COLOMBIA AID HIKE IN THE WORKS

Anti-Terror Funds: Bush, Key Congressional Leaders Agree Military Aid
Limits Must Be Lifted

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration plans to ask Congress next week to
remove all restrictions on U.S. military aid to Colombia, including those
that limit assistance to counter-narcotics efforts, impose human rights
standards on the Colombian military and cap the number of U.S. military
personnel in the country, administration and congressional sources said.

The plan, which also seeks to ward off restrictions on any future aid, is
included in legislation the administration expects to submit to Congress
asking for additional funds for global and domestic anti- terrorism efforts
this year.

The White House put aside a similar Colombia proposal barely two weeks ago
on grounds that Congress might not support a significant broadening of the
U.S. military mission to assist the government of President Andres Pastrana
in its fight against leftist guerrillas. The Pentagon, backed by some
officials in other departments, had proposed including Colombia in the
global war on terrorism.

To the administration's surprise, however, a number of key congressional
figures subsequently said they would support expanded U.S. aid in response
to the changed circumstances in Colombia, where Pastrana last month
abruptly ended three years of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC. A senior administration official said the new
plan was developed in response to a "strong recommendation" from Congress
to lay its Colombia cards on the table and allow an open debate.

"Everybody said, 'Look, you've got a supplemental coming up. Do it the
honest and right way, and put in (that) legislation that you're going to do
counter-terrorism' " in Colombia, the official said. "We're not trying to
slip anything by or do this in the dead of night," he added.

The administration plans to "make explicit" to Congress in some other
fashion that it will continue to respect the 400-person cap on U.S.
military personnel in Colombia as well as the congressional insistence that
the Colombian military clean up its human rights record.

The multibillion-dollar appropriations package, including the new Colombia
policy, is now awaiting final sign-off at the Office of Management and Budget.

The administration has long insisted that it has no intention of directly
involving U.S. forces in the Colombian war. In essence, the proposal would
authorize the deployment of U.S.-trained Colombian troops and U.S.-provided
military equipment for government actions against groups that the United
States has designated as terrorists.

"All we are trying to do is to add the words 'counter-terrorism' to what
the U.S. can do in helping Colombia," the official said.

Bush is also likely to sign a new presidential directive on Colombia,
replacing a Clinton administration document that restricts U.S.
intelligence-sharing and other military assistance to counter- narcotics,
officials said.

Three Colombian groups - the 16,500-member FARC, the smaller guerrilla
National Liberation Army (ELN) and the 10,000-strong right-wing
paramilitary umbrella group known as the Colombian Self-Defense Force (AUC)
- - are on the administration's list of global terrorist organizations.

The aid proposal is a direct offshoot of the administration's new
anti-terrorism focus. But it also conforms to a longstanding view of some
senior Bush officials that the United States ought to help Colombia's
democratic government fend off a threat from guerrillas who espouse a
Marxist ideology.

The latter view has been consistently rejected by Congress, where there has
been bipartisan agreement on aid limits since the passage of a $1.3 billion
anti-narcotics assistance package in early 2000.

Since both the guerrillas and the paramilitary forces finance their
activities largely through involvement in the drug trade, Congress
authorized U.S. aid to be used against them only when such use overlaps
with the anti-narcotics offensives in the southern part of the country
where most Colombian coca is grown.