Drug Czar Takes Gingrich to Task for Rejecting Plan

White House drug policy chief Barry R. McCaffrey charged Monday that House Speaker Newt Gingrich was playing partisan politics and being “irresponsible” in rejecting out-of-hand President Clinton’s plan to reduce illegal drug use.

“I’ve got an enormous concern about this,” McCaffrey said. “My immediate reaction is that this is irresponsible.”

Clinton and Gingrich (R-Ga.) both talked about drug policy in separate radio addresses Saturday, with the speaker dismissing the president’s long-term plan as a “hodgepodge of half-steps and half-truths” and saying he will ask the House to pass a resolution asking for the White House to withdraw it.

“This strikes me as this brilliant man, Newt Gingrich, conducting drug policy by what I would have termed in my last life as ‘ready, fire, aim,’ ” said McCaffrey, a retired Army general.

Gingrich’s spokeswoman, Christina Martin, said he had met McCaffrey several times and tried to work with him.

“There’s nothing hasty or political about Speaker Gingrich’s deep disappointment that the Clinton administration cannot put together a serious strategy for saving America’s teens in a more timely and effective manner,” Martin said.

Clinton said he hopes to halve the number of Americans using drugs in the next decade.