CAMPBELL DENOUNCES NEW AID TO COLOMBIA

Warns Of Another Vietnam Quagmire

Republican Senate candidate Tom Campbell yesterday blasted U.S. policy
toward Colombia, warning that a $1.3 billion aid package to the
drug-rich nation threatens to plunge the United States into a
Vietnam-style quagmire.

"We are going to war in a Third World jungle, choosing sides in a
civil war with roots at least 30 years deep," Campbell told the
nonpartisan World Affairs Council of San Diego.

The Silicon Valley congressman's remarks underlined sharp Colombia
policy differences with his principal opponent, Democratic incumbent
Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

President Clinton, during a one-day visit to Colombia yesterday,
pledged the $1.3 billion in aid to the government of President Andres
Pastrana. The package, supported by the Republican Congress and
Feinstein, includes 63 helicopters and the use of U.S. pilots and
military advisers to train Colombian forces in anti-narcotics efforts.

Campbell, a Stanford University law professor, favors fighting the
drug problem in this country through an increased emphasis on
treatment programs, which he said would reduce demand for illegal drugs.

Repeating a theme stated previously on the campaign trail, Campbell
said the Colombian aid package will position the United States behind
a government with a poor human-rights record in a fight that cannot be
won.

"It sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Campbell told about 50 luncheon
guests at Tom Ham's Lighthouse on Harbor Island.

"Washington's 'best and brightest' getting us hip-deep in another war
that lacks a clear objective, that will frustrate our military, and
ultimately will divide this country as American forces are drawn
deeper and deeper into a foreign morass."

Campbell warned that the policy will create "strategic hamlets" in the
Colombian countryside and that it places no cap on the number of U.S.
advisers and threatens the Colombian people with aerial spraying of
toxic herbicides.

"This is our policy in Colombia. All that is missing is the signature
of Robert McNamara," Campbell said, referring to the former defense
secretary under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson (1961-1968) who was a
key architect of U.S. military escalation in Vietnam.

"I have a message for the president and the 70 other officials who traveled
with him to Cartagena, and that includes members
of my Republican Party: Let's not send U.S. troops into a jungle war."

He added that lives will be lost to "a cause that has futility written
all over it."

Behind Feinstein by 17 points in the latest Field Poll, Campbell
devoted most of his remarks yesterday to foreign policy, conceding
that it is an arena of little interest to voters today.

To a question from the audience on U.S. policy toward Cuba, he said:
"Recognize Cuba; get over it."

He also called for enforcing the War Powers Act, including in the
stationing of U.S. troops in Bosnia and Kosovo.