Summary

Although the Pentagon has significantly expanded U.S. monitoring and detection of cocaine smugglers, this expanded capability has come with a hefty price tag and has yet to reduce the flow of cocaine onto American streets. The portion of the federal drug budget earmarked for military surveillance has quadrupled during the past five years, without measurable goals or results to show that the increases were warranted. Decisionmakers have lacked critical information needed to assess the costs and benefits of military surveillance. The nation's continuing failure to reduce the cocaine flow is not an indictment of the Department of Defense's (DOD) surveillance efforts. But in the absence of measurable goals for DOD's mission, the fact that cocaine remains affordable and readily available in the United States strongly suggests that surveillance is not producing results commensurate with its costs. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Drug Control: Expanded Military Surveillance Not Justified by Measurable Goals or Results, by Louis J. Rodrigues, Director of Systems Development and Production Issues, before the Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security, House Committee on Government Operations. GAO/T-NSIAD-94-14, Oct. 5, 1993 (nine pages).

GAO found that: (1) DOD funding for drug detection and monitoring operations has increased by about 300 percent since 1989 without DOD or the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) establishing quantified goals or effectiveness measures; (2) DOD justifications for increased operating tempo (OPTEMPO) funding are subjective due to the lack of information about the effectiveness of counterdrug missions; (3) DOD investment in its counterdrug mission is negligible when measured against ONDCP goals for reducing the flow of drugs into the country and interdiction success rates; (4) cocaine production has increased since 1989 and its distribution has not been significantly disrupted; (5) DOD surveillance capabilities exceed the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to apprehend smugglers; (6) DOD surveillance is inherently costly and the DOD approach to its counterdrug mission increases its cost; (7) DOD counterdrug program performance is likely to decline, since DOD has a narrowly focused support role due to legal and logistical limitations and the likelihood that smuggling operations will change; (8) some of the DOD surveillance operations do not provide the type of training needed to maintain the primary DOD war-fighting mission; and (9) DOD maintains some noncombat-oriented aircraft and equipment for exclusive use in its counterdrug operations.