NO QUICK VICTORY SEEN IN DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With production of illicit narcotics rapidly expanding in
Colombia, President Clinton' s plan to assist the country' s counterdrug
program may not produce serious results for some time, a top U.S. official
says.

Thomas Pickering, the State Department' s third-ranking official, suggested
Tuesday that the United States may have to be involved in Colombia beyond
the two-year time frame for which Congress is being asked to provide $1.6
billion in assistance.

" I think that we should begin to see some serious results in two to five
years, " he said. " I think to know and believe that we will see serious
results before then is to be too optimistic."

Pickering, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, briefed
reporters Tuesday on his recent swing though Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador
and Brazil.

The alternative to U.S. involvement in Colombia, he said, " is a greater and
more rapid increase in production and transportation" of illicit narcotics.

Colombia is in the throes of not only a war against narcotraffickers but
also leftist guerrillas who support them. The American aid program is
focused on counterdrug activities, but resources also are planned for
democratic development, economic revival and protection of human rights. The
fate of the administration' s request is uncertain on Capitol Hill.

Hours before Pickering spoke, a new CIA estimate showed that opium poppy
production was up 23 percent last year in Colombia. The CIA said last week
that production of coca -- the raw material from which cocaine is made --
was up 20 percent.

" If left unchecked, the rapid expansion of drug production in Colombia
threatens to significantly increase the global supply of cocaine and heroin,
" White House drug control chief Barry McCaffrey told the Senate Finance
international trade subcommittee.

Pickering, who has become the point man for the administration in Colombia,
brings to the assignment his experience in El Salvador during the first half
of the 1980s when the country was undergoing a civil war that featured the
involvement of both the Soviet Union and Cuba on behalf of a leftist
insurgency.

Pickering knows that it is unrealistic to expect quick fixes in such
situations. He noted that six years passed between the opening of the peace
process in El Salvador and a final settlement.

In Colombia, the situation is perhaps more complex because of the vast
resources of the guerrillas as a result of their profitable ties with drug
traffickers.

He said it was difficult to predict how much more the United States should
contribute to Colombia beyond the current two-year request that is before
Congress.

" My thinking is, and certainly the thinking within the government is, that
we will need something above what has been for the past 10 years the normal
amounts provided to Colombia, " Pickering said.

After that, he said, " I expect that the struggle will go on, and I expect
that we will continue to be in a position, as long as Colombia is able to
lead the fight, to support them as long as others are prepared to help to
support them."