CRITICS: AID PUSHES U.S. INTO COLOMBIA WAR

(Washington) - The Clinton administration's $1.3 billion plan to help
Colombia fight drug trafficking and leftist insurgents is facing
skepticism from military and law-enforcement officials concerned that
the United States could be dragged into a long, costly struggle that
may have little impact on the drug trade.

The aid plan, to be presented in detail to Congress tomorrow, is
intended to help thwart the booming production of cocaine and heroin
in Colombia, strengthen the government and help it take control of a
large part of its southern territory now dominated by the rebels.

Privately, though, some senior defense officials are decidedly
unenthusiastic about the U.S. military's growing role and worried that
it may be dragged deeper into the civil war that has ravaged Colombia
for almost 40 years.

Many drug-enforcement and Coast Guard officials are similarly
concerned, officials said. While the aid package may help Colombia's
beleaguered army fight the guerrillas, they said, it does not reflect
a coherent strategy to fight drugs.

"Their attitude is, `We don't really want to do this,' " one senior
administration official said of Pentagon generals. Referring to the
Colombian insurgency, he added: "The last thing they need is another
level of engagement that has the `I' word in it. That always has
stress for the military - it has ever since Vietnam."

The White House drug policy chief, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, dismissed
skeptics of the plan, noting some of the criticism came from agencies
that failed to win funding increases for their programs in the
Colombia-aid package.

Senior administration officials said they are confident the $1.3
billion in aid, about two-thirds of which would go to Colombian
security forces, will be approved.

Republicans in Congress have pushed for greater American aid, warning
that the Clinton White House risked "losing" Colombia to the
insurgents. A few congressional liberals have criticized the aid
program, but they are unlikely to slow its passage except by attaching
conditions meant to promote greater respect for human rights by the
Colombian military.

The package is only a first step in what many U.S. officials
acknowledge probably will be a huge, years-long effort to strengthen
Colombian institutions and help the government reach a peace with
three leftist guerrilla groups and large right-wing paramilitary forces.

Colombian and U.S. officials continue to say the United States will
not engage the guerrillas directly. Nor, they said, will they aid the
fight against the guerrillas, except those hired out to the
traffickers to protect drug fields, drug laboratories or secret airstrips.

"If they are not involved in the business," President Andres Pastrana
said of the rebels, "they should be confident that nothing is going to
happen to them."

At the same time, though, U.S. officials are clearly softening their
claims that U.S. aid will not be used for counterinsurgency.

In a program summary released last month, the White House listed the
primary component of the aid plan as, "Helping the Colombian
government push into the coca-growing regions of southern Colombia,
which are now dominated by insurgent guerrillas."

Gen. Fred Woerner, former commander of U.S. military forces in Latin
America, said that statement represented a significant clarification
of U.S. goals, though the administration says otherwise.

"Anyone who believes that these counternarcotics battalions will not
be involved in counterinsurgency is naive," Woerner said.