TAKING A RISK FOR COLOMBIAN ALLY

President Bush's four-hour stopover in Colombia yesterday may appear to
have been a show of good will. But there was far more than symbolism in the
president's appearance alongside Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The
message from the president was that security in Latin America is high on
his agenda and that the narcotics trade, which is a source of finance for
terrorist groups, is a threat to the entire American continent His visit
came in the wake of a trip by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to El
Salvador, Nicaragua and Ecuador, where Mr. Rumsfeld attended a meeting of
hemisphere defense ministers and stressed the need to improve security
throughout Latin America.

It is an indication of how dangerous it was for the president to visit
Colombia that Air Force One, returning from the Asia-Pacific conference in
Santiago, Chile, landed not in the capital, Bogota, but in Cartagena. But
even Cartagena, which has been untroubled by the violence that has the rest
of the country in a relentless grip, was viewed to be unsafe.

The presidents' joint news conference was held on an island in the bay,
surrounded by a massive security deployment.

President Bush wanted to demonstrate his support for President Uribe, who
has narrowly escaped a series of assassination attempts since he began an
all-out drive to defeat the oldest active guerrilla army in Latin America,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The left-wing guerrillas
control a huge swath of the country that is the cradle of the narcotics
trade. Mr. Uribe is also pitted against the National Liberation Army (ELN),
another left-wing guerrilla organization, as well as the United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which claims to be fighting on
behalf of landowners, but is also deeply involved in the drug trade.

President Uribe has made some progress in pacifying areas once held by
guerrilla forces, but, like all his predecessors, has failed to advance
peace negotiations that have dragged on for more than a quarter of a
century. However, his courage and determination have won him solid support
from the people of Colombia who want nothing more than to be rid of the
scourge of drugs and live to see the end to the longest civil war in the
American hemisphere.

The United States has backed Colombia's efforts to eradicate the cocaine
cartels that supply 80 percent of the hard drugs sold on the streets of the
United States with more than $3 billion in military aid. As President Bush
observed in comments quoted by The Associated Press, "The drug traffickers
who practice violence and intimidation in this country send their addictive
and deadly products to the United States. Defeating them is vital to the
safety of our peoples and to the stability of this hemisphere. This war
against narcoterrorism can and will be won, and Colombia is well on its way
to that victory."

President Uribe, incidentally, is seeking a change in the constitution to
allow him to run for a second term in 2006. President Bush's visit sends a
message of support to a popular leader who has been a stalwart ally of the
United States.