DRUG CZAR TAKES ON NEW ENEMY: THE PENTAGON

WASHINGTONWhen Barry McCaffrey took charge of the White House drug
control office last year, he set out to lift its sagging bureaucratic
standing. He enlarged the staff, asserted his authority as the
administration's primary spokesman on drugs and developed a plan to slash
illicit drug use in half over the next 10 years.

Now, in perhaps the clearest test of Mr. McCaffrey's power, the retired
fourstar army general is challenging not an enemy drug cartel but an allied
federal department: his former employer, the Pentagon.

Mr. McCaffrey has refused to certify a draft of the Pentagon's fiscal l999
budget, calling the $809 million earmarked for counterdrug work inadequate.
His decision earlier this month marked the first time since the creation of
the antidrug office nine years ago that a governmental department was
denied certification. The move effectively leaves the dispute to President
Bill Clinton and his White House advisers to resolve, placing the president
in an awkward position: Does he side with Mr. McCaffrey, affirming his
authority to influence drug spending levels throughout the government? Or
does he side with Secretary of ~Defense William Cohen, who has branded Mr.
McCaffrey's insistence that the Pentagon spend an additional $141 million
excessive?

For Mr. McCaffrey and his aides,the struggle is much more than a budgetary
wrangle. "You can view what's going on now as a test of the office's role,
a test of its ability to assert itsstatutory interagency leadership," said
a senior aide.

For Mr. Cohen and his staff, the central issue is whether the Pentagon can
and should play a greater role in combating narcotics.

Already hardpressed to finance a rising number of peace operations, and
short of funds for a new generation of weaponry, the Pentagon insists it
cannot afford to spend any more on counterdrug activities. Besides, defense
officials said, trafficking routes for narcotics into the United States
have changed in recent years, with fewer drugs being ferried by aircraft
and more by small boats across the Caribbean or by land across the
U.S.Mexican border.

"When the primary threat was by air, Pentagon radar could help," said a
senior defense official involved in the counterdrug effort. "But as you
shift to a greater maritime threat, it becomes less of a Defense Department
issue and more of a civilian law enforcement and intelligence one."

Mr. McCaffrey has asked the Pentagon to add funds to help expand
interdiction efforts in Mexico, the Andean region in South America and the
Caribbean. He also wants more money to augment intelligence and
construction assistance provided by National Guard units along the
southwestern U.S. border.