THE DRUG WAR: WHERE SHOULD THE BATTLE LINES BE DRAWN?

THE POINT With Greta Van Susteren. An American woman and
her infant are killed. A tragic incident as the war on drugs hits a
sour note.

(Begin Video Clip)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will wait to see all
the facts before I reach any conclusions about blame.

(End Video Clip)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, new questions about how the U.S. is fighting the
war.

(Begin Video Clip)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You really can't control drugs by stopping the flow
in. What you have to do, I think, is come up with a plan: a
controlled, regulated legalization of drugs.

(End Video Clip)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight's POINT: The Drug War: Where Should the Battle Lines Be
Drawn?

Plus, the benefits of landing in here.

THE POINT. Now from Washington, Greta Van Susteren.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: What exactly is the war on drugs? We've been
talking about it as a nation for years, debating it, spending a lot of
money on it. But where does this war begin? Here at home or tens of
thousands of miles away?

There is new reason to bring this up again, and it's a horrifying
one.

Tonight's "Flashpoint" -- The Drug War: Where Should the Battle Lines Be
Drawn?

A tragic case of mistaken identity. Peru shoots down a missionary
plane similar to this one in the mistaken belief it carried drugs.
Now the White House is questioning Peru's actions. But Peru says its
military acted properly. Whoever is to blame, an American woman and
her 7-month-old daughter are dead, and Washington is wrestling with
renewed doubts about an expensive and long-running battle with no end
in sight.

The war on drugs has sparked interest far beyond Washington's
corridors of power. Hollywood has embraced the subject with two drug-
related movies in theaters right now. The latest is "Blow," with
Johnny Depp playing a true-life drug dealer making easy money.

(Begin Video Clip, "Blow")

JOHNNY DEPP, ACTOR: 36 hours.

PAUL REUBENS, ACTOR: 36 hours -- I don't believe we got rid of it in
36 hours.

DEPP: It's fair to say you underestimated the market,
Derek.

REUBENS: Right on. It's going to take us longer to sell it than it
did to sell it.

(End Video Clip)

VAN SUSTEREN: The movie "Traffic" takes a grittier approach, and
covers the war from Washington to Tijuana. Here's a montage.

(Begin Video Clip)

(Begin Video Clip, "Traffic")

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES, ACTRESS: ... high-impact, pressure-molded. It's
odorless, undetectable by the dogs. Undetectable by anyone.

(End Video Clip)

(Begin Video Clip, "Traffic")

ZETA-JONES: I want the principal witness against my husband
killed.

(End Video Clip)

ANNOUNCER: This winter...

(Begin Video Clip, "Traffic")

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, ACTOR: We're going after their top
guys.

(End Video Clip)

(Begin Video Clip, "Traffic")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Your government surrendered this war a long time
ago.

(End Video Clip)

ANNOUNCER: ... the director of "Erin Brockovich" and
"Out of Site"...

(Begin Video Clip, "Traffic")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: I have a job for you, but I don't have much
time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Both films, by the way, focus on the war on drugs being
waged internationally, south of our border, which again raises the
question being argued in this country on a daily basis: Where do we
draw the battle lines?

We've assembled our POINT panel and we're ready to tackle this
divisive topic. Ray Kelly, a former U.S. customs commissioner, joins
us from New York. On the West Coast, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine
Waters joins us from Los Angeles, along with, Kenneth Bucchi, a former
CIA narcotics agent. And from Miami, Edna Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize-
winning writer for "The Miami Herald," and of course, the author of
the novel "You Only Die Twice."

Welcome to all of you. Let me first start with you Ken. Dead woman,
dead child -- Americans, some say, may have seemed to wash their hands
and is blaming it on the Peruvian government, the military. What's
your reaction to what happened, Ken?

KENNETH BUCCHI, FORMER CIA NARCOTICS OFFICER: Well, first of all, I
think that long before you ever enter into such an agreement with
another country you have to have an absolute signed written agreement
as to what the protocol is going to be when you intercept one of these
aircraft.

There should have been something not unlike a Dash one that a pilot
has in his aircraft that says, you know, here's the criteria by which
we intercept, here are the -- here are the rules of engagement. And
they should have literally been talking to each other, going through
that checklist to make sure that this aircraft, you know, fit that
description.

And the problem I have -- you showed the file footage and you showed
this aircraft that's like right off the deck. It's like maybe 150
feet off the deck.

I guarantee you this plane here was flying at a normal altitude, it's
probably flying a normal pattern. They could have vectored from one
airport to the other, and knew that this thing was more than likely a
legitimate flight.

VAN SUSTEREN: Then, Ken, how do you explain this -- how do you explain
this abnormal occurrence, a dead mother and child?

BUCHANAN: Well, to be honest with you, I can't explain it. And to be
perfectly honest, I don't know that we would be hearing about this if
this was a dead, you know, Peruvian woman and child. And I think that
really says a lot about the war on drugs, that we care about this
because they were American.

I think that the reason why we do surveillance on planes in other
countries is because they have a much lower threshold for putting down
an aircraft than we would have. If America puts down an aircraft,
people are going to start paying attention: What did we do that for?

So I think that's why we tend to do these, you know, setting these
umbrellas up in other countries as opposed to our own.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ray, do you agree? Is this because (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
because of American victims of this accident?

RAY KELLY, FORMER U.S. CUSTOMS COMMISSIONER: No. I think this was a
horrendous tragedy and mistake on the part of the Peruvian air force.
Clearly, this is not the type of plane that carries drugs.

It had pontoons. It's a small aircraft. It had five human beings in
a plane, which you can see easily if you pull up next to the aircraft.

So this was obviously a violation of the procedures that were put in
place to avoid this type of incident.

Having said that, the program has been successful. The cultivation of
coca in Peru has fallen off significantly, over 60 percent, as I think
your setup piece said.

We -- the Peruvian government I think is clearly to blame here. We
provide intelligence information, as we do to many other countries in
the hemisphere. This is a terrible tragedy, but I think the program
itself with much better safeguards has got to continue.

VAN SUSTEREN: Congressman Waters, do you think this is clearly the
mistake of the Peruvian military, or do you assign some blame or
responsibility on the United States?

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, clearly, this is not simply
a mistake of the Peruvian government. We were involved in this. We
have those contractors that the CIA contracts that nobody knows about
who's making decisions. And it reminds me of what happened with some
of the misguided, wrong-headed policy during the time of the
Contra-Sandinista war, where the CIA and others were involved.

Clearly, we don't know what we're doing. This mistake cannot
just...

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, let me stop you right there.

WATERS: Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: You're a member of Congress. Why don't we know what
they're doing? I mean, somebody has got oversight of the CIA.
Someone's got to be looking to see what we're doing -- what the United
States is doing overseas.

WATERS: Oh, there's not nearly enough oversight of the CIA. They don't
let people like me into the intelligence room where they talk about
what they're doing.

We have an intelligence committee. But I want to tell you, nobody has
really taken on the CIA. No matter how much bungling, how many
mistakes, how many drug dealers they've involved themselves with, we
have not literally taken on the CIA. And we don't even know what
their budget really is.

I know one thing: We're putting $1.1 billion into this crazy war on
drugs in Colombia and in the neighboring communities, and I don't see
where we're having any impact at all. We need to be spending money on
prevention here at home, on education here at home and reducing the
demand.

All of these dollars that we're giving out to Colombia and other
places where I want to tell you, in Colombia we have the paramilitary
that's out there dealing in drugs themselves and we're supporting them.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. We're going to bring in Edna Buchanan. Edna
Buchanan, are we, is the United States winning or losing this war on
drugs?

EDNA BUCHANAN, CRIME WRITER: I don't think we're even holding our own,
and I think it's the mediocre people of the world who seem to in
control of submarines and airplanes and guns. It's totally
unconscionable that this happened to this mother and her little baby
named Charity. And I think that -- I hate drugs. I absolutely hate
them. As a young reporter, I covered so many cases where there would
be a young person lying on a dirty bathroom floor with a needle still
in his arm. I covered the cocaine wars in Miami, shootouts in broad
daylight.

And we're losing and you can't call it off. There's too many people
making a living off of it. And you can't legalize it, because it's
too dangerous. It's evil.

What we need are fresh approaches, the great minds of America to find
out how to do this. Incarceration didn't work, education didn't work.
Clearly, what we're doing now doesn't work.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Let me bring in -- you're a bright mind, and
you're a successful author and a successful reporter. You won a
Pulitzer Prize. What answers do you have, because it seems that so
far at least many people think this war is being lost? What do you
suggest?

BUCHANAN: Well, there are so many things, mediocre things. And the
American public is accepting this level of mediocrity where these
people lose the plane, get captured, stay in a hotel for a while, and
then are treated as heroes when they come home. I mean, what is
heroic about that? And also, I think the fact that the movie you just
showed a part of, "Blow." Here is this George Jung, who was a Pablo
Escobar counterpart in America. And in his book he even admitted if
you used cocaine during the '70s or the '80s, he bragged, he had
something to do with bringing it here. And here the movie is totally
sympathetic to him. Here is this Johnny Depp, this cool guy, and he's
lamenting that he's still in jail and that his daughter doesn't come
to visit him.

Well, probably, he should have -- if I had my way, he'd have the death
penalty. If I was his daughter, I wouldn't visit him either. All of
the lives that his greediness and his avarice mind caused -- I mean,
this man should thank god he's alive and not dead like Pablo Escobar
and the rest of them.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ray...

BUCHANAN: Instead, they portrayed him sympathetically.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ray, is the war actually being won? I realize that the
focus is on this mother and child who has died, and it's very easy to
be emotional. But is -- is there any progress? Is there any headway
in this war?

KELLY: In 1979, there were 26 million drug users in this country.
1999, the last year we have all statistics on, estimated to be 13
million, so you are talking about a 50 percent decrease. We are, in
my opinion, certainly moving in the right direction. This is a long,
complex effort. There are no easy answers if you -- if you look at
those two numbers, that's a dramatic decrease.

Yes, I think we need more resources devoted to prevention and
treatment, but it's not an either/or situation. We need interdiction
as well, it's a tough dirty business sometimes. But again, I see very
positive signs. If you talk -- use the term war, that brings about a
lot of emotions on a part of people. I think it's an effort -- it
really is ultimately a public health effort, a social effort, and we
are moving...

VAN SUSTEREN: Let me stop you right, because we have to take a break.
When we come back, we will ask Ken Bucchi, who has worked for the CIA
(Unintelligible) what he did to fight narcotics. Stay with us.

(Commercial Break)

VAN SUSTEREN: Welcome back. We're debating the war on drugs in the
U.S, and where the boundaries should be drawn. Joining us again are
former customs commissioner Ray Kelly, Representative Maxine Waters,
former CIA Narcotics Officer Kenneth Bucchi, and crime writer Edna
Buchanan.

Ken, to you: exactly what did you do as a CIA narcotics officer to
fight this war?

BUCCHI: It's hard to be exact. I'm sure Congresswoman Waters will not
like what I have to say. And I will agree with you, I want to say up
front, Congresswoman.

But, we basically had a complicit operation, a quid pro quo, if you
will, with the drug lords of Colombia and essentially, what we did is
we put the lion's share of the market in small cash of drug lords
hands, and we sent up corridors with ILS systems for those drugs to
flown in and then we took half of them.

VAN SUSTEREN: So, actually...

WATERS: See?

VAN SUSTEREN : ...in bed with the drug dealers in South
America.

BUCCHI: Yes. Now, understand where I'm coming from. I want to back
up. There're a lot of ground has been covered here, and I'm a little
concerned about what it is we think we are doing right now in South
America. No one in their right behind can believe for a moment that
the Colombian government gives a crap about Susie and Tommy doing
cocaine in America. They care about whether or not they will maintain
power in that country.

They maintain that power because we supply them with weapons. We
supply them with weapons on the guys we want to fight drugs. But the
reality is, we care more about who the drug dealer is, not that the
drugs are coming here. Meaning, that drugs beget power. You derive a
certain amount of political power from the money that's generated from
those drugs and we care about who those people are.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ken, who are these contracted employees of the
CIA?

BUCCHI: I don't that. I'm not the best qualified to talk about that,
but I think that's just another example of how, the more you
compartmentalize things, the more as a government, you can step back
and say, we are not responsible.

WATERS: That's right.

BUCCHI: We are doing that right now with this downing of this
aircraft. To me, this should have been strict guidelines -- long
before we have the military of Peru coming in and intercepting this
aircraft, we get the tail number, we check it out, so that we are not
reporting an aircraft that may be a civilian flight.

And the thing is, here's the thing: these contractors I'm sure are
paid based upon their success rate and the success rate comes about by
way of numbers of aircraft that they intercept. I'm hearing things
such as 60 percent of the drugs are being stopped coming out of Peru.
Does anybody in America today feel like 60 percent of the drugs came
off their streets?

(Crosstalk)

WATERS: Ken, I want to thank you for being the clearest voice that I
have ever heard coming out of the CIA or any of the related agencies
about what is going on in this drug war. Thank you, thank you, thank
you!

BUCCHI: You are welcome.

VAN SUSTEREN: What are going to do now, Congresswoman Waters, having
heard what Ken has to say.

WATERS: What we have got to do is try and make our politicians, who
have no courage, stand up and get a little backbone and really do the
right thing. They are afraid to go up against these agencies, afraid
they will be considered soft on crime, soft on drugs, and so they
don't do anything but sit back and protect them, and allow them to do
this terrible work they are doing without questioning what it is they
are up to.

VAN SUSTEREN: Edna, some people think the war on drugs should be
fought at the American border and not beyond the American border. Do
you agree on that?

WATERS: Well, it's not an either/or. There's room for some
interdiction, but I...

VAN SUSTEREN : Let me interrupted you, Congresswoman Waters, and let
me toss that question to Edna.

BUCHANAN: Well, I still question those statistics. All crime is
cyclical. Right now, murders and other crimes are down, but how do you
know how many drug users are out there? They are not going to check
off form at census time. We are seeing a rise here in Florida the use
of ecstasy and other drugs, and more people are learning how to use
drugs and keep it a secret. Politicians are quick to take credit when
the murder rate goes down, but when it goes up, they say, oh, there's
nothing you can do to can't stop that kind of crime, and that's the
case here.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ray, is it ridiculous to think we can never protect our
borders? Are our borders like sieves?

BUCHANAN: We can't protect them from the hundreds of thousands of
illegal aliens that -- we have new illegal aliens arriving every day,
and they deport some of them, and they're back two weeks later. So, if
we couldn't protect the borders from boatloads of human beings, how
will we protect it from this? We have...

VAN SUSTEREN : Ray, the borders. Are the sieves?

KELLY: Well, I think they're clearly a major challenge for law
enforcement. Trade has increased tremendously in the last five, six
years every commodity coming in, of course, potentially may have drugs
associated with it.

And that's one of the reasons I think we want to go to the source
countries if we can. There's an expression, we want to go to the
beehive instead of trying to catch the bees. And that's what we try
to do. We try to go to the source countries to work with those
governments, those legitimate governments. The decision to shoot down
this aircraft was a determination made by the Peruvian government.

WATERS: No! Not just the Peruvian government. The CIA...

KELLY: You are wrong.

(Crosstalk)

BUCHANAN: No decision; just somebody who wanted a kill on this
belt.

(Crosstalk)

WATERS: We were in contact with the Peruvian government, the Peruvian
pilots, we were in contact with them, we were involved in this
operation, don't try to eliminate all responsibility.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Before we run out of time, let me ask a
quick question of Ken.

Ken, what do you think would be the most shocking thing you could say
about the drug war itself in South America that the American people
don't know about that the CIA is doing?

BUCCHI: Well, I think the most shocking thing would not be that. I
think the most shocking thing to people would be that it would
probably be considerably more efficient and cheaper if we just went
down to Colombia and bought all the drugs ourselves.

But, you know, ultimately, the stuff is marked up 10, 20-fold by the
time it gets here, and the Colombians are becoming billionaires, but
we're spending $19 billion a year fighting it. And the states are
matching those funds. It's ludicrous. For every dollar you spend on
treatment, you spend 23 times that in stopping from coming to the country.

But what they'd be most surprised about is that there is a complicity.
Meaning, you talk about our borders being a sieve. Why is it during
the entire Cold War we never had one nuclear bomb put on Cessna and
flown in? I mean, it'd be a heck of a lot more likely to penetrate
our borders than launching one from Russia.

I don't know why...

(Crosstalk)

VAN SUSTEREN: That's going to have to be our last word, unfortunately,
Ken, and all of you. I'd love to bring you all back to talk about
this topic because, obviously, this is a war that's going to go on for
some time.

WATERS: Please do, Greta. And bring Ken back for certain so that he
can help us to understand what really goes on.

VAN SUSTEREN: And I'll bring all of you back. Ray Kelly,
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Kenneth Bucchi and Edna Buchanan, thank
you all very much.

BUCCHI: You're welcome.

WATERS: You're welcome.

VAN SUSTEREN: Up next: who said there were no fringe benefits to being
in the slammer? But don't try this at home. THE POINT is coming
right back after a short break and our MONEYLINE update.

(Commercial Break)

VAN SUSTEREN: You know what happens when you break the law. But what
happens when the government does it? Tonight's "Final Point":
ka-ching, ka-ching. The federal cash registers are open. Time to
grab a few fistfuls of cash. That is, if you are a felon and no one
is looking. And guess what? No one is looking.

Did you know that millions of dollars are wrongfully paid every year
to felons and fugitives, largely because our U.S. government has not
taken the time to match the names of medical and social security
beneficiaries with law enforcement records? That's right.

And here is one example: According to the Associated Press, Medicare
paid more than $25,000 for services to an inmate convicted of killing
his mother. Federal law prohibits most prisoners from receiving
Medicare and Medicaid payments, yet -- so is there -- are there still
reason? No one was checking. Who should and who should not receive
the funds?

So what's the federal government's excuse for this? Bad records,
unavailable information, or the argument that expensive new computer
programs would have to be devised.

My take: I wonder if the federal government would let me slide, too.
If I used the same excuses: bad records and unavailable information,
and if I didn't send in my income tax papers by April 15.

Let me know what you think. Send an e-mail to askgreta@cnn.com.
That's one word, askgreta.

I'm Greta Van Susteren in Washington.