Pentagon rejects demand to boost antidrug budget

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen on
Friday rejected as ``excessive'' a demand by White House drug policy chief
Barry McCaffrey to increase the Pentagon's 1999 counternarcotics budget by
$141 million.

McCaffrey, an Army general, on Thursday ``decertified'' the Pentagon's
proposed $809 million budget for the war on drugs, including aid to Latin
American nations to halt smuggling.

Under the National Narcotics Leadership Act, McCaffrey's Office of National
Drug Control Policy is empowered to review drug budgets of each department
and certify whether they are adequate to implement the president's
antidrug policy.

The general is under pressure from Congress to achieve more results in
reducing drug abuse in the United States and stopping the flow of cocaine
and heroin flowing into the country from South America.

He had asked the Pentagon to raise its 1999 drug budget repeatedly, but his
pleas were ignored.

Cohen said in a letter to McCaffrey on Friday that ``we have reviewed your
request and think that the amounts being asked for are excessive.''

Cohen noted that McCaffrey sought an additional $24 million over the
proposed $12 million military program with Mexico. He said, however, that
money had to be withdrawn from funds allocated to Mexico this year because
it simply could not absorb all of the funds.

The secretary also complained that McCaffrey's letter of demand was
provided to several news organizations ``prior to my having had a chance to
review it with care.''

The general sent Cohen a letter on Thursday saying he could not certify the
Pentagon's budget request of $809 million for drug control programs in
fiscal 1999. That is less than the Pentagon's 1998 drug budget and 32
percent less than it spent fighting drugs in 1992.

``To correct the deficiencies in the current proposal, the Department of
Defense needs to amend its 1999 budget to include an additional $141
million in drug control initiatives,'' he wrote Cohen in the letter, a copy
of which was obtained by Reuters.

A recent General Accounting Office report noted the Defense Department's
reduced commitment to the drug threat.

It cited the closing of nine radar networks and cuts in efforts to stop
drug trafficking in transit zones such as the Caribbean, where the use of
Pentagon surveillance planes is crucial in tracking suspicious aircraft and
boats.

But Cohen said in his letter to McCaffrey that the Pentagon, while
proposing $380 million in support of drug interdiction in the Caribbewan,
primarily viewed the area ``as a maritime law enforcement challenge for
Customs and Coast Guard.''

``The Defense Department role (in the area) is not clear to me,'' he wrote.
``As you know, we have made our views clear on this in numerous interagency
meetings over the last six months.''

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