TREASON IN DRUG WAR

There have always been many questions surrounding the appropriation of U.S.
funds to help the Colombian government fight drugs. Some of those dealt
with alleged human-rights abuses by the Colombian military battling
anti-government guerrillas.

Now there's more.

Last week, Col. James Hiett, former commander of the American military's
anti-drug operation in Colombia, was sentenced to five months in prison for
laundering cash from his wife's drug operation there. Hiett pleaded guilty
in April to charges that he tried to launder $25,000 from drug shipments
his wife, Laurie Hiett, made from a post office in the U.S. embassy in
Bogota to New York.

Consider this: The U.S. government's No. 1 military man in coca-rich
Colombia was protecting his wife's heroin and cocaine operation. The U.S.
Embassy was used as a point of transfer for the drug trade.

It's an outrage. Five months in prison is far too lenient.

Laurie Hiett pleaded guilty in January to charges she shipped packages
containing $700,000 worth of heroin and cocaine to the United States. She
is serving a five-year sentence.

Thanks to the criminal acts by this couple, the work of honest and
dedicated servicemen and women will be more difficult in Colombia.

The Hiett scandal goes beyond a political embarrassment for Congress and
the Clinton White House, which last week signed off on $1.3 billion in
economic and military aid to Colombia. This "betrayal of trust," as U.S.
District Judge Edward Korman said after sentencing the colonel, goes to the
heart of what's wrong with the U.S. war on drugs in Colombia.

The Hietts present another argument for re-examining American policy. Our
government certifies or decertifies such governments as Mexico and Colombia
on whether their anti-drug programs have been corrupted by
narcotraffickers. How would other countries grade us?

A man at Hiett's level has the ability to determine which narcotrafficking
operations are targeted and which aren't. Such high-level involvement in
the drug trade along with concerns about alleged Colombian military
involvement in atrocities warrant a congressional review of the policy and
a freeze on further funds to Colombia.