DRUG FLOW WILL FIRST GET WORSE, U.S. PREDICTS

State Dept. Says Payoff Of Colombian Anti-cocaine Offensive Is Years Down The Road

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials said Wednesday that the flow of illicit drugs from Colombia might get worse over the next year or two before the new Colombian plan, supported by substantial U.S. military and development aid, begins to bring it down.

In an extensive briefing at the State Department, Undersecretary Thomas Pickering and other officials said that it would take up to two years for all the U.S. military equipment and other support being provided under a broader $1.3 billion aid package to be procured and delivered.

It could take an additional one to three years before substantial reductions are seen in the northward flow of Colombian cocaine, which accounts for 90 percent of all cocaine consumed in the United States, said General Barry McCaffrey, who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The program aims to help Colombia overcome what an official called "an amalgamation of crises": decades-old guerrilla warfare; narcotics trafficking that has produced corruption in the army, police and government, and a flagging economy.

The United States will provide about 75 helicopters, pesticide-spraying aircraft, training, radar and intelligence support for the Colombian police and military to use in destroying crops and interdicting drug traffickers. About one-fourth the total package will go to support programs to reform the justice system, help coca farmers switch to legal crops, and aid internally displaced persons.

As U.S.-supported drug eradication programs in neighboring Peru and Bolivia have begun to show progress, General McCaffrey said, coca production in Colombia is "continuing to skyrocket," rising by an estimated 140 percent in the past few years.

U.S. officials had been heartened, the general said, by an overall drop of 18 percent in Latin American coca production from 1995 to 1999; that included a 66 percent drop in Peru and a 55 percent decline in Bolivia.

But with signs of resurgent production in Peru, that trend seemed unlikely to be extended, he said.

The picture was not helped when U.S. drug-enforcement officials determined that an earlier estimate of Colombian coca production was dramatically understated. Instead of an estimated 165 metric tons in annual production, the figure now being used is 435 million tons, said R. Rand Beers, assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs.

But, referring to a target of a 50 percent reduction in coca production within five years, General McCaffrey said: "I don't think our goals are overly aggressive."

He added: "In two to five years, we're going to see a dramatic reduction."

The four-hour briefing, involving a dozen high-ranking White House, State Department and Defense Department officials, seemed aimed at persuading critics that the program is necessary, well-conceived and likely to produce the desired result - and to underscore President Bill Clinton's assurance that there will be no gradual expansion of the U.S. military involvement.

Mr. Pickering said that there would be no alteration in the objectives of the larger Plan Colombia, a $7.5 billion program that also includes help from Europe, Japan and international financial institutions. The goals, he said, are "firm, they're fixed."

Mr. Pickering said he hoped the U.S. involvement could help weaken the powerful guerrillas of the leftist group known as FARC, who depend on drug-derived income, but he offered little hope of any quick movement toward peace.

"I don't see progress being made on the peace process now," he said. "What I see is an opening of a track that's available" for further progress later.

U.S. officials asserted, however, that their key concern is helping Colombia bring its drug problem under control. "The U.S. has no intention of directly intervening in Colombia," said Brian Sheridan, assistant defense secretary for special operations.

He said that the number of active-duty U.S. military officers and civilian contractors in the country was 254 as of Tuesday and added, "I would not expect that number to change a whole lot."

Congress, he noted, has imposed a cap of 500 active-duty military personnel in the country, and they will largely be confined to major military bases, where they will face little risk.

Asked if U.S. civilian or military pilots might fly along on "combat missions," Mr. Beers replied bluntly: "Not contemplated - not going to happen."

By January or February, Mr. Sheridan said, about 33 US. helicopters will be made available to army units already trained for anti-narcotics missions. But other helicopters, including 16 Blackhawks, have not even been ordered from the manufacturer and will probably arrive only late in 2001.

The plan foresees major pushes by the Colombian police and army against drug cultivation first in the South, then in the East, and finally in the North, while efforts to halt trafficking continue by air, by river and over land.

Neighboring countries - Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Panama - have expressed concern that the Colombian crackdown could lead to an upsurge in drug trafficking in their own territory, said William Brownfield, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Ecuador, for example, is "extremely vulnerable," said Mr. Beers. But the solution, Mr. Brownfield asserted, "is not to ask the people of Colombia to absorb all this but for all countries to work with each other" in a "coordinated and cooperative fashion."