HOUSE REJECTS COLOMBIAN ANTI-DRUG CUTS

But Legislators Agree To Cap Personnel Numbers In The Country To 800 At Any
Time

Engaging in a prolonged and impassioned debate on the drug war in the
Andean region, the House rolled back an effort Tuesday to slash $100
million from a hefty counter-narcotics initiative but warned the White
House not to boost the number of U.S. personnel in Colombia beyond limits.

In more than four hours of debate on the drug war, opponents voiced a
series of qualms about U.S. counter-drug strategy while supporters called
for energetic action.

"Don't pull the guts out of the plan! Don't destroy a well-balanced plan
that has protection against human rights abuses," Rep. John Mica, a
Republican from Central Florida, exhorted his colleagues.

In a vote that fell largely along partisan lines, legislators considering a
$676 million Andean Counter-drug Initiative turned back an amendment, in a
249-179 vote, that would have taken $100 million from the plan and allotted
it to worldwide programs to fight tuberculosis and promote child healthcare.

The counter-narcotics money was included in a $15.2 billion foreign aid
spending bill for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The bill passed easily,
381-46, and now must go to the Senate.

Concern about U.S. policy in Latin America emerged repeatedly during the
debate on the counter-narcotics money, though, and legislators agreed to
maintain a cap of 800 military members and civilian workers in Colombia at
any time.

Legislators, in a voice vote, rejected a White House request to scrap any
limit on the number of U.S. civilian contractors involved in a wide series
of actions in Colombia.

The House also asked the Bush administration to guarantee that enhanced
safeguards are in place 30 days before providing intelligence to help South
American nations shoot down suspected drug aircraft. Intelligence sharing
was halted after a Peruvian jet fighter downed a U.S. missionary plane on
April 20, killing a Michigan mother and daughter.

Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., who sponsored the amendment to slash $100
million from the Andean Counter-drug Initiative, said his goal was to alert
the Colombian armed forces that U.S. patience is running out with
individual officers accused of working with right-wing paramilitary groups
massacring civilians in war-torn Colombia.

"This House has a chance to send a straightforward message to the Colombian
military: Sever all ties with the paramilitary groups and sever them now,"
McGovern said.

Congress approved $1.3 billion in assistance to Colombia last year that
underscored growing U.S. concern over the flourishing narcotics trade there.

While U.S.-financed counter-narcotics programs met large-scale success in
the 1990s in Peru and Bolivia, which were once major producers of coca,
Colombia's coca trade has boomed.

Much of the $1.3 billion package has yet to be disbursed and spent, but the
new initiative is to ensure that financing continues in 2002 for a military
component as well as social programs that include alternative development
for coca farmers forced out of work by aerial eradication.

A prominent Democrat from Wisconsin, Rep. David Obey, assailed Congress for
failing to undertake "an intelligent, thoughtful debate" on how to fight
the burgeoning drug trade and strengthen democratic institutions in
Colombia, which has been riddled by civil conflict for half a century.

"The Congress ought to have a full-blown, detailed briefing on this issue,"
Obey said. "The leadership of both parties has been disgracefully negligent
to allow us to drift into this war without any real thought about what the
outcome is going to be."

Republican congressmen defended the ongoing funding of Plan Colombia,
saying any slowdown in U.S. assistance would be felt along city streets in
the United States.

"We need to stay the course. We haven't even delivered most of the
equipment we promised to Plan Colombia [like] the helicopters," said Rep.
Benjamin A. Gilman, R-N.Y., a staunch supporter of military action against
coca growers and drug cartels.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., dismissed suggestions that U.S. taxpayers are
sliding into a protracted quagmire in Colombia.

"Colombia is not Vietnam. It is a longtime democracy. It's one of the
oldest democracies in this hemisphere. Vietnam was not," he said.

Another Republican legislator, Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois, raised the
specter that Colombia could turn into a "narco-state" in the hands of drug
cartels or left-wing insurgents involved in drug trafficking.

But one of the 22 Republicans to side with Democrats on the McGovern
amendment, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, argued that legislators were
financing a war without ensuring respect for human rights in Colombia.

"I think there's a great deal of uncertainty over how this program is
working," he said. "There is a sincere concern about our efforts in the
drug war."