DRUG WAR FUNDS VOTED

WASHINGTON - Congress approved $1.3 billion in aid for Colombia
yesterday, ensuring that 60 U.S. military helicopters and hundreds of
U.S. troops will assist Bogota's effort to root out cocaine and heroin
production from the Andean jungle.

The Senate approved the package in a voice vote as part of an $11.2
billion emergency spending bill that also furnished $2 billion to
repay the Pentagon for spending on peacekeeping in Kosovo and more
than $1 billion to help victims of Hurricane Floyd in the Southeast
and wildfires in the West.

The House voted for an identical measure Thursday, and President
Clinton has said he will sign the bill into law.

The bill did not include a disputed provision to allow the sale of
food to Cuba and other repressive regimes. That measure ran into new
trouble as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott vowed to block both a
House version and a more liberal Senate bill.

"I oppose both, and if I can find a way to kill them, I will," Lott
said.

The Colombia assistance, requested by the administration last summer
in the hope that it could be distributed late last year, was delayed
by procedural snags in Congress along with concerns that it would
finance human rights violations and involve the United States too
deeply in another nation's affairs.

In a comparison that administration officials reject, some in Congress
have likened the Colombia foray to the early stages of U.S.
involvement in Vietnam and suggested that it, too, could escalate into
a costly and bloody jungle conflict.

"I think that is a possibility," said Tom Daschle, the South Dakota
Democrat who is Senate minority leader. "And we have to be concerned
about it."

But reservations about the risks of Colombian aid ultimately gave way
to concern over the rising flood of illegal Colombian drugs that U.S.
officials say has been hitting the streets of American cities.

"This is affecting us in America," said Lott, a Mississippi
Republican.

"This is not some distant place. This is not Kosovo. This is in our
hemisphere. This is affecting our children. This matters," he said.

While crackdowns by governments in Peru and Bolivia have reduced the
flow of heroin and cocaine from those countries, a spurt of production
in Colombia has ensured that the total supply of illegal drugs
entering the United States remains virtually unchanged, law
enforcement authorities say.

One factor contributing to Colombia's output is a bitter civil war
that has given vast swaths of countryside to leftist guerrillas and
reduced Bogota's ability to fight the drug makers. As much as 80
percent of the cocaine sold in the United States comes from Colombia,
according to law enforcement agencies.

U.S. officials hope that the fruits of yesterday's bill - 18 Blackhawk
and 42 Huey helicopters and up to 500 military advisers - will go a
long way toward crippling the Colombian drug industry.

The helicopters will transport specially trained Colombian troops to
the drug-growing regions on the east slope of the Andes Mountains.
U.S. military personnel associated with the aid will train pilots and
mechanics but are prohibited from participating in such missions.

"This is a landmark vote, striking the drug war at ground zero," said
Georgia Republican Sen. Paul Coverdell.

Even many legislators, such as Daschle, who had concerns about the
Colombia aid ended up favoring it.

"I don't think we have a choice here," Daschle said. "We will lose
Colombia. It will be gone if we don't do something soon."

Administration officials stressed that the measure strictly limits
U.S. participation in Colombia and will prevent deeper
involvement.

No more than 500 U.S. military personnel are allowed to be associated
with the anti-drug mission. Currently about 190 Defense Department
officials are in Colombia, nearly half of them affiliated with the
U.S. Embassy in Bogota.

Five hundred "was the maximum number of personnel we could ever
conceive of being in Colombia at any one time" said one Pentagon
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"On average, you're probably talking about a couple hundred" Americans
who will work on the mission at any given time, he said.

A spokeswoman for Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombian ambassador to
Washington, said he would have no comment yesterday.

Although the bill provides $122 million for the promotion of human
rights and judicial reform in Colombia, humanitarian groups expressed
disappointment that it gives the U.S. president the power to bypass
human rights safeguards.

Paramilitary groups with links to the Colombian army have been accused
of numerous civilian murders and other atrocities.

Yesterday's measure calls for the suspension of U.S. aid if the State
Department fails to certify that Colombia's military is respecting
human rights, but it also gives the president power to waive the
suspension if he deems it in the national interest to do so.

"It's strong language with a loophole," said Andrew Miller, a Latin
American specialist with Amnesty International in Washington.

Without stronger pressure from Washington, he added, "this funding
could essentially be a green light for the Colombian military to
continue doing what it's been doing for a long time, which is
violating human rights."

The type of helicopters going to Colombia was another point of
contention that wasn't resolved until this week. The administration
had asked for 30 Blackhawks, arguing that the large, hardened choppers
are more suitable for the mission than lighter, cheaper Hueys.

Aircraft carrying troops into the drug-growing zones would probably
come under fire, Pentagon officials argued, saying that the heavily
armored Blackhawks would have a better chance of getting through and
protecting Colombian soldiers.

The initial Senate bill contained 60 Hueys and no Blackhawks. Senators
argued that the Hueys would save money, and legislators from Texas -
home of Bell Textron, which makes the Huey-also pushed for its
inclusion. The final bill provided for a mixture of the two types.

The Blackhawk is made by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a Connecticut
company.

"Privately we're not crazy about this," said the Pentagon official,
noting that any savings gained from buying Hueys will largely be lost
through having to train two sets of crews and mechanics instead of
one. "This is not what we've requested, but we've got to make it work
now."