Wider Anti-Drug Role Announced for Pentagon

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, declaring drugs “a direct threat to the sovereignty and security of the country,” Monday announced an expanded role for the military in destroying drugs at their source and disrupting international narcotics traffic.

In a departure from previous Pentagon reluctance to get involved in the drug wars, Cheney said that the U.S. military is now an “enthusiastic participant” in the Administration’s efforts to counter narcotics.

Under the new plan, the military will provide temporary jail space to ease overcrowding of local and state prisons--the largest step yet by the military into domestic law enforcement activities.

In addition, Cheney said, the Pentagon will step up current efforts and adopt a “more forward-leaning posture” against Latin American drug producers and traffickers. That will include the use of military trainers and advisers in drug-producing regions in South America, particularly the Andean countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

‘Dangerous Business’

The drug battle “is a dangerous business,” Cheney said at a Pentagon press briefing. “I hope none of our people are hurt in the process. But I can’t guarantee it.”

Cheney provided only the barest outline of how the Pentagon would carry out its share of the President’s $7.9-billion anti-drug plan, announced Sept. 5 in a nationwide address. He said he has ordered senior military commanders to report to him by Oct. 15 with specific plans for implementing the anti-drug strategy.

The defense secretary provided no estimate of how much his plan would cost or how many U.S. servicemen and women would be involved, except to say that no more than “a few hundred” soldiers would be on drug duty in South America at any one time.

Cheney’s approach is likely to draw fire from congressional critics, who contend that it does not go far enough to have a substantial impact on drug traffic, and from military commanders, who deride the drug fight as “mission impossible” and fear that it will detract from readiness to fight real wars.

Much of Cheney’s drug-fighting plan is already in effect under a congressional mandate to coordinate drug interdiction efforts along the nation’s borders and to aid law enforcement agencies in anti-drug efforts. The Pentagon currently provides radar, aircraft, ships and ground forces to track drug smugglers entering the United States through Mexico and the Caribbean.

‘Enlistment’ Welcomed

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), a vocal supporter of greater military anti-drug efforts, responded to Cheney’s briefing by saying: “The Defense Department finally has enlisted in the war on drugs. For more than a year it’s been AWOL (absent without leave).”

However, Cheney cautioned: “The Defense Department is not a law enforcement agency. We do not enforce domestic criminal laws, nor can we solve society’s demand problem. But there is much that we can do without usurping the police role. We will work on the drug program at every phase--at the source, in the delivery pipeline and to further support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.”

A number of lawmakers have been pressing the Pentagon to move more aggressively against drugs, proposing such schemes as using the military to seal the southern border against all illicit traffic. A proposal currently being pushed on Capitol Hill would permit the Air Force to shoot down aircraft suspected of carrying drugs if they fail to follow orders to identify themselves and land.

Cheney emphatically rejected that idea.

“We have no authority to shoot down aircraft coming into the United States,” he said. “We haven’t sought such authority, and I think you have to be very careful about proceeding on that. Obviously, the first time you made a mistake, you would have severe problems. . . . The idea that we would go out and willy-nilly shoot down unidentified aircraft strikes me as not a very good one.”

California Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego), while praising the Defense Department’s new-found enthusiasm for the drug wars, said that Cheney could have moved more aggressively against suspected drug smugglers, short of blasting them out of the sky.

Hunter suggested using military radar planes and U.S. Customs Service jet interceptors to track and chase down suspect aircraft, then use law enforcement officers on the ground to arrest the smugglers.

He also advocated broader use of the National Guard to inspect cargo entering the United States and to provide aerial radar surveillance of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Cheney acknowledged that the country’s problem with drugs is deep-seated and that “it will take years” to solve it.

“There is no quick, easy answer to the drug problem,” he said. “It is a problem that’s been with us for a long time, and it’s gotten much worse lately. If we’re going to be successful in dealing with the drug problem in the country, it will be because we have a broad-gauge strategy that addresses the production in the host countries, the problem of transiting the drugs into the United States and then the problems of consumption within the United States itself.”