Bush Takes Drug Fight to O.C. Smuggling Site

President Bush toured a former drug baron’s mountaintop hideaway Tuesday in his first visit to Orange County since the election, delivering $4.39 million in seized drug assets to local police and challenging the nation to help destroy “these chemical weapons of death and destruction.”

Flying into secluded Rancho del Rio in extreme southern Orange County on a Marine Corps helicopter, Bush joined with Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburg, Customs Commissioner William Von Raab, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) and Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates in praising the efforts of law enforcement agents and a federal law that allows officials to confiscate assets from drug dealers and turn them over to drug-fighting forces.

“All of you here today are fighting fierce battles in one of the largest and toughest drug markets in the country,” Bush told the crowd of 1,400 invited guests at the 213-acre ranch, which was seized in 1985. “The community here is united. You are an example of hope, determination and the true American spirit.”

Bush’s 2-hour stay in the county was orchestrated to highlight his stern anti-drug message. He delivered it amid the backdrop of large mounds of contraband drugs and seized cash--10s, 20s, 50s and 100s--bundled together to simulate $4.39 million in drug assets now going back to the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program.

The money was part of $5.2 million in cash seized by the countywide drug task force in February, 1988, and returned under a 1984 federal law that allows confiscated drug assets to be used by law enforcement agencies in the war on drug traffickers.

Bush called the money “the bounty of defeated drug criminals. We won’t stop until we nail every coward who deals in death and put them all where they belong.”

The president went on to make an appearance at UCLA, but returned to Orange County on Tuesday evening for an unpublicized visit to Anaheim Stadium, where he watched an Angels’ game with team owner Gene Autry in a private box.

To further highlight his anti-drug campaign, Bush earlier Tuesday lunched privately with 60 undercover drug officers, most of them from the regional task force composed of officers from 23 Orange County police departments and several federal agencies.

He called the undercover officers “the unsung heroes who risk their lives to save our kids. We thank them.”

At the end of his appearance, the President signed an anti-drug pledge card, then accepted a black-and-white jacket with the slogan: “Drug Use is Life Abuse.”

Before his speech, Bush was given a walking tour by Gates of the sprawling ranch in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, getting a firsthand look at a barn with a trapdoor that led to an underground area for storing drugs. The President also saw a van and a pickup truck with false bottoms that were filled with drugs and money when they were seized by agents who swept down on the secluded ranch 4 years ago.

The owner of the ranch, Daniel James Fowlie, is being held at a jail in La Paz, capital of Baja California Sur, and is awaiting extradition to the United States on drug charges. He was indicted in November on 26 felony counts.

“Many of you know the history of the ground we stand on,” Bush told the guests, most of them local dignitaries and Republican activists bused in for the event. “It was the core of an international marijuana and cocaine smuggling ring. How many lives--how many families--how many hopes and dreams have been destroyed with these chemical weapons of death and destruction: drugs?”

‘Once a Warehouse of Death’

“Once a warehouse of death, now it’s a source of hope. Rancho del Rio has been reclaimed.”

Referring to Orange County’s multiagency drug unit, Bush said its agents had confiscated almost $40 million in cash and enough cocaine to provide “15 doses for every man, woman and child in Orange County. Do we need any other reason to win this war?

“Let these funds go to fighting the war they once financed. And let us send a message, loud and clear, to every drug merchant in America: You are out of business.”

Asset forfeiture laws have become one of the most powerful weapons in the government’s anti-drug fight. Since 1984, when the forfeiture law was enacted, Thornburg said the government has seized $250 million in drug-related assets.

Bush said Rancho del Rio is “the first piece of forfeited drug property turned over for use by local officials in Orange County.”

Gates has proposed turning the ranch into a training center for drug agents. Bush referred to that plan in his address.

$2 Million to Prepare Ranch

But county officials said Tuesday that they have not decided what to do with the property. Doug Woodyard, an analyst with the County Administrative Office, said it would cost $2 million to prepare the ranch for use as an academy, because it does not have sewers, electricity or a paved road. The county has considered selling the property, but officials said Tuesday that various options are being studied.

The President also called on Southern California’s entertainment industry to become more involved in fighting drugs, saying that “television, music and film are a positive influence. My entreaty is, use that influence wisely, to do good.”

To loud applause, Bush then added: “I never want to see a movie again that makes drug use into something humorous. It is time that they got behind this crusade.”

Bush’s brief visit went without incident. But at one point before his speech, a KABC-TV plane violated the closed airspace around the site and was escorted away by a Marine Corps helicopter. The Secret Service said it does not consider the matter a serious incident.

‘Biggest U.S. Drug Dealer’

The only downside to what otherwise was a positive, upbeat appearance for the President in predominantly Republican Orange County came as Bush supporters were bused out of Rancho del Rio. They were greeted by about a dozen protesters along Ortega Highway, near Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park, who held signs reading: “Bush is a Sleaze” and “OC Hosts Biggest U.S. Drug Dealer.”

The protesters’ spokesman, who identified himself only as Ark, said the demonstrators were from Earth First and the Greens, a network of political and environmentalist groups. He said that drugs should be legalized and that leaders should be working for world peace.

After his county appearance, Bush flew on to UCLA for a meeting with a mostly Republican group of Latino community leaders, thanking them for their support in the fall presidential election.