A HARSH LIGHT ON ASSOCIATE 82

A Declassified Pentagon Report Claims Uribe Once Worked for Pablo Escobar

In September 1991 the U.S. Department of Defense
compiled a list of individuals believed to be associated with
Colombia's notorious Medellin drug cartel.

There are 106 names on the newly declassified intelligence document,
and they read like a who's who of thugs, assassins, midlevel
traffickers and crooked attorneys.

The cartel's ruthless kingpin, Pablo Escobar, was prominent on the
list, of course, along with the former Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel
Antonio Noriega. But the real head turner is item No. 82, which reads
as follows: "Alvaro Uribe Velez--a Colombian politician and senator
dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government
levels. Uribe was linked to a business involved in narcotics
activities in the U.S.... Uribe has worked for the Medellin cartel and
is a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria."

The Pentagon report portrays Uribe in a light sharply at variance with
his current image as Washington's main ally in the U.S.-financed war
on drugs in South America. But in those days, he was among dozens of
Colombian pols who openly opposed the extradition of their
drug-trafficking countrymen. Uribe has since changed his views--and, in
fact, his government has sent scores of drug traffickers to the United
States for prosecution since he took office.

The report was obtained by the National Security Archive, a
Washington-based nongovernmental research group.

The identity of the document's author was removed by Pentagon
censors.

The detailed thumbnail descriptions of the Medellin cartel's
associates suggest that the data came from Colombian or U.S.
counter-narcotics officials, and the text states at the beginning that
the report "forwards profiles on the more important narco-terrorists
contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels." It is stamped
CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN WNINTEL, meaning that its contents shouldn't be
shared with foreign nationals.

The U.S. ambassador to Colombia in 1991, Morris Busby, does not recall
the document, and efforts to reach the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency liaison officer in Bogota in 1991, retired Army Col. James S.
Roche Jr., failed to elicit a response. In a two-page written
statement, the office of the Colombian president denied that Uribe had
links of any kind to a business in the United States as asserted in
the 1991 report.

But the statement did not address the allegations that Uribe had
worked for the Medellin cartel and was a close friend of Escobar, who
was killed in a 1993 police raid.