NARRATOR: Today in the United States 600,000 Americans are addicted to heroin. One-and-a-half million are addicted to cocaine. Fourteen thousand Americans die each year from drug-related causes. And we spend $60 billion a year on drug-related health problems, deaths and crime.

Since the early 1980s, America has used its military forces, police officers and school teachers to wage the "War on Drugs." Is this strategy working?

["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]

ADM JOHN SHANAHAN: I'm Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, director of the Center for Defense Information.

Today, on "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," we'll take a look at a topic that affects all Americans: United States drug policy. While this may seem an unusual topic for our program, you'll be surprised to learn just how large the military's role has become in the "War on Drugs." On the borders, on the seas, and in the air, the military participates in interdiction, intelligence and surveillance operations to counter the drug trade. Are these appropriate roles for America's military?

NARRATOR: Since the beginning it has been a called a "war on drugs." This metaphor conjures up images of sending in the troops and destroying the enemy. But is it appropriate for describing US efforts to solve the drug problem?

GEN BARRY McCAFFREY: Well, it's a good metaphor to mobilize public opinion. It's a language that brings focus to what you're up to. And so, if you want to talk air interdiction or the struggle in the Caribbean, the metaphor "war on drugs" may be appropriate.

NARRATOR: General Barry McCaffrey is our nation's "drug czar" and heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

GEN McCAFFREY: Where it falls short conceptually is when you look for an enemy, the enemy is our children, our fellow employees, our fellow teammates and, oh, by the way, most of us believe there will be a final victory, a vigorous campaign followed by the elimination of drug abuse.

COLETTA YOUNGERS: Well, I would say that the "war on drugs" should have never been called a war to begin with.

NARRATOR: Coletta Youngers is a senior research analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Ms. YOUNGERS: In fact, if you look at international drug control programs, the police and military efforts that have been put into place have been a dramatic failure because the assumptions underlying the supply side approach to drug control overseas are fundamentally flawed.

NARRATOR: Fortunately, there has been a shift away from using "war" as a metaphor for our counter-narcotics efforts. The 1997 National Drug Control Strategy calls for a larger focus on children and on efforts to reduce the number of illegal drug users and prevent the use of illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco by underage youth.

While the rhetoric may have shifted, budget priorities have not. In 1997, we will spend $15 billion on counter-narcotics programs. In 1998, the budget request rises to $16 billion. These are dramatic increases over the $2.7 billion we spent in 1985.

However, two-thirds of the budget remains dedicated to supply reduction efforts. These include: law enforcement, interdiction, customs, and eradication of drug crops at the source. Only one-third of the budget is spent on education, treatment and prevention programs.

We asked General McCaffrey about this discrepancy.

GEN McCAFFREY: Well, clearly, right now the budget doesn't match the strategy. We're still spending more than half of our federal dollars on law enforcement and prison systems.

Ms. YOUNGERS: There has been no significant change in US international drug control policy or drug control strategies, more generally, over the last ten years. Essentially we're continuing down the same misguided path. Over the last couple of years, there's been renewed attention to the so-called "drug war," I think, largely because of domestic political considerations.

NARRATOR: Seventeen government agencies participate in our counter-narcotics strategy. On the supply reduction side, the main agencies include: domestic law enforcement, the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Coast Guard, US Customs Agency, the US Border Patrol, the National Guard and the military.

In 1997, we will spent $10.5 billion on supply side reduction efforts. Of this amount, nearly one billion dollars will be consumed by the Department of Defense for drug-related activities.

The military's counter-drug strategy is to attack the flow of illegal drugs along three fronts: at the source, in transit, and in the United States.

Ms. YOUNGERS: There is a vast array of military operations and law enforcement operations underway under the name of the war on drugs.

NARRATOR: In countries like Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, the military provides equipment, advice and training to foreign governments for fighting drugs.

Ms. YOUNGERS: Essentially, they are to provide the strategic support, the intelligence, the training and the equipment necessary for Latin American forces, both military and police, to carry out operations on the ground. That means that the US military is involved in surveillance operations, oversight, gathering intelligence.

NARRATOR: In transit, the main effort of the military is to intercept drug shipments. Navy vessels patrol the sea lanes in the Caribbean and off the coast of Florida. Air Force and Army ground-based radars and Air Force airborne radars search for suspect vessels. This includes the use of over-the-horizon radar and AWACS.

Military Communicator: "ADL, AWACS. Welcome to the theater. You are cleared for autonomous operations, permission

planned rules of engagement."

NARRATOR: At home, the role of the military is limited by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the military from participating in law enforcement activities. The military does provide support for a variety of programs, which include: assisting and training local authorities, occupying observation posts along the border with Mexico, and helping Customs officials perform the inspection of cargo at ports of entry.

Navy diver teams help inspect the hulls of ships suspected of smuggling drugs. Military helicopters and National Guard troops also help law enforcement agents locate and eradicate marijuana gardens in the US.

While the military has proven that it is capable of doing these missions, many question whether it is an appropriate role for the military and if these efforts are effective.

GEN McCAFFREY: The US armed forces can and should play a very useful role. Last year the Department of Defense spent some $800 million supporting our drug efforts. Now clearly, the intelligence system is a tremendous contribution.

Senator JOSEPH BIDEN: Yes, we should use them, but if I can make a distinction here. It's one thing to use a private, or a corporal, or a sergeant, or a colonel to go out and arrest somebody; we shouldn't use them for that reason.

NARRATOR: Senator Joseph Biden is the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator BIDEN: We need to use the military because they're the only ones who have the expertise to control the radars, the AWACS planes, the interdiction efforts. They control the ships. All of which is a very useful piece of the drug strategy.

GEN McCAFFREY: And, in addition, I think DoD can do a lot of good on training, on logistics, on having the US Air Force move counter-drug elements around the theater of operations.

NARRATOR: Coletta Youngers disagrees with using the military to combat the drug flow.

Ms. YOUNGERS: I think that the militarized approach, the militarization, if you will, of US international drug control policy has more to do with domestic political considerations than anything else. "We've launched a war on drugs." For politicians, it's very convenient to be able to tell people back home in their districts that we're sending military aid, and equipment, and hardware to go out and there and, you know, fight the good war.

NARRATOR: Studies by both the Rand Corporation and the General Accounting Office have concluded that interdiction has not substantially reduced the supply of drugs to the United States, that even the best interdiction efforts can catch only a small proportion of the drugs crossing the border.

Senator BIDEN: In terms of the international efforts relating to interdiction, General McCaffrey ran that program when he was a general, a four-star in the United States military. And the irony or all ironies is he was successful. We focussed all our guns, figuratively speaking, on the Caribbean. Do you know what happened? What happens all the time in interdiction. They stopped coming through the Caribbean and they went to Mexico.

NARRATOR: In 1997, we will spent $1.6 billion on interdiction efforts. Interdiction is intended to reduce the supply of drugs coming into the United States, which should increase the street value of drugs, making them more difficult and more costly to obtain. The hope is that this will reduce the number of users in the United States.

Ms. Youngers argues that this has not occurred.

Ms. YOUNGERS: The assumptions underlying the supply side approach to drug control overseas are fundamentally flawed. The supply side approach is basically based on the premise that you can raise the price of cocaine, heroin on US city streets through these international drug control efforts.

NARRATOR: A recent report by the Washington Office on Latin America found that despite US efforts and spending billions of dollars on interdiction, street prices have dropped significantly over the last 15 years, and there has been no evidence that the amount of cocaine coming across the US borders has decreased.

Ms. YOUNGERS: And, in fact, what we've seen over the course of the so-called drug war is that the prices of cocaine and heroin have gone down, purity is up and there are more drugs available than ever before on US city streets. So, yes, our efforts are, unfortunately, failing.

Senator BIDEN: So, the irony of all ironies is our success at interdicting in the Caribbean has produced this gigantic problem in Mexico. And so, what we have to understand is we kind of have to walk and chew gum at the same time. Which is that you can't just plug up one access route to the United States and not realize it's going to pop out somewhere else.

ELAINE SHANNON: I have the least hope for interdiction because, as the DEA agents call it, it's the "ant army."

NARRATOR: Elaine Shannon is a reporter for Time Magazine and has covered the so-called drug war for over 20 years.

Ms. SHANNON: We're not going to fly planes or put radars on the border that prevent people from bringing in an awful lot of cocaine and heroin into this country in the bottom of trucks and old Volkswagen vans.

[Video of vehicle inspection for drugs at border.]

NARRATOR: Stemming the flow of drugs across our borders is increasingly difficult. Each year over 400 million people, 120 million cars, and ten million containers and trucks pass through the 301 points of entry into the United States.

While technology may help on the borders, there is less hope for interdiction. In 1990, despite the efforts of the US military who detected 6,729 suspected drug-smuggling aircraft, only 661 were pursued by law enforcement agencies, and only 49 were successfully intercepted.

[Video of airborne surveillance of suspect aircraft.]

NARRATOR: The DEA estimated that of the 760 metric tons of cocaine produced in 1995, only 230 metric tons were seized, leaving more than enough to satisfy the demand in the United States.

The main source countries of illicit drugs are the Andean nations: Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. Colombia produces 70 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States and is fast becoming a major source of heroin, as well.

A new primary source of illicit drugs is Mexico. Mexico's involvement in the drug trade and the alleged corruption of government officials has strained the relationship between the United States and Mexico.

The impact of our drug policy on friendly governments is often overlooked.

Ms. YOUNGERS: Certainly, there's a recognition in countries in Latin America, and particularly the countries of Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, that drug trafficking presents a fundamental problem for their societies, as well. But having said that, I think they also see the US approach to international drug control as a unilateral approach. It's not a policy that has been worked out in collaboration with our Andean or Latin American neighbors and one which is essentially designed to meet US needs and not the needs of Latin American countries.

Ms. SHANNON: When you get around the intelligentsia of these countries where it's not US versus Colombia, US versus Mexico and say, "Do you want your sons and daughters to be involved with drugs?" Absolutely not. They're appalled. They have very puritanical rules about these things. So, yes, I think they see them as bad for their own sake, bad because of corruption, but they also blame the United States terribly.

NARRATOR: These countries resent the yearly certification process of the United States because it focusses solely on their counter-narcotics efforts and does not apply the same standards to the United States.

Decertification triggers economic sanctions, which include the elimination of most US foreign aid and an automatic "no" vote by the United States on any loan requests made to multinational lending institutions. However, decertification does not require the elimination of the provision of counter-narcotics assistance, including military and police assistance.

Ms. YOUNGERS: The US has an array of training programs on the ground in the Andean countries and also brings people here for training. These range from jungle warfare operations to actually law enforcement techniques.

NARRATOR: The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 called for a substantial increase in military aid to those countries involved in US counter-narcotics programs, thereby waiving a 1974 ban on aid to foreign police.

Ms. YOUNGERS: There is also the provision of equipment. We are providing everything from helicopters and planes, to ammunition and guns, to uniforms, to meals-ready-to-eat. In Bolivia, in the Cimora Base, we are even feeding all of the prisoners arrested on narcotics charges. It's a tremendous array of assistance and of agencies that are involved.

NARRATOR: Military assistance provided for counter-narcotics operations has raised concern over several issues, including human rights abuses, the utility of training foreign militaries to fight drugs, evidence of misuse of assistance by foreign militaries, and the inability of the US to keep track of military assistance.

Ms. YOUNGERS: There have been serious concerns raised as to the negative impact of military assistance and training programs in the region.

Ms. SHANNON: In the past, the US Government, the DEA have chosen to form their bonds with the police structure in Peru because they have felt that the military, in fact, facilitated the drug trade.

NARRATOR: In 1992, the Congress banned direct military assistance to Peru because of ongoing human rights violations, the April 1992 presidential coup, and the shooting down of a US anti-narcotics plane by the Peruvian air force. Despite this ban, Peru continues to receive significant funding for military and police anti-narcotics efforts.

Ms. YOUNGERS: And just to give you one example. In the case of Peru, the United States is developing plans for a large river interdiction program in Peru that would be carried out not only by the police, but by the Peruvian navy. Well, we've been able to document that most of the disappearances carried out at the hands of the armed forces in Peru in recent years have, in fact, taken place under navy command out of the main navy base in Puccallpa, a remote jungle region of Peru, which also serves as the US main anti-narcotics base there.

NARRATOR: Despite Peru's record, the Clinton administration in 1996 moved to give more money to the Peruvian air force for air interdiction programs and for the naval base in Puccallpa.

Ms. YOUNGERS: We are deeply concerned that the provision of assistance to the navy in Peru could facilitate or exacerbate ongoing human rights violations.

NARRATOR: Colombia is another country of concern. Even though it was decertified in 1996 and again in 1997, it continues to receive military assistance for counter-narcotics mission.

Ms. YOUNGERS: Colombia has what is, undoubtedly, the worst human rights record in the hemisphere today, yet we are providing them with more military assistance than any other country in Latin America.

NARRATOR: Despite Colombia's human rights record, President Clinton in April 1997 authorized the export of $200 million in military equipment to Colombia, including Black Hawk and Huey helicopters.

Ms. YOUNGERS: Probably the most controversial element of that has been the role prescribed by the US Government for Latin American militaries in the war on drugs.

NARRATOR: The United States has continued to insist that source countries use their militaries for domestic law enforcement, something the US is prohibited from doing in its own country.

Ms. YOUNGERS: These are countries that are struggling to keep the militaries in the barracks, trying to prescribe a role for militaries that is oriented towards national defense and not maintaining internal public order. Yet the United States Government is insisting that, once again, these militaries get involved in what is essentially a law enforcement problem. And as a result of that, US drug policy is strengthening the hands of the military at the expense of civilian democratic institutions.

NARRATOR: Oversight of military assistance given to foreign countries has not been adequate either. A recent GAO report found that Mexico has misused helicopters provided by the United States. These helicopters, given to Mexico to counter their narcotics trade, were instead used to transport Mexican military personnel during the 1994 Chiapas rebel uprising.

In Colombia, counter-narcotics police were unable to account for $200,000 worth of spare parts for aircraft equipment.

Some doubt that providing military equipment significantly slows the drug trade.

Ms. YOUNGERS: There is no indication at this point that the provision of military training has had any significant impact in stemming the flow of cocaine or heroin out of Latin American countries. In fact, all of the statistics, which are always questionable, indicate to the contrary; that, in fact, there's more drugs than ever flowing into this country.

Ms. SHANNON: Stories that I always heard was that probably there was a great deal of army involvement in these plantations. This was back in 1985. So, when recently Mexico fired a general who was their drug czar, everybody was surprised to find out that there was corruption in the Mexican army. I was not surprised at all.

NARRATOR: The focus of US drug policy on the drug-producing and transit countries of Latin America and the Caribbean has become a defining feature of US relations with many of these countries. Sometimes there is competition between foreign policy objectives and drug policy goals.

Ms. SHANNON: Drug policy's always the least important to the movers and shakers in Washington, D.C. Oh, people talk a good game, particularly right before elections, but the minute the election is over, anytime we're dealing with trade, anytime we're dealing with the economies of Texas, and Arizona, and California, you can bet your bottom dollar that jobs and trade are going to come first.

NARRATOR: This shifting of priorities sends a conflicting message to those who are supposed to be our partners in fighting drugs and may become a larger problem in the future if the US increases its international involvement in counter-narcotics missions. Some question whether or not the US should allow itself to get pulled into greater international involvement.

Senator BIDEN: I hope so. And that sounds strange to say hope to be pulled in. I think when we have other countries asking our drug enforcement agents to come in to train them, to help them prepare to deal with drug strategies, it's a reflection of what I said at the outset of out interview. And that is, in the international scene, these countries who didn't care much about it before find they're now ravaged with consumption and the effects of that ravaging. Same crime waves, same problems.

And so, the fact that they're willing to organize their efforts and really try to deal with drug reduction, drug distribution, and drug gangs is a very helpful and hopeful sign. So, in that sense, I want to be dragged in. I want to be dragged in, because if we're not, it's going to get our shore eventually.

NARRATOR: Emphasis on law enforcement and interdiction alone have not stopped the flow of drugs. Most say this is a result of not addressing the nature of the problem -- the demand here in the US for illegal drugs.

GEN McCAFFREY: There are a reasonably few number of Americans addicted to chronic drugs. We say it's around 3.6 million. That population will do anything to get at the drug supply, and the supply of drugs grossly exceeds the demand. That's at the heart and soul of the problem.

NARRATOR: Without addressing the demand for drugs, it may be impossible to make a large dent in the drug trade. The allure of making a high profit ensures that there will always be someone to fill the gap created by the arrest of a dealer or the downfall of a cartel. And traffickers have proven increasingly effective in adapting to our interdiction efforts.

No one is claiming that we should eliminate funding for interdiction and other supply side activities entirely. But some suggest refocussing our efforts on more effective programs at home.

Ms. YOUNGERS: The bottom line is that while we certainly need to maintain some level of law enforcement activity, we need to recognize that these programs in and of themselves are not going to solve the problem and we need to look to where we can more effectively dedicate increased funding that is available.

GEN McCAFFREY: Until we move adequate resources into prevention and treatment programs aimed at the four million addicted Americans, we're never going to break out of the is dilemma.

NARRATOR: Furthermore, labeling drugs as a national security threat diverts attention and funding away from serious social and health problems in order to justify a more militarized campaign on our borders and abroad.

Ms. YOUNGERS: I think, fundamentally, we have to recognize that the very real problem of drug abuse and drug-related violence in this country must be dealt with here at home.

Ms. SHANNON: I think that we have to concentrate our efforts on education and prevention. Treatment programs may work and they may work quite well, but they're only going to get to a fraction of the people who need the help. And unless you get an awful lot more people off drugs, you're going to keep having this high demand.

GEN McCAFFREY: At the end of the day, what we've suggested is the drug war isn't going to be won by anybody's armies. At the end of the day, it's properly the function of civilian law enforcement and, even more critically, it seems to us, teachers, ministers, parents, community coalitions.

ADM SHANAHAN: Not long ago, a US Marine stationed on the Mexican border shot and killed an 18-year old student. This was the second shooting incident on the border this year involving the military. This is a tragic reminder that the role of the military is not to enforce the law. The military is trained to break things and kill people, not to arrest and detain drug smugglers.

While the eradication of drugs from our society is an essential goal, we need to guard against using the drug war as a cover for unauthorized military assistance to foreign governments. We need to guard against the diversion of military resources which could jeopardize military readiness. And we need to be perfectly clear on the roles and missions assigned to Department of Defense personnel and other responsible agencies.

For "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I am Jack Shanahan.