GENERAL SAYS DRUG MONEY FUNDS TERRORISTS

McCaffrey Speaks At SIUE's Arts & Issues Series

Drugs are funding the war in the Middle East, four-star Gen. Barry
McCaffrey, U.S. Army (Ret.), told the crowd gathered to hear his
discussion about the war on terror at an SIUE Arts & Issues
presentation Saturday night.

"(Our government) has been willfully in denial of that reality."

He said the majority of the 44 recognized terrorist organizations are
not funded by any communist state, but rather by the international
crime of drug smuggling.

"If you want to make hundreds of millions of dollars, you get into drugs."

Despite the large amounts of money funneled into these groups through
illegal drug operations, he said the terrorist organizations are
badly damaged and intimidated. A recent offensive against them
resulted in the most deaths since the Civil War Battle of Antietam,
McCaffrey said.

"The first day of the Tarawa offensive wasn't as bad," he said.

McCaffrey, who is the president of his own consulting firm in
Arlington, Va., was the most highly decorated and the youngest
four-star general in the U.S. Army. His 32-year Army career
stretches from Vietnam to Desert Storm where he served as commander
in chief of the U.S. Army.

McCaffrey had four tours of duty in Vietnam and was twice awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military medal for
valor. He also received two silver stars and three purple hearts for
wounds suffered in combat.

He is currently an adjunct professor of international affairs in the
U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. and is affiliated with NBC
News as national security and terrorism analyst. He writes a weekly
column about national security issues for the Armed Forces Journal.

McCaffrey said the United States is spending $10 billion a month in
the Iraq war and another $2 billion per month in Afghanistan. He
blamed the undebated and misguided strategies of former Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his team of arrogant and inexperienced
civilian associates in the Pentagon for the ill-advised war against
Iraq and for failing to acknowledge the mistake.

He told the audience in the Meridian Ballroom of the Morris
University Center that there hasn't been one strike within the United
States since 9/11 although both London and Madrid have had major
terrorist events.

He credited U.S. culture for allowing Middle Eastern immigrants the
freedom to practice their family traditions and religion.

"They enjoy freedom of religion here and they are not bothered by the
police," he said. "There is free education for their children,
including for girls."

Some two million or more of Iraq's most educated professionals such
as doctors and dentists have fled their country creating a tremendous
brain drain that imperils the ability to govern. They were the
pillars of Iraqi society and their absence is detrimental to the
rebuilding of a civil society in Iraq, he said.

There is global animosity against the United States foreign policy
and against the current administration. Calling the situation in
Iraq "a mess," McCaffrey said there is not likely to be any end to
U.S. involvement during the remaining months of the Bush
administration. Bush will get no support from the Democratic Congress
and it is unlikely the Democrats' slim majority can force him to retreat.

"Whether the new president will be a Republican or a Democrat, he or
she will have about a year to get Iraq straightened out before he or
she will be forced to pull the plug."

He said it would be three years at best before things are under
control in Iraq, depending on how painful it will be for our allies.
Further, U.S. leadership needs to build an alliance with Saudi Arabia
and other nations that have so far been uninvolved such as Japan,
Russia and China.

McCaffrey, who has made several trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, said
the U.S. Armed Forces cannot sustain the current rate of deployment
as the military serves two, three, four and even five tours with
little recovery time in between.

He noted other possible hot spots where U.S. troops could be called
into action such as Korea, Taiwan, Syria, Venezuela, Darfur and Cuba
after the death of Castro. He did not rule out Iran. He said the Army
is already under tremendous stress and could unravel.

The National Guard forces are needed at home to deal with possible
natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and the
fires raging through several states.

During a question and answer period after his lecture, McCaffrey said
he tends to be very protective of the civilian contractors in Iraq.

"Without these contractors, the U.S. military operations would come
to a complete halt," he said. "The overwhelming majority of them are
there because No. 1, they are patriots and second, it makes a lot of
sense to have civilian companies with expertise running the technical
equipment."

He said he does not include Blackwater in that description.

A sergeant first-class in the National Guard told McCaffrey that he
has been in Iraq two times and in his opinion, in addition to that
war and the one in Afghanistan, there is a third war going on in this country.

He blamed U.S. media for focusing on the negative aspects of the wars
and ignoring the positive.

"They over-analyze everything," he said. "And they are manipulating
the American public against the war."

McCaffrey took time to thank him for his service to the country
before telling him about his three tours of duty in Vietnam and his
son who is now in Afghanistan. He said there is always animosity
among the troops against the media and our political leadership.

"The older I get, the more I come to believe that aggressive media
are central to a successful democracy," he said, acknowledging his
association with NBC News.

He said he met with members of SIUE's ROTC before his lecture and
advised them to read a number of sources of news as well as
editorials from the Associated Press and Reuters to get a balanced
view of the news.

"The American people walked away from this war," McCaffrey said.
"They are not being manipulated by the media, but think this war was
a mistake. They think it was started under false pretenses and they
have seen an administration absolutely refuse to accept the facts.
They want no part of it."