WAR ON DRUGS TAKES A TRAGIC TURN IN PERU

A former CIA narcotics officer explains how the CIA operated in Peru to try
to stem the flow of drugs. He believes the drug problem ultimately needs
to be controlled from the demand side.

STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to spend a little more time now
discussing that news from Peru, which is raising questions about the war on
drugs and just how far authorities should go in their effort to stem the
drug trade.

Joining us now from Los Angeles to discuss these issues is Kenneth Bucchi,
a former CIA narcotics officer.

Mr. Bucchi, thank you for joining us today.

KENNETH BUCCHI, FORMER CIA NARCOTICS OFFICER: Thank you.

FRAZIER: What exactly did you do? Were you up in plane like that U.S.
surveillance plane?

BUCCHI: No, I wasn't. In fact, the surveillance plane supported our
mission which was to intercept aircraft that were working sort of in a
cooperative agreement with the United States. We escorted planes in, we
shadowed them in, and we seized half the drugs that came into the
country. It was a way of controlling what was once a decentralized drug
operation in South America.

FRAZIER: You just said half of the drugs. Do you mean...

BUCCHI: Yes.

FRAZIER: ... you knowingly let the other half pass?

BUCCHI: It's -- you know, if I just leave it like that, it's going to
misrepresent what we did. If you try to stem the tide of drugs coming into
the country and you leave it in the hands of, you know, hundreds and
hundreds of people, anybody with a pint of, you know, chutzpah or in a
Cessna could fly in drugs. You can't control it.

So we put the lion's share of the drugs into the hands of select cache of
drug lords who become known as the cartel, and we set up lower-end systems
and ILS systems and, yes, we -- we assisted -- we facilitated the drugs
into the country, but the quid pro quo was we took half, which was far
greater than what we are presently seizing and what we used to seize.

FRAZIER: In some ways, that sounds like a ludicrous system, but you say it
was the best way to operate. BUCCHI: The best way to operate because you --
you don't have incidents like we had in Peru, for instance, but -- but
forget that. I mean, I think what happened in Peru begs the question if we
have CIA reconnaissance planes in Peru, never mind, you know, Colombia, why
are we not able to control our own borders? Why is it during the Cold War,
the Russians didn't see this as a great opportunity to throw a nuke on an
airline? The reality is we do know every aircraft that crosses into our --
you know, into our country, and we selectively seize.

FRAZIER: Well, you know, you wrote a book about this, which brings up the
point that many people have overlooked, and that is that the CIA itself
sees drug as enough of a threat enough to national security to be
involved. This wasn't a DEA operation.

BUCCHI: Well, yeah, but you know what? I think a lot of people see it in
the reverse. They see it as the drugs are an internal problem that the
CIA, you know, wishes to confront. It's not. It's -- it's the power that
the drug lords gain in those respective countries in South America that we
fear, and so we want to control those people. That's the -- the danger
that the CIA sees in drugs.

FRAZIER: In fact, you don't believe that this war on drugs is being
operated correctly. You'd like to attack the demand. Is that right?

BUCCHI: Well, yes, I -- you know, eventually. I don't think you can attack
the demand, you know, by just saying no kind of thing. I mean, I think
that you -- you know, what's -- what's really ludicrous is that we could
literally take the budget that we have presently for fighting just cocaine
and we could go down to Colombia and we could say, "We want to buy all your
drugs," and save money.

So it's -- it's obvious it has nothing to do with stopping the flow of
cocaine coming in because, when we were stopping it in the early '80s --
early mid-80s, cocaine went way up in -- in cost and in -- as a result of
that, crack cocaine was introduced because it was cheaper to purchase, and
so you really can't control drugs by stopping the flow in.

What you have to do, I think, is come up with -- and, again, this is going
to be a discourse over probably many years to come up with a plan, but a
controlled, regulated legalization of drugs.

FRAZIER: A very dramatic call, but if you're describing this correctly, it
sounds like a -- sort of a game of whack-a-mole. You just pound out one
drug, and another one pops up somewhere else.

BUCCHI: Absolutely. Look at -- look at the designer drugs. When I was an
undercover corporate investigator, crystal methamphetamine was being
made. I mean, I -- I'd go to houses that had crystal methamphetamine labs,
and these people had, you know, eighth-grade educations.

And I'm not trying to equate, you know, people who do drugs with lower
intelligence. All's I'm saying is that, if they are able to do it and
there's money to be made, as long as there is, you know, a receptive
audience out there for it, then someone is going to -- to fill that need,
fill that void.

FRAZIER: A market, right. Well, it's...

BUCCHI: Yes.

FRAZIER: ... a rather fatalistic view, but we're grateful for your insights
and especially coming, as you are, from a veteran of the CIA efforts. Mr.
Bucchi, thank you very much for joining us.

BALDRIDGE: You're welcome.