A RINGING ENDORSEMENT OF COLOMBIA'S MILITARY

Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg engaged in a one-on-one, question-and-
answer session on Aug. 25 with Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm at Southern
Command headquarters near Miami International Airport. Packing crates
were already at the commander-in-chief's suite of offices, in
anticipation of the general's Sept 8 retirement from a 37-year military
career. Still in uniform, however, he declined to offer certain
opinions but seemed to relish some strategic questions.

Q. Is readiness a concern in the AOR? [Southcom's Area of
Responsibility]

I think readiness is a concern in all AORs. But the readiness equation
plays out in different ways in different regions. In my judgment
reduced to its simplest terms you can really assess readiness in two
areas: people and equipment. As far as the Southern Command area of
responsibility is concerned, I would make the simple statement that our
people are strong and ready, our equipment is less so.

Q. Want to give an example?

I can give you two right off the bat. One example is some of our
intelligence systems. And the other is our strategic airlift.

Q. I think you need to explain the strategic airlift part.

Very directly: We are retiring our C141s. They will be replaced by a
smaller number of C17s. So we have a sufficiency problem. The C5
remains our primary carrier for our outsized or our really large cargo
and we have a well-documented reliability problem with that aircraft,
due mostly to its age.

Q. Have you put forward that this is a problem?

Yes

Q. And has there been responsiveness?

That's an issue that has to be worked by the services and the
Department of Defense in Washington. And I believe that I can say with
absolute accuracy that the Department of Defense has forcefully moved
these issues forward.

Q. Your take on the Colombian army: You have in the past expressed
admiration for them. Do you have any concerns about their ability to
hold up under the stress of civil war?

Let's talk just a little bit more broadly than the Colombian army. I
think we need to be sensitive to the fact that it's the Colombian Armed
Forces, and I'd like to take it a step beyond that: Not just the army,
the navy and the air force but let's include the 104,000 members of the
Colombian National Police, as well, because collectively they
constitute about a quarter-of-a-million-person security force in
Colombia. So I think it would be better to address the security force
in its entirety, because really that is the element of the Colombian
government which is confronting the violence in the countryside. Do I
think that it's a quality force? Yes I do. Do I think it's a force that
has improved significantly over the space of, for purposes of
discussion, the last five years? Yes I do. Do I think it's well led? I
think it's very well led - from the top, the presidential palace, all
the way through the service chiefs. Do I think it's a force that
respects human rights and international humanitarian law? Yes I do. And
I think that a careful study of the statistics on human rights
violations in Colombia and particularly those statistics that have been
collected with great care over the last 5 to 10 years will bear out my
contention absolutely, despite some comments to the contrary from some
who speak from, in my view, the standpoint of their own special
interests.

Q. You didn't mention the paramilitaries. Is there a concern about
their association with the paramilitaries?

I know that the subject of alliances or collusion between the security
forces and the so-called paramilitaries is a subject of frequent
discussion and debate. It's a source of concern, not just in this
country, but I would tell you to Colombia and its leaders as well. I'm
convinced that they're making a firm and concerted effort on multiple
fronts to contend with this problem. And as a matter of fact,
documented fact, they are inflicting casualties on the paramilitaries,
they are jailing the

paramilitaries and they're engaging them as they are able. I know that
there are periodic claims of local collusion with the paramilitaries
and that those claims involve local security forces. I cannot rule out
the possibility of local collusion. However, I will tell you as a
matter of great personal confidence that I see no indicators whatsoever
of any kind of institutional level complicity or collusion.

Q. People here aren't necessarily as capable of making a distinction
between the paramilitaries and the Colombian Armed Forces and Police.
During this period where you for example are speaking out forcefully
that our allies are clean, there's this other element out there that...


I think it's very important that we have an informed populace in this
country as we engage in strategically significant undertakings in
Colombia. And an informed populace would immediately know as a matter
of certainty that there is no relationship legally or institutionally
whatsoever between the paramilitaries and the legitimate security
forces in Colombia. Perhaps that has been distorted in some cases by
some media reporting, certainly not all. But some. I will stand by
statement: There are no institutional linkages. However, local
collusion is a possibility.

Q. Is Plan Colombia a first step? And if so, what's next?

I would not call Plan Colombia a first step. I think it's important to
regard Plan Colombia for what it is. It's an overarching, fully
integrated national strategy to treat the multiple problems that
confront Colombia today. One of the things that concern me are the
impressions held by some that this is primarily a military plan. That
is absolutely not the case. Nor is Plan Colombia a $1.3 billion grant
from the United States. Rather it's a $7.5 billion plan, the majority
of which will be funded by Colombia, with assistance from Europe, from
the Far East and from other interested nations. As a matter of fact a
little bit less than 20 percent of the funding earmarked for Plan
Colombia, the funding goal, would be applied toward military ends.
Slightly more than 80 percent would be earmarked for other endeavors to
include economic, social, political development and the strengthening
of various other national institutions. I don't want a laundry list but
that includes the judiciary and other things.

Q. You started your military career more or less in Vietnam and you're
ending it as a champion of Plan Colombia. Do you believe there are
enough differences and built in U.S. guarantees so that this venture
doesn't end like the other one?

In a word, absolutely.

Q. Venezuela: How big a problem is [Venezuela President Hugo] Chavez's
refusal to allow overflights in our anti-drug operations?

Let's depersonalize and say Venezuela. That's not a good thing for
anyone.

Q. OK. Let's start again. How big a problem is Venezuela's refusal to
allow U.S. military drug overflights, especially on the Colombian Haiti
problem?

Our inability to overfly Venezuela has created some fairly significant
inefficiencies in our employment of what are already limited detection,
monitoring and tracking assets. And I'm referring specifically to our
aircraft which operate from the recently negotiated Forward Operating
Locations in Curacao and Aruba. Flying a normal mission profile into
the source countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the aircraft can
lose as much as an hour to an hour and a half of mission time as a
result of the requirement to circumnavigate Venezuelan airspace. We
don't need to say much more than that.

Q. Cuba: What signs are you getting from the Cuban military?

Many view the military as the best hope for a peaceful transition from
Castro to whatever comes next. As a matter of national policy I have no
contacts with the Cuban military. Period.

Q. What's your take on the embargo and what would be the impact of
lifting trade restrictions?

Absolutely none of my business. That's not general stuff. That's
private citizen opinions and that's not appropriate while I'm wearing
this uniform. And I'd be a useless source on that after I left. Because
I do move, shoot and communicate stuff, not economic embargo stuff. I
mean I have man-in-the-street opinions. But my man-in-the-street
opinion is about as good as anybody else's out there. Right now it is a
question I would not even consider answering.

Q. What are your post-Marine plans?

I have none, at this time. I haven't ruled out any options. Initially
at this point it appears that I will relocate to a small house that I
own in the Washington D.C. area. I would kind of like to caveat that by
simply saying I've really made no effort to do any kind of transition
or second-career planning. The reason quite frankly is because I enjoy
so much what I'm doing right now and I'm going to savor every golden
minute of it.

Q. To pursue it a little bit more: You've done public service for 37
years. Do you want to continue doing it?

You know I hope that opportunities will present themselves, either
inside or outside of government for me to continue my affiliation and
my work in the Caribbean and Central America and South America. And I'd
like to have that printed because if anyone's interested I don't want
to lose this. I feel a real calling and I like the people and I like
the region.

Q. So this is a region that continues to interest you even after?

It interests me for a lot of very good reasons and they're not all
altruistic. I see our future prosperity in the Americas, not in the Far
East and the patterns of commerce will bear that out. Forty-six percent
of our exports flow within the Americas, 28 percent to the Far East and
26 percent to Europe and I see that balance shifting even more to the
Americas at least over the first 25 years of this century. So I think
the future prosperity of the United States is inextricably linked to
the Americas.

Q. So if the opportunity arose, you would be interested in continuing
to travel and have contact with the people you've been working with.

Absolutely. I could be back. I like everything about it, personally and
professionally, this both intellectual and emotional attachment that
I've attached to the region.

Q. I want to talk about the status of this place - [Southern Command
headquarters in Doral] - because it is a constant concern. Is there any
hope to get an appropriation or some kind of structural way to
guarantee that Southcom stays in South Florida?

I think the best way to guarantee Southern Command permanent
positioning - and let's be direct, in South Florida, and in the great
Miami area, which I have stated repeatedly is the single correct
strategic location for the headquarters, the single best thing we can
do to assure that and to promote the most economic use of the
taxpayers' resources - is to buy this headquarters. And to that end we
have been embarked on a very vigorous project, working with members of
the Congress, with the Department of Defense, with state legislators to
promote budgetary action in 2002, which will permit us to buy this
headquarters and the lands that we currently have leased.

Q. Do you have any confidence they are going to be able to do it in
2002?

Yes. Do I think it's a sure thing? No. Do I have confidence that we've
made a compelling argument? Yes I do.

Q. Do you have the numbers?

Yeah, round figure is $40 million in the 2002 budget.

Q. One last Colombia question: The deal for Colombian helicopters
involves Black Hawks from Connecticut and Hueys from Texas. Did
politics and military needs marry in this deal or was it strictly a
military decision? And, was [U.S. Sen. Joseph] Lieberman involved?

On the Lieberman question, I don't know. As far as the other part, the
helicopters and the politics are concerned, I'm going to put this in
very simple terms and military terms. When United States Southern
Command was consulted about Colombia's helicopter needs, we advocated a
course of action, which entailed the purchase and provision of 30 Black
Hawks. The Congress determined that a mix of helicopters was the
preferred solution - 18 Black Hawks and 42 Huey-2s. That is a solution
that will work. That is an aircraft mix that can be made to work
effectively in Colombia and we are working hand in glove with State
Department to make certain that it does.