DOLE VOWS MORE BORDER AGENTS FOR DRUG FIGHT

BORDERFIELD STATE PARK, Calif. -- With the U.S.-Mexico border as her
backdrop, Elizabeth Dole vowed Thursday to more than double the number
of border patrol agents if elected president, not as a way to fight
illegal immigration but to block the flow of drugs from Latin America
to the United States.

Mrs. Dole, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president,
promised a renewed commitment to the war on drugs, bringing into the
fight two agencies, the U.S. Border Patrol and the National Guard,
whose primary mission has not traditionally focused on fighting drug
trafficking.

She called for bringing the number of agents patroling the U.S. border
to 20,000 from about 9,000, and said, "Clinton/Gore continues to
nickel-and-dime this agency and has not asked for a single new agent."
She also pledged an infusion of high-technology equipment for the
border service.

But a spokesman for the Border Patrol in San Diego, Roy Villareal,
said it had hired more agents and updated equipment since 1994 under
"Operation Gateway," an effort to stem illegal immigration. Similar
operations had been started at other major border crossings. The
patrol's problem was not lack of money, he said, but recruitment and
attrition. "For every 54 people we interview," he said, "we have one
recruit."

In other respects, Mrs. Dole's proposal resembled the tenets and
language of a group of conservative Republicans in Congress, led by
Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman of upstate New York, who have pummeled the
Clinton administration over drug policy, particularly in Colombia.

Mrs. Dole called rebels who control a swatch of Colombia the size of
Switzerland "narco-terrorists" and "narco-guerrillas," as Gilman does,
and said she would cut off all military aid to Colombia until the
government there forced the rebels to evacuate the area.

"We will fight along the border," Mrs. Dole said. "We will fight on
the streets; we will fight in our neighborhoods; and we will fight in
our schools."

Though congressional Republicans have called on the Colombian
government to reclaim the rebel-held area, it is hardly clear the
Colombian army could do so.

Mrs. Dole's speech came a day after the Clinton administration
announced that it would ask Congress to approve $1 billion to $2
billion in aid to Colombia, where all sides, from leftist rebels to
right-wing paramilitary groups, feed off a drug trade that supplies
more than 75 percent of the cocaine sold in the United States.

Thursday's policy statement was Mrs. Dole's third in the last two
weeks. She delivered it earlier than expected, perhaps to counter
speculation about whether she will remain in the race. Earlier, she
had spoken on education and defense policy.

Mrs. Dole, a former president of the American Red Cross and a two-time
Cabinet secretary, said she realized that drugs were not at the top of
voters' agendas, but said she cared deeply about the issue. "Just
outside the nation's capital, a 16-year-old girl turned in her parents
for growing and smoking marijuana," Mrs. Dole said. "Think about the
message that young woman was getting at home."

As she headed to a fund-raiser in San Francisco, somebody asked Mrs.
Dole whether she thought "this war was winnable." It was not clear
whether he meant the war on drugs or the war for the White House.

Mrs. Dole turned and gave the thumbs up sign. "Oh, it's winnable," she
said.