SENATE COVERAGE -- (APRIL '04)

Since "Free Republic is an online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America.", I and others think it's a good idea to centralize what the goes on in the Senate (or House if it gets hot).

So if you see something happening on the Senate/House floor you don't have to start a new thread, you can just use this one also if you have a thread that pertains to the Senate, House, or pretty much any GOV'T agency please link your thread here.

C-SPAN what a great thing. Where you can watch or listen live to most Government happenings.

C-SPAN 3 (most places web only) carries a variety of committee meetings live or other past programming.

A great thing about our Government is they make it really easy for the public to research what the Politicians are doing and saying (on the floor anyway).

THOMAS where you can see a RECORD of what Congress is doing each day. You can also search/read a verbatim text of what each Congressmen/women or Senator has said on the floor or submitted 'for the record.' [This is where the real juicy stuff can be found.]

NARCOTICS IN THE UNITED STATES -- (House of Representatives - April 01, 2004)[Page: H2048] GPO's PDF

SNIP.................

Mr. SOUDER:Next I want to touch on Afghanistan. Earlier today we held a hearing on Afghanistan entitled ``Afghanistan: Are the British Counternarcotics Efforts Going Wobbly?''

Where did we come up with the expression ``are the British counterdrug efforts becoming wobbly?'' Let me say a couple of different things.

First off, the expression comes from this. When Margaret Thatcher received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Bush, better known as Bush 41, he said about her:

We will never forget her courage in helping forge a great coalition against the aggression which brutalized the Gulf. Nor will I forget one special phone conversation that I had with the Prime Minister. In the early days of the Gulf crisis--I am not sure you remember this one, Margaret--in the early days of the Gulf crisis, I called her to say that though we fully intended to interdict Iraqi shipping, we were going to let a single vessel heading for Oman enter port down at Yemen, going around Oman down to Yemen--let it enter port without being stopped. And she listened to my explanation, agreed with the decision, but then added these words of caution, words that guided me through the Gulf crisis, words I'll never forget as long as I'm alive: ``Remember, George,'' she said, ``this is no time to go wobbly.''

The question is, as we are reaching a very critical point in Afghanistan, have the British gone wobbly?

Let me say, as we have repeatedly said, the British

are our best friends in counterterrorism; and they have been the ones who have been most aggressive about going after heroin in Afghanistan.

Let me share a couple of introductory points on this. Last year's Afghan opium production was the second highest on record. That is a sobering fact if you think about it, because that means if it is the second highest on record, it is the second highest while we were there and the British were there, opium production went to the second highest on record. According to data and maps provided to the subcommittee by a U.S. intelligence agency, Afghan opium poppy cultivation is soaring and the estimates of hectares under cultivation are now approaching the highest level of past production.

I am concerned because over 20,000 Americans die every year from drugs and 7 to 10 percent of heroin sold in the U.S. is traced to the Afghan region. We do not really know exactly how much it is. It may be higher than that. We know at one point it was 50 percent, but right now the problem in Colombia is that the heroin seems to be coming in from there and most of the Afghan heroin seems to be moving to Europe. But if this much comes to market, it will pour into the U.S. and drive prices down, so even if we succeed in Colombia, Afghanistan is going to overrun us.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, has conducted annual opium poppy surveys in Afghanistan since 1994. The 2003 survey shows that Afghanistan again produced three-quarters of the world's illicit opium last year. In other words, Colombia is only really supplying opium to us. Afghanistan is supplying the rest of the world. That is not true of cocaine. Colombia supplies cocaine to the whole world, but in heroin we get it from Colombia, it appears, and most of Afghan heroin covers the rest of the world.

The UNODC concluded that out of this drug chest some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable share. Terrorists take a cut as well. The longer this happens, the greater the threat to security within the country and on its borders.

What we focused on in the hearing this morning was that the British-led effort on eradication of opium poppy is stalled just as the opium harvesting season in the south of Afghanistan is upon us.

We also took our U.S. Defense Department to task as well because they have not been going after some of the storage centers and other things and the British had complained to me in London, both in their military departments and in their intelligence areas, that we had not been committed to certain eradication efforts. At an interparliamentary conference twice in the last 2 years they have complained about American enforcement, and here we seem to have some wobbling by the British and we are trying to understand what exactly is happening here. It does not appear to be Prime Minister Blair or Mr. Straw, it does not appear to be the guys precisely on the ground, but somewhere in the middle here they have put a hold.

What do I mean by a hold? The Assistant Secretary of State for Narcotics, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, who oversees not only Colombia but the efforts in Afghanistan and not just the anti-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan but this agency oversees all the law enforcement efforts in Afghanistan, I am going to read some of his testimony from today:

Initial reports just in from the field in Afghanistan, this is as of even yesterday, indicate that we could be in the path for a significant surge, some observers indicate perhaps as much as a 50 to 100 percent growth in the 2004 crop over the already troubling figures from last year. By these estimates, unless direct, effective and measurable action is taken immediately, we may be looking at well over 120,000 hectares of poppy cultivation this year.

[Time: 20:00]

``That would constitute a world record crop empowering traffickers and the terrorists they feed, raising the stakes for and vulnerability of Afghan democracy, and raising the supply of heroin in the world market.''

Assistant Secretary Charles continued: ``Even more disturbing, these reports indicate that the clock is ticking faster than many anticipated due partly to warmer than expected weather in southern and eastern Afghanistan. As a direct result, the time for action may be shorter than anyone anticipated. I,'' Assistant Secretary Charles, ``have recently learned in the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime that they expect the unusually warm weather in southern Afghanistan will result in an early harvest which in some provinces has already started.''

[Page: H2051] GPO's PDF

What does this mean? It means that they were projecting we had several more months to complete an eradication project and they need to go now, not later, now; and that if we do not move now, the whole cycle, which normally would go into fall, is going to be moved up, and if my colleagues see Afghanistan there, the southern half roughly going up to the east side, 58 percent of opium eradication is supposed to be done by the British, 42 percent by us. Because the British are in the south in the Pashtun areas and where it is warmer and also less mountainous. The mountains are not as high. It is warmer. So the opium is flowering now. And in the north, where we are more in charge of eradication largely in Tajek areas, but other areas as well, starting May 1 we will start our operations and moving in.

Here is some of the political dilemma. The British for some reason, in kind of a bizarre position, seem to be saying, and this is literally what we heard from Secretary Charles under questioning today, is his understanding was they said, Since we did not get the heroin eradicated earlier and it is starting to flower, we really should not destroy it because it will destroy the farmers' income for this period and that would be terrible because they have worked this whole long period to bring it to market.

And we think, wait a second, this is not soy beans. First off, let us get this straight. Ninety-two percent of the agricultural land in Afghanistan is not heroin. Afghanistan does not have a heroin tradition. It has gone in and out. But as the former King told us when we met with him when he was still in exile and then when I was recently back over in Afghanistan again, during their kind of window of 30 or 40 years of a benevolent monarchy and moving towards a democracy, in their first years of democracy, they were not a heroin country. They were the breadbasket of that whole zone because where they can grow heroin and coca, it is also great for other products. But they switched over partly because of the Taliban, which got 80 percent of their income from heroin.

The question is who is going to run this country? Furthermore, a lot of the Northern Alliance groups that were aligned got their money from heroin. That was how they operated their country as they were war torn and blowing up other things in ways to make money and the regular farmers would get terrorized because they could get more money faster through heroin. It is a mess. And that as we tackle Afghanistan, if we are really going to try to restore order there and not have these terrorists and drug lords who are becoming more rapidly around the world the same people, we have to get at the heroin.

Now, the argument here is we are talking about only 8 percent; so the market has covered 92 percent but these 8 percent, mostly in politically potent highly, what we would call war lord areas, is a problem.

Let me finish my other point with the British in the flowering at the last minute. As Secretary Charles said today, this would be roughly akin to not apprehending a drug cartel person as they were bringing the money into the bank because they put up the whole network, they grow it, they distribute it, and now they are ready to deposit the money and they are nabbing them then. They should have got them at the beginning, not when they are getting ready to put the money in the bank. So why do they not just let them go? I mean, the logic of this is crazy. This would be as somebody does all the work to lay out a bank robbery, they conduct the bank robbery, they steal the money, and then we get them at the tail end, but they put all that work in. I do not know if we should stop them.

Furthermore, this is not benign. The heroin poppy where we are trying to be so generous, apparently, and not eradicate because we do not want to deprive the farmers of their income is going to kill people. It is going to leave families addicted. It is going to have women being beaten at home and children being abused by their parents because they got this heroin poppy. This is not a benign flowering marigold flower. It is a heroin poppy that is going to kill people, maim people, lead to automobile wrecks, terrorism around the world.

Why in the world would anybody think that they are not going to eradicate it when it is flowering? We cannot sit there with planes on the ground, twiddling our thumbs, while the world is about to be assaulted by the biggest crop of heroin in history. It is nonsensical.

Furthermore, if we do not crack down and if the British will not be aggressive in the southern part of Afghanistan with the Pashtuns, how do we think that the Northern Alliance groups who are also growing and protecting some of the people are going to be if we go into the Tajeks and the Uzbeks and those tribal groups in the north? They are going to say we did not do it to the Pashtuns, and we are back to the tribal breakups in the country because we are discriminating between the two different groups.

We have got to get this policy together. Nobody is against alternative development. Nobody is against better roads, building better hospitals, building better schools, rebuilding their legal system, protecting people. But we cannot not eradicate if they have grown something that is going to kill people. This would be akin to not getting a stash of machine guns because somebody built the machine guns or are about to get the profit and they need the income. These poor gun traffickers just need this money and they are trying to feed their kids and take care of their family and cover their health costs. We should not take all the gun traffickers' money away by getting their guns. What kind of nonsensical argument is this? We need boldness now, not wobbliness, out of both the United States and Britain.

And as far as the American Government goes, we will soon be having a hearing with our Department of Defense because we finally got, at least it appears, at least a regional memo in Afghanistan where they finally are saying if they find drugs and drug paraphernalia on people they capture, they should seize it. But they still have an order that says that they cannot use our military to eradicate. And in response to my question to Assistant Secretary of State Charles today where I said if they see stockpiled laboratories which the British have been criticizing us for not going after, does the Department of Defense tell the Department of State or DEA or anybody that they are there so somebody else can go get them? Because if the Department of Defense has decided they are too busy trying to get bin Laden, which we all agree that we have to get the terrorists, but we also need to get the funding for terrorists, we also need to establish democracy, if they cannot do it with the military, will they please share the information because I and other Members who have been over there know they can see it? There is no point in denying to us that they do not know where it is or that they cannot see it. The problem is who is going to get it? We are putting more DEA people in. We are getting more drug eradication groups in, and we need to go after it. Because if we fail to eradicate, if we cannot get it at the laboratory area, if we cannot get it in the distribution centers, it is going to wind up harder and harder to get.

Look at these arrows coming out of Afghanistan, a similar problem with Colombia. If we do not get it at its source, then it gets harder to find the labs. Then when it starts to move up through the Stans, through Russia, through Turkey, into Europe, down around and up the Suez Canal, they cannot get it. Then it is all over our streets. Then in America, 20,000 deaths because of drug abuse. Terrorism in its worst case killed 3,000 in a year. We have to make sure that that does not escalate.

Thankfully, this President has been aggressive; and we have done a better job on our borders, and we have shut down many of the terrorists' operations in the world, and we are battling them in Afghanistan and battling them in Iraq. Finally, Libya is cooperating with us, and when we met with Colonel Kadafi the first time we went in there, and I was with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) in that tour, he did not want to be in a spider hole like his friend Saddam. So he figured the Pakistani people was providing nuclear weapons and he is cooperating with us. Now all of a sudden Pakistan is cooperating with us. We have had some major breakthroughs, thanks to this President's efforts.

[Page: H2052] GPO's PDF

But at the same time we have to realize the nexus, the connections between narcotics and the stability of a country like Afghanistan long term. President Karsai and his leadership have been tremendous. It is a very difficult problem that he has got to try to establish order when they have this country divided up into different sections with different drug lords and warlords ruling that. But we have got to get it because he understands, in multiple meetings here on Capitol Hill and in Afghanistan, they cannot have a democracy in Afghanistan unless he can eliminate or at least greatly reduce the amount of opium poppy.

SNIP..............

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I add my voice as well to my seatmate, if I may. I sit in this chair by choice. Senator Byrd sits in his chair by choice as well, but he makes the choice before I do. I wanted to find out where he was going to sit so I could sit next to him. I did that because I wanted to sit next to the best, to learn everything I possibly could about the ability of this institution to provide the kind of leadership I think the country expects of us.

Several thoughts come to mind. This is a day of obvious significance in the number of votes that have been cast, 17,000, but it is far more important to talk about quality than quantity. Quantity is not an insignificant achievement, but the quality of my colleague and friend's service is what I think about when the name ROBERT C. BYRD comes to my mind.

I carry with me every single day, 7 days a week, a rather threadbare copy of the United States Constitution given to me many years ago--I can't even read it well now; it is so worn out--I may need a new copy--given to me by

[Page: S3541] GPO's PDF

my seatmate, ROBERT C. BYRD. I revere it. I tell people why I carry it because it reminds me of the incredible gift given to me by the people of Connecticut to serve in this Chamber, to remind me of the importance of an oath we all made, and that is to do everything we can to preserve, protect, and defend the principles upon which this Nation was founded. ROBERT C. BYRD, in my mind, is the embodiment of that goal.

It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great Senator at any moment. Some were right for the time. ROBERT C. BYRD, in my view, would have been right at any time. He would have been right at the founding of this country. He would have been in the leadership crafting this Constitution. He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation. He would have been right at the great moments of international threat we faced in the 20th century. I cannot think of a single moment in this Nation's 220-plus year history where he would not have been a valuable asset to this country. Certainly today that is not any less true.

I join my colleagues in thanking the Senator from West Virginia for the privilege of serving with him. He has now had to endure two members of my family as colleagues. Senator Byrd was elected to the Senate in 1958 along with my father. He served with my father in the House. I have now had the privilege of serving with Senator Byrd for 24 years, twice the length of service of my father. That is an awful lot of time to put up with members of the Dodd family. We thank Senator Byrd for his endurance through all of that time.

There is no one I admire more, there is no one to whom I listen more closely and carefully when he speaks on any subject matter. I echo the comments of my colleague from Massachusetts. If I had to pick out any particular point of service for which I admire the Senator most, it is his unyielding defense of the Constitution. All matters come and go. We cast votes on such a variety of issues, but Senator Byrd's determination to defend and protect this document which serves as our rudder as we sail through the most difficult of waters is something that I admire beyond all else.

I join in this moment in saying: Thank you for your service, thank you for your friendship, and I look forward to many more years of sitting next to you on the floor of the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.