Feinstein Calls for Firing of U.S. Customs Chief

While the U.S. Customs Service has relaxed controls of cargo and passengers, its cocaine seizures have declined sharply over the past year, prompting U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to call for firing the embattled agency’s chief.

Feinstein and U.S. Customs employees allege that drug interdiction is given relatively low priority under Commissioner George Weise as he presses a controversial program that allows millions of trucks to enter the country each year from Mexico without inspection.

“I have seen for some time in Customs a change of mission, turning away from an enforcement agency into a [trade] facilitation agency,” Feinstein said in an interview last week. “That is a colossal mistake.

“The Clinton administration ought to replace [Weise] with law enforcement leadership.”

Customs spokesman Pat Jones denied that Weise has de-emphasized drug interdiction. “Law enforcement is our No. 1 priority,” he said.

White House officials declined to comment on Feinstein’s remarks and referred inquiries to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who said in a statement, “Customs, under the outstanding leadership of George Weise, has made stopping illegal drugs from across the border one of their top priorities. Last year, under the implementation of Operation Hard Line, the quantities of drugs seized increased” along the southwest border.

Feinstein said that the Customs Service has become “a major political issue,” because it is the primary federal law enforcement agency along a border that is the focal point for trade and the war against drugs. Her opposition to the agency’s trade policy, which is also administration policy, is significant because of California’s prominence as a border state and political prize in this year’s presidential election.

Feinstein has been one of the agency’s harshest critics since February 1995, when The Times reported that 2 million trucks passed through three of the busiest entry points from Mexico in 1994 without a single pound of cocaine being seized. Customs figures showed that about 90% of the trucks entered without inspections under line release, a controversial program designed to speed up cargo shipments.

The criticism of Weise has been fueled in part by his 1996 operational plan for Customs and his 1995 remarks to a congressional committee, where he listed drug enforcement relatively low on priority lists.

In the 1996 plan, obtained by The Times, Weise listed drug interdiction fourth among seven goals, below “processing more passengers, cargo and revenues.” A major investigation of the Cali Cartel in Colombia, the crime organization responsible for most cocaine trafficking to United States, was listed last.

In remarks to the House Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government last year, Weise itemized narcotics enforcement fifth among six priorities when he outlined the agency’s mission last year.

“Where narcotics enforcement is included on a list doesn’t mean anything,” said Jones, the Customs spokesman. “It doesn’t reflect priority. . . .

“The fact remains that drug interdiction is no less than tops on the list of Customs’ priorities.”

Customs records show that nationwide cocaine seizures by the agency dropped about 22% in 1995 to 158,750 pounds. Seizures from commercial cargo, such a trucks and shipping containers, dropped about 48% to 32,991 pounds.

Federal law enforcement officials estimate that about 75% of the cocaine smuggled into the country is brought across the Mexican border.

Cocaine seizures increased 19% along the southwest border--to 51,152 pounds--but for the second year in a row, there were no seizures at some of the major commercial ports, officials said. Seizures of marijuana increased 25% at the border.

“The success of a law enforcement agency’s drug interdiction policy is usually measured by its cocaine seizures,” noted one U.S. Customs official.

Weise, in his 1996 operational plan, urged agency officials to look for ways to “change the way we measure success in narcotics enforcement.” He said the agency needs to look “for a way to capture what the impact of Customs’ efforts are on the war on drugs.”

“This is the real test,” said the report.

After The Times story a year ago, the Customs Service launched Operation Hard Line, a high-profile drug interdiction program using computers, intelligence gathering and increased staff along the border.

Jones, the U.S. Customs spokesman, said Weise is committed to improving the agency’s intelligence-gathering capabilities and targeting major drug smuggling groups.

“What he’s saying is that we have to be more analytical,” the spokesman said. “We may have a great record of seizures in one area [of the country], only to find out that the amount of drugs that actually [was shipped] through that area was nothing to brag about.”

Among the critics of U.S. Customs policies are a number of the agency’s inspectors and agents. An internal study last year concluded that many of them believe that narcotics enforcement efforts have suffered under Weise’s “facilitation and customer service” policy.

“Most [employees] believe that the public would enthusiastically support an agency dedicated to stopping the drug trade,” said the 30-page document obtained by The Times. It said that Weise’s push for “customer service” was “not well received” by inspectors and agents.

“We have lost our mission as an enforcement agency and the respect that came with it,” one inspector was quoted as saying. “Customs no longer cares about narcotics. We used to be an enforcement agency, but no longer.”

Customs agents, who are responsible for conducting investigations of drug smuggling, charged that Weise’s intent is “the total elimination of all agent functions,” said the report.

This impression was reinforced, the report said, by Weise’s statements in e-mail messages to his staff regarding trade facilitation.

Jones conceded that there is a “perception problem” among employees that narcotics enforcement has taken a back seat to trade.

“There is no question that some of our employees have that perception, and it’s a perception we would like very much to change,” he said.

Peter Nunez, former U.S. attorney in San Diego, said “there is a perception that Weise has allowed the trade side of the house to dominate.”

“It’s not so clear to me that drug enforcement is as high a priority now as it used to be,” said Nunez, who had jurisdiction over U.S. Customs as assistant Treasury secretary for enforcement in the Bush administration. “It appears that people at Customs . . . have tilted the balance in favor of line release and [trade] facilitation, which is a stupid idea.”

Nunez said Weise should look for a better way to balance “the antagonistic issues of trade versus enforcement.”

“What you have now is inspectors confused about whether they’re expected to wave trucks through quickly for the sake of trade or are they supposed to stop and inspect them to look for drugs,” he said.