Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

William Bennett Discusses Drug War

Aired April 08, 2002 - 08:25   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You've probably seen the ads on television, 30 second commercials brought to you by the White House and carrying a powerful message that drug selling profits fund terrorists. The multi-million dollar campaign especially aimed at kids draws a clear link between even the recreational use of illegal drugs and terrorism.

And joining us now to talk more about that is former education secretary and drug czar Bill Bennett, now a CNN contributor and the director of Empower America. Welcome. Good to see you in person for a change.

WILLIAM BENNETT, EMPOWER AMERICA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you. Nice to be here.

ZAHN: Thank you.

Let's talk a little bit about this war on drugs. You've spent some time with Asa Hutchinson.

BENNETT: Right.

ZAHN: How goes the war, does he tell you?

BENNETT: Well, I think the war is going pretty well. It's got a lot of dimensions to it and one of the dimensions ties in pretty directly with a war on terror. A lot of people don't know how involved the Taliban was, for example, in the drug issue. When the Taliban first came to power, they said drugs are terrible, they corrupt the soul so drugs will not be allowed in Afghanistan anymore. No more growing of opium and no more export.

Then the Taliban realized there was a profit here so once the drugs were banned, the price went way up, the Taliban then entered the business and got into drug distribution. Not a good thing for deeply religious people to be involved in.

The drug network also provided a good deal of cover for Osama bin Laden, we think. He didn't need the money from the drug trade, obviously, but a lot of the connections he had in Afghanistan were some of these drug criminals and it's very possible they were involved in his escape.

ZAHN: So I guess we shouldn't be surprised by the hypocrisy of this.

BENNETT: We shouldn't be surprised by the hypocrisy, but I think what people need to realize is that we have two sets of bad guys here, if you will, working together and there are important links between the problem of drugs and the problem of terror.

ZAHN: So what do you do about the opium right now in Afghanistan? We've heart Tony Blair for months saying that the majority of the heroin that comes to Great Britain, of course, comes directly from Afghanistan. There are people out there saying just torch the fields right now even though that would challenge the sovereignty of this newly developing nation.

BENNETT: Well, this newly developing nation and its leadership does not want to rely, Paula, on opium either as a big part of its economy. Torching the fields I don't think is sufficient. I think the leadership does want to get rid of the opium but it recognizes that these farmers need to make a living.

So what the new government is offering is to pay the farmers to grow something else. We've seen things like this tried before in South America. And it seems to me that's probably a good idea.

ZAHN: Do you think it'll work?

BENNETT: It can work, yes. They need to do more than pay people not to do opium, not to plant poppy. They need to come up with alternative crops and alternative programs and people need to learn about how to work in other areas and other fields. But I think it's perfectly sensible, indeed, right and consistent with our view of the world that this not be a country that is dependent upon growing poppy and the heroin trade to survive. That would not auger well for its future, I don't think.

ZAHN: There are people that are so cynical about this war on drugs because they say look at Colombia, look what's going on there, we haven't stopped the drug trade there. What makes us think we're going to have any more success in Afghanistan?

BENNETT: Well, I don't think -- let's take Colombia first, Paula. I don't think we can ignore Colombia. What a lot of Americans don't realize is that there's terrorism in Colombia that's very real that's impacting America. We've had more than 73 people kidnapped in Colombia, American citizens, since 1990. Twelve of them have been killed. You can't ignore this. You can't turn your back on it.

What people can't be cynical about is the notion that nothing can be done, because things can be done. When we were fighting this war right, 1985-1991, drug use went down by 70 percent in this country. A lot of folks don't realize that. We can push back hard and have a real impact and I think that's what you're going see now with this new leadership and with connecting yup the war on drugs and the war on terror.

ZAHN: When you say push back hard, what do you mean? BENNETT: I mean everything. I mean in the schools. I mean -- it used to be that when you walked into a school the first thing you'd see would be signs, don't use drugs, just say no. They're rare now. You don't see them very often. Push back in the schools. Push back on television, those ads, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. You remember the jumping off the diving board into an empty swimming pool...

ZAHN: Sure.

BENNETT: ... or the two fried eggs? I'm co-chairman of the Partnership with Mario Cuomo. Now there's a sacrifice for me and Cuomo to work together, huh?

ZAHN: Hell, I'd love to be at one of those meetings.

BENNETT: You can have a...

ZAHN: Do you actually talk to each other?

BENNETT: Sure we do. Sure we do, on this issue. And also, of course, work the problem from the law enforcement side, the border side and the Colombia side. Look, because of terrorism, we've got more people on the border and this is having an impact on the amount of dugs coming into the country. So there's a lot we can do. We proved that in the late '80s and we can do it again.

The problem is we've got, we ignored the issue for the most part in the '90s.

ZAHN: I want to quickly move you on to the issue of the Catholic Church. I know you just listened to the interview I'd done with the two Carmelite nuns. Just a quick thought about the crisis the Catholic Church finds itself in. I know you're a long time practicing Catholic and you're pained by this.

BENNETT: Right. Yes, I was very moved by the straightforward and profound, simple but profound faith of those nuns and their belief in the wider mission of the church. I took my walk this morning on Fifth Avenue and saw all the cameras in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. It pains us Catholics to see us in the news in this way and it's also pretty clear that some are getting some joy out of this. There's some Catholic bashing going on.

Nevertheless, the scrutiny is deserved and the stuff that's gone on is horrible.

The encouraging thing, I think, is that most Catholics still have strong faith, still believe in this church and believe that we will weather it. But the leadership has to be accountable. One, you know, I'm from Washington. One thing I know is the cover-up is often worse than the story itself. In this case, the story's horrible, that's for sure. But the cover-up that they tried to put on this was a disaster and I think people have to come clean. Some people have to resign and then I think we will get back to our business.

ZAHN: We're going to have to leave it there this morning.

Thank you for coming by to our studios in person.

BENNETT: Thank you. You are welcome.

ZAHN: Welcome to the A.M. family.

BENNETT: Thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com