Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Federal Auditors Question ONDCP Claims on Reducing Cocaine Flow

This morning, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Government Accountability Office, Congress' research arm and watchdog, is set to release a major report that calls into question the credibility of ONDCP's storm of claims that Plan Colombia has reduced the amount of cocaine in the U.S. Pete over at Drug War Rant also picked up this story this morning.

About damn time.

Plan Colombia has so far cost U.S. taxpayers more than $4 billion over the past five years, not to mention the intense acceleration of a 40-year armed conflict within Colombia. It is hard to imagine a more violent use of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Not only has this massive investment NOT reduced the flow of drugs into the U.S, as intended, but on U.S. streets, drugs are cheaper than ever. The forthcoming GAO report is one more example of the questionable evidence on which we are being sold our governments's perpetuation of the Drug War.

Hopefully, the GAO report will be picked up by news outlets and John Walters will have to answer some tough questions. As soon as a copy of the report is available, a link will be posted on this blog. Stay tuned.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This will be especially interesting given ol' Johnny "I-wanna-test-your-Pee" Walter's own public statements that the program isn't working.

Anonymous said...

Johnny Walters:
"We have not yet seen in all these efforts what we're hoping for on the supply side, which is a reduction in availability," he said in Mexico City.

But he predicted positive results would be seen within a year.

Mr Walters was speaking just after he had visited Colombia, where US-backed efforts to wipe out drug-smuggling gangs and eradicate coca crops have turned the country into the world's third-largest recipient of US military aid.
---

We'll see results in a year? Yeah, right. After generations of the war on some drugs, we'll see progress in only a year's time. Give me a break and what a load!

Anonymous said...

Ol' Johnny Pee isn't the only one who has a problem with calendars:

Newt Gingrich, 1986: "America will be drug-free by 1995"

Newt Gingrich, 1997: "America will be drug-free by 2001"

(Looking at calendar significantly) DrugWarriors! Do you know what year it is? I sure as hell wouldn't continue to pay a contractor to build my house when he keeps forwarding the completion date past the time he said he'd finish; why should we let pols get away with the same kind of thing? Sue the b*****ds for breach of contract!