Clinton Announces Plan To End Mexican Drug Flow

Miami

Claiming a banner year in cocaine seizures, President Clinton yesterday
announced a plan to use Cold War technology to eliminate drug smuggling
from Mexico within five years.

Despite the huge crossborder travel flow, "We think that's achievable,"
said General Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy.

One tool that will help, he said, is an Xray machine that was built to
scan containers shipping Soviet warheads. Tested in California, the
machines have discovered cocaine hidden inside lead batteries, suspended by
wires in wet concrete and welded into truck walls.

McCaffrey had announced the technology initiative in Washington on
September 16. But he refocused attention on it on the same day that Clinton
came to Miami, the Coast Guard's busiest druginterdiction center, to
advertise a new batch of encouraging statistics on narcotics seizures.

On a hot, hazy morning, Clinton and McCaffrey boarded the Coast Guard
cutter Chandeleur yesterday for a halfhour ride up a narrow channel to the
Miami Coast Guard station. The Chandeleur is used in a Caribbean crackdown
on smugglers who use Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as transit points.

Aided by other law enforcement agencies, the Coast Guard seized a record
103 617 pounds of cocaine in the fiscaiyear that ended September 30, more
than triple the previous year's total.

The antidrug event was built around a busy schedule of presidential fund
raising three events in one day expected to raise $1.25 million. It was
Clinton's final trip in a sixweek travel marathon to raise millions of
dollars for the debtridden Democratic Party.

Earlier, Clinton met with McCaffrey to discuss the administration's
campaign against drugs.

Clinton directed McCaffrey to have ready in time for his State of the Union
message "a concept" to eliminate drug smuggling on the country's
Southwestern border. The president has discussed the initiative with House
Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"We're going to try and stop drug smuggling into the United States across
the MexicanU.S. border in the next five yearssubstantially stop itwhile
still al lowing our secondbiggest trading partner to continue economic co
operation," McCaffrey said.

The obstacles are staggering Each year, 260 million people cros the border.
Eightytwo million cars, 3.5 million trucks and 340,OO0 rail cars go from
one country to the other.