U.S. SEEKS EXPANDED MILITARY EFFORT IN COLOMBIA

Administration Wants To Step Up Fight Against Drugs, Insurgents.

The Bush administration will examine ways of expanding its military effort
to fight drug traffickers and insurgents in Colombia as it seeks funding
for an $882 million regional anti-drug package, a senior U.S. official said
Friday.

"I think that's part of the ongoing review between our two countries," the
official said as a U.S. delegation, headed by Marc Grossman, undersecretary
of state for international political affairs, concluded a three-day visit
to Colombia.

The official said the possible expansion of U.S. military training and
anti-drug assistance, now encompassed under a $1.5 billion assistance
program known as Plan Colombia, would be a matter of continuing discussion
with President Andres Pastrana's government in the coming months. Secretary
of State Colin Powell is scheduled to continue the discussions during a
Sept. 11-12 visit.

Mr. Pastrana, who has less than a year left in office, is under fire for
having embraced a U.S. military-assistance package that, many Colombians
believe, is partly responsible for an increase in violence and guerrilla
attacks around the country.

His peace process has virtually ground to a halt while the U.S. and
Colombian governments celebrate the results of a 6,000-troop offensive
against the nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Both governments accuse the FARC and its
arch-rival, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, of supporting and
profiting from the drug trade.

"Is this success a result of our advice?" the U.S. official said. "I think
that the increase in the effectiveness of the Colombian military and the
Colombian police, in terms of the counternarcotics mission, is the result
of the training and the equipment we have provided. And I think that's a
good thing and not a bad thing."

The official said the possibility of expanding the U.S. role will be
discussed in Washington and Bogota "as President Pastrana looks down the
road to the successes they've had, and what they need to do now, and as our
country looks at how do we continue to support" the military and police
counter-narcotics effort. "That will continue to be part of the ongoing
dialogue."

His remarks were in sharp contrast to those of Peter Rodman, assistant
secretary of defense for international policy, who told reporters last week
that Washington was "rethinking" its support of Plan Colombia.

"You never, ever, ever have a policy that's this big and this complicated
without trying to make sure that it's right all the time," the official
said. "But there is absolutely no -- zero, none -- difference between us
and anybody else in town about our support for Plan Colombia and the fact
that Colombia matters. ... There is no rethinking."

The official said the results of the military campaign, as well as an
intensive aerial herbicide-spraying campaign that has been in progress
since last November, are being assessed. More than 120,000 acres of drug
crops have been sprayed.

"If it's true, which I think it is, that there have been some successes now
on the counternarcotics side as a result of what the Colombians do ... and
what we've helped them do," the official said, "we would need to talk about
whether we want to do more of that."

Gen. Peter Pace, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, accompanied Mr.
Grossman Thursday on a tour of the Colombian military bases where the U.S.
training has been focused.

Another senior U.S. official said that both countries agree on the need to
expand a Colombian government security presence throughout the country,
where nearly one-fifth of the nation's 1,074 municipalities do not even
have a police station, much less a military presence.

"First of all, it is a fact that the Colombian military and the Colombian
police combined are not strong enough to provide security throughout the
entire country," the official said. "Everyone recognizes that there is a
need to have that capacity increased."

The officials, who spoke to foreign correspondents on condition of
anonymity, did not say whether an expansion of U.S. assistance would
involve a request to increase the presence of U.S. military forces here.

Congress has set limits of 500 active-duty military personnel and 300
military-contract workers in Colombia at any given time. The U.S. troops
are involved in various training and support activities related to
anti-drug interdiction and the fight against insurgents supporting the drug
trade.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson has said publicly in recent weeks that
Washington is studying an expansion of the U.S. training mission to
establish a combat-ready counterdrug/counterinsurgency brigade of nearly
2,000 troops in southern Colombia, where the presence of FARC and
self-defense forces are heavy.

"In southern Colombia, the U.S.-trained counterdrug brigade has shut down
scores of narcotics fields and laboratories," Mr. Grossman told reporters
Friday. "The combination of aerial spraying of coca plantations and
voluntary, manual eradication for farmers who sign crop-substitution pacts
with the government has had a serious impact on drug production in southern
Colombia."

However, officials acknowledged that in spite of what he described as heavy
U.S. expenditures, the amount of acreage under drug-crop cultivation in
Colombia has actually increased since Plan Colombia made its debut last year.

"I can't give precise figure on how much drug production might have been
increased without America's effort, but I would say that ... the amount of
increase would have been greater had the effort not been made," said Rand
Beers, the assistant secretary of state who is in charge of U.S.
counternarcotics efforts in Colombia. "I have no doubt that, without our
effort, the amount of that increase would have been higher."

Mr. Grossman fielded numerous questions from reporters about a
herbicide-spraying campaign that has prompted complaints from farmers in
southern Colombia. The complaints have ranged from skin rashes and other
health problems to what the farmers in some areas say is the near-total
destruction of their legal subsistence crops.

The two governments are negotiating plans to reimburse farmers who can
prove legal crops were destroyed during eradication flights.

Mr. Grossman defended glyphosate, the chemical herbicide used in the
spraying, and welcomed independent, scientific study to determine whether
the alleged health effects are a result of the U.S.-sponsored eradication
campaign.

"We say all these things not because we're trying to be defensive about it
but because there is a public concern about it in Colombia. And that's
fair," he said. "This is exactly the kind of issue that ought to be talked
about in public. We think the facts are on our side."