ReconsiDer Tidbits

 

 

 Friday, 12 January 2001
 
   Rumsfeld Tells Senators His Views on Drug War
  
 
By Paul Richter
 
> WASHINGTON -- Secretary of Defense-designate Donald H. Rumsfeld told
> Congress on Thursday that the nation's drug problem can best be attacked
> by drying up demand rather than targeting foreign traffickers, as the U.S.
> military is trying to do in Colombia.
>
> At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
> Rumsfeld said that he cannot yet offer a specific opinion on the U.S.
> military's $1.6-billion effort in Colombia but believes that illicit drug
> use is "overwhelmingly a demand problem."
>
> "If demand persists, it's going to find ways to get what it wants,"
> Rumsfeld said. "And if it isn't from Colombia, it's going to be from
> someplace else."
>
> Rumsfeld, who served as Defense secretary for 13 months in 1975 and 1976,
> noted that efforts to halt the drug trade in Colombia may hurt neighboring
> countries, as traffickers migrate across borders in search of safer
> ground. "If I were the neighboring countries, I'd worry about the
> spillover as well," he told members of the Senate Armed Services
> Committee.
>
> Rumsfeld emphasized that he has yet to be briefed in detail on the U.S.
> effort, which involves equipping and training Colombia's military to fight
> narcotics traffickers. But his comments seemed to suggest philosophical
> distance between his views and those expressed by the incoming Bush team.
>
> During the campaign, President-elect George W. Bush indicated his general
> support for the Clinton administration's effort in Colombia, which has
> bipartisan backing on Capitol Hill. Comments by some members of the Bush
> team have been taken to suggest that the new administration might even
> step up the Colombia campaign.
>
> Rumsfeld in the past has expressed skepticism about using the military to
> counter drug trafficking.
>
> At a 1997 round-table discussion among former Defense secretaries at the
> Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta, Rumsfeld said that
> efforts to use the military in this way are "nonsense," a transcript of
> the session shows.
>
> If the drug problem is ever solved, he said, it will be the result of
> concerted efforts by "families, and by people, and by schools, and by
> churches, not by the military."
>
> The contents of the transcript were reported Wednesday by the Washington
> Post and confirmed by Hodding Carter III, a former State Department
> spokesman who moderated the 1997 session.
>
> Rumsfeld, who is the first member of the administration's national
> security team to face a confirmation hearing, was praised by Democrats and
> Republicans alike for his skills and public service. Committee members of
> both parties, including Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the current chairman,
> said that they support his nomination.
>
> Rumsfeld is a former Illinois congressman, White House chief of staff,
> ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and corporate chief
> executive.
>