IS THE DRUG WAR BEING WON OR LOST?

Andy Messing of the National Defense Council Foundation and
David Boaz of the Cato Institute debate the efficacy of supply-side
anti-drug efforts.

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: ... carrying a family of American missionaries.
CIA contract employees on a U.S. surveillance plane mistakenly
targeted the missionary aircraft as possibly carrying drugs and drug
dealers.

The family's mother and an infant daughter died in the crash, but
surviving were the father, a son and the pilot. The badly wounded
pilot today saying the tragedy will always haunt him.

The State Department says the CIA spotters cautioned the Peruvians
against attacking the plane, and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer
said the Americans had followed proper procedures. But President Bush
yesterday suspended drug surveillance flights, and the planes today
remained grounded.

The broader question: Should the U.S. be actively fighting drugs in
Peru, Colombia and elsewhere? Is the drug war being won or lost? And
is the Bush administration concentrating too much on drug supply and
not enough on drug demand? -- Bill Press.

BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Major Messing, welcome to CROSSFIRE.

RET. MAJ. ANDY MESSING, NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL FOUNDATION: Thank
you, sir.

PRESS: Let's just review the facts here, if we can, of this tragedy in
Peru. A plane carrying American missionaries shot down by the Peruvian
military. A woman and her daughter killed; the pilot seriously
wounded, said he may not walk again for at least another year; The
plane having been identified by an American surveillance plane manned
by the CIA. How can the United States government ever justify being
an accomplice to such a tragedy as that?

MESSING: Well, as you know, this is the second incident, the first one
being a C-130 that was strafed by the Peruvian air force. The idea
that the CIA had contract people on board bothers me, rather than
direct CIA personnel or American military people because they have a
higher standard, in my opinion, than would the contractor personnel.

And if nothing else, they wouldn't have been intimidated by this
Peruvian liaison officer on board the aircraft. So, there's a lot of
things that need to be looked at with regard to that particular aspect
of this very successful program. PRESS: But the fact that the CIA
today is saying that they did everything right and the Peruvians, that
they issued all these warning and told them be careful, don't
particularly go in there, but the Peruvians ignored them, I have to
ask you, sir, why should we believe what the CIA is saying? They lied
in Vietnam. They lied about Guatemala. They lied about Cuba. I
mean, that's their mission to lie. Why should we believe them?

MESSING: Well, what's going to happen is there is three sources of
radio transmissions that we can tap into, NSA, CIA, on board tapes,
and then, of course, the Peruvian air force and there may be even a
fourth source, which is the tower itself may have been recording the
transmissions of the pilot between the tower.

So, we're going to have a lot of evidence not to -- we may even have
gun camera footage from the A-37, also, that winds up being part of
the evidentiary procedure here. So, we're going to wind up getting to
the bottom of this, and I think the president stepping back and
suspending things so everybody can take a good look at what fault happened.

The policy is good, it's just that it was executed poorly in this
particular case and, of course, it's a quadraphonic tragedy. It's an
American who has, you know, hurt Americans that were hurt. It was an
innocent person, Americans, missionaries and to top it all off, a
beautiful woman and her infant daughter.

NOVAK: David Boaz, Major Messing said this was a successful program,
and that's not only person who thinks so. General McCaffrey, who was
the drug czar in the Clinton administration, had to say about this
shoot down program and let's listen to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DRUG CZAR: The Peruvians have
shot down more than 25 aircraft over the past six or seven years, and
it darn near put a stop to air smuggling of drugs. Now, they're using
Brazilian airspace and Venezuelan airspace. But you know, there's
been an enormous decrease in cocaine production in Peru, more than 65
percent, much of it due to this very determined drug interdiction
effort by the Peruvians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: So don't we have, in all candor, one mistake in what has been a
very successful program?

DAVID BOAZ, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CATO INSTITUTE: Not at all. We
have a terrible tragedy that was an inevitable consequence of a policy
of following planes, of authorizing the Peruvian air force, agreeing
with the Peruvian air force's policy that it will shot down planes if
it doesn't know what they're doing, if they don't respond or for some
reason, they don't know.

This is like a guilty until proven innocent policy. This time, it's
been a tragedy. They have shot down 25 planes. Do we know this is
the first time they've shot down a wrong one? It's the first time
they shot down a wrong one with Americans on it, but the general kind
of acknowledged what's going here. What we do is we concentrate and we
can crack down and we can reduce the amount of cocaine coming out of
Peru, and what appears? It comes out Colombia. It comes out of
Bolivia. And now they're worried it's going to come out of Venezuela.
I don't call that a success.

NOVAK: I just wonder, Mr. Boaz, I think all of us, including you,
think there are times when the national security of the United States
requires direct intervention. There's no question we're intervening
in Peru and Colombia.

Some of us, I think Cato Institute and I agree about the question
about whether the invention in Haiti, the intervention in the Balkans
was desirable or necessary, but this is at America's doorstep, where
both Peru and Colombia at various stages have had communist guerrillas
financed by narco-terrorists. Major Messing has said both have been
endangered, particularly Colombia, of being a narco-state. Don't you
think that is a time when the United States' intervention is desirable
and necessary?

BOAZ: No, I think that's a time when United States intervention is
particularly dangerous. We are laying the groundwork for another
Lebanon, another Somalia, another entanglement like we had in Central
America in the 1980s. I think this is very dangerous, and it's not
working.

Drugs prices in the United States are down. What does that tell you?
It tells you that more drugs than ever are coming in. We are trying
to export the solution to our drug problem in the United States. If
we can't stop people from using drugs here, we tell the poor
governments of Colombia and Peru that it's their responsibilities, and
I think that's wrong.

PRESS: Major, I can see you want to jump in there.

MESSING: The last eight years have been a sabbatical. You know, if it
wasn't for Barry McCaffrey getting with the program in the last three
year because of Congress putting a blow torch to Barry McCaffrey, we
would have had a continued downward spiral. We had a lot of success
all way up until November of 1992. We had cocaine prices increased,
availability started going down and then under the Clinton
administration, it was, you know, they went out to lunch or something.

So, what you need is consistency in the drug war. We're never going
to win the drug war, but what you're going to have is a reduction of
availability means a reduction of use means a reduction of health
problems means a reduction of crimes means a reduction of problems in
the work force. So, you wind up, you know, having that kind of thing.

PRESS: But we've been hearing that for long time. The drug war, let's
give Nixon credit for starting it. In 1968, we were spending $65
million. Under Ronald Reagan, 1982, $1.6 billion. Last year, under
Bill Clinton, it was $19.2 billion, and people like you are still
defending it. When are you going to admit after spending all this
money for all these years that it's not working?

MESSING: Every time you have a ton of cocaine go across our borders,
you have a billion dollars of ancillary damage: health damage, crime,
all kinds of extra costs associated with it. The point is that you
have to provide that back pressure on this event or else you have a
bifurcation of capitalism where dark side capitalism takes root,
criminal capitalism, of you must, and democracies in these regions are
threatened at the throat.

I mean, it's a critical thing that you wind up having this back
pressure or else you have unfettered drug production and then you have
compounded problems by a factor of 10, maybe 20.

PRESS: David Boaz.

BOAZ: You're a real supply-sider, Andy. You think if drugs come in,
that's what causes the problem. What causes the problem, to the
extent that there's a problem, is that Americans want to use cocaine
and heroin and marijuana. And you know, Bill, you said $19 billion,
but in fact, the state and local government spend about the same amount.

So, you're talking about around $40 billion, and it went up every year
during the Clinton administration. The number of arrests went up
every year during the Clinton administration. We're arresting 1.6
million people a year for using drugs. How many would be enough?

MESSING: The fact is I'm also interested in demand
side.

BOAZ: Arresting 1.6 -- excuse me.

PRESS: Go ahead.

MESSING: The point is, demand side activities take up a big chunk of
that money. This is not all supply side interdiction. The point is,
you wind up having to convince the American public that this causes
problem to our environment. This causes problems to our health. This
promotes crime. But you have to have consistent leadership, just like
we had under Ronald Reagan, and for the most part, Bush I.

Those two presidents started being consistent and it started having an
impact on the reduction of drug use and the prices of drugs went up.

PRESS: I believe President Clinton was as bad as they were in terms of
the money he spent on the drug wars, as David pointed out. But look at
what we're doing out there, like last year, Colombia, $1.3 billion.
Three-quarters of it is for military assistance. We have U.S. forces
there that are in the field training troops. Their U.S.- supplied
combat helicopters, we're helping them pour poison from the ground to
fight guerrillas.

You said, another Somalia. It sounds to me like an another Vietnam.
MESSING: No, it's been capped in two instances by the Senate and a
matter of fact, Bobby Byrd, who you are probably a fan of, wound up
capping subcontractors. We are capped just like we were in El
Salvador, so we have an upper limit on the amount of American
personnel involved in this particular issue. The point...

BOAZ: Famous last words.

MESSING: 55 held the whole time.

NOVAK: Before we take a break, quick, one thing. You talked about,
having another Central America. Isn't it fact that we saved Salvador
and Nicaragua from Communist dictatorships and they both have
struggling but Democratic systems right now?

BOAZ: No. I think what really happened is we got involved in some
very bloody civil wars and then the Cold War ended, and without the
Soviet Union around, things changed.

NOVAK: I think you have your time lines wrong.

PRESS: We will take a break there and we want to tell you that both of
our guests have agreed to stay around and be in the chatroom, so you
can throw questions to them after Bob and I get our turn. Join them
by logging on to cnn.com/crossfire. Let's look at the war on drugs in
general. Is it working or is it time to try something else? We will
be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. It's been more than 30 years since
the United States declared a war on drugs. A war embraced and
continued by every president since, Republican and Democrat. Yet
Americans continue to use illegal drugs. Some of them in greater
numbers than ever. Does that mean the war on drugs is not working? Or
that we're not yet doing enough? And should the American military be
involved? That's tonight's debate with: retired Major F. Andy Messing
Jr., executive director of the National Defense Council Foundation;
and David Boaz, executive vice president of the CATO foundation --
Bob.

NOVAK: Mr. Boaz, I would like to read you something that was said by
the president of Colombia, Andres Pastrana, and we'll put it up on the
screen.

"I am certain that our bilateral efforts will have a positive and
lasting effect in reducing the amount of the drugs that reach American
streets and schools and reducing the violence that plaques Colombia."

That is his optimistic prediction but the question is: isn't that a
desirable goal to try to reduce the amount of drugs coming into the
United States and the violence in Colombia by the narco terrorists?

BOAZ: It would be a wonderful goal. The problem is, we have been
spending a lot of money, risking lives, 2 million Colombians drove
from their homes in the civil war... NOVAK: We drove them?

BOAZ: No. Not us, but the civil war that we are getting ourselves
involved in, and I don't think that's a good policy. I think what we
ought to be looking at, as long as there is demand for drugs in this
country, there is going to be drugs coming in here, and if you stop it
in Peru, they'll do it in Colombia and if you stop it in Colombia, it
will move to Venezuela. And that's why the president of Uruguay has
said, we ought to look at legalizing...

NOVAK: I just want to ask you about Colombia, Mr. Boaz. What is your
alternative? Let's say, heaven forbid, that you were president and
you were making these decisions, what would you do? Would you say,
OK, we will let the narco terrorists take over Colombia, we will not
try to impede...

BOAZ: No.

NOVAK: What is your alternative policy?

BOAZ: I would take hundreds of millions of dollars away from the narco
traffickers by legalizing drugs in the United States so that the price
would fall and they wouldn't be getting 500 million dollars. We have
made the left wing guerrilla in Colombia the best funded guerrilla
movement in the world, because of the high price drugs demand under
prohibition.

MESSING: That's simply bizarre. To legalize drugs, you wind up
creating a tenfold problem at the outset. I mean, you could have
unfettered use and then, you would wind up -- which one of 230 drugs
do you legalize? So you legalize half of them, and some of them are
instantly mind bending; we can go into an argument, it would take
another two hours of your time.

But the factory means the Colombia National Police stopped 35 tons.
All total, the Colombian government, including the Colombian Navy,
stopped a total of 62 or 63 tons, and like I said, every ton you stop
four are deployed, means a billion dollars of our economy is saved and
thousands of lives are saved in the United States, because they can't
use that 65 tons. And that's what it boils down to.

He says, well, you get from Venezuela or you get it from another
source. No, that's not necessarily the case. If you are being
consistent, and you apply pressure across-the-board, you wind up, like
we did all the way up to until November 1992 having a downturn in use.
And you've got to always couch that with demand-side activities.

PRESS: Let me challenge that thinking that you're ever going to stop
this supply, and you won't believe a left-winger...

MESSING: Not stop. Reduce, reduce. You've got to reduce
it.

PRESS: Even -- even if you're going to win this war on drugs by
focusing on supply. Don't take it from a left-winger like me. I'd
like you to listen to someone else who's known as a hard-liner. At
his confirmation hearing in January, here's what he had to say about
whether the supply solution is going to work. Here's Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I am one who believes that
the drug problem is probably overwhelmingly a demand problem and that
it's going to find -- if the demand persists, it's going to find ways
to get what it wants. And if it isn't from Colombia, it will be from
somebody else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: As long as Americans are willing to pay for it and they want
it, it's going to get here, Major, you know that.

MESSING: You've got to remember Secretary Rumsfeld was secretary of
defense in 1974, '75 at the height of the Vietnam experience, with all
the drug problems associated with the military then. The point being
that he's out of step, and what I mean by that is right now drug
dealers are putting in more product than we can consume. And the
object to the exercise is to reduce the product down as far possible
so that you have less use and less damage to the American economy...

PRESS: Let me give you one other...

MESSING: ... and less lives lost.

PRESS: Let me give you one other piece of evidence, if I can. The RAND
Corporation -- again, no left-wing group -- for the Pentagon did a
study in 1996 that showed that money spent on treatment is seven times
move effective -- if we could put it on the screen -- than domestic
law enforcement, 11 times more effective than police interdiction, 23
times more effective than fighting drug production.

MESSING: Well, I...

PRESS: Why are you stuck on this supply solution?

MESSING: I don't necessarily -- no, I'm not stuck on just the supply
solution. You have to demand and supply simultaneously. It's like a
juggler that's throwing up balls. He has to concentrate on the balls
equally.

But the fact remains there is less use -- I mean, less product means
less use means less problems. Simple.

NOVAK: Mr. Boaz, I'd like you to tell me just how you're going to deal
with the legalization of drugs? How are you going to keep cocaine and
heroin out of the hands of 18-year-olds or 16-year-olds?

BOAZ: Well, I don't think you -- I don't think you've left me enough
time for that. But what I would say is we tried prohibiting alcohol
in this country and we found that it was a failure.

MESSING: Not the same. Not the same.

BOAZ: Now we're trying to prohibit cocaine and marijuana, and we're
finding that that's a failure, and the American people know that.

NOVAK: We're out of time. Thank you very much, David Boaz, Andy
Messing. And I will explain in closing comments what's wrong with Mr.
Press' position.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: Major Andy Messing and David Boaz are both in the chat room
right now. So just log on to cnn.com/crossfire to ask them a question.

Bill, I broke the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) liberal a long time ago. Therefore,
intervention when the American national interest is not at stake, as
in Haiti, and against intervention where it is at stake, as in the
Andean question.

But the real question, Bill...

(LAUGHTER)

... I have to ask you is this: Do you agree with David Boaz that the
alternative to intervention is legalization of drugs, because that's
the only viable alternative to this plan?

PRESS: I'll get to your question after I make my own statement, Bob.
The problem with you conservatives is you talk about less government
and you talk about spending less money and you talk about killing
programs that don't work, and you find a ripe target like the war on
drugs and yet you support it. You as a conservative ought to be
against this war on drugs because it's not working.

NOVAK: Answer my question.

PRESS: Now, I'll answer your question. Yes, I support legalization
along with George Shultz and some other conservatives.

NOVAK: Well, he's not for legalization of drugs.

PRESS: Listen: Regulate it and tax it and make money on it. That's the only
solution.

NOVAK: And that is the road to deprivation of all Americans.

PRESS: That's what they said after Prohibition.

From the left, I'm Bill Press. Good night for CROSSFIRE. I'll see
you later in "THE SPIN ROOM."

NOVAK: From the right I'm Robert Novak. Join us again next time for
another edition of CROSSFIRE!