BUSH: U.S. WILL AID IN COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR BUT NOT PEACE TALKS

WASHINGTON -- The United States will help Colombia battle the drug
scourge but will not become a player in peace negotiations with
leftist guerrillas, President Bush said Tuesday.

"This is an issue that the Colombian people and the Colombian
president can deal with," Bush said at a White House press briefing
also attended by President Andres Pastrana of Colombia.

"We'll be glad to help Colombia in any way to make peace," Bush said.
"We'll be glad to help the Colombian economy through trade. But I
won't be present for the discussions."

While Bush did not back off of U.S. commitments to Colombia,
high-level administration and congressional officials warned against
an escalation of America's role there and cited comparisons to the
U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Pastrana visited the White House on his second day in Washington to
discuss trade, drug trafficking and Plan Colombia, a multibillion
dollar project to attack guerrillas and drug traffickers.

The Colombian president said he and Bush discussed specifics on, "a
common enemy that is narco-trafficking." He added, "That is financing
the violence in my country and maybe also in part of your country."

Bush also spoke of the need for a joint effort to combat narcotics trafficking.

"We're fully aware of the narcotics that are manufactured in his
country," Bush said. "I also told him that many of them wouldn't be
manufactured if our nation didn't use them. And we've got to work
together to not only help Colombia, but help our own country."

Colombia is struggling with a decades-old war against leftist
guerrilla groups, including the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, that controls significant parts of the nation's
territory. The guerrilla groups provide safe haven for cocaine and
heroin traffickers in exchange for massive injections of cash to
support their war efforts.

Pastrana has been frustrated in efforts to negotiate a peace
settlement with the guerrillas and has sought U.S. help in changing
the dynamic of the talks, officials said.

The Clinton administration and Congress have pledged $1.3 billion
this year and the next two years as part of Plan Colombia.
High-ranking Bush officials have said that Bush would stick with the
U.S. commitment.

But top Bush aides signaled that the United States is wary of
increasing involvement in Colombia.

On Tuesday, Deputy Defense Secretary-designate Paul Wolfowitz said he
was concerned about a deeper military involvement in Colombia,
warning of another Vietnam.

"It is essential to everyone concerned, including ourselves, to not
find ourselves in a situation that we were in 35 years ago where we
were fighting someone else's civil war," Wolfowitz said in a
statement given at his Senate confirmation hearing.

"I think helping the Colombians help themselves is probably something
that does serve the American interest," he said. "But I would be
very, very leery of something that looked like getting our troops
involved in another war there."

Some key congressional leaders also are expressing concern with
Pastrana's handling of the conflicts with guerrillas and
narco-traffickers, as well as the threat of an expanding U.S. role.

Rep. Ben Gilman, former chairman of the House International Relations
Committee, plans to testify on Friday before an investigative panel
that the peace process is in disarray in Colombia.

"Colombia is a basket case," said an advance text of Gilman's
testimony. "We have a peace process without any peace in Colombia
today."

As for how the U.S. role in Plan Colombia is unfolding, the text of
Gilman's testimony says, "It is not a pretty picture. Our policy
lacks any clarity. As we learned in Vietnam, that means real trouble."

The Clinton administration opened a dialogue with the FARC rebels in
the late 1990s, but those contacts ended in 1999 after the kidnapping
and murder of three American human rights activists.

During visits with congressional leaders on Monday, Pastrana floated
the idea of U.S. involvement in the peace negotiations, said
high-ranking congressional officials.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who became chairman in January of the House
International Relations Committee, was lukewarm to a direct U.S. role
in the talks.

Hyde told Pastrana that such involvement could only follow
significant concessions by the FARC, including renouncing terrorism,
releasing several American hostages and dropping involvement in drug
trafficking, according to senior Republican officials.

Pastrana has sought to calm American concerns of a deepening
involvement in the war in Colombia during his visit to Washington.

"The United States is never going to be dragged into an armed
conflict in Colombia, because this would neither have the support of
the president nor of the people of Colombia, nor the government or
the people of the United States," Pastrana said Monday to an audience
at the National Governors Association meeting.