U.S. ANTI-DRUG REPORT DENOUNCED

WASHINGTON - The government certified 20 of 24 countries as fully
cooperating with U.S. anti-drug efforts Thursday, including close allies
Mexico and Colombia despite those two nations' continuing drug-producing
and trafficking status.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, lawmakers called for overhauling the report
card process that often embarrasses U.S. allies.

Afghanistan and Myanmar, also known as Burma, continued their long-standing
"decertified" status, making them subject to economic penalties that will
have no real effect because the countries are under U.S. sanctions for
other reasons.

Cambodia and Haiti were decertified but received a national security waiver
of economic penalties.

Nigeria and Paraguay, in the same category last year as Cambodia and Haiti,
moved up to fully certified.

In addition to Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria and Paraguay, the other certified
countries were the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, Laos, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Thailand,
Venezuela and Vietnam.

The certification process has been denounced in America by those who
consider it counterproductive and by foreign countries embarrassed by their
grades and annoyed that the world's biggest drug consumer has the gall to
tell anyone else what to do.

President Bush has endorsed a move in Congress to set aside the
certification process and he told Mexican President Vicente Fox during a
Feb. 16 visit to Mexico that he would tout Fox's anti-drug efforts to U.S.
lawmakers.