HOUSE OKS MILLIONS FOR COLOMBIA'S ANTI-DRUG EFFORT

The House yesterday approved an amendment calling for $99.4 million
in emergency anti-drug funds to assist in Colombia's war against
narco-terrorists by replacing 23 aircraft that have been shot down or
crashed since 2000 and buying three new ones for the Colombian
National Police and the country's navy. The money was included as an
add-on to a pending $72.4 billion appropriations bill for the war on
terrorism and passed 250-172 amid a flurry of votes on several
spending projects. It faces formal approval in the House and then
will be sent to Senate for a vote.

Rep. Dan Burton, Indiana Republican and chairman of the House
International Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said
the money would be used in interdiction efforts in the Caribbean and
Pacific Ocean, from where tons of cocaine and heroin are moved each
year to the United States, and the efforts would "bolster
counternarcotic assistance to Colombia."

The amendment was co-sponsored by Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois
Republican and chairman of the International Relations Committee;
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, Virginia Republican and chairman of the
House Government Reform Committee; Rep. Mark Souder, Indiana
Republican and chairman of the Government Reform subcommittee on
criminal justice, drug policy and human resources; and Rep. Steve
Chabot, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary
subcommittee on the Constitution.

Last week, senior congressional and Colombian officials told The
Washington Times that a Bush administration decision to divert money
for Colombian drug interdiction and eradication programs to the war
on terrorism had opened up the southern U.S. border to a new flood of
heroin and cocaine. Colombia is the source for about 90 percent of
the cocaine that ends up each year in the United States, as well as a
majority of the heroin.

Colombian officials said escalating violence along the U.S.-Mexico
border was being fueled by the increase in drugs from Colombia.

The funds, Mr. Burton said, would overcome the loss of U.S. and
allied drug interdiction assets in recent years, providing assistance
that would help prevent illegal drugs from reaching Mexico and the
creation of crime and violence along the U.S. border, which "expands
into our cities and communities here at home." In a letter to Rep.
David Dreier, California Republican and chairman of the House Rules
Committee, Mr. Burton said more than $50 million in aid had been
provided to Africa -- also outside President Bush's supplemental
request -- and asked that "our effort to be helpful to the Colombian
government of Alvaro Uribe, our best friend in the Andean region, be
provided the same opportunity."

In the past three years, a senior congressional aide said, homeland
security demands in the United States had resulted in a 70 percent
reduction in the aircraft available to the Colombian and U.S. navies
for interdiction efforts.