CONGRESS TAKES STOCK OF COLOMBIA'S WAR ON COCAINE

Critics say the Clinton administration's policy is slow and ineffective.
Plan supporters call for more time and money.

By Paul De La Garza and David Adams

WASHINGTON - Even as a $1.3-billion aid package to help fight the drug war
in Colombia comes under attack in Congress, Clinton administration and
Colombian officials say that to effectively curb drug trafficking, U.S.
taxpayers will have to pony up more money.

In an interview Friday, Colombian Ambassador Luis Alberto Moreno echoed the
sentiments of administration officials who testified on Capitol Hill a day
earlier about the internationally funded aid package known as Plan Colombia.

Moreno said Colombia, ravaged by a leftist insurgency since the 1960s, not
only would need more U.S. money but a longer U.S. commitment. He declined to
say how much more money, noting that reviews would have to be conducted.

"This is a problem so complicated and so difficult," the ambassador said,
"(it) is going to require at least a five-year commitment."

At the congressional hearing, Randy Beers, assistant secretary of state for
international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said the U.S. portion
of Plan Colombia approved by Congress in July would not be enough to get the
job done.

"We will be back to the Congress, and we never said we wouldn't be back,"
Beers said in sometimes testy testimony before the House Government Reform
subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources. "There
will be more requests to support Plan Colombia."

That's not what some members of Congress want to hear, especially in light
of a gloomy study of U.S. drug policy in Colombia that prompted the hearing
in the first place. Preliminary findings of the study by the General
Accounting Office, the investigative branch of Congress, paint a dismal
picture of the drug war over the past several years. The study also raised
questions about Plan Colombia.

The study, for example, found that despite U.S. aid totaling $765-million
during the fiscal years 1996-2000, "Colombia remains the world's leading
producer of cocaine, doubling its production during 1995-99." Under Plan
Colombia, the GAO said, the "U.S. and Colombian governments face a number of
management and financial challenges in implementing Colombia's strategy to
reduce the cultivation, processing and distribution of narcotics by 50
percent in six years."

In addition, the GAO questioned Colombia's ability to contribute its share
of $4-billion to the $7.5-billion plan.

Moreno disputed that. Despite an economy in shambles and 20 percent
unemployment, he said Colombia was fully capable of meeting its financial
obligations.

The ambassador denied news reports that the Colombian Congress had allocated
only $15-million to Plan Colombia. He said Colombia had $900-million
available in international loans, $600- to $700-million from sales of "peace
bonds" and another $1.2-billion from government funds that annually are
allocated to help fight the drug war. And he noted that President Andres
Pastrana is organizing a meeting in Bogota on Oct. 24 to persuade European
countries to meet pledges of $2-billion.

Speaking in his offices at the Colombian Embassy, Moreno insisted that his
country had not squandered $765-million in U.S. drug aid. He pointed to
successes like the dismantling of the Cali drug cartel and the extradition
to the United States of notorious drug traffickers. As for the proliferation
of coca production, Moreno said that without U.S. aid "it could have been
worse."

In a separate report released Thursday, a panel chaired by Sen. Bob Graham,
D-Fla., and Brent Snowcroft, former national security adviser to President
George Bush, said U.S. aid should aim more at strengthening Colombia's
system of government and less on providing expensive military equipment. The
Council on Foreign Relations and Inter-American Dialogue urged the United
States to help Colombia professionalize its military and support judicial
reform and humanitarian programs.

In recent weeks, the Clinton administration has come under fire from
Republicans who charge that the White House is bungling Plan Colombia, that
equipment, mainly helicopters, is not reaching Colombia fast enough.
Administration officials - and some analysts - put the criticism down to
political sniping.

But Florida Republican Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House drug policy
subcommittee, said he summoned witnesses to testify before his panel, one of
several overseeing Plan Colombia, not for partisan reasons but in response
to the study by the GAO, an independent body.

The hearing exposed underlying political rifts in Congress over what has
been billed as a bipartisan policy to tackle the growing problem of cocaine
and heroin production in Colombia. According to American intelligence, as
much as 90 percent of the cocaine sold in the United States comes from
Colombia.

In a telephone interview, Mica criticized the administration and the
Colombian government for their handling of U.S. aid. He characterized them
"as the gang that couldn't shoot straight."

Mica said he was not opposed to providing additional aid to Colombia, but
that first "both sides need to develop a track record of success."

"I have concerns about first of all, how the money has been spent to date,"
he said. "It has been a bungled operation."

Indeed, the GAO report contains evidence of budgeting errors and other
bureaucratic snarls. These have already affected the timing and amounts of
military hardware due to be delivered to the Colombian army and National
Police, the report said.

But, at the hearing, senior State Department and Pentagon officials defended
their handling of the aid effort, saying that despite some unavoidable snags
the massive counterdrug initiative was making progress.

"I think this is the best opportunity that the U.S. and the world will ever
have to deal with the cocaine problem," said Beers, the State Department
official.

Describing the plan as "a sound, responsive, and timely assistance package
that will significantly enhance Colombia's ability to conduct effective
counterdrug operations," Assistant Defense Secretary Brian Sheridan put any
delays down to the size of the huge aid package and the awesome scale of
Colombia's drug problem.

Most of the U.S. funds will go to the Colombian military and National Police
to purchase military helicopters and crop-dusting planes, as well as
counterdrug training for Colombian infantry battalions.

Sheridan warned against impatience. It would be some time before solid
results could be measured. "There will be setbacks and emerging challenges.
Perseverance will be required," he said. "But the plan is sound and the
mission worthwhile."

The administration sold the aid package as a plan to help Colombia fight the
drug war. But critics charge that the United States is increasingly becoming
involved in Colombia's intractable civil war, a morass of leftist rebels,
right-wing paramilitary death squads and a seemingly incompetent military.

U.S. officials say the rebels and paramilitary groups rake in hundreds of
millions of dollars a year from the drug trade. Even administration
officials, noting that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between
the rebels and the drug traffickers, acknowledge that U.S. aid could end up
being used in the civil war.

If it does nothing, the United States worries not only about democracy in
Colombia but about the threat to oil fields in neighboring Venezuela and to
the Panama Canal.

In pushing for Plan Colombia this year, the administration said time was
running out. Some members of Congress, however, cautioned against
undertaking such a massive project.

In his statement, Sheridan, the Pentagon's point man on Plan Colombia,
rejected charges that the Pentagon had been slow to deliver its share of the
aid. He said the U.S. Army's 7th Special Forces Group commenced training of
a Colombian counternarcotics battalion on July 27, three days after the plan
had been approved.

"As you can see, the department has, where possible, moved out quickly in
support of Colombian counterdrug efforts," he said.

As for the State Department, Beers said Plan Colombia was never meant as a
quick fix.

Analysts attending the hearing said much of the criticism was expected.

"The Republicans have been doing this for some time now over Colombia
policy," said Adam Isacson, senior associate at the Center for International
Policy in Washington. "They do it just to score points and make the
administration look bad. Everybody knows this stuff takes a long time to
organize. They are not really calling for a fundamental change in policy."

Republicans are upset that most of Plan Colombia aid is focused on the
Colombian military, notorious for human rights violations, and not the
National Police, which they say has a proven track record.

Even the GAO report cast doubt on the National Police, however. The report
pointed out a series of mishaps and miscalculations that had affected the
drug war in recent years. On at least two occasions, the National Police did
not use helicopters for their intended use and could not account for 469,000
gallons of fuel, the report said.

"Although U.S.-provided assistance has enhanced Colombian counternarcotics
capabilities," the report stated, "it has sometimes been of limited utility
because of longstanding problems in planning and implementing its
assistance."

Analysts, meanwhile, say the political battle in Congress over Plan Colombia
is forcing attention from other issues that need to be addressed. The
bickering is unlikely to do much to boost international support for Plan
Colombia, for example.

Apart from the U.S. aid, Colombia is looking for another $2-billion in
foreign assistance to fund an overall counterdrug strategy.

Pastrana's plan envisions a combination of military-style raids on drug
labs, aerial spraying of crops and development aid to find alternatives for
farmers.

But so far, the response around the rest of the world has been lukewarm.
European leaders say they are concerned that the plan places too much
emphasis on the military.

"We need to really start looking at the push into southern Colombia that's
coming," said Isacson, referring to plans to send U.S.-trained troops into
the coca-growing region of Putumayo as early as December. "We need to ask,
"Can it really work? Are they going to get rid of the coca, or will it just
move elsewhere?' "