President’s War On Drugs : Bush Brown-Bags With Undercover ‘Heroes’

In addition to praising Orange County’s law enforcement brass, President Bush ate an informal brown bag lunch behind closed doors Tuesday with the men he called “unsung heroes,” the undercover agents.

They were a group of about 60 people who stood out in the mostly well-dressed crowd, appearing with long hair, unshaven faces, blue jeans, gold jewelry and identification tags with only a first name.

“He wanted to talk to street narcs, so we came as we work,” one officer said.

During his speech, Bush told the agents: “You are the unsung heroes in this war, risking your lives almost every single day, behind enemy lines, if you will, to save our kids’ lives.”

Encouraged, Thankful

The lunch, immediately after Bush’s speech, included most of the 39 agents assigned to the county’s Regional Narcotics Suppression Program. There were 23 Orange County police agencies represented as well as the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Customs Service.

Afterward, some of the officers said they were encouraged by Bush’s interest in their work and thankful for his attention.

“I feel a lot better having sat through that,” said one federal agent, who, like others, asked not to be named because of the nature of his work. “We all get a little bit stressed and overworked and depressed about the drug war. This is going to gas me up for a while.”

Anaheim Police Sgt. Jon Beteag said that Bush “seemed real sincere about wanting to know how he could help us.”

And another federal officer called it “very informal and very relaxing. It wasn’t like we were talking to the President; it was like sitting down with another narcotics officer.”

The President was mostly uninterrupted while he ate his lunch, a roast beef sandwich with a pickle and cole slaw catered by Tony Roma’s. Then, the agents took turns pointing out their concerns and observations about work on the front line of the drug war.

Working Together

“The main theme was that the guys in law enforcement feel the only way to lick the war on drugs is to work together,” a federal Customs agent said. “If this kind of thing is going to get some of the competition (between police agencies) taken out, it would help.”

Beteag, who is assigned to the regional task force, said: “We told him about the problems particular to our program, some of the conflicts that we see between the federal agencies over what does what and how that affects what we do.”

The officers also told the President that they don’t need more police as much as they need more jail space and prosecutors “to get these people off the streets.”

Beteag said that Bush responded by citing “the constraints that are on him, since he said he wasn’t going to raise taxes. . . . He was giving us a global picture and we were telling him of what it looked like from our level.”

One agent said the officers were also ready to question Bush about his plans to regulate or ban powerful assault rifles, but the President raised the issue first. The agent quoted Bush as saying that it was a concern to him and he was studying the matter, but he made no promises.

“It’s not a tough issue for me,” the agent said. “I’ve been around guns most of my life and those are dangerous weapons that are only made to kill people.”

CASH IN CLOSET

Stories from the agent who stumbled onto millions in illegal drug profits and the traffickers who ran Rancho del Rio. Page 14.