COLOMBIA ANTI-DRUG PLAN DRAWS HILL FIRE

Members of Congress opened fire on the Clinton administration's $1.6
billion anti-drug plan for Colombia yesterday, with wide-ranging concerns
that it is too little, too much, too late, too ambitious and not ambitious
enough.

In a taste of what the administration can expect as it seeks quick approval
of the two-year package, including an emergency supplemental appropriation
this year of nearly $1 billion, senior defense and diplomatic officials
were sharply questioned on past failures and potential pitfalls.

Testifying before a House Government Reform subcommittee on drug policy
were many of the administration's front-line troops on Colombia, including
White House drug policy director Barry R. McCaffrey; Gen. Charles Wilhelm,
head of the U.S. Southern Command; Peter Romero, the assistant secretary of
state for Latin America; William Ledwith, director of international
operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency; and Ana Maria Salazar, deputy
assistant secretary of defense for drug policy.

Subcommittee members asked pointed questions that reflected years of
involvement in the issues of drug trafficking and Colombia policy, with
specific concerns about human rights, leftist guerrillas and right-wing
paramilitaries, coca crop yields, the relative merits of various types of
military helicopters, and problems with lengthy delays in delivering
military equipment as well as procuring any equipment at all after years of
shrinking defense budgets.

Most of the testimony in the day-long hearing went over well-plowed ground
in the ongoing Colombia debate, which has been the subject of numerous
hearings and investigations in recent years.

Noting that "surplus material" promised the Colombian military "back to
1997 hasn't been delivered," subcommittee Chairman Rep. John L. Mica
(R-Fla.) asked McCaffrey how the administration could guarantee new
equipment and training would arrive as promised.

Acknowledging an "enormously legitimate concern," that "we'll screw this up
seriously if we don't put together a mechanism that's adequate to the
challenge," McCaffrey said the administration hoped to put together a
permanent secretariat to manage the aid process.

In response to questions, Wilhelm acknowledged the U.S. military presence
in Colombia "will change in subtle ways" with the new package, the majority
of which consists of military equipment and training. But he and Salazar
insisted that the force level was unlikely to rise above the 80 to 250 U.S.
military personnel now on the ground, and that close monitoring would
prevent U.S. involvement in Colombia's long-running counterinsurgency.

Wilhelm said he hoped to replace the U.S. Army colonel heading the American
military group in Colombia with a general. He acknowledged that U.S.
ability to monitor drug flights in and out of Colombia and the surrounding
region with airborne surveillance had been severely undercut by the U.S.
withdrawal from Howard Air Force Base last year under final implementation
of the Panama Canal Treaties. The United States has reached agreement with
Ecuador to use base facilities there, Romero said, and is negotiating with
the Netherlands Antilles government for additional assets.