GENERAL LOSES OUT IN THE WAR OF WORDS

It was billed as a UK-US drug summit, but British officials claim it
didn't turn out quite that way. A three-day visit to London by General
Barry McCaffrey, the US "drug tsar", provoked embarrassment and
tension in equal doses.

According to UK officials, the visit to London as part of a European
tour that ended yesterday in Paris appears to have been arranged by
Gen McCaffrey with one eye firmly based on a pre-election US audience.

In 1996, he was chosen by President Bill Clinton as director of the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. To Republicans,
Gen McCaffrey hasn't been tough enough on drugs, while "legalisers"
have argued that the US continues to ignore the underlying social
causes of addiction by putting too much emphasis on law
enforcement.

His European agenda was arranged in an effort to show that this
Vietnam and Gulf War veteran-turned-social-policy-crusader could be
all things to all men.

Yet many British observers were struck more by his military demeanour
and that of some of his entourage. In a press briefing at a US embassy
residence last Sunday, Gen McCaffrey tried to eschew such military
metaphors as "war on drugs", instead describing drug abuse by one in
17 Americans as a "cancer".

When questioned he used less diplomatic language, confirming his
belief in the need for more military assistance to Colombia where
"vital US interests are at stake", and implying European governments
needed to do more in fighting drugs. Gen McCaffrey presented officials
charts claiming that the Colombians were increasingly redirecting
their cocaine from the US and towards Europe.

The rest of his time in London was taken up with hastily rearranged
schedules partly due to threats of demonstrations by "legalisers" and
partly the absence of government ministers.

Some British officials found themselves trying to smooth over the
results of the heavy-handed tactics sometimes adopted by the McCaffrey
entourage.

On Monday, a visit to Goldsmith's College to mark the inauguration of
a new drug information web site had the McCaffrey bandwagon unsettled
by a student demonstration and by the statement of a leading academic
expert on drug prevention who told him that UK schools had nothing to
learn from an educational programme Britain had imported from the US.
"Our research shows that it simply is not working here," said Louise
O'Connor, head of the drugs research unit at Roehampton University.

The following day, British and US officials issued a joint statement
that both sides had "exchanged views and experiences on a wide range
of drug policy issues" at a press conference where tension simmered.
While the official spin was on co-operation, the trip served to
underline the differences in personalities and the policies involved
in both countries.

The government has borrowed the term "drug tsar" from the US to boost
the profile of Keith Hellawell, the former senior policeman given the
job of national drugs co-ordinator. He has tried recently to redefine
himself in the public eye as a conciliator between government
departments.

Unlike his US counterpart, the UK drugs co-ordinator has no
ministerial status or obvious executive powers. But in an interview on
the eve of the McCaffrey visit, Mr Hellawell argued that this put him
at an advantage compared to the general.

"I have a direct line to those involved in drugs programmes on the
ground. My job is to co-ordinate between ministries, not to fight for
my own budget. I'm not seen as a threat by other ministers," he said
conscious of Gen McCaffrey's struggles in dealing with other
departments of state and Congress.