FIGHTING CHOPPER WARS OVER COLOMBIA

Aid package: Congress' pork-barrel politics supersedes any serious debate on
how to win the drug war at home.

Three months after the House approved a $1.7-billion drug war aid package
for Colombia, the Senate passed its own $934-million version. You might
assume that the world's greatest deliberative body took so long because of a
heated debate over the merits of further involving ourselves in a country in
the midst of a 40-year-old civil war or, indeed, over the merits of fighting
the drug war through interdiction rather than treatment. But you'd be wrong.
The delay had a lot to do with a Blackhawks versus Hueys Beltway battle.

The prize was a huge contract to manufacture Colombia's copter of choice. On
one side were lobbyists for United Technologies, whose Sikorsky Aircraft
produces the Blackhawks. On the other were lobbyists for Bell Helicopter
Textron, which produces the Hueys.

The House had approved a package that included roughly 30 of each aircraft,
at a total cost of nearly $450 million. Despite the fact that the Colombian
military, the Pentagon and the State Department made it clear that they
preferred the high-tech Blackhawk to the smaller, slower, far less expensive
Huey, bargain-hunting senators on the Appropriations Committee shot down the
Blackhawks and settled for 60 refurbished Hueys-a steal at the
priced-to-move cost of $188 million. "There's no reason for anybody to be
ashamed to fly a Huey into combat," harrumphed Appropriations chairman Sen.
Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) begged to differ. Usually a stickler on
human rights and a hands-off approach in Latin America, he has lately taken
the lead on pumping millions in military aid to the Colombian army, one of
the worst human-rights abusers in the world. Why? Well, it's probably just a
coincidence, but Sikorsky just happens to be headquartered in his state, and
through its parent company has--also coincidentally, no doubt-given Dodd
more than $38,000 worth of combat aid (in the form of campaign donations) in
the last election cycle.

Dodd offered an amendment that would leave the choice of choppers to the
"experts" in the Pentagon and the Colombian military, a smooth move that
would have guaranteed Blackhawks would prevail.

After all, Gen. Fabio Velasco, the Colombian air force commander, is on
record expressing his contempt for the Huey: "It's like comparing a '60 Ford
to a new Mercedes." And Colombian Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez
chimed in: "When the Huey is coming, the first thing you hear is the noise,
even 10 minutes before you see it."

But Stevens and his cronies were undeterred. "The Blackhawks are the tip of
a sword going into another Vietnam," he claimed. Which raises the question:
If 30 Blackhawks put us on the road to another Vietnam, where do 60 Hueys
lead? Another Grenada?

In the end, the Hueys won the Senate dogfight, but the Blackhawks will
clearly live to fight another day. As the House-Senate conference committee
tries to reconcile the two bills, Colombia's ambassador to Washington has
warned that his country will insist on the Blackhawk.

As absurd as the Chopper Wars are, they are in keeping with the overblown
rhetoric of the Colombian coke issue. Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.) announced
that "Colombia is the heart of the drug war, and we'd better get on with it.
If we lose Colombia, then we lose everywhere." It's the domino theory all
over again.

Dodd was equally overwrought: "When we step up and offer the Colombian
democracy a chance to fight for themselves, we're not only doing it for
them, we're doing it for ourselves."

Translation: "When we step up and offer a major campaign contributor a
chance to make an enormous profit, we're not only doing it for them, we're
doing it for ourselves."

But the crowning absurdity was the ongoing pretense that the Colombian aid
package is about winning the drug war at home. If that were really the goal,
you'd think those senators looking to get more bang for their bucks would
have relished the chance to vote for Sen. Paul Wellstone's (D-Minn.)
amendment that, had it passed, would have transferred $225 million from
military aid in Colombia to drug-treatment programs in the United States.
Treatment has proved to be 10 times more cost-effective than interdiction.

If everyone knows that's how to win the drug war, then why are we spending
more than a billion dollars in Colombia? And if everyone doesn't know it,
why aren't we debating that instead of bickering over Blackhawks and Hueys?

Arianna Huffington is a syndicated columnist based in Los Angeles.