COAST GUARD PULLBACK IS OMINOUS

MIAMI -- It's quite well known that Miami is like an open city. Its
geography, tributaries, dense seaside foliage (and willing confederates)
provide excellent access for smugglers, both of illicit goods and of illegal
refugees.

The area has been under siege for several decades, the flow of human and
manufactured contraband just short of unabated. U.S. Coast Guard personnel
and land-based Treasury Department agents have been fighting a frustrating
war against the daily invasions.

Now word comes that our first line of defense, the Coast Guard, is in a
state of retreat.

While the U.S. pours billions into foreign wars and millions more to correct
technical tragedies within the borders of our former enemies, the domestic
gate may have been forced ajar.

In testimony before a House Transportation Committee on June 7, Coast Guard
Commandant Admiral James M. Loy said that in January he directed his
Atlantic and Pacific area commanders "to reduce cutter days and flight hours
by approximately 10 percent."

He warned that this cutback could harmfully affect the Coast Guard's
response time to areas of drug and illegal alien interdiction.

It has to do with money. The Coast Guard says it doesn't have enough, didn't
budget enough, to meet the growing flood of illegal activity, particularly
since the cost of fuel has escalated.

While Adm. Loy used a figure of 10 percent before the committee, Coast Guard
spokesman Cmdr. James McPherson told the Miami Herald the cutback in refugee
and drug interdiction will be more like 30 percent.

Why should the nation be concerned? Why should this mean more to us than
that immense windfall being planning for the richest two percent of
Americans in the form of an eliminated estate tax? Perhaps, the illegal
refugee problem doesn't impact inland America as it does South Florida and
the remainder of the Sun Belt, but an unhampered flow of drugs will; it will
reach into every city and town in this country, into our schools and our
back alleys.

The federal government must give the tools to the Coast Guard to fight the
war it is chartered to do: to protect our coasts. The Congress thinks
nothing of pouring billions of dollars into our other military branches
involving foreign incursions; how about something that is leeching our
shores?

The Coast Guard needs supplemental funding and should get it immediately,
without the pitiful rancor of election-year politics hindering it for a
moment. Coast Guard fuel costs have risen by 7 percent and the branch has
been impacted by an estimated $17 million in unanticipated personnel
entitlements. This is peanuts compared to what it costs to build a bomber or
to maintain a force in Bosnia.

When, in May 1999, President Clinton asked the Congress for $6 billion to
wage an air war against Yugoslavia, the Congress collectively said: "Why
only $6 billion, Bill? Here, have $12 billion and hit 'em a good lick."

And so should it say to the Coast Guard today: "What do you need? We'll
write a check. We want our coasts protected from drug runners and illegal
aliens."

It shouldn't just be a "cost-o" increase either; it ought to be padded much
as was the Bombs-over-Belgrade request. Our Coast Guard presence needs to be
increased dramatically.

I often wonder how the Coast Guard plans its budget inasmuch as it is called
upon to perform so many costly operations that you wouldn't imagine the
Coast Guard to be doing, such as assisting in search-and-rescue operations
that are not even in U.S. waters. When a foreign-flag plane crashes in
international waters, or even in waters claimed by another nation, does
anyone reimburse the Coast Guard for its direct assistance?

There's no telling how much it will be called upon for any number of needs.
We do know, however, that the drugs and illegal aliens keep coming in
increasingly covert and dangerous ways.

Without the Coast Guard there to interdict -- to protect our shores -- that
type of activity is bound to increase. And that presents a greater danger to
the United States than any insurrection or cataclysm in Balkan Europe.