ACTIONS IN COLOMBIA TEST CONGRESS' LIMITS

BOGOTA, Colombia - The U.S. State Department has directed its largest
private contractor in Colombia to hire foreign pilots to fight the
drug war, an order that helps get around Congress' attempt to keep
the United States from slipping further into this country's messy
civil war.

Last year, Congress limited to 300 the number of civilian contract
workers participating in U.S.-financed drug-eradication efforts in
Colombia. But in a little-noticed decision, the State Department has
counted only U.S. citizens toward that limit.

As a result, the private contractor, DynCorp, has 335 civilians
working on the antidrug campaign here, but fewer than one-third of
the workers are U.S. citizens, the contractor's chief of operations
said.

There also are 60 to 80 U.S. citizens working for other companies
involved in the drug-eradication effort, such as Bell Helicopter
Textron Inc., Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed
Martin.

So at least 395 contract workers in Colombia are paid as part of last
year's $1.3 billion aid package, although fewer than 200 are U.S.
citizens.

A senior aide to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.), who has been at the
forefront of the battle over U.S. assistance to Colombia,
acknowledged that the language passed by Congress specified that the
cap applied to "United States individual civilians" and that the
State Department was not obliged to include foreigners in their
reports to Congress.

"They may be within the law," said the aide, Tim Reiser, "but in
terms of congressional interest in being informed on what U.S. money
is being used for, that is of interest to Congress, and it's
something that the Congress should be informed about."

State Department officials said they were not required to inform
Congress that they had ordered DynCorp to hire as many as 50 pilots
from Guatemala, Peru, Colombia and other countries to transport
Colombian army forces into cocaine-growing zones.

The pilots, most of them former Central and South American air force
members who fly the most dangerous antidrug missions here, also are
hired to reduce the risk of bad publicity resulting from the downing
of a U.S. citizen, according to U.S. Embassy officials.

"I'm under no illusion what it would mean to have an American shot
down here, and no one in the U.S. is," Ambassador Anne Patterson said
in a recent interview with reporters.

U.S. lawmakers and aides accused the State Department of
circumventing congressional intent to limit U.S. involvement in
Colombia's 37-year civil war, in which leftist rebels and right-wing
paramilitary forces depend on the cocaine trade for financing.

The issue goes to the heart of congressional critics' fears about
Plan Colombia, the U.S.-financed antidrug campaign: that it will lead
to a slow increase of U.S. presence in a messy conflict without
sufficient oversight.

"This seems to be a loophole around the cap, a way to get around
them," said Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D., Ill.), who has sought to
eliminate the use of private contractors in the region since a U.S.
company was involved in an accidental downing of a private airplane
by the Peruvian military in April that killed a missionary and her
7-month-old daughter.

"Every time we find out more about what goes on in Colombia, a dozen
more questions are raised," Schakowsky said. "Most members of
Congress interpreted the cap to mean we will limit to a total of 300
personnel, no matter what their nationality is."