DRUG CZAR'S DRIVEN STYLE COMES UNDER FIRE IN AUDIT

WASHINGTON -- The hard-charging former Army general who's overseeing
American anti-drug efforts is a relentless taskmaster whose overworked
office has suffered disturbingly high turnover, auditors say in a sobering
new report released Thursday.

Drug czar Barry McCaffrey, whose responsibilities include a new
multimillion-dollar campaign targeting the Central Valley's covert
methamphetamine trade, comes under sustained fire in the highly detailed
audit ordered by Congress. The criticism includes suggestions that
McCaffrey's staff at the Office of National Drug Control Policy is
stretched too thin to properly oversee programs like the one under way in
Sacramento and eight other Central Valley counties.

"Conflicts, high stress levels and demanding conditions have yielded a
difficult work environment," said auditors with PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
"The workload situation has become problematic, given the unfilled
positions associated with recruitment and retention problems."

While praising the drug office's "effective and results-oriented manner" in
meeting external responsibilities, the auditors lambasted the office's
internal operations. The auditors specifically cited the 68 percent staff
turnover during McCaffrey's tenure and the challenges posed by rapid growth
of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

McCaffrey had his staffers counter the 55-page audit with their own 12-page
response.

"They kind of missed the boat in terms of understanding what happens here,"
drug office spokesman Bob Weiner said Thursday.

McCaffrey's staff cited alleged "errors of fact, serious omissions or
contradictions" in the audit report. Congress ordered the audit last year
after lawmakers said they were "dismayed" that McCaffrey kept asking for
more workers despite the high attrition rate on his staff.

The Central Valley region from Sacramento County south to Kern County is
one of 31 regions nationwide identified for special funding and
coordination assistance under the HIDTA program. Lawmakers like the
program, and it has grown from five regions costing $25 million in 1990 to
the 31 regions costing about $192 million now. However, while the number of
HIDTA regions has doubled during McCaffrey's four years as director of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, the program's budgets are still
managed by only two financial officers.

"Thus, the workload has been handled through an increase in the
'operational tempo' of the organization in order to gain more results from
existing resources," auditors said.

Auditors consider this particularly troublesome both because of the danger
of oversight mistakes and because so many other staffers are devoted to
supporting McCaffrey's intensive public outreach. A West Point graduate and
commanding public speaker who retired as a four-star general, McCaffrey
spends about one-quarter of his time giving various interviews, speeches
and public appearances. Auditors estimated he makes 386 public appearances
a year -- more than one a day.

Auditors contend that this has taken up so much staff time that "there has
been an erosion in (the office's) ability to conduct its primary objectives."

Bill Ruzzamenti, the Fresno-based director of the Central Valley HIDTA,
acknowledged the drug office staff has seemed overworked and potentially
subject to burnout, but he stressed that they are also highly capable.

"They are incredibly responsive," Ruzzamenti said. "They get back to you
very quickly. They are overworked, but it has not in any way jeopardized
their ability to do their job."

McCaffrey's allies, moreover, note that intensive travel and public
speaking are an integral part of his job's bully pulpit. Until McCaffrey
assumed the drug czar's job, first established over President Reagan's
objections in 1988, congressional Republicans had delighted in calling
President Clinton "AWOL on drugs."

McCaffrey will be making his first swing by the Central Valley HIDTA on
July 15, when he will meet with regional law enforcement officers. The
Valley's anti-methamphetamine effort is receiving $1.4 million this year
through the drug office program; it is considered a big boost by Valley
police, though it is only a small part of the government's $18 billion
anti-drug program supervised by McCaffrey.

"Gen. McCaffrey is a committed public servant who believes deeply in the
mission and who gives his all, and he expects those around him to do the
same," said former California Democratic Assemblyman Tom Umberg, who served
about 30 months as McCaffrey's deputy.