COAST GUARD "WE NEED MORE MONEY FOR DRUG WAR"

Drug War Leader Is Frustrated Kramek Says Politics Hamper Coast Guard

As commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard for the last four years, Adm. Robert
E. Kramek played a key role in the war on drugs, serving as coordinator for
U.S. interdiction efforts.

But in leaving the post last week after 41 years in the service, the
58-year-old admiral could not hide a sense of frustration and dismay about
what he described as partisan bickering and pork-barrel politics that have
hamstrung the United States in its fight against illegal narcotics.

"If we want to win the war on drugs, we've got to have the will to win,"
Kramek said in an interview before turning over his command Friday to Adm.
James M. Loy. "I don't think we have the will yet. We don't have the will,
between the administration and Congress, to win this thing."

While politicians have described the war on drugs as a high priority and a
matter of national security, he said, they have failed to fund it
adequately, preferring instead to pour billions of dollars into pork-barrel
projects such as those in a $217 billion highway bill that was passed last
month.

He said he was "astonished" that budget constraints, which earlier forced
him to pare down the Coast Guard, seemed to be thrown by the wayside in
crafting the highway bill.

Kramek said that a strategy drawn up by retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey,
the White House drug policy coordinator, could win the war on drugs by
attacking both the supply and demand sides of the problem, but that not
enough resources are being devoted to the effort.

"As a result, we're not going to do any better this year than we did last
year," Kramek said. He said funds spent on interdiction represent about 10
percent of the total $17 billion now budgeted for counter-narcotics efforts
but "used to be much greater" in 1991 and 1992.

"Today I have two-thirds of the money, half of the ship time and half of
the aircraft flight hours I need," Kramek said, "and you can't get there
from here. . . . You can't make a 50 percent reduction in demand and the
flow of drugs into this country over the next 10 years," as called for in
McCaffrey's plan.

McCaffrey's office stressed that there is much more to fighting drugs than
interdiction and pointed to recent successes in crop-eradication efforts in
Peru and the Andes region.

"You always can have a better-case scenario, but there's been some enormous
progress this year," said Bob Weiner, a spokesman for McCaffrey. He said
the drug-fighting budget for fiscal 1999 contains a $1 billion increase
over this year's level.

Another McCaffrey aide said interdiction budgets in the early 1990s
contained special funding for equipment purchases. He said next year's
spending level for interdiction represents a 9.3 percent increase from this
year. Included in that drug interdiction allotment are funds for such items
as 1,000 new Border Patrol agents.

Kramek estimated that about $500 million to $600 million more a year is
needed for the next couple of years to finance the anti-drug fight,
particularly the interdiction of narcotics.

"One or two of those hundreds and hundreds of demo projects would pay for
everything we need," he said, referring to pork-barrel transportation
projects earmarked for specific jurisdictions as part of the highway bill.

Although it is considered part of the armed forces, the Coast Guard falls
under the Transportation Department and has domestic law enforcement
authority. With fewer than 35,000 uniformed members, the service today is
smaller than at any time since 1963. But unlike the other branches of the
armed forces, which have faced a diminished threat since the end of the
Cold War, the Coast Guard has downsized even though its responsibilities
are sharply increasing, Kramek said.

The Coast Guard is "probably 15 to 20 percent short of the ability to do
all that it is asked to do," he said. I feel we're just barely doing an
adequate job."

Aside from resources to fight illegal drugs, Kramek said, the service needs
to be "recapitalized" with modern systems, because some of its ships are 50
years old. In addition, he said, the country's ports are falling behind the
modern facilities developed by other countries, particularly in the ability
to handle a new generation of "mega-ships."

In the years ahead, the 207-year-old Coast Guard faces daunting challenges
in such other responsibilities as fisheries enforcement in the United
States' 9 million square miles of exclusive economic zone, the inspection
of vessels and the training of personnel in foreign countries, including
states of the former Soviet Union.

By volume, about 95 percent of U.S. imports and exports come and go by sea,
and that tonnage is expected to double or triple within the next 20 years,
said Kramek.

In terms of budget-cutting, Kramek said, "I think we're at our limit now."
A streamlining program he began in 1994 to cut the ranks by 4,000 people
and close Coast Guard bases had saved $400 million a year in expenses, he
said. But as a result, some personnel at search and rescue stations are now
putting in 80-hour work weeks.

Over the years, the Coast Guard has not only helped the Navy in times of
war and played major roles in stopping illegal migrants and contraband, but
also has performed as a "humanitarian service" in saving thousands of lives
at sea, Kramek said.

"All that makes us a distinct instrument of national security," he said.

Now that he has turned over his command to Adm. Loy at Fort McNair, Kramek,
who is originally from New York, plans to look for work in the private
sector. A 1961 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, he later earned
advanced degrees in naval architecture and marine engineering.

Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company