NAVY P-3S SCORE BIG IN CUSTOMS' DRUG CRACKDOWN

When it comes to drug interdiction, the Customs Service relies heavily on
30-year-old former Navy P-3 patrol aircraft, a cheaper alternative to the
Air Force's more sophisticated AWACS. And these refurbished P-3s do a
pretty handy job of intercepting drug smugglers.

The Lockheed-Martin built P-3 planes were taken out of mothballs in the
Arizona desert and converted by the company into superb airborne early
warning and long-range tracker aircraft. The refurbished P-3s' price tag of
$40-million-to- $43 million is but a fraction of the cost of the Air
Force's sophisticated AWACS, whose capabilities vastly exceed drug war
needs and whose diversion to the drug war degrades U.S. military
effectiveness.

Both scientific studies and the congressional sponsors of a bill which
would, they claim, cut hemispheric drug traffic into the U.S. by a whopping
80 percent in three years, have concluded that the addition of 10 more
modernized P-3s to the Customs Service's fleet of six would greatly improve
U.S. drug interdiction performance. More P-3s would also allow the Defense
Department to lower its visibility in a drug war it was never enthusiastic
about entering, and in so doing, allow the service with its lower political
profile south of the border to assume a larger share of the drug
interdiction mission.

Introduced July 22 by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) and Sen. Mike DeWine
(R-Ohio), the proposed $2.6 billion Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act
marks an effort by congressional Republicans led by Speaker Newt Gingrich
(R-Ga.) to pump up the interdiction budget. Although it remains unclear how
its sponsors will finance the act, the bill's numerous specific initiatives
constitute an indictment of the White House's primary focus on combating
the demand side of the drug war. In recent years only 10 percent of the
drug budget has been used for interdiction.

To be sure, dealing with the demand side is imperative. And let's not kid
ourselves into believing that it is physically possible to interdict the
movements of all foreign narcotics in the U.S. But these are not arguments
for taking the interdiction pressure off. Robust interdiction-beginning in
the source countries, through the transit areas, and right on down to the
arrival zones-penalizes drug traffickers and drives up drug prices.

P-3s are are only part of the story. At the service's Domestic Air
Interdiction Coordination Center near Riverside, Calif., personnel use DoD
and Federal Aviation Administration radars and computerized flight plan
data for all scheduled aircraft in the southern U.S., the Caribbean and
much of Mexico.

They can immediately detect and track unscheduled aircraft heading into the
U.S. and, within eight minutes, launch interceptor planes. The combination
of new and old technologies has yielded big successes for the Customs
Service which seizes more drugs than all other government agencies
combined, including the much higher profile Drug Enforcement Agency, and
yet receives only 4 cents of every drug-war dollar.

In 1996 Customs snatched 300 tons of marijuana, almost 120 tons of cocaine
and seized 12,300 cars and trucks, 235 ships and boats and 35 aircraft. The
Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act offers a rare opportunity to
simultaneously improve America's military and drug war effectiveness.

Jeffrey Record is a media consultant for Lockheed Martin and author of
several books on military affairs.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan