DRUG AID PLAN FOR COLOMBIA IS STALLED

Budget Haggling Blocks Bipartisan Proposal

One of the few foreign policy issues congressional Republicans and the
Clinton administration seemed to agree on - more aid for Colombia this year
- - has fallen victim to budget bickering and White House fear of overloading
its foreign aid request.

Administration officials began last summer to raise alarms about Colombia's
fight against narcotics smugglers and anti-government rebels, seeing "a key
moment" to protect a "vital" U.S. interest. Barry R. McCaffrey, the White
House drug policy director, spoke of a new $1 billion to $2 billion aid
plan and, in early October, Undersecretary of State Thomas R. Pickering
told Congress that "by the fall, we'll be back here" with an "affordable .
. . long-term" proposal.

Since then, however, there has been only silence; the White House decided
it could go only so far in arguing for increases in foreign aid against
Republican charges it was tapping into Americans' retirement funds.

"The budget negotiations just got too complicated," said a senior
administration official who did not want to be named. "The trade-offs were
pernicious . . . We need a package that doesn't come at the expense of the
Middle East, debt relief and Kosovo."

The Republican leadership in Congress has said anti-drug aid to Colombia is
a high priority and has spoken favorably of a $1.5 billion plan introduced
by Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.) last month. But that interest was
outweighed, at least this month, by a desire to portray President Clinton's
foreign spending proposals as a profligate attempt to "rob the Social
Security surplus," as the House majority whip, Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, put
it last week.

Clinton appears aware that he looks like he dropped the ball on Colombia.
At a cabinet meeting yesterday he "instructed his folks to work with the
Congress immediately upon its return on a further bilateral financial
support program for Colombia," said national security adviser Samuel R.
"Sandy" Berger, who described Clinton's marching orders as "emphatic."
McCaffrey, who also attended the meeting along with cabinet officials, said
the president told them "to get organized and look at the possibility of a
supplemental" appropriations request as soon as Congress reconvenes in
January. McCaffrey said the administration hopes to make some public
statement of its intentions, perhaps as early as today.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright tried to reassure Colombian
President Andres Pastrana in a telephone call Monday. "When you have
Congress and the executive branch agreeing on the urgent need to fund
something, it's going to be funded," she told Pastrana, according to
another senior official. "The question is when."

In the meantime, the official said, "it's not as if there is no money at
all for Colombia," since the new budget contains funds to continue existing
programs.

But Colombian officials said that if the budget is finished this week, as
is expected, without at least "a down payment" on the promises of the
summer, Pastrana will suffer major political damage that will further
undercut his government's anti-drug efforts.

"The only winners here are the 'narcos' and the guerrillas," said Luis
Alberto Moreno, Colombia's ambassador to the United States.

Bogota's feisty press already has begun to question Pastrana's failure to
deliver on what was widely touted in Colombia as a done deal and has
suggested that the president's heralded closeness to Clinton has proved of
doubtful value.

Washington's sense of urgency over Colombia began to build early this year,
as a string of military defeats coincided with reports about increased
production of cocaine and heroin. The two are closely related, since
Colombia's two main leftist guerrilla groups, and a rightist paramilitary
army, derive large portions of their income from the drug trade.

The issue quickly took on partisan overtones as Republicans derided Clinton
for inadequate zeal in fighting drugs and misplaced support of Pastrana's
efforts to negotiate a peace accord with largest guerrilla group. They
moved on their own to increase funding for Colombia's anti-drug police, for
a total 1999 aid package of nearly $300 million.

The Pentagon, which has been deeply involved in efforts to increase the
effectiveness of the Colombian army and raise its human rights standards,
argued that the military, rather than the police, should get the money,
since it has primary responsibility for fighting the rebels. McCaffrey said
the police and the army were both important, but no real progress against
Colombia's massive drug exports would be made until foreign aid is
increased significantly.

For its part, the White House remained supportive of Pastrana's flagging
peace effort, but feared that his government--mired in economic
difficulties and rapidly losing public support--was on an increasingly
slippery slope.

The administration sought to seize control of the issue by sending
Pickering to Bogota in August, where he read the riot act to Pastrana's
government. Out of that trip came Colombian agreement to quickly put
together, with high-level U.S. input, a plan that would merit substantial
U.S. assistance.