US DRUG CHIEF SAYS COLOMBIA IS EVERYONE'S PROBLEM

HOUSTON - U.S. drug chief Barry McCaffrey said Wednesday
that Colombia's mounting social chaos has become a regional problem
requiring the ``political involvement'' of other nations.

But he said violence-wracked Colombia, which is battling drug-financed
guerrillas and paramilitary groups, would have to fight its own
military battles.

McCaffrey said Colombia's problems were spilling over into neighboring
countries, which he said he will visit in coming weeks to ``hear their
ideas'' about what should be done.

``The argument is that this is not Colombia's problem, this is a
regional problem and they need the political involvement of all of us
in the hemisphere,'' he said at a news conference.

Colombia is the world's top cocaine producer and home to the
longest-running civil conflict in the Western Hemisphere.

Half the country is controlled by armed groups and heroin and cocaine
output is up sharply, producing profits that drug traffickers share
with leftist guerrillas, McCaffrey said.

He said allies could help wean Colombia from drug profits and improve
the country's institutions, including its criminal justice system. But
military assistance would be limited, he said.

``When it comes down to actually confronting the (guerrillas) and the
paramilitaries, that's Colombia's job. That's got to be their police,
their prosecutors, their laws, their armed forces -- that's not our
effort,'' he said.

``We can support them with resources, training, equipment,
intelligence. 2E.. We're clearly trying to support them with
drug-related intelligence,'' McCaffrey said.

The United States spends $289 million annually to fight drugs in
Colombia, but McCaffrey has proposed raising U.S. aid to $1 billion
next year.

46ive U.S. servicemen were killed last month when their drug
surveillance plane was shot down over southern Colombia.

McCaffrey rejected any suggestion that Colombia quickly could reduce
its violence by legalizing drugs.

``It doesn't make any more sense for their society than it does for
ours. It's just not going to happen,'' he said.

McCaffrey was in Houston to sign an agreement with local officials on
a program to reduce illegal drug use.