U.S. VOWS DRUG WAR MUST GO ON DESPITE DEADLY CRASH

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Although the escalating war on drugs in Colombia
appears to have claimed the lives of five American soldiers, a top
U.S. official insisted Monday that Washington's commitment to this
troubled nation would not waver.

Barry McCaffrey, who heads the White House's anti-drug office,
confirmed that a U.S. Army de Havilland RC-7 reconnaissance plane
crashed in the cloud-shrouded mountains of southern Colombia during an
anti-drug mission Friday morning.

"They have located the wreckage site," said McCaffrey, who is on a
four-day trip to Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and the Caribbean
islands of Curacao and Aruba. "The evidence so far would indicate that
these five brave young Army aviators as well as two Colombian air
force officers have probably lost their lives in a fatal accident."

The Americans include two Army captains, a warrant officer, and two
enlisted men who were based at Fort Bliss in El Paso.

The casualties, if confirmed, would be the first U.S. military
personnel to have died in Colombia. About 300 U.S. troops serve as
advisers in Colombia. U.S. officials insist that they were sent here
to assist the Bogota government's war against drug traffickers -- not
to support the government's struggle against Marxist guerrillas.

Colombian anti-guerrilla units on Monday tried to seal off parts of
the Cerro de Patascoy mountain range on the border between Putumayo
and Nari?o states where the plane's wreckage was spotted by
helicopters.

Clouds, fog, and the presence of rebels of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, prevented ground searchers from reaching
the crash site, located about 7,000 feet up in the mountains.

RCN television of Bogota reported that the aircraft had been
destroyed.

"There are no survivors," said Colombian air force chief Gen. Hector
Fabio Velasco. "We hope to be able to start the recovery in the coming
hours."

Lt. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Southern Command in
Miami, said that helicopters got within a few hundred yards of the
crash site but were unable to land.

"It is is incredibly mountainous, rugged terrain," she said. "It is on
a slope that appears to be at a 45-degree angle."

On Monday, several modified Army Blackhawk helicopters equipped with
extra fuel tanks and night-vision capabilities left a U.S. base in
Puerto Rico to join the search. Meanwhile, the Southern Command, to
which the downed aircraft was attached, insisted that there has still
been no confirmation that the spotted plane wreckage is indeed the
missing RC-7.

"We are still searching the entire area. That's a drug-producing area
so it's possible that it's a crashed drug aircraft. We don't know
yet," said Steve Lucas, another spokesman for the command.

Last year, U.S. and Colombian crews flew about 2,000 joint anti-drug
missions. Three private pilots, contracted by the State Department to
fumigate coca plantations, have been killed in the past two years.

While acknowledging the danger to U.S. military personnel, McCaffrey
said that Colombia "must carry the burden of this struggle."

"There has clearly always been an enormous threat to Drug Enforcement
Administration and other U.S. personnel operating in support of our
allies," McCaffrey said. "This must not be a U.S. effort. We are very
proud to be supportive, but this is a Colombian effort."

McCaffrey, who is making his third trip to Colombia this year, also
sounded the alarm about the growing threat that drugs pose to Colombia
and the United States.

Colombia supplies about 80 percent of the cocaine and heroin that
enters the United States, while cocaine production in Colombia has
doubled over the past three years, McCaffrey said.

The drug trade has fueled Colombia's civil war by providing easy
profits for left-wing guerrillas and rightist paramilitaries who work
side-by-side with traffickers.

McCaffrey estimated that the guerrillas and paramilitaries earn
between $215 million and $600 million annually from drugs, allowing
these groups to buy more arms and to pay recruits twice the salary of
government troops. The FARC now has more than 15,000 fighters spread
across much of Colombia while the paramilitaries count about 5,000
gunmen.

"We have a democratic regime in trouble," McCaffrey said, referring to
Colombia. "Drugs are the heart and soul of many of these problems. The
United States has paid inadequate attention to a serious and growing
emergency."

As a result, McCaffrey said he supports what is already a huge U.S.
aid commitment to Colombia.

The Colombian police and army will get about $289 million in aid this
year, making Colombia the third largest recipient of U.S. aid after
Egypt and Israel. Colombian officials have asked for another $500
million in U.S. anti-drug aid over the next two years, and some
members of the U.S. Congress have called for up to $900 million.

McCaffrey today plans to visit a elite 1,500-member anti-drug army
battalion that is being trained by U.S. military advisers.