US DRUG CZAR: NO MILITARY VICTORY POSSIBLE IN DRUG WAR

BOGOTA -White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey, in the world's
leading cocaine-producing nation to promote a new U.S. aid package,
said the huge increase in military assistance to Colombia will not by
itself stop drugs at their source.

"There can be no military victory," he told a news conference upon
arrival Tuesday. "There must be a coherent strategy which includes
peace, the economy, democratic institutions and support for the police
and armed forces."

McCaffrey met Wednesday with President Andres Pastrana to discuss the
Clinton administration's proposed $1.6 billion counternarcotics aid
package for Colombia and its Andean neighbors.

With his comments McCaffrey, was apparently responding to criticism
that the proposal before the U.S. Congress promotes an overly
militarized approach to combating drugs.

Human rights groups and some Democratic lawmakers say the plan could
undermine peace talks in Colombia and draw the U.S. into decades-old
civil conflict where human rights abuses are rampant.

Critics say Pastrana has bowed to U.S. pressure and dropped his
original plan to attack drugs principally through massive social spending.

More than half of funds would pay for 63 military helicopters and
Pentagon training for an unprecedented Colombian military push into
southern regions where drug crops are rapidly expanding under
guerrilla protection.

Other Countries To Get Assistance New CIA estimates show a 20%
increase in cocaine production and a 23% rise in heroin production in
Colombia last year. U.S. officials say Colombia now supplies 90% of
the world's cocaine and the majority of the heroin sold in the U.S.

McCaffrey said the aid plan includes funding to consolidate the
"unbelievable success" in reducing cocaine production in recent years
in neighboring Peru and Bolivia, and would also provide some anti-drug
assistance to Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil.

McCaffrey was expected to tour a southern anti-narcotics base Thursday
where a new, 950-man U.S.-trained army battalion is based - the first
of three anti-drug units that would be created with the aid package.
McCaffrey is expected to leave Colombia late Thursday.

The post at Tres Esquinas is on the border between Caqueta and
Putumayo states, an area McCaffrey labeled a "giant drug producing
region" where 20% of the land mass is devoted to cultivating coca, the
raw material for cocaine.

McCaffrey said the military component of the U.S. aid package was
necessary to clear a path through the rebels where police can fumigate
illegal drug crops.

But he stressed that one-fifth of the package is to fund human rights
and justice reforms, as well as provide loans to help poor peasants
grow legal crops instead of coca or opium poppies.

Responding to critics who warn of an expanding American military
involvement and even an eventual combat role, McCaffrey said also that
he did not expect an increased U.S. military "footprint" in Colombia.

U.S. officials say there currently 150-200 servicemen in the country
on any given day.