much more easily. i think any effort that we can be procarefulactive in the focus and put into place procedures up front serve the program well and to facilitate between programs and law enforcement and oversight agencies to be sure we act with we can. i think the report that came to our attention through the great work the gao led us to take steps. the more that we can continue that feedback k feedback, that program will be better off. ..ave five days to

submit statements and questions for the record. after we hear from our witnesses individual members will be recognized for five minutes each for questions and i now recognize myself five minutes for my opening statement. two weeks ago for expert witnesses testified in this hearing room. to experts explained in an insurgency is raging along our southern border. the effort to focus on the fact that violence and crime in mexico have taken a unique term and the u.s. response has not

followed. all agree the situation has evolved and fragment into violent criminal control over parts of mexico. it is clear that today mexico represents a unique situation requiring the development of its own specific classifications to successfully combat the authority of this expanding criminal control. today i will continue to make the case that mexico is facing a criminal insurgency. the attack on the state are clear. the criminal organizations are capturing the allegiance of the possible economic and social programs and as they undermine institutions the have no desire to replace them. is this the insurgency in mexico a threat to the space governments then we have seen in

any other insurgency scenarios. these transnational criminal organizations are employing increasingly grew some terrorist tactics to carry out their threats the potential threat of criminal organizations controlling our southern border creates grave national security and economic implications from the united states. that is why the united states begin funding the mary duff initiative to improve the situation in mexico we experience more threats and violence from our border region today than we did four years ago it america initiative as been successful and to raise first establishing deeper cooperation between the united states and mexico, and that is clear. and number to come removing the major drug kingpins in accordance with the goals of the mexican government.

unfortunately, the game is changed to read the reality in mexico is the u.s. assistance has lagged while the traditional cartels evolves into the diversified transnational criminal organizations perpetrating the insurgent tactics to protect their assets. after four years of the merida initiative from border region of mexico is more violent today than four years ago. the reduction in violence while maintaining a full attack on the criminal organizations and strengthening the institutions to prosecute and punish them is required in order to regain control. this is the basis of the counter insurgency strategy that i outlined in the prior hearing. the united states should support a targeted yet comprehensive strategy that works with mexico to secure one keep population

center at a time but in order to build and support vital infrastructure and social development for lasting results. the counterinsurgency measures must include one, and all u.s. agency plan including the treasury department, department of justice, cia, u.s. immigration and customs enforcement, the state department and others to aggressively attack the criminal networks and the u.s. and mexico. to come once and for all we must secure the border between the united states and mexico doubled in border patrol agents fully funding and delivering on the needed border protection equipment such as additional unmanned aerial vehicles and the completion of a double layer of security fence and urban hard to enforce areas of the border and three, we must take key steps to

ensure local population support the government and the role of law over the cartel's such as by promoting the culture of lawfulness programs. as i stated before, the current u.s. policy with mexico does not seriously address the national security challenges we face. it is time that we recognize the need for the counter insurgency strategy that can combat the evolution and the resilience of mexico's transnational criminal organizations. this is a severe threat and requires a serious response. i look forward to hearing from our experts from the department of homeland security, the department of justice represented by the dea and the state department on how the situation on the ground has evolved, the impact on u.s. personnel and their activities and tactical ways to squash this criminal insurgency. i now would like to recognize

mr. keating for eight opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman and for holding today's subcommittee as a member of both the committees on foreign affairs and homeland security i appreciate the opportunity to jointly examine this very important topic. i combined presence indicates the extent to which we take the security of the southern border seriously and we look for to western hemisphere subcommittee on this topic. mr. chairman we are here today to examine the progress of the merida initiative and halting the flow of violence related to criminal activities of mexican drug trafficking organizations also known as dto. moving illegal drugs and weapons across the southwest border the bortolotti of the dto is overshadowed. a number of facts relative to the discussion today. as we see tangible solutions to

the increasing level of violence in mexico with us remember those responsible particularly for violence against women are not distinctive in the mexican military is not always impartial could this mexico is an ally of but we cannot take the law enforcement in black and white. with minimum control for corruption and impunity if mexico it's difficult to decipher who exactly is committing the crimes in the two widely publicized cases cited by the robert f. kennedy center for justice and human rights to indigenous women were raped by soldiers from the mexican army and the municipality of in 2002. however, to this day the state has refused to admit that these women were raped after nearly a

decade these cases were finally transferred to the civilian courts but these two cases are not isolated incidents in the violence perpetrated by the military. the national human rights commission says its received more than 5,000 complaints about the alleged abuse by the military since of the offensive against the drug kings began in 2006. i note this not to discredit our ally president calderon or the merida initiative. since both of them have led to reform and the mexican judicial system but for the purpose of the ceiling by one to go with a complete picture of what is happening on the ground in mexico and with president calderon is up against. at that time that we are tightening our belts we must monitor funding to the mexican police and military closely was we had suffering to the people and fortunately have nowhere to

turn. for this reason i strongly support the training assistance we provide the mexican military along with strong oversight mechanisms the u.s. and mexico have made strides in developing strong working relationships with diplomatic levels down to field agents patrolling both sides of the southwest border. at present more than 17,500 border patrol agents 1,200 national guardsmen for deployment along the border in looker 250 immigration customs enforcement special agents are assigned to secure the border. this does not mean did insurgence along the border do not exist and more work has to be done. however, a of this is the highest number of personnel to ever protect the border and these numbers represent a step in the right direction. in fact more effort and resources are deployed along the southwest border today than ever

before. by the end of fiscal year 2011 according to the state department the u.s. will have invested almost $900 million in the clubbing and training to advance the merida initiative and assist our neighbors south of the border. since fiscal year 2008, the u.s. has contributed approximately $1.6 billion overall to the initiative while mexico has allocated 26 billion to promote public safety and security within its own borders. furthermore, a new effort is being implemented to strike the mexican civil society institution by offering training and technical assistance. ..

>> with proper oversight, this can lead to real set. it's vital we work closely with the personnel to ensure they have resources they require to continue partnering with mexico to fulfill the goals of the initiative while combating crime and injustice on all sides. i y. >> i thank the gentleman, and i'd like to recognize the chairman for his opening statement. >> thank you, chairman mack, for agreeing to hold this important joint hearing op a very important issue facing our neighbor and friend to the south that is mexico.

i also want to thank the ranking members keithing -- keating and angle for participating as well. men, women, and children have been murdered by insur gents. a gubernatorial candidate, u.s. citizens, and law enforcement officers. local governments are harassed and intimidated while the bodieses of those who stand up against these terrorists are hung from bridges and tossed into the streets. i'm not speaking of al-qaeda or the taliban, but describing the acts of the mexican drug cartels. mexico's president declared war on the drug cartels after taking office in 2006. he described violence in his country as a challenge to the state and an attempt to replace the staid. he said in response to the recent casino royale firing

claiming 53 lives, he said, "we are facing true terrorists." in 2008, the united states launched the initiative to assist mexico in its war against the drug cartels. over 1.5 billion has been appropriated, but to date, only a third has been delivered. according to reports, the initiative lacks essential goals, performance measure, and accountability. this raises serious issues. what's the strategy and plan to help mexico win the war? is it now time to move beyond? what do agencies need from congress to accomplish this mission we all agree is so vital not only to mexico's national security, but to ours 1234 united states' efforts need to be re-examine the. re-examined. there are been attempted to kill

u.s. state and federal law enforcement officials. i have the privilege to travel and meet with our troops in ike and afghanistan, but during one visit to el paso intelligence center, i requested to go into warez. i was told they could not guarantee my safety. 6,000 people had been killed there alone. i did visit, but we were given the same security measures we received in iraq, afghanistan, and pakistan. the cartels not only breached the border, but creating safe havens across the border including in my home state of texas. 24 is a report by generals barry and robert scales. they also say the cartels are using prisons and recruitment centers and cities in the united states for drug operations. both generals will testify before my subcommittee next week. additionally, a very recent report from the department of

justice reveals the drug cartels operate in more than 1,000 cities across the united states -- 1,000 cities. they control distribution of most heroin, marijuana, methamphetamines, and roar narcotics. this is a threat to national security and should be treated as such. i introduced legislation requiring the state department, classified drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations similar to what president clinton did to the fair and fark in columbia. this would deny them any assistance. the legislation must be tied to fighting the cartels both here in abroad using every means available. the drug cartels intimidate and coerce the population. they affect the conduct of the government and threaten the security of the united states. look at the definition and also

under federal law, this is a very essence of terrorism. there is a real war happening along our border, and the enemy is covertly infiltrating our cities. we have to take the threat seriously and take decisive action. in closing, i wanted to point out two more events. recently during rush hour, the drug cartel dumped 35 bidses in the intersection of the city of vary cruise. five severed heads were put in a sack and placed at a primary school after they threatened to attack elementary schoolteachers if they did not pay half their wages to the drug cartels. i split to you, mr. chairman, that they are terrorizing the population. i submit to you these drug cartels are terrorizing the schools and the children in those schools, and with that, i yield back.

>> thank you very much, chairman mccaul, and i'd like to turn now to mr. engle for his opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is the second of hearings in the important initiative. i welcome all witnesses here, especially my friend bill brownfield who's been doing wonderful work. good to see all three of you and very respected. i want to commend chairman mack for taking the opportunity to conduct oversight on this foreign and domestic policy, and i'm happy to be here today. no more important relationship not united states and latin america than the one we have with mexico. we share a border almost 2,000 miles long, a rich and intertwined history, deep cultural connections and economies that are now interwoven and mutually dependent, yet, today serious problems extend to both sides of the border.

the drug trade, which had once been the domain mostly of nations moved north. it's taken hold no mexico and damaged the northern parts of central america. as i stated in the first of the hearings, i wanted to be clear that the united states stands with our friends to the south in the fight against narco-trafficking. i'm disturbed of the horrors carried out. they are brutal criminals who prey on people in the u.s. and ravage communities in new mexico and elsewhere. we are complete agreement their a, -- actions are illegal, dangerous, and hideous. i'm not sure we can call them insurgents in terrorism. i'm not sure that describes what's going on in mexico. there's the overthrow of a government using arms and conflict dod defines tornado

watch as a calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of violence intended to coerce or intended to purr suede governments with goals in 34reu8, religious, or ideological. the drug gangs don't have goals, just wanting to make money peddling narcotics. it's not exactly terrorism, and not exactly insurgent sigh, but it's no less awful. we, in the united states, have a real stake in trying to get at them in trying to defeat them. i think mr. mccaul's examples of what we've seen with these people are capable of is something we, in the united states, obviously, have a very important stake in. i mentioned before when i mentioned before about the

definition of terrorism because i'm concerned if we were to put these groups on the terrorist list, would the gun dealer who provides them weapons, the drug abuser who buys the drugs, or the banks who loan money be prosecutor -- prosecutable is unclear, but i think adding them to the terrorism list raises serious questions to explore in the hearing. it doesn't mean we have to go after them any less. in fact, we need to do everything we can, but i raise this because i just think it's important before we jump and call them terrorists or insurgents. i think we need to be careful. among the other questions i'd like the witnesses to discuss today is one, whether we're down enough at home to reduce demand for drugs. i said many, many times when i chaired this committee and as ranks member, that if we didn't use the drugs, they wouldn't be a need for these people to do

what they do. how can we slow the flow of weapons into new mexico? i think we should discuss that today. is the assistance moving fast enough? we had a problem with that in the past. i think that's important to concentrate on, and finally, how are u.s. authorities coordinating on the border with mexican authorities. mr. chairman, i'm very happy that we're having this hearing. i think these issues are very important. i think our goals are io identical. we need to see these criminals and these thugs brought to justice. we need to stop it, and we have a stake in it just as much as mexico does, and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman engel, and i'd now like to introduce our witnesses. first the honorable william r. brown field. ambassador brownfield is the secretary of international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. prior to this appointment, he

served as u.s. ambassador to colombia from august 2007 to august 2010 and before serving in colombia, he served as u.s. ambassador to venezuela and chile. thank you so much for being here today. benson is the administrator of the drug enforcement administration. he served as a special agent in charge of the atlanta field division directing and leading federal drug enforcement operations throughout the state of georgia, north carolina, south carolina, and tennessee. additionally mr. denson served as a special agent in charge of the seattle field division, and third is mr. marico -- did i say that right? >> [inaudible] >> silver, mr. silver is the

acting assistant secretary for international policy at the u.s. department of homeland security. prior to her appointment, she served as policy adviser for innovation, higher education, and economic development to then governor janet napolitano. before that, she was special adviser to the president and director of strategic projects for the office of the president at arizona state university. thank you, all, very much for being here. i would now like to turn to ambassador brown field and recognize him for five minutes. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, ranking members, members of the foreign fairs, and homeland security committees. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

i have a run statement for the record which i have submitted and would like to offer a brief oral summary. mr. chairman, i do not intend to spend your time describing the origin, history, and purpose of the initiative. you know them better than i do. i'll say this has been more of a partnership between two governments than a traditional foreign assistance program, that the congress has been generous in funding it, and that the initiative delivered concrete successes over the past four years. since 2009, more than 33 high level cartel leaders have been removed or arrested. this compares with one in the proceeding six years. thanks to the merida initiative, there's 14 additional helicopters, hundreds of sweeps

of equipment, and more than 150 canine teams. more than 52,000 mexican police and prosecutors received some professional training under the merida initiative. by the end of this year, we will have delivered more than $900 million worth of equipment and training to mexico with more than $500 million delivered this year alone. there is no doubt in my mind that the united states is better and safer today thanks to our support to the merida initiative. ladies and gentlemen, merida is in transition where we once had specialized training. we concentrated on building strong federal institutions, and

now we concentrate more on state and municipal institutions, and we will focus our support in northern mexico where the violence is greatest and we have shared border security interest. mr. chairman, the merida initiative was not engraved in stone, but a living strategy that's modified, adjusted, and corrected as circumstances change on the ground, and we learn lessons. some of those lessons came from the united states congress and came from members 234 this very -- in this very chamber. it is a valuable idea to integrate efforts against drugs, organized crime, and terrorism into a unified hole lis tick approach to -- holistic approach to support the merida initiative. we have learned lessons from other theaters of operations around the world that can and should be integrated into our

merida efforts, but mr. chairman, there's two lessons we did not have to learn because we already knew them. the first is that merida is a cooperative agreement between the u.s. and mexico with the government of mexico in charge of all activities within their territory. if we do not work together with the mexican government, then we accomplish little for either the american or mexican people, and second, as i learned the hard way during my years in colombia, is the lesson of strategic patience. i'm an optimist, mr. chairman, and i believe we've already made serious progress under this initiative, but it took our two nations many years to get into this situation, and it's going to take us some years to get out of it. i thank you, mr. chairman, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. ambassador,

and now mr. benson is recognized for five minutes. >> good afternoon, honorable chairman, ranking members, and dwieshed members of the foreign affairs and homeland security commissions. thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today on a subject of critical importance. i'm rodney benson, and i have the privilege of serving as the drug enforcement administration's chief of intelligence. during my 28 year career with dea, i witnessed firsthand the evolution of mexican drug trafficking organizations from marijuana suppliers in the 80s to clommian cartels in the late 80 #s and early 1990s to one of the primary and most violence actors in the global drug market today. from my supervisory position on the southwest border to coordinating multijurisdictional and transnational at the

headquarters level, and my position as special agent in charge in offices as diverse as seattle and atlanta, i witnessed the remarkable spread of trafficker influence throughout the united states and around the world. currently, we enjoy unprecedented levels of corporation and coordination with our mexican counter parts, and we greatly appreciate the unwaiverring commitment and leadership of the mexican president. it's critical in sustaining mexican security forces against a formidable enemy. dea has benefited with working with better equipped and better trained police officers and prosecutors. they administered the division of technical material and educational support to our tireless partners resulting in the dismantling and fracturing of several dto's and encouraging

partners in mexico to go forward on law enforcement reforms. information sharing between our two nations with the goal of capturing mexico's most violence and prolific traffickers has never been robust. as thee groups splintered into legalist factions, we see the surrogate bosses lack not only the discipline of their elders and former leaders, but the international connections and influence to realize the accustomed level of profit. some might call the resulting behavior anarchy, and dea recognizes that extreme, seemingly arbitrary criminal violence begs a label when some of the violence is directed at government officials, police officers, soldier, and civilians, and despite groups resorting to tactics like bombs and beheadings, this is just

greed and rivalry. the members of the desperate organizations are not fighting in the name of ideology, philosophy, or religion or for political power and influence, but to eliminate competition, settle scores, and increase profits. extortion, kidnapping, oil pipeline theft, prostitution, carjacking, robbery, and media pie ranking piracy bolster drug revenue and are the activities of organized crime. funding from the merida initiative was critical in the transformation of the federal police agency and the training of police officers and prosecutors at our levels. in june of last year, our lawmakers passed some of the most effective antimoney laundering legislation in the country's history, and the results of our bilateral efforts acclaim a portion of the estimated $18 billion to $39

billion of drug profits crossing our border are improving exponentially. proving the effectiveness of mexico's state is tantamount for its success. it's in this area of remarkable cooperation that u.s. efforts have been matched or exceeded by our partners in mexico. we're committed to our partners and must continue to support endeavors to bring security to mexico and its citizens supporting the merida initiative and president as well as the next administration in mexico 1 the only option. thank you, again, for the privilege of speaking to you on behalf of the men and women of the drug enforcement administration, and i'll gladly respond to any questions you might have. >> thank you very much, mr. benson. ms. silver, you are recognized for five minutes.

>> thank you very much. first, i want to thank you for your continued support and for the opportunity to speak to you today on the merida initiative. its inception in 2007, and secretary napolitano supports merida funded programs. while the state department has responsibilities for dispersing funds, dhs and other partners participate heavily in implementing specific programs. this approach is consistent with the didn't of state's development review which states, "given the national security implications of security sector assistance, state will express the department of justice, homeland security, to implement state programs involving tornado

terrorism or capacity building and other industries, and we're pleased to provide that with mexico." there's types of engagement that coast guard and others had had in particular to the merida initiative. we work on training to procuring qimght paid for by the initiative. we believe dhs's use neck skills contributed greatly to the merida initiative. i want to note that merida initiative marked a change in the nature and extent of mexico on security and law enforcement issues. we saw this at the policy level and on the ground. as part of the shift, it led to a significant reframing and reorganization of much of our bilateral engamingment. it's now framed around four pillars. we focus on pillar three, creating a 21st century border.

during the state visit, president obama and calderon noted the work accomplished under pillar three. their joint statement set a policy vision articulating that, "the 21st century border must ensure the safety and security of residents and communities along both sides of the border." they affirm the interest of mexico and the united states to allow entry into the countries of people who pose a threat to national security. the 39's board of vision shows the need to manage the border and manage it in a holistic fashion. this policy vision requires moving beyond guarding the line between the united states and mexico. the border and interior are linked as was pointed out. at the board enand interior should be kemp complementary and

coordinated using all agency counterpart. it's necessary, but this should be more of a comprehensive approach. through this approach, we need to engage domestically at the board earn and abroad to secure the united states. we also need to leverage opportunities working with the foreign partners to intercept and utilize threats before they reach the u.s. border. there's more places and more countries interconnected with networks in trade and trfl every day. it means vulnerabilities or gaps anywhere across the globe, and our neighbor mexico, have the about to affect activity thousands of miles away, here in the united states. it must include efforts to secure global and trade efforts. this highlights the importance of collaboration and tribal

governments as well as private sector partners. it's built on approaches to ensure beth academic competitiveness and national security. we cannot let commerce grind to a halt. dhs supports the -- from the congress, and your support of the merida initiative. the united states and mexico are closer now than we have been. while challenges remain, there's a strong foundation of cooperation to build. we look forward to working with congress to achieve the goals and with our mexican partners. thank you again for the opportunity to testify. i'm happy to take any questions you may have. >> thank you very much, ms. silver, and i now recognize myself for five minute questions. first of all, let me make this perfectly clear. the people of the united states and of mexico have a very shared interest in this.

the people of mexico and the people of the united states have similar desires, and that is for the ideas of freedom, security, and prosperity. this hearing today is to get at some of the questions about where we've been which have been documented, but have we diagnosed the problem correctly, and what do we do moving forward? first i have a baseline question here for all of you, and hopefully i can get a yes or no. i know that might be difficult for some of you, but please try. have the drug cartels in mexico evolved in their criminal activities and level the violence since 2007? ambassador? >> i'll start, mr. chairman. they evolved, but they are

smaller, more numerous, more diverse, and as a consequence, they are a different kind of strategic and tactical problem to address than they were four years ago. >> thank you. mr. benson? >> and, yes, chairman, we've seen that evolution expansion, some of the cartels splint oring, and then essentially more criminal groups we're targeting. >> thank you. >> i concur with that. they are more fragmented. there's on the ground small group, and the law enforcement challenge is different. >> okay. ambassador brownfield, according to the cia, and i quote, "insurgent activities include k guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and political motivation like propaganda, recruitment, and international activity." do you agree the cartels in mexico are engaging in the activities listed by the cia?

>> it's a label, mr. chairman, but i will not question whether certain organizations are doing certain things, although to be honest, i can make the same comment about organizations in the united states as well. >> but you don't deny that the cartels are engaged in guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and political mobilization such as propaganda, recruitment, and international activities? >> i accept that individuals of some organizations are doing sometimes in some places this activity. i do not suggest it's systematic nationwide or institutional. >> well, it's -- let me just -- we can go to -- we have a slide here. guerrilla warfare. there's examples of federal police officers attacked in mexico. next slide. terrorism -- you have a gunman killed 52 people and burned the casino in mexico, and i believe the president, himself, indicated that that was

terrorism. political mobilization, you have a candidate for governor who was assassinated in june 2008 -- or june 28, 2010. you have political protests increasing awareness surrounding the war on drugs, and, again, then you have next slide, propaganda and recruitment. you have cartels holding -- happy children's day, and at the same time, recruiting and offering better pay and health care, so i would go towards that, and then there's international activity which we have all talked about here today, so i'm having a little of a 45rd time understanding the reluctancy in saying that the activities that the cartels are showing do fit the definition, the cia talks about activities as an insurgency.

>> i don't question your facts, mr. chairman, nor your motivation. you and i have exactly the same objective in mind here. if, on the other hand, your asking me do i see exactly the same thing here as in other parts of the world we described as insurgency, they are different. >> i'm not asking about other parts of the world. i'm asking specifically about whether or not the cartels are partaking in insurgent activity as outlined that we just did. the last question here. the department of homeland security and department of defense are addressing trafficking in the united states and border protection programs, but separate from the merida initiative. wouldn't it make since to have a coordinated u.s. strategy to meet strategic u.s. goals in mexico? ambassador, if you want to take a shot at that. >> sure, although, we have to work our way through, just as

you do when you are melding what your subcommittee does with what mr. mccaul's subcommittee does, we have to address the issues of a domestic issue like a foreign issue, but the answer to your question is yes. >> thank you. do you agree there's an evolution in the violation by the cartels? you can agree that there's been insurgent activities in mexico from the cartels, and that we need to have a coordinated u.s. strategy to meet the strategic goals. mr. benson, do you agree with that? >> chairman, i think right now, we have a very robust inner agency targeting effort. as we target mexican organized crime here, and that intelligence that's generated is shared very timely to our counterparts in mexico, and our goal obviously being to impact that largest piece of the organization as possible, and we

can want to do that as the ambassador mentioned on some of these captures that we had over the last couple of years, unprecedented targets that's created these small out groups has been a great stress. >> thank you, and my time expired. i'd now like to recognize mr. engel for five minutes for questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. you know, again, i don't want to get into semantics, but it's important that we define these things. i want to read something that mexican ambassador wrote on april 11th of this year in the "dallas morning news," and i quote him. "these transnational organizations are not terrorist organizations. they are very criminal violent groups that are well structured and financed. they pursue a single goal.

they want to maximize profits and do what businesses do, hostile takeovers and pursue mergers and acquisitions. they use violence to protect their competition from other competitors as well as from our two governments efforts to roll them back. there's no political motivation or agenda whatsoever beyond their attempt to defend their illegal business. misunderstanding the challenge we face leads to wrong policies and bad policymaking. if you label these organizations as terrorists, you will start to -- you will have to start calling drug consumers in the u.s. financiers of terrorist organizations and gun holders providers to terrorists." starting with ambassador, can you drug abuse the implications of labeling the mexican dto's as terrorist groups. do you agree? >> he obviously is a very wise man, doesn't speak for the united states government or for

me. he does speak for the government of mexico. i think his reasoning is pretty sound, congress mapp, and that is to say we have to -- we have to look through just the label, and we have to think through what the implications of the law would be. i agree with virtually all of the suggestions that the facts are consistent with the label. i then say that is only half of our job. the next half is to assess what is the implication of us making this determination? it does have plich nature? what does it give us that's more than we have? these are the questions that i think we should ask as well as whether the specific agents of this organization, in fact, are consistent with the acts of an insurgency or terrorist organization. >> mr. benson?

>> as targeted operations in the northern border, across the southeast, the northeast, it's been targeting organized criminal gangs, cartel representatives, and linking that back to those leaders back in mexico. we do clearly show in intelligence that we generate here in the united states, and we target -- they are clearly taking direction from their leadership south of the border. >> so is the ambassador right? do you agree with the statements that i road that he wrote? >> as a career special agent, i view those mexican trafficking groups as organized criminals, organized crime. >> from our perspective, we view them as organize the crime.

-- organized crime. it's less the label, but what the label implies operationally for us, and for us, the law enforcement tools we have are best suited to the job we see at hand. >> thank you. the original statement jointly issued by the u.s. and mexican governments in october of 2007 and the merida initiative, and i remember it well because i chaired the subcommittee then. it said that reducing demand in the united states is a major go of the program. without demand in this country, it's clear that there wouldn't be significant narco-criminal problem in mexico, colombia, or elsewhere. since fy of 2004, reduction increased to 2 billion, but why not do more to increase demand for it in the u.s.? are we living up to or original commitment to fight demand? if we don't deal with demand at home, aren't we treating the

symptoms and not the disease, ambassador? >> i'll start on this, congressman, although, as you know, i look externally opposed it internally. obviously, it's a simple matter to say if there's no demand, there's no supply because you're not supplying any demand. it's much more complicated than that as we know. we have been addressing this internal drug consumption problem in the united states in a serious way for nearly 50 years. we have not been sitting on our hands. we spend more money on this than any nation on the planet. it is intreg grated into our policy, and i offer a foreign affairs suggestion as well, and that is let us not assume that when the day arrives that we have solved our drug problem, the foreign drug supply problem is going to disappear. it will not -- evidence exhibit number one is u.s. cocaine demand has reduced some 50% over the last six or seven years as

the production of cocaine disappeared 60%? no, it has not. the producers sought out new markets, and it goes to new locations. they are in it for the money, and they will create new markets if other markets are denied to them. >> my time is up. i don't know if anyone wants to jump in quickly? >> somebody have a quick answer to this? >> i would just say that every agent in the off time, i mean, is that constant time frequently where agents are going to our local schools and many, many outside events on demand reduction because that obviously is an important component looking at the drug abuse problem in the u.s.. >> thank you, mr. engel. >> thank you. >> i now recognize mr. mccaul for 5 minutes for questions.

>> thank you. i commend all three witnesses for your dedication and service to the country in a very challenging time. i think we don't pay enough attention to this issue. i know, ambassador k you're the expert, and you've been on the issue for decades. you're ambassador to colombia, and we recently went down to colombia to visit with the president down there to talk about what warton didn't with plain colombia, and president clinton designated the farq as a foreign terrorist organization. this is more than just a label. it's not just a label. it's a designation that provides authorities. it's a designation that provides tools to combating them by freezing bank assets in the united states, but prosecuting with a 15 year advancement to anybody who aids and abets a terrorist, by allowing us to -- unlike the kingpin you just go

after the head, this allows you to go after the body of the organization, and in addition, it's not just a person in the united states. it can be a foreign national which i think is critical. jurisdiction is beyond the united states, and i justmented to -- just wanted your experience, ambassador, and being down there in colombia, and watching that successful operation, tell us how this foreign terrorist organization designation, can you tell me whether that was helpful? >> very fair question, mr. chairman, and i'll offer you a couple observations. first, i have absolutely no objection to having placed the farq, eln and the militaries on the fto list, and participated 234 that process in 1999 and 2000, and i believe 2001. it was helpful to the extent that it got at their support network. i don't think it had a direct

immediate impact on them inside colombia because the guys in the camps and jungles were not worried a great deal about their designation, but their external support structure was, in fact, affected, and, in fact, their external support structure was small enough that you were able to verify who they were and go after them. that was helpful. being able to call them terrorists was helpful. being able to assert every time we talk about the hostages they were keeping in jungle camps and referring to them as terrorists was helpful, being able to say, we, the european union, the canadians, and there may have been another government had all put them on the same list was helpful. i don't deny it. it was helpful in colombia, and i do not, and i said it once, and i'll say it again, you and i have exactly the same objective. the question is how are we going to get there. >> i think that's a fair assessment. the definition under federal law 1 --

is to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government by extortion, kidnapping political assassination. you know, when i look at what's going on down there, it seems to me they fall squarely within that definition, and i wanted to, i mean, maybe it is semantics, mr. engel, but this law would provide special authorities to help win the war. he described the violence in the country as a challenge to the state, an attempt to replace the state. that sounds like more than just organized crime. in the recent casino fire, he says that we're facing true terrorists, so mr. benson, i appreciate everything you do at the dea, and your agents, particularly down, you know, in mexico and central america. i mean, they are really in the line of fire.

in your testimony, you have under here, the threat to governance, the threat to governance. those who organize finance and control drug trafficking thrive in areas where government control is weak. they are looking as the al-qaeda and taliban does for failed states. i argue guatemala is on the verge of being a failed state. in mexico city, 25 farmers' heads were cut off the other day. they are looking for safe havens and looking to manipulate the governments. more troubling is the fact these murders were done to intimidate the population and influence the government, to intimidate the public and influence the government. again, going back to the definition under the law, to intimidate and influence. they terrorize civilians and the

mexican people. there's no question about it. the example of the school bus, trying to extort money from teachers and throwing heads in the front of the school. yeah, this is beyond some al-qaeda's worst tactics. there's a problem down there, and i guess the debate we're having is how best to handle that. i want to allow you, mr. benson, to respond. >> they want to instill the fear in the public to prevent the government from increasing their operation tempo and targeting. the government is having that continued success, and they are reverting to these vicious acts to instill that fear, so in my opinion, we need to keep that operational tempo going forward both in the united states and in moment koa what we're --

mexico what we're doing now, and those successes we've highlighted, 23 -- if we continue hurting the leadership simultaneously with the information going back quickly, that will result in positive success down the road. >> i agree. the partnership is key. i don't know if we have a second round. are we? okay. for the record, i'd like to put in the record the response to the news to the letter described by mr. engel that these are not just businessmen making money. they are more than that. they are killers, and they do terrorize, and with that, i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman mccaul, and i'd like to recognize mr. keating five minutes for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador brownfield made note to the fact that merida is in transition and moved from equipments in goods and training, and i just want to ask a question in that regard, and also make an aside that, you know, in 2010, we with held 15%

of merida funds with compliances and basic human rights. i want to ask you gsh r -- i'll jump to this -- what extent to people in local communities, indoing nows community -- indigenous communities feel comfortable going to the police to report crimes? >> congressman, obviously, it depends upon the community, and there is a difference between the military and the police. the military does not tend to be local. they obviously have it from somewhere else for the mission of whatever duration. the police is local, and are members of the community. in some communities in mexico, the community is uncomfortable reaching out to the authorities seeing them as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. in others, i suspect that is different. one ning that i would -- one thing i would suggest to you

fairly strongly, however, is since the merida initiative, more mexican communities have seen their law enforcement and military as part of the solution rather than the problem than they did before merida. >> thank you. i just want to follow-up, too. how have women been impacted by the violence the drug cartels, and by cases also like inez and valetina, the very forces there to protect them harmed them and then ignored allegations of rape. >> two part answer and two part question in my judgment. women have been inordinately affected by drug cartels 234 their attempts to intimidate through violence, extortion and through threats the communities and the institutions because of the belief that by threatening the female population, they will have greater impact than threatening, killing, or

otherwise abusing males. the second part of your question deals with the institutions that are supposed to be protecting them, and obviously every time you have a case, an incident in which the institution that is held responsible for protecting that community, in fact, goes to the dark side and becomes part of the problem. you've taken a giant step back, and it takes years sometimes to restore the confidence in the institution. >> yeah. do you think withholding funds specifically geared to that is a deterrent to that? what's going to change that? >> i'll offer you my view with which you have every right not to agree with completely. congressman, in my judgment, there's many way to attack the issue. some of them are direct and frontal. with hold funding until or put specific training components into the program that says you will be trained on human rights, trained on respect for women and children, whatever that may be.

part of it is indirect. you build institutions, prosecutors, and even special courts that are designed specifically to address this issue, but in my personal opinion, the most important thing we can do is professionalize across the board throughout the nation mexican law enforcement. when you have more professional, more competent, better trained law enforcement officers, just trained in law enforcement, they are far less likely to commit that sort of abuse, and that kind of kits against holding too much of the funding in a bay because that 15% is obviously 15% that for that period of time is not being used for that training purpose. i swing either way depending on the day and what i had for lunch. >> well, that doesn't do any good if there's not oversight to bring it to the surface.

what are we doing and the american taxpayers funding many of the initiatives? what are we doing to make sure this is being rooted out and we discover this and then through training or oversight? how are we going to find that out? are we doing a good enough job in that regard? >> my own view is i give us between a c-plus and b-minus now, but i do that with any program of this size that we're just getting started. your problems will almost always occur in the first two or three years of the massive programs. i don't care whether it's iraq, afghanistan, mexico, colombia, that's where the biggest number of problems are. we're out of that period now. you have a right to ask of us what is our specific e scrabbluation -- evaluation and oversight

mechanisms, and i believe that's the challenge for this year that we're still in and next year. part of the problem we have to work our way through is how we work this with the government of mention koas because at the -- mexico because at the end of the day this is our police -- their police and their military. i hope you call me up and haul me over the coals in another six months time on just that issue because i'm hopeful we'll have a much better, clearer, and more precise story to tell by that time. >> thank you. i'm over my time, if you could in writing, forward to me not just the grade, but what actions and oversight you're going to implement and the look at the grade afterwards. thank you. >> thank you, and just for the record, mr. ambassador, we'll be happy to call you back and rake you over the coals.

[laughter] i'd now like to recognize mr. bill racus for five minutings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i expressed deep concern regarding reports that the united states participated in multiple acts of gun walking. we've seen it in the case of fast and furious, allowing firearms to pass in the possession of criminal and other third party organizations south of our border. i strongly support efforts to disrupt criminal syndicates that traffic firearms, of course, and drugs, and conduct illegal activities. however, when those efforts serve to fuel criminal enterprises throughout the provision of firearms, they must be stopped. it's extremely troubling that the united states government would willfully allow weapons to be acquired by dangerous criminals and drug trafficking

organizations in direct intervention. can the panel explain for the committee what efforts your agencies are currently taking to enforce current laws and to ensure that we are not allowing weapons to fall into the hands of mexican drug cartels and criminal organizations. please? >> congressman, when i look at drug trafficking and drug trafficking and violence go hand-and-hand, and as we target those representatives deployed to the united states, we encounter weapons frequently, and we seize those weapons, and we do that continuously throughout operations throughout the country. >> we are constantly on the lookout in the southwest border

and the region for weapons that are southbound. we've instituted checks of rail and of cars that far out strip anything we've done in the past for that reason, and we'll continue to do so. >> and finally, if i can add on from our end, congressman, and that's the external side, what we do on the southern side of the border, we are working to support both training for mexican law enforcement and military in terms of identification of and how to do investigations of ill illicit firearms and illegal firearms, and second, we support tieing them in to our own electronic tracing systems that we have whereby we can track through serial numbers and other identifying data, a firearm to give the mexican institutions access to that same system. >> thank you. my next question, the safety of the men and women in uniform

rerains obviously my top concern, and i demand those on the front line of the battle get the training, resources, and support they need to do their job as safely as effectively as possible. we must act to gain operational control of the border. to do anything less would be a disservice to the border, personnel leaves the door open to which criminals, drug smugglers, human traffickers, and terrorists can destroy the fabric of our society. while the merida initiative bolsters the accountability and professionalism of the mexican police at the federal level, corruption among local police forces is cited as a key reason why the drug cartels are able to continue exploiting the product to the united states where they turn a blind eye or actively work for the cartels, corrupt police police officers enail the drug gains to remain a national

opposed to a regional threat. i have my question is on this matter is two-fold. how does the merida initiative address the issue of corruption among local police officers if merida does not address this issue, what action do you recommend to the committee to counter the corrupt police officers -- corrupt police forces on what the initiative is to accomplish? question for the panel. >> let me start, congressman, and i start by the last sentence i offered in my testimony, and it took us many years 20 get into the situation, it 4r take years to get out, and corruption clearly falls into that category. what are we doing now? first, attempting to professionalize. first the federal police forces and increasingly in the future, the state and local police

forces because a professional law enforcement institution is less likely to be corrupt than a non-professional one. second, we're supporting the development internal investigating capability, a municipal, state, or federal police institution, individuals within the police force whose job is to monitor, investigate, and sanction corrupt members of the institution. third, we are ensuring they have salaries you can live on. if your sally is $15 a month, it's like likely you supplement that through exterm income. if it's $1,000 a month, it's 985 less likely a month you'll trying to supplement it. finally, working with the attorney generals office of mexico and working with the state attorneys general to

ensure public prosecution that is visible to everyone in the community of corruption officials and office that there by sends a signal that corruption will not be tolerat tolerated. >> how much progress has been made? >> it depends where you are and what the institution is you are dealing with. i'll talk about the one i believe have teen the greatest progress in this record, and that is the full police of the ssp, an institution that before the merida initiative totaled about 6,000, and is now nearly 40,000, and my own personal opinion is that's an institution that's much more highly regarded for its professionalism and by the same token it's honesty than it was five years ago. if we can get to that level in the 32 state and hundreds of municipal institutions, i would

suggest so all of you, ladies and gentlemen, that we've made serious progress. .. has come over our neighbor and is now in building these

wonderful people i would suggest that law enforcement basically what i'm hearing today is law enforcement is going to be the answer i will just have to suggest to you i don't think that's the case i don't think you are going to solve the problems of the law enforcement. we have been trying to bolster we have had military groups that we've bolstered and have turned against the authorities and trained the cartel's we've had for 20 years now been trying to suggest the cooperation of all enforcement can solve the problem but it's gotten worse and worse. let me ask about something that was just brought up. did any of your agency's know about the fast and furious operation that saw thousands of military-style weapons

transferred from our government into the hands of the cartel including high caliber sniper rifles? did any of your organizations know about that operation as it was going on and as it was being instituted? did you personally know about it and did someone in your operation know about it? >> i did not to the best of my knowledge no in my part of the u.s. government. >> no one from the bureau of the national narcotics and law enforcement knew about fast and furious in your testimony today? >> i became aware of it at the same time. >> what about drug enforcement administration? >> congressmen, we are working with those committees that are investigating that matter at this time that would be the comment that i would meet.

>> so your comment is that you were not going to comment on a direct question about whether or not you're agency knew about fast and furious? >> my comment would be that we are working with those subcommittees that are investigating fast and furious. >> this happens to be a member of congress interested and you are now under oath so you could answer the question for me. >> i find that to be of great interest, but your predecessor just spoke, mr. brown's field can go on record that he didn't know anything about it and you cannot. do you know anything of fast and furious? >> i knew when it became exposed to all of you and in terms of my office i can say that no one in

my office knew. >> you personally did not know anything about nor did anyone in your office as far as you know? i appreciate that. i just want to put that on the record mr. chairman. i voted for nafta years ago based on the promise that nafta would in some way help the economy of mexico and thus prevent or offer an alternative to this drugs as being a way of earning a living down there. did nafta have a positive impact , and can we make these economic agreements and expect that they will have a better impact of elsewhere than they have on mexico and feel free could occur whoever thinks can answer that. >> we are not the right people

to answer that question however my wife says there's never an issue i shouldn't talk about so i will offer simple and views i spent three years in colombia actually trying to make a case for the fda which is finally found its way to this institution, so i will make that basic genetic case. free trade agreements for the most part are good for the economies of both countries involved, good for the economies of both countries involved because they allow the commerce -- >> can you compare that to mexico? degette the end of the day i don't want to cling to be an expert on nafta but i would say to you that the logic is by removing any of, you know, the cost of moving goods back and forth across the border you produce more trade by producing more trade, the factories and companies produce more stuff as they produce more stuff the employ more people and as the employ more people their economies grow. the logic therefore is the economy grows on both sides of the border.

that's the logic behind the free trade agreement. >> it's gotten worse in mexico since we passed nafta. unfortunately. that's just the observation. it's inescapable to see that. well listen, thank you very much mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentle in from california and i would like to recognize mr. duncan for five minutes for questions. >> thank you mr. truman and i think we've done a good job of exploring this topic today and i want to thank the panelists for being here and for your service to the nation in your various capacities. i will take a different line of approach because it is a topic that is interesting to me. i know that we've talked about many times on the committee of homeland security and that is the issue of the international terrorist organization of hezbollah and its involvement with the mexico drug cartel. many believe the international terrorist organizations of the mexican drug cartels have been working together for years and the drug cartels have cooperated in countries in western africa,

south america, central america most importantly gullickson the form described the team of international terrorism or for more discipline than al qaeda best financing from the government of iran and syria and the global network of operatives who could be called on to watch an attack at any time. just last year in july of 2010 we saw the first explosion south of siskel cit thousand eight the international network of drug traffickers and money launderers have been arrested as part of an international operation coordinated by the dea. so, i can go on and talk about the owner of a cafe in tijuana the rest in 2002 who traveled all the way to dearborn michigan and spent years in prison for conspiring to raise money for as

a law. there's just a lot of cases. so i would ask how much of a prayer ready should hezbollah be to the counterterrorism policy? >> as we look at the tie between the drug trafficking and terrorism and we see that around the globe for the dea is a pretty the we look to those organizations, and we continue to look at their connection across the globe. is to begin your activities with the dea and thank you for serving the region of south carolina where i'm from by the way i forgot to mention that comes your activities with the dea is there any conclusive evidence of hezbollah's involvement with the tunnel and activities of the cartel? >> i would say a general statement on the link between the drug trafficking and terrorism does exist.

i don't necessarily see that to a great degree with the mexican cartels but other locations around the world where we see light in afghanistan or places like that. >> mr. ambassador, i know in south america in your service the border region how much of it was put on that area during your time in south america and in chile and also columbia? >> you may have left out the third one that has the greatest focus and the would be venezuela. congressman, i believe you are absolutely dead on the right to be focused on hezbollah as a potential threat. second, if hezbollah were to develop operational capabilities of the western hemisphere that would be one major serious problem for the united states of

america. third i believe as we look at hezbollah we have to break into two parts. one is the kind of fund raising possibilities that they have and i actually think that there is evidence of that in a number of countries in south america. the second part of the threat is operational capability. i get this stage do not see operational capability by hezbollah in the western hemisphere. that said, i do not focus on this issue for a living. there are others who do that and would be far better not highest to get an opinion from them than from the guy who does organized crime and law enforcement. >> thank you for a much. would you like to china on this issue at all? >> i think it's been covered by my colleagues we are constantly looking for our intelligence

analysis branch for those kind of linkages or for any indication of those kind of linkages and we will continue to do so. >> i yield back the balance. >> i would like to recognize mr. rivera for five minutes for opening questions. >> thank you very much mr. chairman and to all the witnesses for being here today. i want to try to hone in on this issue of mexico and its ability to carry out primary responsibility in protecting its citizens and also the impact that the diversification of productivity and criminal organizations in mexico with other types of criminal insurgencies against the state may be developing and whether they are making headway. i wonder if perhaps all three of you could comment your thoughts on the drug cartels and whether

they have drug cartels in mexico and whether they have indeed diversified into a variety of illicit activities and maybe we can start with secretary bromfield. >> sure, congressmen. i will give you my answer filtered through not just my experience of the past year dealing directly with the merida issue in mexico with the prior three years when i was in colombia. as i suggested in an earlier answer i believe what is happening in mexico is the larger cartels are taking serious hits. they are breaking up to a considerable extent. there are now more organizations but smaller in nature, less national and nationwide in scope and more regionally focused, so whereas previously you would have had x number you now have maybe three times as many but each one of those organizations

is smaller. >> would you agree as well as their illicit activities have moved beyond just the drug trafficking? >> first think the expanded their drug-trafficking in terms of what they are willing and able and capable of doing. it's no longer just cocaine. if the kelso make money out of methamphetamines come out of heroin koppel or other products they do. they can use the same institutions and logistics systems to move products if they are using it in a criminal enterprise to a certain extent it doesn't matter what is in the truck the plea in the boat for the backpack if they can make money by moving at the can and they will and to that extent i suppose my answer to the question would be yes i do see some signs of diversification. >> administrator been some, your thoughts of there's been lots of illicit activities or the evolution of illicit activities?

>> we have seen the same evolution as well. i mean, the transition to free period of time from marijuana traffickers to cocaine. they basically pushed their operations and the cullom begins have receded over the last decade or two decades where now you have mexican organized crime that have -- the are the wholesale distributors in the united states of the offense of abusive cocaine and marijuana and heroin but then also as we have impacted the leadership in mexico the of the diversified as well into other revenue streams kidnapping and extortion of a number of other crimes as well. >> certainly we see the same both department titian and the diversification of across the narcotics spectrum and also we have a significant concern about the human trafficking in human smuggling engagement on the part of some of the criminal

organizations and we are focusing saddam's significant energy on that as well. >> i would hope that if there is this evolution or diversification of the illicit activities with respect to the drug cartels moving beyond the drug trafficking even if the drug trafficking perhaps has moved to different forms of the trafficking or different forms of drugs i think it's important as we go forward that we also look at diversifying our strategy as well if it's not just drug trafficking and if it includes human trafficking and smuggling and other activities that is something that would perhaps concerned many members of congress to make sure the administration has as we go through looking at the genesis of the initiative and what its primary responsibility at the beginning and with the threat was if that threat has indeed changed and if the activity has diversified we would make sure

focusing on that as well and be responsive to the changing threats of the illicit activity so i will yield back my time. >> thank you very much. i would like to add to the to recognize you for five minutes for questions. >> assistant secretary good seeing you again. 175 years the u.s. and mexico have held strong relations building and sharing membership in international organizations will share the maritime border, the land border, there's a billion dollars of trade between the u.s. and mexico would you agree the current relationship between the u.s. and mexico is at its strongest most positive point that it's ever been in the last 175 years? >> as you know, you and i come from the same state and i would use exactly those words. i believe it is a bilateral relationship right now it is

unprecedented in terms of the willingness of both governments to work together in the face of a long history of complications. >> would you agree that we should be working with our mexican partners to bring in closer especially if the knicks and bulls being given or should we be pushing them away by going into what means we ought to call them or other groups that are working there? >> i would never offer an opinion on what the director and what other members of the two distinguished committees have suggested. i would say to you as i said in my opening statement that if cannot reach a basic agreement with the government of mexico our efforts probably will not succeed. it has to become operative.

we have to agree with what we are trying to do and if not we are unlikely to succeed. >> of the drug cartels were designated as terrorist organizations, and consider that they are dealing in several hundred cities in the u.s., how do we deal with u.s. citizens to purchase drugs from them if someone purchases a bag of marijuana for personal consumption would they be charged with aiding and abetting a terrorist and i assure we said what 25 or $30 billion of money down to mexico wouldn't be a possibility? >> as i look at it from organized-crime standpoint, i believe our authorities federal narcotic are sufficient to address the trafficking problem that exists now. >> i guess that you are saying that we don't need to go into --

i'm one of those i believe in law enforcement in lagat three police officers in my family when it comes to law enforcement nada folks who do the day-to-day i would agree with your assessment on that. let me ask a specific question to the initiative for the best doubles the multinational agency intelligence and one is to establish the regional intelligence operation coordination to read my understanding is that the u.s. government designated one agency which you might be familiar with to take the lead on this and the mexican agency to dig the lead on this. according to the mexican agency, on at fusion senator there's been about $10 million that destin spent which is good but

according to the mexican agency where it is supposed to be putting in the money they are saying that they still haven't got any of that money. they haven't been trained, and again, there's two sides to every story but the mexican government was designated to help the center say they haven't gotten any of that, the $10 million has gone to a quote the u.s. agencies which again i'm okay but are we forgetting our mexican partners on this? >> i think as we look at the exchange of intelligence, congressman, it is very robust as i mentioned earlier. >> not talking exchange of information. we are a best relationship. listen to my question. have the money that's been narrowed to million dollars, has any of that been spent to help the club the mexicans or train them at the center?

>> the one that is operational now i don't know the monetary figure i really couldn't answer that. i don't know the answer to that question to the estimate let me restate this because my time is up to you know is there any reason to doubt the mexican agency that was given the lead just like the american agency is their anything that would question the statements that they meet that you know of? >> thank you very much. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. we appreciate it. and if the witnesses don't mind, we would like to flatten ask a few more questions and take the ambassador of on his offer. i would recognize myself for

five minutes for questions. ryckman this is an important hearing and it's interesting. some of the takeaways right off the bat is the activities the cartels are engaged in in need a definition by the activities that are insurgent activities but i wanted to before i get on to that i wanted mr. brownfield, ambassador, you in answering some questions earlier you post three questions to the committee that he would suggest asking and the first one was what more can we get by using the label or

terminology or designation i would say this the criminal insurgency will allow us to develop a counterinsurgency strategy that pulls all u.s. resources to other for a comprehensive and effective response to the reality on the ground and increase awareness in the u.s. of the threat we face. the second question what are the domestic legal implications of this and the answer to that is and what impact with the designation have on progress on the ground. my suggestion is that this would simply be the utilization of the good u.s. mexican relations to a simultaneously addressed threat on all levels so i think for me

and for a lot of people this isn't as much as saying it has failed there has been some successes in merida that cannot deny that are good things but as we look forward could kind of make the determination not to label what's happening in mexico is also hamstrings our ability to confront the challenges because we aren't properly identifying what those are. mr. benson, in your written testimony, you talked about the evolution in some of the cartel's activities here in the united states wouldn't it be helpful if the department of the treasury, all of the agencies, a whole of government approach,

don't you think there would be helpful in completing your task? chairman, we do that now. we leverage every department in the u.s. government as we cross a number of different agencies and target their leadership here in the united states and other countries. so as we'll get the money flow for example and the movement of the drug lords back and forth and the movement to other countries it is across and many different departments and agencies impacting those organizations. -- you've got everything that you need. >> i think the authorities that we have for sufficient to tackle and battle the mexico organized-crime. >> how to battle insurgency? >> as i said, chairman, i believe our title 21 of 40 is that we have on the federal

narcotics statutes are sufficient to target the cartel. it's in their leadership. i think this gets back to the point of the definition of why it's important to define what it is we are challenging. most people recognize the cartel's activity has gotten worse, that they are using every tool available to displace government. they are offering health care and other things to the citizens of mexico to try to gain favor. so if you just want to go after it as a drug enforcement policy, then i would say okay, you have the support you need from some of these other departments. but if we describe what is happening as it is as an insurgency, there are a lot of other tools in the toolbox to be used and we can't continue to sit back and watch the growth of

these cartels and their insurgent activities, criminal activities in mexico because it puts not only the people of the united states at risk of the freedom, security and prosperity but also, the people of mexico, their freedom, security and prosperity to get my time is expired and i would like to recognize mr. ingalls for five minutes for questions. >> thank you mr. chairman. i want to talk about merida but before i want to comment on something that mr. duncan said about hezbollah. i think that would be good for us to perhaps get a briefing down the line about it. there is a plan that has been going from here on to syria to venezuela and back every week we don't know who's on it and we don't know what's on it, but you can believe that there is a hezbollah connection to it so i

think it is a good thing that we raised it and i think that we should pursue that more. we talk about merida initially and when we announced the initiative in october of 2007, we were told would be a three-year program, and last year we had the announcement of beyond merida and continued funding to the fy 20112012 budget, so it appears that it's here to stay for the near future. how long has the of patrician planned for the funding initiative to continue should it continue for the foreseeable future or should we phase it out and do something new? investor? >> that is a perfectly legitimate question and you have every right to grow less on this question every time we come

before you. my answer once again is filtered through my experience in colombia. another example of a program where we set out saying it is a five-year program. we are now wrapping up the year 12 of the program. but, it's down to a level that is now about 25% of where we were when we started it in the year 2000. that doesn't strike me as an and coherent way of approaching the mexico challenge. the simple and simplistic answer to your question as we are going to deal with the realities on the ground that are presented and we aren't going to ask the american people to subject their own security to an artificial time line and timetable but it should be realistic for you to say to somebody like me i expect to see a downward path, i expect you to have that program in a long-term sustainable level in a

finite period of time and to force me to give you some sort of estimate as to what the fight period of time would be. if you were to twist my arm really hard i would say that you were very generous with us for three years. we are now into the fourth year you should expect and you are seeing a reduction in the amount of resources and funding it is being put into the merida initiative. you should expect that to continue for a period of time until we mutually agreed that we are at a sustainable level. that's the best answer i can give. >> let me ask about the specifics about merida. the majority of the police in mexico at the local and state level but funding for merida goes mostly to the military and federal security units. we know there's corruption of the local and state levels in mexico it's very high, so it is understandable i think that president culbert roane has turned to the federal police in

the military. on the other hand could most crime of the local and state level and the need to be professionalized. so can you tell me how would you characterize the efforts to assist local we of state institutions and how would you assess the progress in mexico's main implementing police reform at the federal level and what point do you think the government might be able to disengage the military from its present role in domestic security? >> thank you, congressman. that's a brilliant question because it leads right into what i call the transition we are trying to do right now in the initiative. you are correct the first three years were focused on the federal institutions. our objective that we set for ourselves this year and next year is to pay for it from the federal institutions to the state and municipal the institutions.

the way we would hope to do it in absolute and complete agreement with the federal government of mexico which controls and decides everything that we do in mexico by way of support and assistance is to focus initially on three northern states of mexico which just happen to comprise much of our southwestern border as well and focus on their state and municipal police, follow the mexican government's system of creating what they call model police units which is of about 422 police officers from each of the 32 states trained to a common standard equipped to a common standard with vehicles that are of a common standard so that the federal government knows exactly what it is working with if this unit deploys the end to train enough of them to be able to address these issues when the police and law

enforcement are able to do their job that i predict we would see less military involved in law enforcement which in any country in the world and putting our own is not the mission that they are trained or equipped for. >> thank you mr. sherman to the estimates before. mr. mccaul was recognized to the estimates before mr. chairman. excuse me. when the chairman and i were down in mexico city we saw exactly what you were talking about. i think president culbert own believes there is a sort of turning point which was encouraging. i am not sure of that is the reality or not with the goal is to replace his military with the national police force which makes sense and people cracking down their own country there is also high levels of trust with the national police and their polygraph's. we dhaka that is, the

ambassador, we are down in columbia called by the special forces almost just as good as our guys and assisting mexico and was very willing to assist in any way that he could commit we took that message to president kalona and is very interested in buying understand they are providing some training but can you elaborate? a lot of people say we put our military down there. you and i know with the sovereignty issues. the colombian special forces can assimilate better from a cultural standpoint and we thought could provide some assistance. >> mr. chairman, i not only think it is an intriguing idea i think it is an excellent idea. will not surprise you to learn that i am a great fan and admire

of with the colombian people and their government and their institutions have accomplished over the last 11 or 12 years. i think they are quite capable of exporting those capabilities through training and support elsewhere in the region. it is positive for the united states of america to see colombia and mexico engaged in this effort to gather. it is among other things excellent return for our investment of $8.5 billion or more in support of columbia over the last 11 and going on 12 years. i think you're absolutely correct. the colombians have reached a level where i would argue they have capabilities that almost no other law enforcement or military institution has anywhere in the world and on some issues i would even stand them up with our own armed forces i believe in the jumble

operation for example the colombians they will at this stage be the very best in the world. they can do much of the training cheaper. they can do it without shall we say the historical baggage we bring to the u.s.-mexico relationship, they can do it in a common language, they can do it where they are literally sharing time and real-world experience saying this is what we did when we were taking down the regime and the cartel's. this is not educational or academic. i'm the guy that did it and this is how we did it. i think it is an excellent value and may i tell you that i, like you, whenever i get a conversation with either of the government side and trying to encourage this exchange. >> certainly from the colombian standpoint, very willing to partner and i think that cow verdone was interested in the idea i think we got his attention on that the great to take away we can all agree on

that we can move forward with that in mind but i do want to clear up a couple of things. usually we are on the same page and are the best of friends. when you have a foreign terrorist act this occasion were you ever aware of any casual drug users prosecuted? >> no, not that i'm aware of. it could well be that they are as well as here you have a charge 11 charges you out on a drug used just in case you lose the other even better for them that you are asking if someone was prosecuted for that purpose and obviously the answer is -- spirit that has been misrepresented by many it is not the way that it works and i like the idea they talk about that a lot and that really goes after the hand of the organization whereas they would go after the

body of the organization in a far greater jurisdiction with heavier penalty so it's not from my -- i know this one is not a diplomatic issue at times with the ambassador we've had long conversations about this but i do think it would provide greater authorities had to go after these cartels. we didn't have any problems working with columbia on this this occasion did we? >> not that i'm aware of although to be fair to the other side but could we are trying to accomplish the same thing but i would remind you in colombia we never put the regime or the cartel on the list and i assume there is a reason for that as well so i think this is worth more conversation and i will leave it at that.

and it is certainly has been a provocative issue. thank you yield back. >> mr. duncan is recognized for five minutes for questions. >> thank you to read this might be the last question so i appreciate you being with us. as the special ed agent in charge of the atlanta you were reported as saying the mexican drug cartels are able to blend right in and establish the metro at leyva as that strategic shipment point so my question is how real is the threat of the cartel's of the american cities and what other cities are the mexican drug cartels operating out of? >> congressman is very real. as you know atlanta is the hub for the business in the southeast, and the mexican cartel is recognized for a lot of the same reasons. you go from the southwest border to atlanta in about 1100 miles a 15 hour trip and then from there

we would see those cartels push up loads of cocaine for example all the way up the eastern seaboard and in the bill also use the house in dallas and atlanta and other places to collect that money and then push it back down to the cartel leadership so the of strategically identified locations because it is a good business model for them. surely it is a good business models for the companies like fedex and others where they use the hub to distribute certain things and if we know that they are using atlanta and dallas and phoenix and some of those areas would that make it easier to crack down on? >> we have to the many are we in places like a plant of or the other transshipment locations

and what we have seen is as we hit the mid place like atlanta they will at just and a tactical changes in the way they do business so it's a matter of us keeping on top of the mess they make their adjustments to our enforcement efforts. >> one other question about a methamphetamine. cheaply made but is it cost-effective for mexico in a drug cartel to bring it into the u.s. versus having it in the factor and cooked here? >> we see methamphetamine on the streets of the united states today, and most of it is produced there they do produce a is an expensive and they bring up three large amounts of for example crystallized methamphetamine and high purity that they push out into the

streets, so in i still believe we will see mexican organizations supply a lion share to the u.s. market and we will also see the smaller operations that support either individual drug cabinet or those few but i believe the mexican organizations will remain the primary supplier for methamphetamine in the u.s. market. >> is it easier for them to get the sudafed and other interest to the mexican channels since we supported their efforts of the over-the-counter products? >> the of instituted and they do have some very good chemical control in mexico now, but we have seen those lab operators of just the manufacturing techniques to use other methods to produce within to been and i believe we will continue to see

that. >> thank you. i don't have any further questions. i would yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you mr. duncan. this concludes the hearing. i want to first thank the staff on both majority and minority site for both the subcommittees for your hard work in this and i want to thank the members who participated today, and most important i want to thank investor bromfield and mr. benson and ms. silver for your time and sharing your thoughts on what i think is an important topic. with that, the subcommittee is adjourned.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudiblorg/thecontenders.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: we're back with ken burns to talk about his latest project, "prohibition." how did you come to decide on prohibition? you wanted to talk about the

lack of a civil conversation. did you come to "prohibition" first and realize there were parallels? guest: we never tried to supervise our own -- we're drawn to historical subjects. the code as director and co- producer -- the co-director. we realize that we spent a lot of time historical in the 1920's and other projects and we didn't know anything. the images of prohibition that everybody has of gangsters and floppers was about it and we just assumed why it happened and what americans could have made such a limiting decision of creating an amendment and the only amendment has been repealed.

we understood it touched dozens of elements today that had to do with single issue -- a local campaigns and immigrants, it had to do with a loss of civil discourse, as you say, and smear campaigns during presidential election cycles. the question of what is the correct role of government? warrantless wiretaps. people wanted to take the country back. we just tell the story. we're not trying to say is in it right today? we have the opportunity to remind our fellow citizens that history is still the table around which you can have a civil discourse. as we hear, the discourse has retreated to individual camps and we identify each other as "

the other" whatever it maybe -- race, politics. history permits us to go back and see the way in which human nature never changes. americans always getting into these types of things and to see the way history might offer us suggestions on how you can get out of that. that is an added bonus. we're trying to tell a good and a complicated story. host: the started airing sunday night on pbs. the second part was last night. let's go back to the first part, looking at the beginning of prohibition, or the making of it. what was the role of alcohol? guest: we had planned to series,

but we found help long and dramatic the lead up was so expensive it to three. we go to when prohibition went into effect. we were awash in alcohol. people ritually had alcohol for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. you stopped a couple times in factories for what was called grog time. we drank five or six times the amount of of all that americans per capita consumed. we were awash in liquor. the social concern comes up that we should figger out how to drink less. women find their voice and this whole incredible century of activism is initiated. host: i was struck by the economic impact of all was happening at the time.

people were drinking two or three times a day. the level of alcohol -- we start growing crops, grain, then allow the country to start manufacturing whiskey and other hard liquor and that plays into the culture. guest: we have all of poor water supplies. sometimes manufacturing and alcoholic beverage is safer, at least initially. we have been fermenting or brewing things. we have been able to distill and increasing the alcohol content that much more. it has much more devastating consequences socially as people, a percentage of the population has trouble with alcohol. that initiates a temperance movement that gets hijacked by the moral absolutist.

they want people to sign a pledge for total abstinence. it is interesting to watch the interplay of movements and the interplay of single issue groups that vie for supremacy of this issue in the 19th century. one man was able to make the senate sit up and beg. it was the most powerful lobbying organization. people began to say through propaganda and education and through decades of working on it that we think we can solve all society's problems if we give them the drink. the husband won't squander the project and, all meant beat the wife or the kids.

there'll be no crime and the slums will clear. i think they went very naively. progressives wanted it. in-a west as long as the workers -- industrialists as well as workers. we woke up with it as the law of the land. we realized it was an big uh- oh. because there were some gaps. we raised questions about should the government be telling us how to live our lives. were we going to use the government as punishment to change the way people behave?

the we celebrate marriages and when we take communion. host: was the impact that laid the groundwork for the 18th amendment? guest: we began to see the constitution as some but they could make this a more perfect union. the conservative anti saloon league alied themselves with the progressives who wanted to redistribute wealth. there were huge disparities between the rich and the poor. factory workers were at the low was wrung. they wanted to pass an income tax amendments. they wanted the abolition of all

and said it was a great idea because then we could separate uncle sam from the revenue he gets from the beer and liquor industries. 7% were coming from the beer and liquor into streets-- 70%. the liquor industry and all the related industries is untethered from its dependency on uncle sam, and uncle sam is on tethered from its dependency on them. we remained sauerkraut -- we renamed sauerkraut "liberty cabbage." we're on a straight path to the ratification of the amendment in the 36 states necessary. host: it was repealed on december 5, 1933. guest: more than 13 years.

in some ways, we talk about all the unintended consequences. we would not have organized crime without prohibition. fema also went up -- female alcoholism went up. no and then it had never been repealed -- no amendment had never been repealed. by putting it into the constitution, it would be in there forever. lots of unnecessary lives were lost. it changed everything. but we get rid of it and would get rid of it quicker than it came in. it made us americans even more suspicious of the notion of this group or that, from the left or the right.

here is the magic bullet. if the only pass the amendment -- if you only passed the amendment, everything will be all right. if we just do this, we look here all society's ill. host: good morning, edith. caller: i am a second time caller. i watched your film last night. you mentioned lots of people's names up and down the coast. i never have noticed that you say anything about the kennedy family. i know kennedy sr. was bake in bootlegging and let's stuff -- was big in bull leg and all that stuff -- bootlegging and all

that stuff. guest: the rich were allowed to stockpile their alcohol. that was one of the complaints. it was so unfairly applied. they had a year to buy up as much out all as they wanted and could comfortably drink on their own. it was a law that was most difficult of the immigrants and the poor. joe kennedy provided the alcohol for is 10-year reunion. he saw the end of prohibition coming any but a good deal of irish whiskey and brought it to new york and have it padlocked in government warehouses. when it was repealed, some of the first out all the people drank was kennedy booze. everybody thought he had been profiting all along, which was not the case. there's not a better proof that

he was a bootlegger. another family is another case. they were canadians who were in the bootlegging industry and that is well-known. you can put the kennedy smyth to rest. host: you deal with that in the first part. father joe kennedy's ransom saloons in boston. -- ran some saloons in boston. host: potomac, maryland. caller: 80 years ago it seemed necessary to draft an amendment to ban a substance. but now we can banned substances through committees. is is a cultural difference because of the substance -- is

this a cultural difference? guest: that is a wonderful question. there's a difference in many cases between alcohol, which is something people have used from the beginning of time and as broad cultural and social acceptance, prohibition notwithstanding, and drugs which are more sub cultural manifestations of popping up here and there which have less of a sense of cultural familiarity to them. we think marijuana and we think this is our latest cash crop and perhaps we can all benefit from taxation and perhaps take some of the violence out of the transactions. but we realize that violence is linked less to marijuana and then to cocaine and heroin. would you include those drugs in that mix? then i think you'd find a majority of americans on interested in that sort of thing

-- uninterested in that sort of thing. it is important that we use of prohibition as lessons of unintended consequences to go carefully and slowly and to try to do what no one did back in that period. host: "prohibition" is a three as part series airing on pbs. guest: i think it is $19.95, three discs. shoppbs.org. that is above my pay grade. we just work hard in the vineyards on these fillmms. host: how much "prohibition " -- how much did

"prohibition" cost to make? guest: large corporate support from bank of america and foundation support from the park foundation. we started our own fund-raising organization. that civil discourse. we received grants from foundations. it is a wonderful thing. i met president reagan when i began working on "civil war." we talked about private and governmental. he said, "just right." the motto is exactly that

balanced approach. it is important that i assume everybody who is listening is a taxpayer. we should pay back our government support. it will be nice if that worked in all aspects of the government. we pay back our government grant. host: are other documentaries that do revenue-generating? guest: some do and some do not. we put it back again into giving better salaries the what public television pays to some of the people who have been the hardest workers and help to pay for the development of the new projects that are outside the budget. we pay off our grand from the national endowment for the " civil wars" project.

while the reagan felt the government have the role to prime the pump and allow others to, and like bank of america another foundation to help us out. host: does pbs give you a budget? guest: we go to them and we go about raising the money. some may come from pbs. some will come from the corporation for public broadcasting. bank of america is our sole corporate sponsor. we keep the budget. we work with weta, the local washington, d.c., pbs affiliate. we use the bring it in on time and under budget and we move on to the next set of challenges.

host: ralph from chicago. caller: thank you. columbus discovered america while searching for a c way for the spices including opium. the boston tea party. the tobacco war of the american revolution. the opium wars. alcohol prohibition. the civil war on drugs. where is the road map to peace on drugs? guest: interesting story. the intersection of commerce, morality, social behavior, and the interest to alter one's consciousness. they're never going to end. i do not know the answer. this is one of the reasons

that you do this. tell a good enough story so that we ask the questions that you asked. caller: ken burns. guest: good morning. caller: this is such an opportunity and an honor. guest: thank you. caller: it is outstanding. you realize the historical importance of the railroad and how they build a nation. up to world war ii, it enabled us to rise above the depression and succeed in the world war ii. would you consider making a documentary on the historical and importance of the railroads? guest: if i live to be 1000 call

would not run out of topics. people come up to me every single day and write letters will my next project should be. the winner is always railroads. we first started getting mail 20 years ago about what people thought our next project should be. we made a history of the west, a multi part series, seven, eight episodes, and we did extensive stories of the railroads in that. and in other films we have touched on that. it is an important story. in the 19th century, the government did not do anything. teddy roosevelt came along and we started stretched the con fines of what the federal government could do. we forget that encouraging the

building of railroads in the homestead act and so many other activities in the 19th century, a great deal of the prosperity that we enjoy to this very day came from the government actively priming the pump to get the juices flowing. host: next project includes the dust bowl, the roosevelts, and jackie robinson. guest: we're shooting a film and i'm doing a major series on vietnam. we did the civil war. the next most important war is a vietnam. a lot of people do not understand it. it is not a war that has easy battles to identify. we think it is shoes important and going in -- we think it is

hugely important. we're talking to generals and diplomats and helicopter p ilots. host: will that be a bigger project/ guest: roosevelt is a large series. vietnam will be a large series, at least six episodes. we're looking at the history of country music. i despise the red stakeout blue states distinction -- the red state-blue state distinction. my work has been always about unem. "the dust bowl" will be out next year.

we found more than six dozen survivors -- we found more than two doezen survivors. crime theyknown about th did not commit. everybody knows the story of the roosevelts, but they never been put together as a complicated family as well as the larger social and military history that they touch on. jackie robinson is a hero in world history. we have a lot on our plate. hopefully we can come back and talk about the insides of those. host: ken burns is our guest talked about his latest project, "prohibition."

caller: i want to say that i cherish your whole body of work. guest: thank you. caller: i used to work in public television. it was an honor to be affiliated with such fabulous work. my wife is a naturalized american citizen. i sat her down and said to watch this show. she was blown off the couch. guest: he is referring to our series on the history of the national parks. we. america's best it " idea." in an age when attendance at the national parks have been declining, it went up 10 million to 15 million in the season after that aired.

we felt that this was america's best idea because this notion that we could co-own -- this beautiful mall is all of ours. it brings us back to some of the very issues we talk about today. do we have some contact with the joe to make this a better country? if you feel the co-ownership, then you can participate and it is a good way to share with new citizens and taken to the rim of the grand canyon and say, this is yours, too. caller: good morning. thank you for your work. especially the integrity you bring to pbs.

i want to mention briefly how utrecht me by getting involved in your series. i have been moved through every emotion possible. it took me three minutes to compose myself during "the civil war" after that letter was read by the soldier who did not make it back. keep up the good work. i hope you'll live forever. guest: i carry that letter. i've been caring that letter and my that letterfin my

if we just see american history as only the series of presidential administrations, punctuated by wars, we miss the huge bottom-up story, so-called ordinary people who built those railroads that we're talking about, who fought for those national parks that we cherish, who were involved in bootlegging if that's the case who sacrificed their lives in the second world war, vietnam or the civil war. that's the history that we're telling. an emotional archeology. i'm pleased that it took you a while to get your composure. because i think history shouldn't be dry, stuffy days but something that we feel, that it's emotional archeology that we're involved in. thanks so much. host: "prohibition," a three-part documentary film series that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the 18th amendment to the u.s. constitution and the entire era it encompassed. let's hear from phil next, from kansas.

caller: good morning mr. burns. how are you today? guest: good morning. caller: good morning, again. like everybody else calling this morning, i really want to thank you for the work you've done. a couple of points i've heard, one, the impact you've had in our household, particularly international students that we host. but the other thing is that i really like the work you do, particularly "prohibition," that you treat your audience like adults. too much we see now adays, some doom tearian is trying -- documentarian is trying to do the thinking for you. my wife and i have some disagreements, very civil, but it makes me wonder about the unintended consequences as to the possibility of your grandson or granddaughter some day doing a documentary on black market cheese burgers. [laughter] but at any rate -- guest: i know what your worry is.

i don't think we're going to have black market cheeseburgers in part because of prohibition. it doesn't make sense it might be, you know, taxes on cigarettes, to cut down smoking in various places. but i think you won't find that wholesale government intrusion into our lives. we always worry about it, but it never quite happens in that way. you say makes me feel so happy that the subject that we've chosen touch you in that way. host: it's the lack of civility that we see today, mostly in washington, compared to prohibition that seemed to be really a national discourse outside of washington. guest: i know. a lot of people see prohibition as this thing that the government did to people. it's not true. it's the people said we want be part of a solution. conservatives as well as progressives wanted government to be part of a solution. we weren't bifurcated the way we are now in which people say government is good or government is bad. we all assumed that government

was good. it was just our version of government, if i was a republican, our version of government if i was a democrat, who's going to do a better job of government. it's only been in recent years in the last 30, 40 years in which government has itself been made to seem the enemy. it's an interesting development that i think those of us who are in the history business are going to have to deal with it at some point. where did that happen? when did we cross over that line? as you look around the world and realize the extent of our freedom, it's very real that we should be careful about government intrusion. and one of the things that happened in prohibition is that in order to enforce it, we had to add that much more bureaucracy to the enforcement of dure jobbing is i that hasn't left. an earlier caller is referring to the trillions that we're spending, you know, in drug interdiction which leaves us with a huge super structure, an apparatus, of enforcement. and that can apply not just to drugs. we could be talking about defense, about entitlements,

about any number of things that has grown as the result of that thefeeling government should be involved in, say, building roads or having a strong defense or putting a man on the moon or having an interstate system. or some things that people universally support or other things that are more controversial. so, to me, i think that sometimes taking out that fuel rod that the government is itself malevolent and evil and permitting us to look across the whole scope of our history and saying the extent to which human beings, in the case of prohibition, brought it to the government and said this is what we want. we want you to outlaw for us forever, that had been the constitution, as an amendment, alcohol. you know, stop me before i drink again. and what we woke up to was, wait a second, this is not america. this is the only amendment that limits human freedom. let us figure out how to get out of this. and as horrible and as long it

seems to be involved in prohibition, if you think about it in historical terms, it was a relatively short period of time. host: thomas, democratic caller, new york. caller: hello. mr. burns? guest: good morning. caller: yes. i want to praise you, first of all, for your wonderful body of work. guest: thank you. that's so kind. caller: it's truly a national treasure. but what i wanted to ask about was specifically the wording of the 18th amendment. and it goes through all of these parts about manufactured sale, exporting, importing, and so forth. guest: transportation. caller: it doesn't actually say anything about buying it. i mean -- i'm not saying that people should have, you know, gone out to break the law -- i

mean, gone out and bought bootleg liquor. but what i meant was, it doesn't actually say anything about buying it. so when people actually bought this illegally made alcohol -- host: they weren't breaking the law. weren't actually breaking the law according to the wording of the amendment. guest: so the amendment -- it's very interesting. it's incredibly vague, as you so correctly noticed. so what we did is we applied what was called the volstad act to try to interpret it. and even though an efficient machine of the anti-saloon couldn't get a complete ban on alcohol it wasn't actually illegal to drink alcohol. people were allowed to buy up as much as they want and drink it for their own pleasure. americans were allowed to make 250-gallons of wine on their own if they wanted to. they could not make beer. they could not make whiskey. that was against the law.

they could not sell or distribute any of that. that was also against the law. but you could also get a doctor's prescription for alcohol for medicinal purposes. and you could imagine the number of prescriptions skyrocketing during that period. there were other loopholes in which you could drive a prohibition truck through, and that's what happened. we created opportunities for entrepreneurial americans, full, organized crime. if you think about electronic it's an oxymoron. criminals were hardly organized. but what prohibition and the enormous profits -- because the demand for alcohol never went away. the thirst for it among the hard-working people who didn't necessarily have a problem with alcohol never went away. so, you know, that organized crime supplied a need. but there's so many funny loopholes in it. you know, sacramento wine was permitted. so congregations quadrupled, 10

times the size. and jewish temples, who's to say who's a rabbi and not? so there were rabbis named o kelly, shanahan. there were black rabbis. there was an incredibly wide interpretation of all of these laws. host: gary, you're next in tampa, florida. independent caller. caller: good morning. guest: good morning, gary. caller: first of all, can we see mr. burns on "in depth" for three hours, because i can listen to you talk all day. your head is so big now after all of these calls, you're going to have a hard time. guest: you know, i live in a tiny world in new hampshire. any notoriety plus 50 cents gets you a cup of coffee. caller: mr. burns, let me ask you this. prohibition showed me -- first of all, don't mess with americans and their beer. [laughter] it's too bad we can't get them riled up for other issues like

that, like they got riled up for prohibition. but what did you learn as far as -- to me it showed the power of the american people when they really do get fired up and they -- you know, government doesn't control this country. the people control -- guest: exactly. that is a huge point. i'm so glad you bring this up. the broad coalition of folks that brought us prohibition was in place by another broad coalition of folks. in essence what we're looking at is the very messy but very real results of democracy. i mean, people really struggled over this. it was and still is a huge social problem. alcoholism. we are obligated as a people, as a society, to figure out what to do with it. clearly prohibition had in everyone's mind -- was going do it, was going to solve all of our problems. it did not. we got rid of it. and we're sort of obligated to

tinker. the founders thought that the constitution was a machine that would go of itself. that this is an experiment in democracy and would be just that an experiment. we're in pursuit of happiness. that's the key word. we're always focused on happiness. is that about material things, the marketplace of objects? or is it about ideas in a marketplace that's sort of the pursuit of life-long education? we can argue about it. i think it's the latter. what jefferson meant by capital h, happiness. we're in pursuit of it. the constitution which is a dry document except as preamble says in order to form a more perfect union, we are obligated to keep tinkering with these things, to keep experimenting. and that's the real great beauty of this thing. and we get so distracted by our preoccupations, as i was saying earlier, with red state, blue state, black, white, male, female, north, south, east, west. whatever distinction we want to super impose object the other --

on the other. nothing so needs reforming, mark twain said, as other people's habits. it is the prohibition of anything that makes this precious. these are the growing pains and the necessary lessons of the democracy. we are at once greedy and generous. we are at once fear and hypocritical. we are puriant and puritan. we are saturday night at the sloan and sunday morning at the -- at the saloon and sunday morning at the church. are divisions within us. look at the evangelist who hail against this and that and suddenly turns out to be doing this and that. this is a complex human thing. we've got the best set of rules, however imperfect they may be. they call it sausage making over at the capitol, you know, about legislation. want to see how it's made, but it sure tastes good. we end up with a democracy in which there's lots of sausage making going on. and prohibition is one of those great examples, trying to figure

out how to do right. alcoholism is still a big problem in the united states what are we going to do? >> sarah, jacksonville, florida, democratic caller. the conversation. guest: good morning, sarah. caller: good morning. thank you so much. being an outdoors person, i loved your documentary on national parks. guest: i'm so glad. thank you. caller: here in florida we have governor scott who wants to privatize our state parks. but my question is, many years ago my husband and i were protesting against the invasion of iraq. and a couple approached us and said, we should be praying to god instead of protesting. i believe many religious people take the easy way out and do nothing with the hope that god will take care of everything, including global warming. someone once said religion is the opium of the masses. do you believe it's possible that religion is a drug for many people? >> you know, i think your point is well taken that many of us are certain that the other, the person who feels different from

us if they'd only do an act -- and act like us, we'd be all right. the great beauty of a democratic system is that we invite in all different points of view. i don't think religion or faith is an open yacht. i think sometimes it can be for some people just as an i'd log --ideologue might be equally as inflexible. what i think democracy requires us to do in order to succeed is to compromise. one said americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising people. but are great geniuses for compromise. and when that breaks down, we went to war. and that's true. speaking recently on another film to george will, the columnist, he said that democracy is the politics of the half loaf. you never get everything. and what we see right now is we lament the breakdown in our civil discourse is the fact that everybody is so absolutely

certain that it's my way or the highway. and the old dayness which they used to get together over whiskey, have a drink, and compromise is long gone. and everybody's into their own corner. they've got their talking points. they know exactly what it is. and we, the citizens of the democracy, watch our problems not being solved. and this is a problem of the and the right. it's not one group. it's the inflexibility. it's the problem that comes from not just moral but political certitude. and that our great obligation as the people is to get involved, to vote, but to urge people whatever your political perspective, whatever your religious faith or lack there of is to just be engaged and to remember the genius -- you can't stay married for very long if you don't know how to compromise. bring your intelligence about your own marriage to your political discourse. and then the other isn't the demon that you think it is. to live that way in your personal life, you're going to be very lonely very quickly.

host: we're running out of time with ken burns. one last phone call. paul, an independent in detroit, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. guest: good morning, paul. caller: thank you very much. you mentioned earlier as far as the kennedys not having any affiliation -- i looked at "national geographic" and they said the kennedys were affiliated with -- [indiscernible] would you elaborate on that for me, please? and thanks a lot for putting together what you put together. because what you're showing is a group together can do things. guest: that's exactly what is what it is. and that is always the great lesson of a democracy. i would refer you to the book "the last call: the rise and fall of prohibition." dan was a consultant to our film. we worked in parallel tracks. we benefited from his research.

i hope he benefited to some extend from ours. he appears in our film as an on-camera commentator. i think he goes in, in that book, in great detail about the kennedys. and i think that whether someone has contact with people in the world, it's been one of the great -- part of the demonization of the kennedy family that happens periodically always to do with organized crime and bootlegging. but this scholar could not find any connection. and i think that's some of the breaking news of his extraordinary book. host: before we let you go, what is your partnership with the national constitution center? guest: early on we realized -- i think we feel as so many americans do that we've lost that ability to talk with each other. that we talk over each other and at each other. that that sort of breakdown was partly going on in prohibition. and one of the reasons this mistake -- i think most

everybody in retrospect believes -- in position in the federal amendment, that outlawed alcohol that a lot of it had to do with that loss of civil discourse. so we partnered trying to raise awareness of not only the great work of the amazing post in does, but in the way in which we are obligated as citizens to listen to one another to compromise, to figure out how to solve our problems that if we just retreat to our own corners, we're gone. one of the most encouraging things is that we've had callers who are republicans and democrats and independents who have all enjoyed our work. what this is -- what they're ratifying is support for television. there's no other place on the dial with the possible exception of c-span where you could have the kind of productions made that we do. the deep dives into these subjects. the ability to celebrate all sides without a political agenda. the lack of sort of pandering to

sponsors or to the lowest common denominator. one caller said, the viewers as intelligent. and i think that in some ways public television mirrors our larger society. i think we could do well to realize that this underfunded and much maligned network still manages to produce some of the best childrens, science, nature, art, performance, i'm told the best history on the dial. that's good i wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for public broadcasting. and i like the fact that the support for this work as evidenced by the calls today represents a broader array of americans. host: ken burns, codirector of "prohibition," the last of the three-part series airing tonight