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President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. De-spite the sharp criticism of Ronald Reagan’s an-tidrug policy, George Bush publicly renewed his pre-decessor’s pledge to wage war on drugs and continued the same policy. Public opinion polls showed that the American public wanted their polit-ical leaders to get even tougher on illegal drugs and combat the increasing drug-related violence in many American cities. Congress, under George Bush’s leadership, responded by adopting measures that further militarized the country’s antidrug ef-fort. The U.S. military was given a much broader role in the War on Drugs, despite continuing opposition from many military leaders, who felt the new policy would divert the armed forces from its primary role of defending U.S. interests abroad against such forces as Communism and terrorism.

18 BURROUGHS, WILLIAMS.

Author William S. Burroughs sitting at his typewriter in Paris, 1962. (Corbis/Underwood & Underwood)

BUSH, GEORGEHERBERTWALKER 19 Congress approved and Bush appointed a

so-called drug czar as a kind of top level commander in the War on Drugs who would have direct access to the president. The first czar, William Bennett, a reg-istered Democrat and former philosophy professor, revealed his antidrug plan in the summer of 1989.

Bennett called for an even tougher stance against the enemy: more federal agents, more prosecutors, more judges to hear more cases, and more federal prisons to hold more drug offenders. Instead of interdicting drugs at the border, Bennett proposed intervening in the countries where narcotic crops were grown and on the streets of America where they were con-sumed. The Bennett plan called for $7 billion per year. The drug czar projected that with this funding the United States could reduce illegal drug use by 10 percent over the first twenty-five months and by 50 percent in the coming decade. How exactly that would happen was not spelled out.

In unveiling his National Drug Control Strategy in September 1989 Bush endorsed Bennett’s plan of action and proposed that 70 percent of the $2.2 bil-lion increase in additional money to be allocated to the War on Drugs over the next several years be spent on law enforcement. Bush also urged Congress to give more military and economic assistance to Andean countries to help stem the flow of cocaine to the United States. “In the past, programs have been hampered by the lack of importance given by this country to the drug issue as a foreign policy con-cern,” Bush declared.“We must develop . . . a broad, meaningful public diplomacy program in a manner that would increase the level of international influ-ence for combating illicit drugs.” (Klare 1990, 8)

The militarization of the War on Drugs, begun by Reagan in 1982, reached a climax in the 1989 inva-sion of Panama and the capture of that country’s dictator, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, who had been indicted in a U.S. court for alleged involvement in international drug trafficking. With a force of 24,000 troops, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, an invasion of Panama that led to the ar-rest of the former U.S. ally and his trial in the United States on drug trafficking charges. United States of-ficials defended this military incursion, arguing that kidnapping was a legitimate strategy that the U.S could use to improve its role in the War on Drugs.

“Some foreign governments have unfortunately failed to take steps to protect the United States from

drug traffickers,” said William P. Barr, a deputy attor-ney general in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. (Anderson 1991, 155–156) Critics of Operation Just Cause said the United States had ac-tually kidnapped Noriega—a move that was in vio-lation of international law. The United States shouldn’t be breaking its own laws abroad, they ad-monished.

In late 1988 the Bush administration asked the military to “play a major role in helping to interdict drug traffic in the United States, to create an inte-grated intelligence and communications network, and to train foreign military personnel and both U.S.

and foreign police forces.” (Bagley 1988, 155–156) The United States had begun to use its elite special forces, including the Green Berets, in preemptive strikes against the drug-trafficker enclaves in source countries like Peru and Colombia. The justification for the operation was an opinion issued by the Jus-tice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that con-cluded that U.S. military forces could go overseas and arrest drug dealers and other criminals, even without the consent of host country.

In September 1989 Secretary of Defense Dick Chaney issued a directive to all military comman-ders to develop policies and to play a major role against international drug trafficking. Under the new policy, the Department of Defense began to as-sume a new and bigger responsibility in the inter-diction of illegal drugs at the United States’ southern borders.

But Congress—not just the president—wanted the military to play a more active role in the drug battle. The mood of the legislature was expressed by Representative Larry Hopkins (R-Ky), who told the Pentagon in early 1989, “We are serious about your active role in this war on drugs, even if it means we have to drag you screaming every step of the way.”

(Isenberg 1990, 24)

Times had changed, though, and the military was no longer reluctant to assume more active participa-tion in the United States’ latest crusade. The Penta-gon had changed its position, not just because of pressure from the president and Congress, but also for economic reasons.With the Soviet Union collaps-ing and becomcollaps-ing less of a threat to U.S. security, Secretary Chaney announced in November 1989 that the administration would be cutting the Depart-ment of Defense budget by $180 million over five

years. The announcement sent shock waves through the military, which could not but conclude that the legislative trend was going to be continued reduc-tions of military expenditures, manpower, and com-mitments worldwide. As David Isenberg explains,

“Pentagon leadership began arguing that military manpower should not be reduced because Congress is mandating increased military involvement in drug interdiction efforts.” (Isenberg 1990, 25)

Bush, like Reagan, called often for the need to re-duce the demand for drugs at home, but, in reality, the United States’ antidrug strategy during the 1980s and early 1990s focused heavily on reducing the supply of illegal drugs from abroad through border and off-shore interdiction efforts. By 1991 nearly 70 percent of the U.S. antidrug budget went towards re-ducing supply, particularly cocaine from South America.

Bush’s search for a military solution to the War on Drugs was evident in 1989 when he unveiled the

“Andean Strategy,” a program in which the United States would provide some modest military assis-tance to the source countries of Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia, while encouraging them to involve their own militaries more in the War on Drugs. Annual U.S as-sistance to the Andean countries had been about $40 to $50 million, a minuscule amount compared to the billions generated by the region’s drug trafficking in-dustry, but, with the Andean Strategy in place, the United States’ antidrug expenditures for South American source countries increased sevenfold from fiscal year 1989 to 1991.

To get the support of the Andean countries for his antidrug program and to show he was serious about his Andean initiative, Bush journeyed to Cartegena in February 1990 for a summit meeting with the leaders of Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia—a move that led to the formation of what has been called “the world’s first antidrug cartel.” Participating nations at the summit vowed to attack international drug traf-ficking from every angle; economic, political, and military. Bush pledged to work hard to decrease the demand for drugs in the United States, while the An-dean leaders said they would work equally hard to reduce drug-related corruption, strengthen the judi-ciary, and step up law enforcement efforts against the drug traffickers operating in their countries. The Andean nations urged Bush to create new trade op-portunities that would provide more employment

opportunities for workers displaced from the co-caine economy.

To meet his commitment at the Cartegena sum-mit, Bush sent his Andean trade preference bill to Congress for ratification in July 1990. Signed into law on 4 December 1990, the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) was designed to expand the economic alternatives for the source countries that had been fighting to eliminate the production, processing, and shipment of illegal drugs. Specifically, the Act gave the president the authority to grant duty-free entry to imports of eligible articles from countries desig-nated as beneficiaries according to criteria set forth in the Act. This economic incentive program was to remain in effect for ten years.

By the time the 1992 U.S. presidential elections got rolling, the consensus among drug analysts was that the Bush administration’s War on Drugs strat-egy, which focused primarily on supply and looked for a military solution, had not worked. “U.S. drug policy in much of the hemisphere was viewed not nearly as costly and ineffective, but as perversely counterproductive as well,” explained Professor Bruce Bagley. (Bagley & Walker 1994, 69) Despite the assurances made by the U.S. government since 1982 that “the scourge was about to end,” the supply of heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs were still plentiful, while their cost had remained low. The Bush administration’s antidrug strategy, moreover, may have actually led to more drug abuse and drug-related violence.

The policy had also done little to alleviate drug-induced corruption, terrorism, and violence in the many countries that had been sucked into the War on Drugs. “The Peruvian-American antidrug policy has failed,” acknowledged Peruvian President Al-berto Fujimori.“For ten years, there has been a con-siderable sum invested by the Peruvian government, and this has not led to a reduction in the supply of coca leaf offered for sale. Rather, in the ten years from 1980 to 1990, it grew tenfold.”(Podesta & Farah 1993)

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-NH), the chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees foreign operations, concurred with President Fujimori’s assessment, and in an inter-view appeared to agree with the opinion of many drug-policy analysts who believed that the DEA should stop its support of raids on drug-trafficking 20 BUSH, GEORGEHERBERTWALKER

BUSH, GEORGEHERBERTWALKER 21 operations in Peru. “We’ve spent over $1 billion

down there so far and we’ve accomplished virtually nothing,” Leahy explained. “We ought to realize it’s not going to work.” (Isikoff 1993)

See also: Alternative Development; Bennett, William J.;

Cartegena Summit; Cocaine; Drug Czar; Heroin;

National Narcotics Interdiction System; Noriega, Manuel Antonio; Reagan, Ronald; United States National Drug Control Strategy

References: Bagley, Bruce. 1989–1990.“Dateline Drug Wars Colombia: The Wrong Strategy.” Foreign Affairs (Winter):

54.

———, and William O. Walker. 1994.“After San Antonio.”

In Drug Trafficking in the Americas.

Chepesiuk, Ron. 1999. Hard Target.

Isenberg, David. 1990.“Military Options in the War on Drugs.” USA Today, 7 July.

Isikoff, Michael. 1993.“U.S. Considers Shift in Drug War.”

Washington Post, 16 September.

Klare, Michael T. 1990.“Fighting Drugs with the Military.”

Nation, 1 January.

Podesta, Don, and Douglas Farah. 1993.“Drug Policing in the Andes.” Washington Post, 27 March.