COCAINE CHARGES FOR COMMANDER'S WIFE

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The wife of an Army colonel who oversaw the U.S.
military's counternarcotics operations in Colombia faces charges of
shipping cocaine to the United States, U.S. officials said.

Laurie Hiett, wife of Army Col. James Hiett, was charged in June with
conspiracy to distribute narcotics after the U.S. Customs Service
found parcels containing cocaine, including one package in New York
that carried Mrs. Hiett's name as its return address, the officials
said Thursday.

A warrant for her arrest has been issued by the U.S. Eastern District
Court in New York, according to Navy Lt. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman
for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami.

James Hiett was U.S. military group commander at the U.S. Embassy in
Bogota at the time. In that job, he was in charge of all U.S. military
activities in Colombia, including counterdrug operations, according to
Col. Ron Williams, a Southern Command spokesman.

Williams said Hiett requested to be removed from the post after the
allegations arose and his transfer is pending.

An investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Division in Panama
found "no prior knowledge" by Hiett of cocaine shipments to the United
States involving his wife, Williams said. The investigation cleared
Hiett of any involvement in criminal activity, he added.

Williams referred a reporter to the New York prosecutor's office for
information about Mrs. Hiett.

The Village Voice newspaper reported on its Internet Web site Thursday
that a search warrant application said Mrs. Hiett admitted to federal
investigators she had mailed six packages for "her husband's
chauffeur," but claimed that she did not know the contents of the parcels.

On May 23, according to the Village Voice, one of those parcels was
searched by U.S. Customs agents in Miami and was found to contain 2.7
pounds of cocaine. Later a second parcel was intercepted in New York
and also found to contain cocaine.

The first package carried Mrs. Hiett's name as its return address and
was mailed from Bogota, the newspaper reported.

Colombia ranks third on the list of U.S. aid recipients with $289
million earmarked for counterdrug activity this year. Barry McCaffrey,
the White House drug control chief, said recently an additional $1
billion was needed because current efforts were falling short. He said
the situation had reached "emergency" proportions.

The drug war also is costing the United States in other ways: Five
U.S. soldiers were killed two weeks ago when their U.S. Army spy plane
crashed into a Colombian mountainside while on a counternarcotics mission.