Barr Urges Closing of Drug Control Office

Outgoing Atty. Gen. William P. Barr, reflecting on his tenure under President Bush, called Tuesday for eliminating the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and for insisting on “full cooperation” of Latin American countries in the drug war.

“I don’t think it works to superimpose someone who doesn’t have substantial operating resources over those agencies that do,” he said in an interview. “You can’t have a staff function serving as commander in chief” in fighting drugs.

Bob Martinez, director of the drug control office, coordinates the activities of other agencies but does not have a staff of his own directly engaged in combatting drugs. Barr urged closing Martinez’s office and giving the responsibility to one of the federal agencies directly involved in fighting drugs, a role that he said the Justice Department is “best situated” to fill.

Anti-drug efforts now involve the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Justice Department, the Customs Service in the Treasury Department, and the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Health and Human Services.

During the campaign, President-elect Bill Clinton called for strengthening the drug control office by giving it Cabinet status. Major support for the office has come from Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But sources said Clinton is not locked into his campaign statement and that much will depend on the findings of transition teams now auditing federal departments.

The attorney general’s statement rekindles opposition to the office by Republicans. Although the drug control post eventually was approved by Congress, former President Ronald Reagan once vetoed a crime bill largely because it created the job of a “drug czar.”

Without any staff directly involved in fighting drugs, Barr said, the office is left to “either of two vices.”

“You either have them dabbling in operations--putting on a flak jacket and making raids--or (taking) an academic, think-tank approach,” he said.

Barr also called for an end to the “proliferation of (federal) law enforcement outside the Department of Justice.”

For example, he said, the Treasury Department now is involved in training law enforcement personnel in Glynco, Ga., a function that he said is best left to the Justice Department. Most U.S. law enforcement personnel are Justice Department employees, including those working for the FBI, DEA, Bureau of Prisons and Border Patrol and other INS offices.

In calling for more cooperation from Latin American countries to curtail drugs, Barr noted that Mexico has been increasingly cooperative. “I would like to see a lot more done in South America,” he said.

Stepped-up operations in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley, source of about 60% of U.S.-consumed cocaine, “could have real impact.” The air link between processors in the valley and Colombian traffickers “is very vulnerable to interdiction” and “could be severed,” Barr said.

Barr predicted that the new Administration would salvage the “weed and seed” approach to combatting violent crime but change its name and shift emphasis from weeding out criminal elements in a community to seeding the area with social renewal programs.

“The efforts have to go hand in hand to make a community safer,” Barr said. “Unless they are willing to put the foundation there, social spending will be for naught.”

Barr plans to remain in Washington practicing law after the change in administrations.