BUSH USES EXEMPTION ON COLOMBIA FORCES

President Bush this week used his authority to exceed congressional limits
on the number of U.S. military personnel allowed to be in Colombia, sending
as many as 150 additional specialized troops to assist in the rescue of
three American civilians believed to be in the hands of guerrillas since
their plane crashed in a rebel-held area last week, senior administration
officials said.

For the moment, officials said, the troops' mission is to provide
additional intelligence and guidance to Colombian military forces trying to
locate and rescue the Americans and their captors in a mountainous jungle
region about 220 miles southwest of Bogota. Asked whether U.S. forces would
attempt a rescue themselves, an official said, "We would have the capacity
to do that."

Officials declined to specify the units of the newly deployed troops. U.S.
Special Forces trainers previously assigned to Colombia have also been
assisting in the search for the men, who have been described as Defense
Department contractors working on counterdrug operations.

The Colombia action is the latest in a series of deployments that have
expanded the U.S. military mission across the globe. In addition to more
than 180,000 troops in the Persian Gulf region awaiting a possible war
against Iraq, Pentagon officials said Thursday that about 3,000 troops were
being sent to the Philippines to engage in a major anti-terrorism offensive.

The Bush administration last year extended the U.S. military mission in
Colombia from anti-drug activities to assistance in the country's
long-running counterinsurgency wars. It justified the change, after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with the designation of Colombia's
right-wing paramilitary army and two leftist guerrilla groups as
international terrorists on legal par with the al Qaeda terrorist network,
the Abu Sayyaf organization in the Philippines and dozens of others outside
of Latin America.

The change allowed U.S.-supplied equipment and intelligence, and
American-trained Colombian troops, to be used in counterinsurgency
operations for the first time. The United States has provided nearly $2
billion in largely military assistance to Colombia since fiscal 2001; the
2003 budget just passed by Congress adds approximately $500 million.

Despite the altered military mission, however, limits on the number of U.S.
troops in Colombia have been retained. They were first imposed with the
initial installment of major counterdrug assistance in early 2001, after
Congress expressed concern that the United States would slip into a
Vietnam-like quagmire there. None of Colombia's rebel groups has ever been
known to launch an attack directly against U.S. targets or outside
Colombia's boundaries or immediate border area.

Under the restrictions, which were renewed by Congress for the current
year, no more than 400 U.S. military personnel can be present in Colombia
at any given time, and the president must regularly report to Congress on
their "aggregate number, locations, activities and lengths of assignment."
U.S. citizens working under U.S. government contract are also limited to 400.

Since the limits were initially imposed, the number of both military and
civilian personnel has always hovered around 250 each, and the limits have
never before been exceeded. The most recent reporting period ended in
mid-January, and Bush reported to Congress on Thursday that there were 208
military personnel and 279 contract workers in Colombia as of that date.

The restrictive legislation specifies that it does not limit presidential
authority to "carry out emergency evacuation of U.S. citizens or any
search-and-rescue operation for U.S. military personnel or U.S. citizens."
It is under this provision that the additional military personnel were sent
this week, officials said, bringing the total as of yesterday to 411.

A bipartisan group of House and Senate staffers was briefed Thursday by
State and Defense Department officials on what one official yesterday
called the "state of play" concerning the three Americans.

They were traveling in a group of five, including one Colombian military
intelligence official, in a single-engine Cessna belonging to the Pentagon
on Feb. 13. While passing over a rebel-held region in the south, the plane
reported engine trouble and then crashed. Colombian soldiers arriving on
the scene found the plane riddled with bullets, but said that was not the
cause of the crash. Less than a mile from the plane, the bodies of one
American and the Colombian were found. Both had been shot.

Although Bush said in a Telemundo interview Wednesday that the death of one
of the victims was "clearly an execution," U.S. officials said yesterday
that initial autopsy reports indicated they had been shot while fighting or
"trying to bolt" from their presumed captors, rather than executed.

Speaking to Telemundo, a Spanish-language TV network, Bush agreed, without
specifying which man he was referring to: "One man had a bullet hole in the
back of his head -- clearly an execution. We are dealing with cold-blooded
killers that need to be treated as cold-blooded killers."

U.S.-obtained intelligence has indicated that the three remaining
Americans, whose names have not been released, are traveling with a group
of rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the
FARC. Officials said the Colombian military was trying to keep the
guerrilla group in a relatively confined area of about 37 square miles and
to prevent their traveling deeper into rebel territory. But their exact
location is said to be unknown, and officials said they were constantly on
the move.

Colombian Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez said yesterday that
Colombian troops would attempt to rescue them only if the risk of their
being killed was "practically nothing," the Associated Press reported from
Bogota. Ramirez said Colombia was working closely with the United States
"to identify the place where these citizens are and hopefully be able to
conduct a rescue operation."

The Americans, whose capture the FARC has not yet claimed, would be the
first U.S. government employees in guerrilla possession.