U.S. MISSES POINT ON COLOMBIA PROBLEM, REPORT SAYS

WASHINGTON -- The United States is confronting a deteriorating military
situation in Colombia that could present the Bush administration with the
choice of retreat or much deeper involvement, according to a study for the
Air Force.

The report by the Rand Corp. released Friday criticizes the current focus
on countering the booming narcotics trade that supplies much of the cocaine
and heroin flowing into the U.S.

Instead, it says, President Bush should recognize that powerful leftist
rebel groups have merged with the narco-traffickers and present an
inseparable challenge to the government.

"U.S. efforts are focused on strengthening Colombian anti-narcotics
capabilities while insisting that U.S. military assistance is not directed
against the guerrillas themselves," the Rand study concludes. "U.S. policy,
therefore, misses the point that the political and military control that
the guerrillas exercise over an ever-larger part of Colombia's territory
and population is at the heart of their challenge to the Bogota
government's authority."

The democratically elected government of Colombian President Andres
Pastrana has ceded a large swath of territory to a revolutionary group
known as the FARC in southern Colombia, now also the locus of drug production.

Pastrana plans to yield a smaller chunk of territory in northern Colombia
to another leftist rebel group, the ELN.

Colombia last year won U.S. support for "Plan Colombia," a
multibillion-dollar effort to shore up civil and military institutions
against traffickers and insurgents. Bush has a new approach, the "Andean
Regional Initiative," steering more aid to Colombia's neighbors.

The Clinton and Bush administrations and Congress have been firmly opposed
to even the suggestion that U.S. troops may fight in Colombia.

"None of us wants to get into a war. The word 'counterinsurgency' scares
the hell out of everybody," Peter Rodman, Bush's nominee for a senior
Pentagon policy job, told lawmakers at his Senate confirmation hearing.

Up to now, the U.S. has strictly limited the number of military personnel
who can go to Colombia in advisory roles to a few hundred. The bulk of aid
has been for aircraft, particularly helicopters, and intelligence-gathering
equipment.

But the Rand report paints a bleak picture of the prospects for improvement
in Colombia.

Pastrana's government is fighting with a force about the size of El
Salvador's at the peak of that country's civil war in the 1980s, yet
Colombia is a territory 15 times larger.

Guerrilla forces have gained strength in recent years, and U.S.-backed
crop-eradication efforts aimed at reducing cocaine production have not
prevented a spike in cocaine exports.

"If the Pastrana administration falters, either its counternarcotics or
counterinsurgency approach, the United States would be confronted with an
unpalatable choice," according to Rand. "It could escalate its commitment,
to include perhaps an operational role for U.S. forces in Colombia, or
scale it down, which could involve some significant costs, including a
serious loss of credibility."