RUMSFELD SAYS DRUG WAR SHOULD START AT HOME

WASHINGTON-Secretary of Defense-designate Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress
on Thursday that the nation's drug problem can best be attacked by drying
up demand rather than targeting foreign traffickers, as the U.S. military
is trying to do in Colombia.

At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
Rumsfeld said that he cannot yet offer a specific opinion on the U.S.
military's $1.6-billion effort in Colombia but believes that illicit drug
use is "overwhelmingly a demand problem."

"If demand persists, it's going to find ways to get what it wants,"
Rumsfeld said. "And if it isn't from Colombia, it's going to be from
someplace else."

Rumsfeld, who served as Defense secretary for 13 months in 1975 and 1976,
noted that efforts to halt the drug trade in Colombia may hurt neighboring
countries, as traffickers migrate across borders in search of safer ground.
"If I were the neighboring countries, I'd worry about the spillover as
well," he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Rumsfeld emphasized that he has yet to be briefed in detail on the U.S.
effort, which involves equipping and training Colombia's military to fight
narcotics traffickers. But his comments seemed to suggest philosophical
distance between his views and those expressed by the incoming Bush team.

During the campaign, President-elect George W. Bush indicated his general
support for the Clinton administration's effort in Colombia, which has
bipartisan backing on Capitol Hill. Comments by some members of the Bush
team have been taken to suggest that the new administration might even step
up the Colombia campaign.

Rumsfeld in the past has expressed skepticism about using the military to
counter drug trafficking.

At a 1997 round-table discussion among former Defense secretaries at the
Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta, Rumsfeld said that
efforts to use the military in this way are "nonsense," a transcript of the
session shows.

If the drug problem is ever solved, he said, it will be the result of
concerted efforts by "families, and by people, and by schools, and by
churches, not by the military."

The contents of the transcript were reported Wednesday by the Washington
Post and confirmed by Hodding Carter III, a former State Department
spokesman who moderated the 1997 session.

Rumsfeld, who is the first member of the administration's national security
team to face a confirmation hearing, was praised by Democrats and
Republicans alike for his skills and public service. Committee members of
both parties, including Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the current chairman,
said that they support his nomination.

Rumsfeld is a former Illinois congressman, White House chief of staff,
ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and corporate chief
executive. National missile defense is likely to be the most prominent
defense issue in coming months, as the Bush administration considers
whether to continue the Clinton administration's plans to build a limited,
land-based system to intercept a small number of enemy missiles.

Rumsfeld told the panel that he is firmly committed to deploying a missile
shield as a means of countering the intercontinental threat from countries
such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq, nations that have been acquiring
missile technology.

He said that the failure of the most recent two flight tests should pose no
obstacle to the project. He recalled that the Corona satellite program, in
the 1950s and 1960s, was marred by a dozen test failures, yet "they stuck
with it and it worked and it ended up saving billions of dollars."

Critics of the program have argued that it could cost $60 billion to $120
billion and unravel international arms control treaties, with no certainty
it will ever work as planned.

But Rumsfeld said Americans should consider the risks they will face if no
missile shield is built. Unless the United States finds a way to protect
allies from enemy missiles, those nations are likely to acquire missile
technology and fuel a new arms race.

And despite the presence of the huge U.S. nuclear arsenal, the threat of a
small-scale missile attack could force the White House one day either to
capitulate on national strategic goals or try to "preempt" an enemy strike,
as the Israelis did when they struck an Iraqi nuclear plant.

"Either we acquiesce and change our behavior. . . or we have to preempt,"
he said.

Rumsfeld argued that the United States should reduce its peacekeeping role
around the world and leave such missions to a greater extent to allies.

"I don t think it's necessarily true that the United States has to become a
great peacekeeper," he said.

When the United States puts a military detachment or a ship in a troubled
area, it becomes a potential target for adversaries, much more so than the
assets of allies, he said.

"When we're on the ground, we tend to become a bit more attractive . . . as
a target," he said.

Rumsfeld came under sharp questioning from Levin on comments he had made in
a conversation with President Nixon 29 years ago at the White House, where
Rumsfeld was then an aide.

In the comments, which were taped, Nixon used racist language in
criticizing his vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, for remarks Agnew had made
on a trip about Africans and African Americans. Rumsfeld acknowledged
Nixon's words, though it is not clear from the tape whether he shared
Nixon's views or simply didn't want to contradict his boss.

Rumsfeld told the committee that he "didn't remember the meeting or the
conversation at all." But he insisted that he did not agree with "offensive
and wrong characterizations."

Coincidentally, as Rumsfeld was testifying, the bipartisan space panel he
formerly headed was issuing its final report.

The report called for the United States to step up protection of satellites
and other equipment in space, even though such steps are likely to provoke
widespread objections abroad.