COLOMBIA TO GET FEWER, STRONGER HELICOPTERS

Clinton administration officials said yesterday they have reduced the
number of U.S. helicopters destined for counter-drug operations in Colombia
in order to spend more money fully arming the aircraft.

The announcement that only 13 Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters would
be sent to the Colombian army, instead of the 16 originally approved by
Congress last summer, came as the administration sought to fend off
congressional criticism that neither the U.S. government, nor its Colombian
counterpart, is ready to carry out their ambitious, joint anti-narcotics
strategy.

A General Accounting Office report released yesterday, titled "U.S.
Assistance to Colombia Will Take Years to Produce Results," charged that
more than $600 million in past U.S. counternarcotics assistance authorized
for Colombia between 1996 and 1999 had been of "limited utility" because of
poor planning and implementation by both governments.

The United States is now committed to supply $1.3 billion in military
training and equipment, as well as social development aid, to Colombia over
the next two years. That money is supposed to be combined with $4 billion
in Colombian government funds and $2.2 billion from other governments and
international lenders, in the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia program that
Bogota and Washington have said will cut Colombia's cocaine production by half.

But the GAO report, distributed at a House Government Reform subcommittee
hearing, said that "Plan Colombia cannot succeed as envisioned" unless the
problems plaguing past U.S. aid efforts, along with a host of new
challenges, are fixed.

Citing both past and current difficulties, Criminal Justice and Drug Policy
Subcommittee Chairman John L. Mica (R-Fla.) said he is "deeply concerned
about committing hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to a program
that has not worked well in the past."

To some extent, criticism of the program reflected an ongoing political
battle between the administration and a group of Republican lawmakers who
have long disagreed with the pace and direction of the administration's
anti-drug program in Colombia.

But the report also heightened concerns over the massive aid program among
its supporters in the administration and Congress.

The ambitious Plan Colombia program includes a total restructuring of the
Colombian armed forces. The United States is also training and equipping a
3,000-soldier anti-narcotics brigade, which is to be transported by
U.S.-supplied helicopters into the heart of Colombia's southern
coca-growing region to take back the territory from the guerrillas and
right-wing paramilitary forces that control it. At the same time, the
Colombian National Police are to be supplied with additional equipment to
eradicate drug crops and destroy processing labs in the area.

Concurrent with these activities, other U.S. and Colombian-funded programs are intended to assist coca-growing peasant
farmers to switch to other cash crops, and build roads and other infrastructure to help them develop new markets and improve
their standard of living. Additional funding is supposed to aid as many as 1 million Colombians displaced by guerrilla warfare,
help restructure and improve the Colombian judicial system, assist ongoing peace negotiations with the rebels and strengthen
human rights organizations.

"The total cost and activities required to meet the plan's goals remain unknown," said the report, "and it will likely take years
before drug activities are significantly reduced." Many of the programs will not be in place until late 2001 or beyond, it said,
and "additional funds . . . needed to ensure that equipment provided remains operable . . . to train pilots and mechanics,
provide logistical support, and support the operations of certain U.S.-provided helicopters" have not been budgeted.

Moreover, the GAO said, "Colombia has not completed its plans and installed
an organizational structure to implement Plan Colombia. In addition,
although Colombia has pledged $4 billion to support the plan and Colombia
is trying to obtain more than $2 billion from other international donors,
the source of most of this funding has not been identified."

Administration officials maintain that they have warned over and over again
that organizing and carrying out such a wide-ranging program will be both
difficult and time-consuming. But they insisted in testimony yesterday that
they are making progress.

Responding to criticism that the first of the promised new helicopters will
not arrive in Colombia for another two years, and that the aircraft were
insufficiently armored and armed to resist rebel attacks, Assistant
Secretary of State Randy Beers announced that "a new timetable" established
with Sikorsky would allow all of the Black Hawks to arrive by the end of
next year.

In addition, Beers said, Washington and Bogota have agreed that "for the
mission and threat level, the Colombian army would be better served" by 13
fully armed helicopters rather than "16 lesser-equipped aircraft."

A separate delivery of Bell Huey II helicopters, he said, will begin next
summer and should be completed within two years. The delay between the
orders and delivery, he said, "will allow pilots and others for those
aircraft to be trained at a sustainable rate."

Beers also said that a U.S. planning team "returned from Colombia in
September after nearly two months of daily consultations with their
Colombian counterparts" with a comprehensive plan to integrate all elements
of the assistance package.

Meanwhile, a high-level task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Inter-American Dialogue yesterday released a report
calling for greater U.S. efforts in finding a diplomatic solution to the
Colombian conflict, supporting institutional reform, providing U.S. trade
advantages for Colombian products, mobilizing greater international
involvement, and curbing U.S. drug demand. The task force was chaired by
Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Brent Scowcroft, White House national security
adviser in the Bush administration.