Doubts Raised on U.S. Andean War on Drugs

Two years after President Bush launched his “Andean strategy” to attack the supply of cocaine at its overseas source, the effort is wobbling noticeably and raising questions about whether its multimillion-dollar budget would be better spent elsewhere.

The plan, which gives large aid infusions to the Andean nations of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru to beef up law enforcement and military strength there and to wean the nations’ economies from drug production, has enjoyed crucial bipartisan support. But while Administration officials strive to put the best face on its results so far, indications are mounting that the strategy is dispersing the huge coca industry throughout the region rather than reducing it.

And some law enforcement authorities question whether Colombia’s U.S.-backed assault on the once-dominant Medellin Cartel has resulted, instead, in the protection of Pablo Escobar, the imprisoned cartel boss, allowing him to conduct his business without fear of assassination by rival organizations.

“There is a lot of frustration about the apparent lack of results from our efforts and dollars thus far,” said a senior congressional staff member involved in international narcotics issues.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, said Tuesday that “the simple fact is that more cocaine and heroin enters this country now than before we began our $2.1-billion Andean strategy almost three years ago.”

But Melvyn Levitsky, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics, counters that there will be no quick solutions to the huge problem of international drug trafficking: “We view this effort as a long-term one, and there will be no instant success against a deeply rooted problem. . . . If we do not have the patience and the stamina to persevere, we will not only lose the ground we have gained, we will fail in the goal of reducing the threat to this country and to our friends and allies from drugs.”

Many lawmakers are beginning to question whether the Andean strategy should be re-examined or sharply scaled back in favor of more drug education programs and anti-narcotics efforts at home. Biden contended that the Administration “is promoting a largely fruitless expansion of the military role in the Andes at the expense of an emphasis on economic programs that could attack the roots of the problem--by stopping production of the coca leaf before it is turned into cocaine.”

But lawmakers’ election-year fears of appearing to be on the wrong side of the drug issue has deterred a full-scale Capitol Hill assault on the Andean program’s budget. “No one wants to allow the Administration to blame Congress for having lost the drug war in South America,” said one congressional official who supports the Administration’s effort.

The doubts about the drug strategy will be highlighted today when Bush participates in the second Andean nations summit. The San Antonio, Tex., meeting has been expanded to include Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela, signaling the spread of the problem.

A senior White House official traveling with Bush on Tuesday conceded that the meeting is likely to produce “more show than substance.” But Bob Martinez, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, predicted at a briefing for reporters that it would produce “a broader level of cooperation . . . more specific in terms of where we are going . . , more structured in terms of how we can judge how well we are doing.”

Latin American participants have made it clear that they will return to emphasizing the need for the United States to reduce its demand for drugs as a major way of combatting illicit narcotics.

Apparently mindful of that foreign criticism, Bush said in a speech in San Francisco on Tuesday that his Administration is “battling on the demand side” as well as “waging a war to cut the supply lines that bring drugs into this country.”

Perhaps the most sobering view from an Administration official on the accomplishments of the Andean effort came Tuesday from CIA Director Robert M. Gates, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He noted that, while cocaine production has increased about 8% over last year, reaching an estimated 1,065 metric tons, Colombian producers are beginning to turn to heroin “since it is more lucrative than cocaine.”

Ostrow reported from Washington and Jehl from California.