BUSH URGED ON DRUG EFFORTS WITH CUBA

WASHINGTON (AP) - Anti-Castro sentiment is preventing the United
States from helping Cuba combat drug traffikers' increasing use of
the Caribbean island as a transit point for cocaine and marijuana,
former White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey said Tuesday.

McCaffrey said the Bush administration should ask a reluctant
Congress to approve sharing intelligence on drug operations and
develop targeted training programs with the Cuban government.

He said domestic outrage with President Fidel Castro, heightened
during the Elian Gonzalez case and the shooting down of a plane
carrying three Miami activists, prevented him from opening a dialogue
with the Cubans on ways to jointly fight drug trafficking.

``Our current policy is mistaken and we do need to engage them on
this issue,'' McCaffrey said in a speech at Georgetown University.

About 40 percent of cocaine in the United States is transported
through the Caribbean and Cuban waters are increasingly being used as
a transit point for South American suppliers, U.S. officials say.

Low-flying planes fly over the Cuba's keys, dropping bundles of
cocaine that are picked up in speedboats destined for the United
States. Cuban officials reported that in 1999 alone more than two
tons of cocaine from airdrops washed ashore.

Cuba has denied the U.S. Coast Guard permission to enter its waters
in pursuit of drug smugglers. But in the past 10 months, Cuba has
allowed the Coast Guard to station an officer there to help monitor
drug shipments on a case-by-case basis. He is known to have
participated in only one drug seizure to date, of several hundred
pounds of marijuana, Coast Guard Cmdr. Brian Kelley said Tuesday.

U.S. officials also installed a direct telephone line between Coast
Guard officials in the region and Cuban border troops after McCaffrey
concluded in 1999 there was no evidence that the Cuban government was
acting in collusion with drug smugglers.

McCaffrey, a retired general, suggested Tuesday increasing the joint
effort by placing a Coast Guard admiral to head a counter drug center
in Key West, Fla., that also would be staffed with a representative
of the Cuban border patrol.

He said the two governments should share intelligence on drug
operations and set up joint training programs in addition to
exchanging information on drug prevention and treatment programs.

Simon Henshaw, a State Department officer who deals with Cuban
affairs, said the Coast Guard officer has had little success in
dealing directly with the appropriate Cuban officials.

Congress has repeatedly blocked efforts to increase cooperation with
Cuba on drug interdiction, citing the belief that either Cuban
officials are involved in the drug trade or that working with them
would legitimize Castro's communist government.