal note to our United States ambassador, Jeffrey Davidow, who just previous to Mr. Fox's pronouncement, the candidate for the Mexican presidency, had the courage to finally be one of the first few Clinton administration officials to tell it like it is. He said, `The fact is that the headquarters of drug trafficking is in Mexico, just like the headquarters of the mafia is in Sicily.' Ambassador Davidow was speaking in Spanish before a group of alumni of Southern California in Mexico City. He was very frank. This made all the papers down in Mexico.

But even the Mexicans are shocked by recent events, which we also looked at in our hearing in San Diego, where just across the border, in Tijuana, just a few days before we arrived there, the chief of police, and this was actually the second chief of police, was slaughtered in an assassination. A brutal assassination. And again,

the second police chief so assassinated by drug lords and drug gangs in that city.

In fact, Tijuana, which is located in the Baja Peninsula, has been the scene of not only corruption but now extreme violence, with hundreds and hundreds of drug-related murders. And Tijuana has one of the highest murder rates of any city in the Western Hemisphere. And almost all of these slaughters are done by drug traffickers. Yet this administration has certified Mexico as fully cooperating.

I have been a critic and, based on the hearings that we have conducted, have said that in Mexico, I believe from the office of the president, the current president, there is no doubt about the past president, in fact the past president's family, Salinas, was involved in narcotics trafficking and profits from narcotics up to their eyeballs and packed away hundreds of millions of dollars in accounts around the world; but even within the current president's office we have had evidence, both public accusations and also behind closed doors, and information about the level of corruption all the way to that office.

I had said also to the attorney general's office, and I am not saying that the attorney general or the President of Mexico personally are now involved, but within those offices, the highest offices of Mexico have in fact been corrupted. I had repeated that not knowing that in fact the headlines would be just a few days ago that in a box rented to a senior official at the Federal attorney general's office a public servant with a modest salary had sitting $700,000 in cash. That official committed suicide some few days ago. Yet another example of tremendous amounts of money involved in corruption at the highest level of Mexican officials' offices.

I just read in the last 2 days that a legal adviser to the Mexico City attorney general's office had been found strangled in his home, along with his two elderly sisters. They said that Salvador Cordero, 64, had apparently been tortured before he was killed in his home some 30 miles west of the Mexican capital. Again, the rampant violence in Mexico, that corruption is now leading to incredible acts of violence, this has raised the concern of both of the Mexican candidates for president. And we heard the comments of one Mexican high official, again a leading candidate, and the joke they have made out of the process of certification that the United States relies on to try to enlist cooperation from Mexico.

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Now, we have not asked a lot from Mexico. We have asked that our DEA agents be armed and adequately protect themselves, the limited number that Mexico allows. That still has not been granted. We have asked for a sign and an executed maritime agreement. That still has not been granted. We have asked for the extradition of one major drug lord from Mexico. To date there has not been one Mexican national drug kingpin extradited to the United States.

So the corruption, the killing goes on. The amounts of money in this corrupt process are absolutely astounding. Again, we held a hearing that documented from a former United States Customs official that one Mexican general had attempted in a sting operation to place $1.1 billion in drug profits in American financial institutions.

So the corruption is in the military, it is in the President's office, the Attorney General and cabinet members' office, in the police, in the States.

We saw in the Yucatan Peninsula, Quintana Roo, which is the Yucatan Province, we saw the governor there who we knew was involved heavily in drug trafficking and immune from prosecution because of his status that he holds in Mexico. They do not go after sitting officials. And a few days before he was to leave office, he fled the country and has not been located. But we know that the entire Yucatan Peninsula and the government there is run and directed by narco-traffickers; and again this all has implications in the United States, the methamphetamine coming in in unbelievable quantity.

We had testimony from officials in Wisconsin and Iowa, in addition to the hearing that I held in California, talking about Mexican drug cartels operating in the Midwest bringing this death and deadly destruction.

The effects of methamphetamine I had no idea could destroy people in such a fashion or cause such incredibly savage behavior as we have heard in these hearings.

Now, this is not a rocket scientist. We know where illegal narcotics are coming from. As I said, we have Colombia, which is the source now of over 70 percent of the heroin and 70 percent of the cocaine. It is interesting to note that Colombia did not produce at the beginning of the Clinton administration almost any heroin. There was none produced in Colombia. There was almost no coca produced in Colombia at the beginning of the Clinton administration.

But I will be darned if this administration, through one bungling act after another, could not make Colombia into the largest source of illegal narcotics. Now, we are talking about producing. We know that a hundred percent of all the cocaine in the world comes from Peru, Bolivia and Colombia.

Through a program instituted by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), Mr. Zeliff, some of the others here who worked on it in reinstituting source country programs, we have been able to cut production of cocaine and coca in both Peru and Bolivia by some 60 percent.

In Colombia, this administration has done everything possible to bungle and thwart and stop assistance for international programs to aid Colombia in dealing with illegal narcotics production and trafficking. They have done everything imaginable. And I will detail those in just a minute. But those illegal narcotics are coming up in trafficking and now they form cartels with Mexican traffickers and they are coming up through the United States.

We know how this traffic pattern has emerged. We also know what works and what does not work. I cannot believe the media and the garbage that they continue to publish and the misstatement that the war on drugs has been a failure. And it is repeated over and over.

The war on drugs existed in the Reagan and the Bush administration. The war on drugs was closed down by the Clinton administration in some very specific acts.

This chart, let us take just a minute and look at the war on drugs. This was the trend with Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and we saw the long-term trend in lifetime prevalence of drugs.

This is percentage of 12th graders, a pretty good indication of where we are going on the narcotics issue and use of illegal narcotics, going down, down, down. This is the beginning of the Andean strategy. This is the beginning of the war on drugs bringing the military in, the Vice President's task force. And look at what happened to the use of illegal narcotics.

Then we have the election of Mr. Clinton. Let me, if I can, quote some facts on what took place with the election of Mr. Clinton.

First of all, we have a question of international programs to stop illegal drugs at their source. That would be source country programs. Look at this here. Source country programs, international programs under Mr. Bush and previously Mr. Reagan. We had increases in 1993, 1994, 1995. And it does take a little while to get a budget in place for a new administration and a new Congress. We are a little bit ahead of the curve. But Federal drug spending on international programs was cut 50 percent during the Democrat controlled Congress from 1992 to 1994. Fifty percent of that means to stop drugs at their source. What we had been successful in stopping drugs at their source, they cut 50 percent.

On interdiction, which is the next most cost-effective way to stop illegal narcotics is to get the drugs not only where they are produced at their source, because that farmer is getting a few dollars or a few pesos, and the most effective thing is to stop the illegal narcotics at the next level and that is to interdict them.

You can interdict them through intelligence and provide that intelligence to another country, which was part of the strategy that we had with the Bush and Reagan administration, very cost effective. And then that country goes after the plane or the trafficker, whatever, and stops it.

Federal drug spending on interdiction was cut 33 percent during the Democrat controlled Congress from 1992 to 1994. Again, part of the strategy to close down the war on drugs. And when you close down the war on drugs, and you see the chart here, let us look at this chart here for a moment, because you see us getting back up to in 1999, basically, if you look at dollars and use 1991 or 1992 dollars to 1999, we are back where we were at the end of the Bush and Reagan administration and their anti-narcotics programs.

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So basically some of the comments and one of them that really irritated me is a column by Marjorie Williams. I do not know who she is but she put it in the Washington Post Friday, March 10, and she said, despite two decades of proof that interdiction and tough law enforcement will do nothing to stop the sale or use of drugs, this is the type of trash that the media puts out and convinces people that the war on drugs is a failure. In fact, the war on drugs was specifically closed down.

Let us go back up to this chart here. Go back to this chart here. The Clinton administration, go back to 1992, 1993, they slashed, first of all, the drug czar's staff from 112 to 27. They cut the source country programs, which I just cited. If you put another one of these dots where they appointed Jocelyn Elders as Surgeon General you can see another little surge in use.

In 1994 and 1995, they stopped U.S. intelligence information-sharing with Colombia and Peru and slashed the U.S. military and Coast Guard anti-narcotics program.

Is this showing that that is a war on drugs? In fact, they dismantled the war on drugs. In 1996 and 1997, they blocked the antidrug assistance to Colombia. They also distorted the program that we have to certify countries as cooperating, decertified Colombia without a national interest waiver and blocked and stopped the equipment getting to Colombia.

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayes). There being no other Member claiming time, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized for the remainder of the hour.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I will try not to take that but as one can tell, I am just getting warmed up tonight. I do get excited about this issue, Mr. Speaker, because it has some incredible impact, not only six year olds killing six year olds but thousands and thousands of lives lost across this country and families destroyed by illegal narcotics.

We know what works in this effort. We know what does not work. We know that, again, the Clinton administration blocked aid to Colombia and that is why we are here in the next few weeks and about to pass $1.7 billion, $1.5 billion, whatever we end up with, in aid to Colombia, because the situation this administration created by these specific actions has created such a disaster. This is not something that just jumped up on us. This is something that was predicted in hearings, and I participated in some of those hearings.

I took out a quote not from me but a quote from the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) and he says, `As you recall, as of May 1, 1994, the Department of Defense decided unilaterally to stop sharing realtime intelligence regarding aerial traffic in drugs with Colombia and Peru. Now, as I understand it, that decision, which has not been completely resolved, has thrown diplomatic relations with the host countries into chaos.' The gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) said this August 2, 1994, the beginning of the end of the situation in Colombia, the beginning of presenting this Congress and the American people with a bill for $1.7 billion, a direct action of this administration to close down sharing that information. Not only did they do this in 1994, they turned around and did it again, according to a GAO report that I asked be conducted of the current operations the last couple of years in that region. I received a report in December, just a few months ago, that the administration, despite the requests of their appointed ambassador in Peru to increase, again, the surveillance, who said that if you do not do this you will get more cocaine produced, even though the Congress and the Republican Congress put into effect a very effective eradication and crop substitution program, in spite of what we had done their own ambassador said, hey, do not do this again, or do not do this in fact; you will have problems.

In fact, we have seen an increase in production because, again, they made the same mistake just in the last 24 months that they made in 1994. We saw this coming. We asked them not to do it.

Let me also bring up another headline, 1994. How do we get ourselves into these incredible situations? This is Thursday, August 4, Washington Post, U.S. Refusal to Share Intelligence in Drug War Is Called Absurd.

We did it in 1994, we cut off aid and assistance. Was this a partisan attack, something the Republicans did? I cited my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), a fellow Republican. These are the comments of Robert Torricelli who at that time was chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs on the Western Hemisphere and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), chairman of the Subcommittee on International Security, denounced as absurd the administration's argument that current law might expose U.S. officials to prosecution. They distorted the law with some liberal interpretations to close down information-sharing to stop going after drug traffickers, basically sharing information allowing the other countries to, if necessary, shoot down these planes.

There is nothing more effective than shooting down drug traffickers to stop illegal narcotics. These are direct actions that got us into this situation today. These are the actions that require a 1.6, 1.7, who knows how many billion dollars, to get us out of this

predicament. Colombia produces and that area around Colombia produces 20 percent of our oil supply, and if you have paid for gasoline lately you can see why the source of oil production is a strategic value to the United States.

What is interesting is that, back to Mexico for a minute, I received these reports from DEA on heroin production and they can tell us where heroin is coming from on what is called a signature program. It is almost sort of like reading DNA from a blood test, and they can tell me almost the country and the field that heroin is grown from. You have to remember again that the policy of this administration allowed in 6 or 7 years a country which produced no heroin, they did not produce any heroin, any poppies at the beginning of the Clinton administration in Colombia, and this shows now South American production, by 1997 they got it up to 75 percent of the heroin seized in the United States came from Colombia. That is where it is coming from. Fourteen percent came from Mexico.

This administration just certified in the last few weeks Mexico fully cooperating. That means they are helping reduce production and reduce trafficking. Two criteria, reduce production, reduce trafficking. I got the report from 1998. You have not read about this. No one will talk about this. Mexico is up to 17 percent. Now, simple mathematics will say that is a 20 percent increase in production. It shows a slight decrease in America but we are getting more from the country that the administration just certified, Mexico; in fact, a 20 percent increase in heroin production in one year.

This, again, does not require a rocket scientist to know where the heroin is coming from. We know that it is coming from Colombia. We know it is coming from Mexico. We heard it in the hearings this past week in California, which is also seeing a recurrence and proliferation of extremely deadly and high purity heroin in addition to incredible volumes of methamphetamine. This is from the country the administration just certified, where corruption is so rampant, where the leading candidate says, ha, ha, we made a fool out of the United States in its own process that grants trade, finance, benefits to Mexico.

These are the headlines that we see now with a country that the administration just certified: Drugs Flood in From Mexico. This is not necessarily a conservative publication the last time I checked, the Washington Post. `Increase in traffic on land and sea alarms U.S. officials,' and it should alarm U.S. officials because the U.S. officials are the ones that allowed it to get into that situation.

Let me show this chart.

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This is part of a chart from a report that I also requested from GAO. This report, given to me just a few weeks ago, shows me that assets DOD contributes to reducing illegal drug supply have declined.

If you look at the red here, these are provided by DOD, and these are requested by SOUTHCOM. SOUTHCOM is our Southern Command, which is asking for surveillance assistance, or to conduct surveillance, and equipment and resources to conduct surveillance. Requested by SOUTHCOM, requested by SOUTHCOM, 1997, 1998, 1999, requested by SOUTHCOM. This is what they got.

This is a war on drugs by destroying any effort to have combat, and to have combat the first basic thing you need to do is stop the activity at its source. Then the next thing you would do is get surveillance and information. This report told me that the surveillance flights declined 68 percent from 1992 to 1999, 68 percent in surveillance, and this shows even less attention by this administration to stop drugs at their source or do anything about it, and a 62 percent reduction in maritime activity, anti-narcotic activity by the administration.

So what you have had is a closing down of any semblance of a war on drugs, and this is in spite of the fact that this Republican Congress, which took over in 1995, has done some very positive things in trying to restart the war on drugs. In fact, we have been successful in that effort, which Mr. Zeliff and now the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) went down personally and began the efforts to start the eradication of cocaine in Peru and Bolivia, and that program has shown some 60 to 65 percent reduction in just several years. Speaker Hastert and the Republican Congress led an effort for a supplemental appropriation that put $800 million into the anti-narcotics effort. That is where you saw that bump up. But even with the money there, the funds are diverted, the reported by DOD tells us, from the war on drugs. Even our vice president has taken some of the assets I have found for surveillance, our AWACS, and diverted them to check oil spills in Alaska.

So the resources that the Congress appropriates and tries to get to Colombia, including $300 million of assistance which we appropriated a year before last October, those assets still have not gotten there.

Most of the money was for Blackhawk helicopters which can be used for eradication or going after drug traffickers in the high altitudes. We know where the stuff is grown; we know who is trafficking. If you have the capability, and the Colombians have the capability, just like President Fujimora had the capability and went after drug traffickers, wiped them out, stopped the destabilization, the terror in that country, which was also financed and run by drug traffickers, the same thing can be done in Colombia, but we cannot get even the basic equipment we funded over a year ago there.

Most of that, as I said, was in several of these helicopters we have tried to get to the national police force there, and this administration, in fact, is the gang that can't shoot straight. They cannot even get the helicopters there. In fact, the helicopters that were sent there sat on the tarmac and did not have the armoring that could be used. In one of the greatest fiascoes of this entire effort by this administration, they delivered the ammunition that should have gone 2 or 3 years ago to Colombia to the back door of the State Department loading dock during the holidays. This in fact is an effort that has been a disaster by this administration.

Every time I think the administration cannot bungle anything else, I am shocked. I was shocked to have people come in from my locale today and show me their pre-census mailing that was sent out. This

administration that runs our census, that is a scary thought right there, sent out 120 million mailings, and sent out the wrong Zip Code on all 120 million of them. One of my cities they sent out the wrong name to the entire city in Florida. When I think that they cannot possibly bungle it any further, I am always amazed.

This is, again, a very sad story for the United States, because we have a good friend and a good neighbor in Mexico, wonderful people. They are tremendously gifted. They are hard-working, dedicated people, and their country has been taken over by drug traffickers, and those drug traffickers are so emboldened that now they are offering rewards and bounties on United States agents, $200,000 reward as reported by drug traffickers. This is how emboldened they have gotten. This is from the country that has been certified as cooperating in this war on drugs.

Again we find this administration, the gang that can't shoot straight or get a war on drugs together, in The Washington Post, March 13, just a few days ago, U.S. officials cite trend in Colombia. Lack of air support hindering drug war.

Well, my friends, there has been no drug war, as you can see, since 1993, with the exception of what the Republican majority has been able to get in dribbles and drabs and in spite of the bureaucrats who have fought us every inch of the way, in spite of the administration who has blocked aid, assistance, ammunition, anything that you could possibly use in a war on drugs from getting to the source.

Finally, now the situation has deteriorated so that even this administration is coming forth with a very expensive plan, and it is an expensive plan because they made very costly mistakes. This is also a repetitive mistake, because of lack of air support and the surveillance that is so incredible for any type of mission, military or anti-narcotics mission. And our military does not fire or fight in this war on drugs or arrest people. They merely provide surveillance and information. In this case we are not asking for United States troops or anyone to go in there. We are only asking to get that information to countries that are beseeched by drug traffickers like Colombia, like Peru, and like Bolivia.

It is a very difficult situation we have been put in. I know there are some Members who are concerned about expending those dollars in this effort. Some are concerned on the Republican side of the aisle because we have attempted to spend money on a real war on drugs, and every dollar we have spent has either been diverted or not gotten to the source, or handled in such an incompetent manner that nothing is accomplished. That does bring some criticism from the Republican side of the aisle.

The other side of the aisle, we hear the human rights concerns. I share human rights concerns. Anyone who commits human rights abuses should be held accountable, and whether it is from paramilitary right-wing extremists, or from left-wing terrorists on the communist-socialist side, the murder they commit is not justified and should not be tolerated. But both of these activities I am told are financed in Colombia by narco-terrorists, people who are living and also promoting their criminal, murderous behavior with the proceeds and supported by the profits from illegal narcotics.

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That has destabilized Colombia. There have been 35,000 people killed in that war; there have been over 800,000 in just 2 years, displaced as many as Kosovo; and Kosovo I do not know has imported any drugs or produced any drugs that is killing 15,700 Americans in 1998 and destroying thousands and thousands of lives, so certainly this is in our national interest to proceed.

So I appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I am sorry that it is so difficult for this administration to learn lessons of what it takes. I am so sorry that they have also convinced the media that the war on drugs is a failure. We, in fact, have doubled the amount of money for treatment. We need even more treatment. But those liberal, the liberal programs, in fact, do not work. We know that tough enforcement programs, the Rudy Guiliani programs. Rudy Guiliani, just stop and think about this, took office and over 2,200 people died in murders in the years in which he assumed office. That figure was down in the 600 range. Tough enforcement works.

Take another example, the liberal Mayor Schmoke who turned his back, instituted a needle exchange program, had liberal narcotics policies in Baltimore. Baltimore had 312 deaths, murders in Baltimore in 1997; they had 312 in 1998; and they had 60,000 heroin and drug addicts in Baltimore; 60,000, one in eight a city council member told the press, one in eight. Imagine, taking that model and imposing it on the rest of the United States. Think of one in eight Americans under a liberal policy for narcotics. We could do that and we would have one incredible society. We think it is expensive to support 2 million people in our prisons; imagine supporting somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million Americans as drug addicts. It is not a pleasant thought.

So we know it works. We know we can stop drugs at their source. Richard Nixon did it; the Chinese have done it. We have done it in Peru and Bolivia; we can do it in Colombia. We can also cooperate with others, even the United Nations; and Pino Arlacchi who heads the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy, the former Italian prosecutor who helped rub out organized crime, and who we have worked so effectively with the last couple of years since he took office in stopping the rest of the drugs at their source in Afghanistan and Burma, in Colombia and other countries where we do not have the best relations. But a simple plan; not a great deal of money needs to be expended. Because we could put 100,000 a year; we could put 500,000 more police on the streets, and we will not get it all, but we know we can stop it cost effectively at its source.

If we do not have tough enforcement, it does not work. If we do not have tough prosecution, it does not work. It is unfortunate that we do have so many Americans hooked on illegal narcotics and so many have succumbed to the philosophy that if it feels good, do it; and they have become addicted and victims in this whole disaster that has rained terror on the United States and so many of our families.

Mr. Speaker, the hour is late. I hope to come back and finish and also update the House on additional information we have received, our subcommittee has received. We look forward to working with Members on both sides of the aisle, both in passage of this Colombian effort, plan Colombia in our efforts to rid our Nation of illegal narcotics and also assist other countries in stopping the production and trafficking of hard drugs.

We also look forward to enhancing our treatment programs and rewarding programs that do a good job and encouraging our young people not to take the path of illegal narcotics and the path of death and destruction of their lives.

END

As of March 16, 2000, this document is also available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H14MR0-340: