‘High-Intensity’ Drug Attack Bogging Down : Crime: A federal plan to provide cities with emergency aid to battle cocaine dealers appears mired in bureaucracy.

One Thursday afternoon last month, a group of District of Columbia anti-drug officials marched into the offices of William J. Bennett, the Administration’s top drug war official, with a plea for federal help.

What they wanted was jail space: permission to transfer 250 local prisoners to federal facilities to make room for a planned round-up of cocaine dealers on the streets of the nation’s capital.

Their optimistic expectations grew out of a partnership established six months ago, when the Bush Administration declared the city to be a “test case” for a plan to offer aid to the nation’s most vicious drug-trafficking areas. With a promised $80 million in “emergency” assistance, the district became the envy of drug-blighted cities across the United States.

But the Thursday afternoon meeting collapsed in an acrid exchange, with federal officials openly skeptical of the local proposal and district officials angry at the slow pace of promised prison construction. The anti-drug sweep was called off.

The incident was illustrative of broader problems that have left the Bennett plan unable to put a lasting mark on a city bloodied by an undiminished spree of drug-related crime. Far from a panacea, federal power ran hard into bureaucratic realities. Officials unaccustomed to cooperating often did not. Elevated expectations gave way to frustration.

The deadline for extending the project to other cities is rapidly approaching and the shortcomings in the district have raised deep concerns about whether expansion is wise. Not only is drug trafficking in cities like Los Angeles far worse than in Washington, Bennett aides say, but current budgets would allocate only about $5 million to each jurisdiction chosen for the accelerated efforts.

“That’s peanuts,” one official said.

Indeed, the lack of progress in Washington has been so apparent that Bennett’s office may postpone aid to the soon-to-be designated “high-intensity drug trafficking areas” until officials can agree how to resolve the problems that have stymied the effort here.

Six months after the district anti-drug effort went into effect, “it’s very difficult to say to what extent there have been any positive results,” acknowledged Reggie Walton, a top Bennett deputy and former federal judge here.

In an interview Wednesday, Walton said that any future assistance will be preceded by extensive “prenegotiation and planning” to ensure that the effort can succeed. “It doesn’t make much sense to come up with a plan if you don’t have the resources to make it work,” he said.

Bennett and Sterling Tucker, the top district anti-drug official, are scheduled to issue the first formal progress report on the district plan at a news conference today. Aides to Bennett said the report will point out the achievements of a 119-member federal law enforcement task force, which has arrested 116 drug dealers and seized $2.2 million in assets.

In addition, the officials plan to call attention to a pair of street-level crackdowns by the U.S. Marshals Service that rounded up 456 fugitives and shut down 209 crack houses.

But critics argue that such mounting arrests serve only to accentuate the failure of the Administration plan to relieve pressure on overcrowded prisons. Bennett pointed to the district’s failure to provide more prisons as an example of its “irresponsibility.”

Indeed, the District jail population has jumped from 8,600 to 9,500 since the plan was unveiled, forcing the city to release some prisoners early under an emergency order and to seek court permission to shut its jails to further inmates.

The short-term solution Bennett proposed--to “immediately” transfer 250 D.C. prisoners to federal institutions elsewhere--took shape only slowly, moving 15 to 20 prisoners a week until its completion last month.

The promised construction of a $50-million, 700-bed federal prison in the Washington area was canceled after local officials voiced outraged opposition. Although the Administration pledged to build a 500-bed pretrial detention center within a year, the clock has been running for six months and a suitable site has not been found.

“We don’t need anyone to tell us how to lock the dealers up,” a senior D.C. police official said. “The only way you can arrest your way out of it is if you’ve got prison space.”

Bennett aides blame the slow progress on what Walton called “bureaucratic impediments.” At the same time, they insist their assistance package never promised more than a measured contribution.

“It’s important to remember that we did not jump up and down and say that this is the be-all and end-all of the drug war,” said Bennett’s deputy chief of staff, David Tell.

But Administration officials nevertheless concede that the gap between the rhetoric of April and the grim reality of October teaches new lessons about the obstacles to progress in the drug war, even when mounted at the highest levels of government.

And because the Administration hailed the crackdown in Washington as a laboratory for the new sweeping anti-drug strategy unveiled by President Bush last month, its critics contend that the preliminary results offer a telling indictment.

“Record numbers of arrests and prosecutions have just led to a bureaucratic nightmare,” said Kevin Zeese, counsel to the Drug Policy Foundation, which is outspoken in its criticism of Bennett.

“When you throw the federal government on top of existing bottlenecks, it just adds one more level of bureaucracy.”

Those who were parties to the squabble over prison beds last month, while disagreeing on who was at fault, agreed that the experience called attention to the potential pitfalls in such a relationship.

Aides to Bennett say the request for the prisoner transfer came just an hour before the anti-drug sweep was to begin, making it impossible for federal officials to determine whether the plan was sensible.

But local officials said they needed to maintain autonomy even as recipients of the federal aid. “We want to coordinate with the federal government but we’re not responsible for reporting to them,” a senior district official said.

Another example offered by local police officers and law enforcement experts suggests that the actual effect of overlapping efforts can be less than it appears.

When the federal marshals conducted their highly publicized raids on crack houses last May, the critics say, their operation amounted to little more than “hit and run.” With little coordination and scant follow-up, the operation exacted only a glancing blow on some drug operations when a knockout was within reach, they said.

“If the idea was disruption, they did that just fine,” a senior D.C. police official said. “But in terms of knocking these guys out of business, it didn’t do the job.”

“There have been some disappointments,” Bennett aide Tell acknowledged.

Scrapping of the $50-million prison plan and adjustments to other spending plans have made accounting so chaotic that Bennett’s office was unable Wednesday to provide an official estimate of how much of the initial $80-million proposal had actually been devoted to the district. One aide, however, said the total was about $15 million.

Yet such problems have done nothing to quell the zeal of local officials from other jurisdictions eager to win christening as “high-intensity drug-trafficking areas” and to reap the federal aid it brings.

Under a congressional mandate, Bennett must decide by early next year which cities deserve priority in the effort. Los Angeles, Miami, Houston and New York remain the leading candidates, but dozens of other cities have requested federal aid from Bennett’s office.

In interviews, Administration officials said that lessons gleaned in the district had done nothing to undermine their belief that federal law enforcement assistance to drug-plagued cities could provide a vital tool in the anti-drug effort.

Blaming much of the disorganization on mismanagement by Mayor Marion Barry and other district officials, they also expressed confidence that relationships between federal and local authorities would operate more smoothly elsewhere.

But they also made clear that the criticism about the district effort would make them wary of any ill-organized or under-financed effort. They voiced strong doubts that a one-fifth share of the $25 million budgeted for high-intensity trafficking areas next year would be sufficient to make progress in a city like Los Angeles, when the district had received far more money with little effect.

Indeed, in a signal likely to spark concern among California officials, Walton made clear that assistance might not be forthcoming until the next budget year begins in October, 1990.

On the basis of the experience in the district, he asserted: “I’m not sure that these efforts would or could be made part of this year’s budget.”