EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites), embarking on a four-day swing through Latin America, stopped at the U.S.-Mexican border on Thursday to announce a security plan to speed traffic and goods across the world's busiest border and "weed out" terrorists. In this dusty, sun-parched town, Bush went to a U.S. Customs cargo inspection facility at the "Bridge of the Americas" crossing to watch a truck being inspected by an X-ray machine to determine its contents -- an example of how cross-border traffic can be inspected quickly. [continues 736 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush established a White House office dedicated to encouraging religious organizations to seek billions in federal dollars for helping address alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness and other social ills. By doing so, Bush drew the wrath of advocates of a strict separation between church and state. They warned they might file a legal challenge on grounds that it violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Appearing Monday with 35 religious leaders, Bush signed an executive order setting up the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. And he appointed University of Pennsylvania political science professor John DiIulio to head it. [continues 461 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey, issuing his final anti-drug report on Thursday, will stress the need for President-elect George W. Bush to maintain the national strategy that he has pursued. McCaffrey is to appear at the White House to release his last annual report before stepping down as head of President Clinton's Office of National Drug Control Policy. "The nation working together is making substantial progress in confronting illegal drug abuse and drug trafficking," McCaffrey said in a statement ahead of his appearance. [continues 284 words]
BILL CLINTON left for Colombia yesterday on the first trip there by a US President in a decade, to show friendship and solidarity with Colombians in their war against drugs and rebels. Mr Clinton, who returned on Tuesday from a trip to Nigeria, Tanzania and Egypt, was accompanied by his daughter Chelsea on the flight from Andrews Air Force base to the Caribbean resort of Cartagena. Mr Clinton will hold formal talks with Colombian President Andres Pastrana and have lunch with him during his day long visit to Colombia. The President will also inspect drug interdiction efforts in the Port of Cartagena and meet members of the Colombian national police and talk to widows of police officers killed in the line of duty. In a videotaped message to the Colombian people on Tuesday, Mr Clinton said he would bring a message of friendship and solidarity for the Colombian people, for Pastrana and for Plan Colombia, the $7.5 billion anti drug plan to which the United States is contributing $1.3 billion. [continues 454 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton, on the eve of a trip to Colombia, tried on Tuesday to soothe any concerns among Colombians that a $1.3 billion anti-drug plan marked growing U.S. intervention in that country. Clinton's trip comes as U.S. military advisers have begun training two special army battalions that will protect Colombian police missions to destroy drug plantations and labs in guerrilla-controlled areas of southern Colombia. "Please do not misunderstand our purpose," Clinton said in a videotaped message to the Colombian people. "We have no military objective. We do not believe your conflict has a military solution. We support the peace process. Our approach is both pro-peace and anti-drug." [continues 501 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States insisted on Thursday its plan to send U.S. military advisers to Colombia does not represent a deeper, Vietnam-style involvement in the country's drug war. As President Clinton prepared to travel to Colombia next Wednesday, his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, defended the U.S. plan to help Colombia battle drug trafficking. Under a U.S. aid package worth $1.3 billion, a few hundred U.S. military advisers will go to Colombia to train special battalions in fighting the drug trade, and indirectly, the leftist guerrillas who protect and profit from the trafficking. [continues 296 words]
By Steve Holland MIAMI (Reuters) President Clinton promoted new successes in the war on illegal drugs Thursday, and his drug policy chief said plans are afoot for a huge crackdown on narcotics smuggling from Mexico into the United States. Clinton interrupted an intense Democratic fundraising spree to take a U.S. Coast Guard cutter through a shipping channel to a Coast Guard station. There, he said the U.S. drug interdiction battle has enjoyed an upsurged in arrests of traffickers in the Caribbean region and a 300 percent rise in cocaine seizures 103,000 pounds this year. [continues 508 words]