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House Judiciary Committee and now head of the Criminal Justice Policy
Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group. "The idea was to outmaneuver the
Republicans, but the Republicans were always willing to go one step
further."
    At first the FBI and DEA admired von Raab's swagger. But the
agencies soon found themselves in ugly turf battles.
    Moody recalls how some customs agents involved in a joint
investigation in Los Angeles engaged in "rips" - going outside channels
to seize drug money and grab credit that should have gone to the joint
probe. The DEA finally won a Justice Department ruling that customs
agents lacked authority to seize drug assets unless the DEA had
explicitly cross-designated them to work such cases.
    The Coast Guard fought with customs over who should patrol the
12-mile, off-shore buffer zone before international waters; later they
fought over whether the Coast Guard had improperly drawn $8 million from
a Customs Service drug-fighting account.
    Congressional critics alleged von Raab was focusing on drugs at the
expense of his agency's other duties. He also drew fire for a proposal
to shoot down airplanes suspected of drug smuggling if the pilots
ignored orders to land. The idea died after warnings from the Aircraft
Owners and Pilots Association that it would only take one mistake "to
shoot down Mom, Dad and the kids returning home from a vacation in the
Bahamas."
    VON RAAB'S RESIGNATION LETTER IN 1989 charged that "political
jockeying, backstabbing and malaise" had undermined the anti-drug
effort. Looking back, von Raab says he now believes his political
problems reflected American society's lack of commitment to a fullscale
drug war.
    "At best we had a very fragile containment policy that would fall
apart if we took our eye off it," says von Raab, who now practices law
in Alexandria, Va. "And that's exactly what happened."
    Barry McCaffrey brought a military demeanor and a skeptical eye to
the drug war when Clinton appointed him in 1996. McCaffrey had headed
the Pentagon's Southern Command, which oversees interdiction and
eradication efforts in Latin America, and he knew that success was
elusive. A joint military effort with Guatemala successfully eradicated
poppy fields there and halted transshipments of drugs to Mexico. But
smugglers simply turned to bigger aircraft to fly drugs directly from
Colombia to Mexico.
    McCaffrey's first order of business was to rebuild the drug czar's
office, which had been gutted during the Clinton administration's first
three years. But he also wanted to reestablish a sense of urgency. Some
officials believed the drug war - though still well funded - had slipped
as a priority.
    With his war hero's record and his crisp appearance on Capitol Hill,
McCaffrey has secured congressional support. But the drug-war
bureaucracy is still withholding approval. Some agents fear the former
general is attempting to consolidate and control too many law
enforcement functions - a responsibility for which they say he is not
qualified.
    Earlier this year McCaffrey released a National Drug Control
Strategy - a 10 year plan that he called "a statement of will and a
guide to action." His office promoted the plan's "bold changes,"
including an explicit recognition that reducing drug demand through
prevention and treatment must be the centerpiece of the federal effort.
    But critics contend that while McCaffrey's language is refreshing,
his proposed new budget offers little that is new. And the recurring
cycle of Drug War Inc. - the budget increases, the agency competition,
the duplication and partisan wrangling is spinning once again.
    "Barry McCaffrey means well, but the budget numbers look essentially
the same," says Mathea Falco of Drug Strategies, the policy group.
"We're still basically trying to arrest our way out of the problem,
fighting the war on drugs the way we always have."
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               Washington Post staff writer Jim McGee
                  also contributed to this report.
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