DRUG WAR STRATEGY TO FACE ATTACK

Both Sides Of The House Are Expected To Criticize Bush's Latin America
Counternarcotics Plan.

WASHINGTON -- In the annual debate over foreign policy spending in
Congress, nothing seems to ignite greater discord than the drug war in
Colombia. When the House opened debate on the $15.2-billion budget for
foreign operations last week, there was solid bipartisan support for most
of the Bush administration's programs. That ranged from increased support
for international HIV-AIDS funding to continued major backing for Israel,
Egypt and other traditional overseas allies.

But when the debate resumes Tuesday, the Bush administration's
counternarcotics strategy for Latin America is expected to come under
sustained attack from members on both sides of the House, anxious
about the United States deepening involvement in a war some deem
"unwinnable."

For next year, the administration is proposing to provide $676-million
in new counternarcotics assistance to the region, mostly for Colombia.
That comes on top of $1.3-billion Congress approved last year to help
launch Plan Colombia, an ambitious internationally funded aid package
to stabilize the war-plagued country.

By the fall, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, expects to have two separate investigations into Plan
Colombia completed. Critics of this year's bill, known as the Andean
Regional Initiative, meanwhile, say the policy isn't working and needs
rethinking. Several amendments, to be heard Tuesday, will attempt to
slash the counternarcotics budget, as well as strictly limit the use
of available funds. One amendment would shift $100-million in
Colombian military aid to child survival and maternal health programs
and a fund to combat tuberculosis. Another would prohibit the use of
funds for the controversial aerial fumigation of coca and opium crops
in Colombia, where 90 percent of the cocaine and 60 percent of the
heroin that reaches the United States is produced.

Both these amendments -- especially the latter -- are unlikely to pass
because they would drastically undermine the administration's overall
counternarcotics policy in the region.

The centerpiece of Plan Colombia is a massive reduction in coca
cultivation through intense aerial fumigation. Spraying began last
December and has achieved record results, although it has kicked up a
firestorm of protest in the most affected areas of southern Colombia
where poor peasant farmers depend on coca to make a living. "There's
no momentum (in Congress) to disengage at the moment," said Michael
Shifter, vice president of the Washington-based Inter-American
Dialogue, who monitors Colombia policy closely. "There is a
commitment, but I think there's a real sense of tentativeness and lack
of confidence that this is going to be successful," he said.

The administration has won over some doubters this year by broadening
its policy out from Colombia to include counternarcotics funding for
its neighbors, principally Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Under the Andean
Regional Initiative, Colombia will receive the bulk of the funding,
about $400-million, but well below the $500-million it was hoping for.

Critics are especially alarmed by a new provision to suspend the legal
cap of 300 on the number of civilian contractors Washington can deploy
in Colombia. Opponents of Plan Colombia see the proposal as a subtle
attempt to increase the U.S. presence in Colombia by using
non-military personnel, with sinister overtones of a Vietnam-style
buildup. Questions about the use of civilian contractors have risen
greatly after an American missionary plane was shot down April 20 over
the Peruvian Amazon. A Michigan missionary, Veronica Bowers, and her
infant daughter were killed after the Peruvian air force mistook their
plane for an illegal drug flight.

The missionary plane was targeted after it was initially spotted by a
U.S. counter-drug surveillance plane operated by civilians contracted
by the CIA. Critics say the use of civilian contractors should be
banned or strictly limited, arguing that they are less accountable to
Congress than U.S. troops or regular government employees.

"They are using private contractors because there isn't the political
support at home for sending our own troops down there," said Sanho
Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Washington-based
Institute for Policy Studies.

Some members of Congress are also concerned that the provision flies
in the face of the War Powers Act, which gives Congress the right to
control U.S. involvement in foreign wars.

"The government already has the ability to increase the number of
personnel," Tree said. "All they have to do is go back to Congress and
ask for more. But with this provision they want to pre-empt that. You
could have unlimited numbers of people being sent down there and
nobody would know."

But administration officials say there is a practical and far less
sneaky explanation for lifting the cap. They point out that
contractors perform various tasks, including aerial fumigation in
Colombia, radar operation, alternative development and pro-democracy
projects. Private contractors have also worked with the Defense
Ministry to help reform Colombia's armed forces.

Despite the cap of 300 U.S. civilian contractors in Colombia, only 171
private contractors are working there now, according to one
Congressional aide working on the foreign operations budget.

The State Department, however, expects to bump up against the
300-person limit next year, the aide said, when Colombia takes control
of a fleet of U.S.-supplied Black Hawks to help fight the drug war
under Plan Colombia. American contractors will be needed to provide
maintenance on the aircraft. Officials also are looking to sidestep
the cap because funding for humanitarian programs like alternative
development and judicial reform under Plan Colombia has barely begun
to trickle in.

Opponents of lifting the cap are not convinced. "We don't buy that at
all," said Nadeam Elshami, an aide to Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. "If
it's for humanitarian programs, why don't they make the provision more
specific." At least two of the programs under Plan Colombia are also
coming under scrutiny by the General Accounting Office.

GAO investigators are reviewing the alternative development component
and the State Department's operation out of Florida that supports
aerial eradication in Colombia and aircraft maintenance in Bolivia and
Peru, mainly under contract with Virginia-based DynCorp.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee requested the alternative
development probe and the Senate Drug International Control Caucus
requested the airwing investigation. GAO officials expect to wrap up
the investigations by fall.

That may shed some useful light on what experts agree is one of the
trickiest foreign policy issues facing the United States. "It's a very
complicated puzzle," said Shifter. "The Middle East and the Balkans
are pretty complicated but at least there's an awareness of where we
stand. On Colombia people just back away and aren't prepared to face
it and wrestle with it."