PROPOSAL FOR $1.6 BILLION TO AID COLOMBIA DRAWS SKEPTICISM

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration's plans to pour another $1.6 billion
of taxpayer funds into drug eradication in Colombia came under fire Tuesday
from skeptical members of Congress, who said they fear deepening U.S.
military involvement battling the Andes narco-guerrillas.

Members of the House Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice
noted both cocaine and heroin production in Colombia is skyrocketing in
spite of the $600 million in U.S. aid poured into the country from 1990 to
1998. They questioned whether more than doubling assistance -- and providing
new funding to a corrupted Colombian military -- will have any lasting
impact.

"We're just being drawn deeper and deeper into the civil war there,'' said
Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii.

She said Colombia is now the source of 80 percent of the cocaine, and 75
percent of the heroin coming into the United States, and there's no sign
Colombia's government can stop it anytime soon, even with additional
American aid.

President Clinton's drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, said he recently flew over
southern Colombia and saw a third of the fields there in coca leaf
production. He said revised U.S. estimates now put Colombia's production of
cocaine last year at 520 metric tons, almost triple the CIA's estimate of
182 tons produced in 1998.

"It is unbelievable,'' McCaffrey said, urging Congress to approve new money
to allow the Colombian government to buy 63 new helicopters, and re-equip
Colombia's army so it can regain control over the estimated 40 percent of
the country now held by 26,000 armed guerrillas.

McCaffrey said that the guerrilla forces are so strong they are expanding
operations into neighboring Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, where they could
threaten U.S. economic interests in the Panama Canal and control the
region's oil industry.

He said the administration plans involve dispatching from 80 to 200 U.S.
military advisers to the country, and the additional involvement of two
battalions of U.S. forces to train Colombian army forces.

The administration's $1.6 billion package for Colombia would make the
country the third largest recipient of aid, behind Israel and Egypt.
Colombian President Andres Pastrana is seeking an additional $1.6 billion
from the European Community, and is putting $4 billion of Colombian money in
an ambitious plan to bolster his country's police, military and judicial
system to combat the narco-guerrillas, known as the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia.

House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y.,
said he is supporting the package and will put the aid request on the House
floor next month.

"We've got to treat Colombia as a serious national threat,'' Gilman said.

But the legislation has tough opposition in the Senate.

Peter Romero, assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, said
Pastrana's plans provide the United States "a golden opportunity to help
Colombia resolve its problems."

Republicans blamed the Clinton administration for not acting sooner to
combat Colombia's guerrillas, who earn about $1 billion a year from drugs,
and have used the money to buy planes and equip the guerrilla force with
modern arms.

"We've had screw up after screw up after screw up,'' said Senate
Governmental Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., noted the administration has wavered between
engagement with Colombia's government, to disengagement because of its
connection with the drug trade. "The record is a flipping disaster,'' he
said. "Colombia matters. It matters economically, and it matters
strategically."