U.S. PLANS BIG AID PACKAGE TO RALLY A REELING COLOMBIA

With Colombia's government buckling under guerrilla attacks, a thriving
drug trade and the worst economy in decades, the Clinton administration is
putting together a major new effort to prop up the country's democracy that
will include hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and military aid.

The aid package, which is expected to be completed soon, will have large
amounts of new military equipment, including arms and helicopters, as well
as more intelligence support and training for Colombia's army and police
units, senior administration and defense officials said.

The administration is also planning new moves that officials hope will ease
Colombia's economic crisis, strengthen the criminal-justice system and help
local governments in the country's large, sparsely populated interior.

But even before it has been completed, the plan is generating strong
reservations among some within the administration who fear the United
States is being drawn more deeply into a convoluted civil conflict that has
left tens of thousands dead over nearly four decades.

"It is going to be a very dangerous mess," said a senior official who has
worked on Colombia. "And we are going to be in the middle of that mess."

Not since the Central American civil wars of the 1980s has the United
States been so tempted to come to the aid of a Latin American ally
threatened by an insurgency. Pushed by a small group of Republican leaders
in the Congress, the administration is already giving Colombia $309 million
this year, making it the fourth-largest recipient of American aid after
Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

The administration's new effort will mark a significant shift in American
policy toward Colombia after nearly two decades in which it has focused
almost entirely on combating the cocaine trade and those who dominate it.
While fighting drugs will remain a central goal, the United States is about
to make a broader commitment to support Colombia's embattled government
than it has in years.

Administration officials said they had used months of wide-ranging
discussions about the aid to reconsider American objectives and to press
the government of President Andres Pastrana to come up with a comprehensive
strategy to address the country's problems. Pastrana is expected to outline
that strategy next week in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly and in
meetings with officials in Washington.

The administration has not yet decided how large its package of aid will
be, but the officials said that in their internal discussions it ranged
from $1 billion to $1.5 billion over the next three years.

They said the size of the package was not likely to be settled until the
White House and Congress resolve their increasingly contentious fight over
balancing the budget.

But the discussions have also been complicated by deep divisions within the
administration itself over how and how deeply to get involved.

Some more hawkish officials, led by the White House's drug-policy adviser,
former Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, are pressing for a large increase in
assistance to Colombia's armed forces. Citing "a drug-related emergency,"
McCaffrey has called for at least $1 billion aid concentrated on the
military and police.

At the Pentagon, however, there are reservations about how deeply to get
involved with Colombia, a country with two leftist guerrilla armies
fighting the government, right-wing paramilitary forces fighting the
guerrillas, and civilians ever in the crossfire. The perils of a stronger
American role came into clearer relief in July when a U.S. spy plane
crashed into a mountainside during a counterdrug mission, killing five
American soldiers and two Colombians.

Officials at the State Department and the National Security Council, in
particular, have pressed to broaden Washington's agenda in Colombia while
trying to limit its involvement in the war. These officials have played
down the immediate threat to Pastrana's government, arguing that a modest
rise in military aid should be balanced by support for social-development
projects, the economy and a negotiated settlement to the war.

Administration officials say they have made it clear to the Colombians that
increased American support will come with pressure for changes within
Colombia, including greater efforts to clean up human-rights abuses by the
military, and a new, probably tougher government approach to the peace
talks with the insurgents.

But while Clinton administration officials say that they will not dictate
policies to Pastrana, some Colombian officials involved in the aid
negotiations already appear uncomfortable with the growing American role.

"We have a strategy," a senior Colombian official said curtly, suggesting
that the administration's elaborate search for a new approach was little
more than packaging for a new financing pitch to Congress.

U.S. aid to Colombia fell sharply after the Bush administration, which had
targeted the Andean countries in an attempt to stem the flow of cocaine at
its source. But American aid to the Colombian military and police has risen
steadily since 1996, and the Colombian army has also bought new loads of
American arms.

The new engagement of the Clinton administration is partly a consequence of
its close ties to Pastrana, who came to office a year ago. In the previous
four years Washington had essentially boycotted the government of his
predecessor, Ernesto Samper, after evidence emerged that his political
campaign had taken huge contributions from cocaine traffickers.

Despite their early hopes for Pastrana, however, U.S. officials generally
describe his efforts to negotiate with the guerrillas as a failure that has
left the insurgents stronger and more defiant. Nor do these officials hide
their view that Colombia's multiple crises may be beyond Pastrana's
capacity to resolve.

Colombia's cocaine industry, which has long depended on coca leaf from Peru
and Bolivia, is becoming more self-sufficient as it grows more of its own
coca and a new, more potent strain of the plant is introduced, intelligence
analysts say.

Last year, the CIA estimated that Colombia could have produced about 165
metric tons of cocaine from its own crop, up from 65 metric tons in 1993
and 80 metric tons in 1995. This year, according to an internal government
document, analysts expect Colombian traffickers to produce as much as 250
tons.

The increase comes despite a jump of nearly 50 percent in American
drug-eradication efforts last year, and it is concentrated largely in
fields that are guarded or taxed by leftist guerrillas or right-wing
paramilitary groups, the document indicates. Many American officials
believe the guerrillas -- particularly those of the leftist Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia -- have reaped a windfall from the coca boom that
has turned them into a far more serious military threat.

In a move to build trust with the FARC, as the rebel group is known,
Pastrana withdrew army troops from a large swath of the rebel-dominated
countryside last November. The move drew open dissent from his officer
corps, however, and the guerrillas have shown little sign of compromise
since. In July, the talks were suspended after the insurgents refused to
accept observers in the demilitarized zone, and the rebels launched one of
their biggest offensives in years.

"Pastrana seems to have bent all the way over in a Gumby-like way," an
American military official said. "He's about used up what he's got to
offer, and it is not working."

Administration officials are less critical of Pastrana's economic
management, but his political standing has also been hurt by economic
troubles that were long in the making: the worst recession in decades, a
growing debt burden and an unemployment rate that has reached nearly 20
percent.

The worsening situation began to command the attention of the White House
this summer, officials said, when an interagency meeting presided over by
President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, turned from a
discussion of Caribbean radar installations to the turmoil in Colombia.

"This is a third-order issue that is going to become a first-order issue,"
two officials quoted Berger saying.

Officials said Berger asked those present to consider what additional aid
Colombia needed. The initial result, however, was a deluge of different and
sometimes contradictory proposals.

On July 13, McCaffrey struck preemptively, writing Cabinet members to warn
of an "explosion of coca cultivation" in Colombia. His letter, which was
quickly and widely leaked to the news media, outlined $1 billion in new
spending, most of it for Colombia, including $360 million to help the army
expand its reach in southern Colombia and $120 million to increase the
interdiction of drug flights.

Officials at the Pentagon and the State Department drew up their own lists,
and different priorities emerged. Law-enforcement officials argued for more
support for Colombian police anti-drug operations and the country's
judicial system. State Department officials pushed proposals ranging from
trade benefits to temporary refuge for Colombian immigrants to the United
States.

"You are getting policy by proposal rather than by planning," said Sen.
Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. "Everybody seems to agree, 'Hey, let's send some
money down there.' But I have heard relatively little discussion or debate
about what the U.S. interests are."

White House and State Department officials said they had been struggling to
define those interests more clearly in a series of meetings over the course
of the summer.

For the most part, these officials take pains to sound less alarmed than
McCaffrey and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have grown increasingly
critical of Clinton's policies. After visiting Bogota last month, the
undersecretary of state for political affairs, Thomas R. Pickering, said he
was "sobered but certainly not panicked" by Colombia's problems.

In fact, some military analysts believe the Colombian army has been doing
better against the guerrillas in recent months. Additionally, a secret
assessment by American intelligence recently estimated that the rebels'
profits from the drug trade ranged from perhaps $30 million to $100 million
a year -- far less than the amounts cited publicly by some officials,
including McCaffrey.

The Clinton administration's more deliberate approach also owes much to
battles being fought far from Colombia.

Last fall, the administration was caught off guard by an emergency spending
plan drafted by Republicans in Congress that added $287 million in antidrug
and military aid to Colombia almost overnight. This year, officials said
they are determined not to be outflanked again, although prominent
conservatives in the House have drafted their own wish lists, including one
by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., that calls for $930 million in new aid.

So the administration has devised an early plan of its own. In an effort to
inject energy into the peace talks, the United States will press both sides
to heed the experience in countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua and
accept international mediation.

And to shore up Colombia's economy, administration officials said they are
backing talks with the International Monetary Fund for as much as $3
billion in financing, in addition to cash support from the World Bank and
the Inter-American Development Bank.

Nevertheless, the bulk of American aid will go to military and antidrug
operations. The officials said it would probably include a squadron of new
helicopters for the Colombian army, a package of excess equipment from the
Pentagon and considerable training for Colombian soldiers and police.

American soldiers and advisers have already begun training a new antidrug
battalion of 950 soldiers and 200 police officers, which is to finish its
training in December. The officials said the administration would most
likely approve training for two more battalions.

"To deal with the drug problem," a senior administration official said,
"you have to deal with the guerrillas intimately involved in the drug
problem."