Letter from Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-New York) to Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Barry McCaffrey, November 14, 2000

Letter from Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-New York) to Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Barry McCaffrey, November 14, 2000
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WASHINGTON, DC 20515
TELEPHONE: (202) 225-5021

November 14, 2000

The Honorable Barry R. McCaffrey
Director
Office of National Drug Control Policy
Washington, D.C. 20503

Dear General McCaffrey:

Thank you for your October 13, 2000, letter soliciting input on our nation's drug control strategy. I welcome the chance to share some of my views on this important matter. I have spent many years in Congress working on drug control issues, including past service as Vice Chairman of the former House Select Committee on Narcotics.

I will limit the majority of my comments to the international aspects of the fight against illicit narcotics. Nevertheless, I have always felt that we needed both a balanced supply side and a demand side drug control strategy. Balancing supply with demand control efforts is critical for any successful national drug strategy.

The Administration has put too much emphasis on demand reduction, while ignoring the supply of ever cheaper and higher purity drugs from abroad. Increasing supply will soon expose more and more of our young people to these addictive substances. By neglecting supply efforts, we will never have enough funds for treatment of those abusing the increased quantities of drugs coming from abroad.

On the supply side, your letter notes the skyrocketing cultivation of coca in Colombia and our emergency aid program to address this crisis in our backyard. First, let me thank you for your efforts to call the Administration's attention to the skyrocketing drug production crisis there and for your help in obtaining the increased aid for our allies in Colombia. We are facing a near failed democracy that could become a narco-state. Clearly, we can no longer afford to do nothing about Colombia

In retrospect, however, the Administration's decision to militarize the drug fight by shifting the bulk of our aid from the Colombian National Police (CNP) to the Colombian army was, I believe, a major mistake.

The adverse consequences of this decision are becoming more evident everyday. Drug fighting in Colombia, and throughout the Andean region, has traditionally been a police function -- not a military one. We should have kept it that away, and preserved this important distinction.

The CNP has worked with our nation for many years. Together we destroyed the powerful Cali and Medellin drug cartels. Over the past 20 years, the CNP has developed the expertise and experience in aerial drug crop eradication and other traditional police techniques against drug trafficking. Moreover, with the new Black Hawk utility helicopters and defensive weapons we provided, the CNP can now effectively reach remote guerilla and paramilitary areas and destroy drugs, including illicit crops. This has been proven in the recent successful Catatumbo operations, among others.

The prudent U.S. policy for Colombia would be to deliver more of this effective and modem drug fighting aid to the CNP, which my colleagues in Congress and I have advocated. As we sought to catch up for years of neglecting the expanding drug crops, aid to the CNP would have delivered quick and effective results.

Instead, we inappropriately shifted the major emphasis of our counter-narcotics aid to the Colombian military under the theory that we needed to bring the Colombian army into the fight against drugs, despite past problems of corruption and a history of human rights abuses.

The reaction from the narco-guerillas, our European friends, and some of Colombia's neighbors in the region to this new military aid approach, has been strong and adverse. We have not made the case effectively either to Europe or to the Andean region for this shift to a heavy military emphasis in Colombia.

While one can readily dismiss the harsh rhetoric of the narco-guerillas to the new U.S. military aid, the concerns of Europeans and Colombia's neighbors cannot be dismissed so easily. Our policy shift has needlessly created anxiety in Europe, even as more and more Colombia cocaine has headed their way There is even greater concern among some Andean nations, who fear military fighting will spill across their common borders with Colombia.

I am aware of the purported rationale for this shift to a military-driven emphasis, i.e., that the CNP could not secure the coca growing regions in the south. Only after the southern areas are secured, it was felt, could the police then follow up and do the illicit crop eradication.

However, as recent events in the heavy coca-growing Putomayo area in the south of Colombia show, it is evident that the Colombian army is incapable of controlling any of this guerilla and coca-infested territory now, or anytime soon. Certainly, three new U.S. trained counter-narcotics battalions of the Colombian army alone, will not change this major imbalance on the battlefield. The Colombian army has been systematically losing control on the ground in the south.

Given existing conditions on the ground in the Putomayo, one can easily predict that either the start of army-supported eradication operations there will continue to be interminably delayed, or that these operations will be reduced in scope to only small "show case" interdiction or manual eradication operations (with no real aerial eradication against the industrial-size coca plots). Either outcome will lead to legitimate questions about the rationale behind this strategy.

In addition, the confusion between the army and the police over the chain of command in counter-narcotics operations concerns me. It is also unclear on our side who is in charge of military assistance -- the State Department or the Defense Department. I am concerned that this may result in improper defensive weapons being mounted on the army's counter-narcotics helicopters. With these helicopters scheduled to be deployed to southern Colombia in the near future, with the element of surprise clearly lost, this possibility is very alarming.

Accordingly, we need to make a major mid-course correction and shift all of the approved Plan Colombia drug fighting military assistance to the CNP anti-drug unit, where it belongs. Since the army has neither the pilots, mechanics, nor hangers to maintain most of the U.S. funded helicopters, as the police do, the shift can serve to make better use of our taxpayer dollars.

The shift of our drug fighting aid to the CNP would also allow us to supply the police with the 100 helicopters they need to cover the entire country and to solve the serious supply line problems in southern Colombia. Almost all of the roads in Putomayo are now closed by the FARC, and truck supply routes can easily be foreclosed elsewhere in Colombia as well It is self- evident the CNP also needs more and better supply planes to replace its aged fleet of DC-3s, which can hardly fly and for which there is no reliable span parts pipeline.

After the shift of all of our drug fighting aid to the CNP, we should also begin a serious debate here in our nation about the need for the U.S. government to consider helping the Colombian military to fight the FARC and ELN guerrilla movements. I have no doubt that after such a public debate, the U.S. would commit to help the Colombian military in its counter- insurgency struggle, consistent with fundamental respect for human Tights. We must help Colombian democracy, independent of the war on drugs.

In the interim, by moving the substantial drug fighting aid from Plan Colombia to the CNP for its proper police drug fighting function, we can also help "drain the swamp" of illicit drugs which are helping finance the insurgency.

Such a revised U.S. strategy, as 1 am proposing here, would also give the Colombian military a chance to overcome some of its major structural inefficiencies and many problems with corruption and human rights abuses. This revised strategy will not adversely impact the fight against drugs. During the period of time that the counter-narcotics battalions of the Colombian Army have been trained and are now sitting idle, the police have executed a series of devastating drug eradication and interdiction operations throughout Colombia. The speed and initiative of police operations stands in marked contrast to the plodding pace of army operations.

I hope that you will give these constructive suggestions on Plan Colombia's direction careful and thoughtful analysis. If we fail early on with Plan Colombia -- as I fear -- we could lose the support of the American people for our efforts to fight illicit narcotics abroad. If we lose public support, we will regret we did not make the mid-course corrections for Colombia that I have outlined here.

The incoming administration will be faced with a need for a new U.S. strategy in Colombia. It is far better to make these changes now, before our current strategy is proved to be a failure.

With best wishes,
Sincerely,

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

Chairman

BAG jpm/mco