U.S. SLOW ON COLOMBIA'S ARMS AID

At President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch last Thursday, Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe told Bush he needs more U.S. aircraft to
replace losses in his country's war against narco-terrorism. According
to sources, Bush turned to State Department officials and said every
effort should be made to give Colombia whatever it needs. Implicitly,
he was asking: Why aren't the Colombians getting all they need?

House Republican leaders the past two months have been pressing for an
additional $147 million, a package that Uribe requests of every
congressional visitor to Bogota. The aid has been stopped cold by the
State Department, perhaps the victim of bureaucratic inertia rather
than conscious obstruction. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may
change that soon.

Colombia is the seldom-mentioned battleground in the war against
terrorism. Nearly 400 soldiers and policemen have been killed there
this year alone, but they are Colombians -- not Americans.
Congressional experts believe leftist guerrillas are cornered and are
fighting back hard. Uribe has kept his country from becoming filled
with global terrorists as the Afghanistan or Iraq of the Western Hemisphere.

The pressing need is additional aircraft to pursue drug eradication.
Over 10 years, some 40 planes with U.S. titles have been lost.
Aircraft significantly damaged or destroyed in recent battles with
Colombia's FARC guerrillas include at least one Black Hawk helicopter,
several Huey II helicopters and some fixed-wing spray planes.

Uribe's requests to visiting members of Congress are specific. To
equip an additional aerial drug eradication base will require four Air
Tractor fumigation planes, six Huey II helicopters and two Black Hawk
helicopters -- costing $120 million. The wish list also calls for two
Patrol and Intercept Aircraft at a cost of $22 million. An extra $5
million is needed to extend the Colombian National Police's
intelligence intercept program.

The visiting congressmen took this list to career diplomat William B.
Wood, U.S. ambassador in Bogota. According to them, Wood said he would
not approve money taken out of funding for Plan Colombia (the
long-term U.S. aid program). They replied this was additional funding,
and they departed thinking the ambassador was agreeable.

On May 13, a letter urgently requesting the $147 million was sent to
Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis by four Republican
chairmen: Henry Hyde (International Relations Committee); Tom Davis
(Government Reform Committee); Dan Burton (Western Hemisphere
subcommittee), and Mark Souder (Drug Policy subcommittee). They sent a
copy to Rep. Jim Kolbe, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on
foreign operations.

However, nothing happened in Kolbe's Appropriations Committee. When I
asked Kolbe, he said his subcommittee had approved everything
requested by the Bush administration. I subsequently learned of the
May 13 letter asking for additional funds and went back to Kolbe. He
replied he had talked to Ambassador Wood, who told him these funds
definitely were not being requested by the administration.

What had happened? Uribe's arms list came to rest in the office of
Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere
affairs. It died there. Noriega recently was eased out of office by
Secretary Rice and is expected to be replaced by Foreign Service
officer Thomas Shannon, Latin American specialist at the National
Security Council.

Shannon was at Crawford last week as the U.S. and Colombian presidents
met and discussed military needs. Burton took the opportunity of this
meeting to write Bush, repeating the requests made three months
earlier to the Appropriations Committee.

Today marks the third anniversary of Uribe's presidency. On that day
in 2002, guerrillas bombed the Casa Narino presidential palace. A life
and death struggle continues against the narco-terrorists in Colombia.
With the United States spending $4 billion for Plan Colombia, Uribe
may wonder what kind of government he is dealing with that experiences
so much trouble approving a small but desperately needed $147 million
arms package.