U.S. ARMY SECRETARY SAYS MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA WILL INCREASE

BOGOTA -- U.S. Army Secretary Louis Caldera on Thursday said a huge
planned increase in military aid to Colombia would yield "dramatic
results" in the war on drugs, underscoring the growing American
military role in the strife-torn nation.

Even as he spoke, officials traveling with him warned that the booming
cocaine trade from the South American nation to the United States will
likely get worse before it improves.

The trip is the first in memory by a U.S. Army Secretary to Colombia.
It follows President Clinton's proposal earlier this month of a $1.6
billion emergency anti-narcotics package for the world's principal
cocaine-exporting country.

CIA estimates to be released in coming weeks will reveal a "very
dramatic increase" in Colombia's production of coca, the crop used to
make cocaine, U.S. deputy drug czar Thomas Umberg said.

Umberg was accompanying Caldera on a trip to Colombia, the Dominican
Republic and Haiti. He said cocaine production has skyrocketed due to
the growth in illegal plantations, more sophisticated drug labs and a
new, higher-yield coca strain.

But the underlying problem, both officials said, is that leftist
rebels control Colombia's vast coca-growing south, taxing the drug
trade and attacking anti-narcotics police.

The aid plan, pending approval in the U.S. Congress, would give
Colombia 63 military helicopters and fund trainers for two new army
battalions to oust guerrillas from the drug-producing areas. A first
battalion has already been trained and deployed to the Tres Esquinas
military base in Caqueta province, which Caldera was to visit before
returning to Washington on Friday.

The package also includes $145 million to help poor peasants find
legal economic alternatives to growing coca.

Critics fear the United States will be heavily drawn into Colombia's
thorny civil conflict, which has claimed at least 30,000 lives in the
last 36 years.

But Caldera said the presence of U.S. uniformed personnel would remain
at about its current level of roughly 150 soldiers at any given time.
He said many of them are Green Beret instructors.

The U.S. troops "are not going out there operationally," he
said.