The Nation - News from July 2, 1989

A National Security Council task force plans to recommend that President Bush greatly heighten the military’s role in fighting the drug trade by sending military advisers and increasing economic aid to cocaine-producing South American countries, the New York Times reported in its Sunday editions. Task force officials insisted that the effort would not be a back door for pursuing traffickers with military force. “What we are talking about is helping those countries who want to deploy their military resources to help fight narcotics and help them control insurgencies that are involved in trafficking,” one official said. The number of troops had not been decided.