'GO-FAST' BOATS SLIP BY ANTI-DRUG EFFORT

Tons of cocaine are being transported daily by Colombian drug
traffickers to smuggling partners in Mexico bound for the United
States and, according to senior Latin American intelligence analysts,
only about 20 percent is being intercepted. While one northbound
"go-fast" boat is being stopped every day in the eastern Pacific or
the Caribbean by the Colombian navy -- each carrying an average of
three tons of cocaine worth about $75 million on the street -- the
analysts said during an interview last week that as many as four
others may be slipping through the "transit zone" daily. An expanded
pool of marine patrol aircraft, they said, could increase by more
than threefold the interdiction of drug smugglers headed north and
those returning south with millions of dollars in illicit profits --
much of it for use by the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia to buy weapons in its war against the Colombian government.
The lack of maritime patrol aircraft and the increased reliance of
surface vessels, they said, has limited Colombia's ability to target
the go-fast boats, most of which travel at night at speeds greater
than 60 mph. Colombia is the source for about 90 percent of the
cocaine that ends up each year in the United States. The war of
terrorism and a Bush administration decision to divert resources
elsewhere has left the fight against drugs mainly to the Colombian
navy and the Colombian National Police. "We are at a critical moment
in Colombia," said four Republican House committee and subcommittee
chairmen in a recent letter seeking additional funding for Colombian
drug-interdiction efforts. "After five years of Plan Colombia, we are
finally seeing success in our war of drugs ... But we cannot rest on
our laurels.

The capabilities of the Colombian National Police are being degraded
by a vigorous operational tempo." The letter to Rep. Jim Kolbe,
Arizona Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations
subcommittee on foreign operations, was signed by Reps. Henry J. Hyde
of Illinois; Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia; Dan Burton of Indiana;
and Mark Souder of Indiana. They are seeking $49 million in the
fiscal 2007 foreign operations bill to replace lost aircraft for the
Colombian National Police (CNP). "During its aggressive pursuit of
narcoterrorists throughout Colombia, the CNP has lost a number of
helicopters to hostile fire, mechanical failures and other causes
related to a high operational tempo," the House members said. A
Government Accountability Office report in November said
interdictions in the transit zone were dropping significantly because
of homeland security concerns in this country.

And the Bush administration diverted money for Colombian drug
interdiction and eradication programs to the war on terrorism --
opening up the southern U.S. border to what analysts say is a new
flood of cocaine.