HILL AIMS AT CLINTON FOREIGN POLICY

Senate Sets Date for Kosovo Withdrawal, Cuts Colombia Aid

Two of the administration's top foreign policy priorities came under attack
in the Senate yesterday, as lawmakers moved to set a deadline for
withdrawing ground troops from Kosovo and prospects appeared to dim for
quick passage of emergency aid to Colombia to combat drug trafficking.

The turbulence reflected growing congressional frustration and displeasure
with continued U.S. involvement in what many lawmakers view as a no-win
peacekeeping effort in strife-torn Kosovo. It also signaled congressional
fears that the administration is straying into a dangerous quagmire by
committing hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to help the
Colombian government.

The administration last winter proposed an ambitious $1.6 billion plan to
try to stem the flow of illegal drugs from Colombia--a proposal that grew
in the House but then bogged down in the Senate in a procedural dispute.
Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved less than $1
billion in anti-drug money, as lawmakers in both parties voiced concerns
about the program's effectiveness and the panel's chairman warned that the
funding might fail on the Senate floor.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said that
under Senate rules it will take at least 60 votes to approve the Colombia
funding on an emergency basis. "The way I read it right now, there aren't
60 votes to pass that," he said.

Stevens's comments suggested that it might take months for the
administration to obtain the Colombia aid package, despite its repeated
insistence that time is of the essence in combating drug traffickers.
Administration officials say they haven't given up hope that Congress will
approve the anti-drug funding by early this summer, but they agreed the
process has become more complicated than they had planned.

White House and Pentagon officials also criticized the effort to impose a
timetable for withdrawal of troops from Kosovo. White House budget director
Jacob "Jack" Lew said the proposal "is very counterproductive and emboldens
those who may want to wait us out."

Foreign policy was only one of many issues at stake as both the House and
Senate got to work in earnest in drawing up the 13 major spending bills for
the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The House Appropriations Committee
approved new funding for the legislative branch and a military construction
package--including a first down payment on a plan for a missile defense system.

On the Senate side, appropriators approved military construction, foreign
aid and agriculture spending. Language denying funds to the Justice
Department to pursue its lawsuit against the tobacco industry was inserted
into the Agriculture appropriations bill, and an effort to restore it
failed on a 14 to 11 vote in the full committee.

But much of the focus in the Senate was on the wisdom of an indefinite
commitment to NATO peacekeeping in Kosovo and of showering funds on a
Colombian government locked in a longstanding civil war with leftist
guerrillas allied with drug traffickers.

Salted throughout the three bills was nearly $8 billion of "emergency"
funds for the Latin American anti-drug efforts, money to replenish defense
funds that went to finance NATO's air war in Kosovo and assistance to
victims of last fall's Hurricane Floyd and other domestic disasters. The
funds are far less than the nearly $13 billion the House approved March
30--but $5.2 billion above President Clinton's initial request.

Under pressure from GOP conservatives, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
(R-Miss.) blocked action on the House-passed emergency spending package,
arguing that it had become "bloated" with pork barrel projects. Lott argued
that the essential funds for Kosovo and Colombia could be approved just as
swiftly if they were folded into the regular spending bills for the coming
year.

The Kosovo amendment, drafted by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Senate
Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and attached to
the military construction bill, would cut off funds for the continued
deployment of 5,900 U.S. troops in Kosovo beyond July 1, 2001, unless
Clinton or his successor obtains congressional authorization to continue
deployment.

The measure, approved 23 to 3 on a bipartisan vote, also requires the
president to develop a plan to shift to European allies the full
responsibility for providing ground troops in Kosovo by the same 2001
target date. The amendment also would withhold some Kosovo funds until
Clinton certifies that NATO allies are meeting their commitments for
reconstruction and humanitarian assistance.

"I think this has been an improvident adventure from the beginning," Sen.
Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) said of the peacekeeping venture.

The House narrowly rejected a similar measure in March. The Senate
authorized NATO's airstrikes against Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic's forces on March 23, 1999, but Congress has never authorized the
administration's open-ended commitment of troops to try to halt violence
between Serbs and ethic Albanians.

Staff writers Karen DeYoung, Marc Kaufman and Thomas E. Ricks contributed
to this report.