WHITE HOUSE REPORTS A DECLINE IN COLOMBIA'S COCA CULTIVATION

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 - With aggressive aerial spraying in the past year,
antidrug forces in Colombia for the first time have reduced the amount of
coca being cultivated in the Andean country, Bush administration officials
said today.

Land being used to grow coca - the raw material for cocaine - fell by 15
percent in 2002 to 356,791 acres, said the officials, who used satellite
images to estimate production.

The report comes as the administration's efforts in Colombia are coming
under fresh scrutiny with the kidnapping of three Americans by leftist
rebels on Feb. 13 after their plane crash-landed in the jungle.

The Pentagon has sent 49 soldiers and advisers to Colombia to assist with
efforts to free the Americans, who were were apparently conducting aerial
surveillance for a company under Pentagon contract.

John P. Walters, the director of national drug control strategy, offered
lawmakers the reduction in coca acreage as evidence that the strategy,
backed by the United States and known as Plan Colombia, is working. Since
2000, the United States has provided Colombia with $1.9 billion to fight
drug traffickers, and more recently, leftist guerrillas of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who have waged war against
Colombia's government for almost four decades.

"Our antidrug efforts in Colombia are now paying off, and we believe that
this represents a turning point," Mr. Walters said.

But lawmakers, while praising the advance, greeted the news with
skepticism. Some said cultivation went down in Colombia but increased in
Peru and Bolivia, both considered success stories in the late 1990's.

Mr. Walters acknowledged "a balloon problem," where pressure in one region
shifts traffickers elsewhere. Still, the shift in Colombia comes after
years of rising cultivation estimates, including last year, when production
reached a record high despite increased coca destruction. The increase last
year provoked deep distress within the administration and resulted in an
unusual interagency fight over the estimate.

Mr. Walters and other officials attributed the progress to a decision last
year by Colombia's new president, Alvaro Uribe, to lift restrictions on
aerial spraying and to step up the number of crop-duster flights in
Colombia's coca-growing heartland.

The State Department, working with the Colombian National Police,
effectively sprayed 303,057 acres last year, Mr. Walters said, adding that
the figure could rise by 98,800 acres because many crops were destroyed
after the satellite photos were taken.

Democrats accused the administration of focusing too heavily on military
solutions in Colombia at the expense of social development. "I find it
increasingly difficult to understand how we spend enormous amounts to
eradicate, and then not go the next step to ensure that people have
something to turn to," Representative Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the
ranking Democrat on the Western Hemisphere subcommittee.

The Americans who have been kidnapped were working for California Microwave
Systems, a subsidiary of the Northrup Grumman Corporation. A company
spokesman, Jack Martin, declined to identify the employees or discuss their
mission. A spokesman for the United States Southern Command in Miami also
refused to discuss the mission.

Two passengers, a Colombian and an American, were shot dead. The American,
Thomas John Janis, 56, a resident of Montgomery, Ala., was a former Army
warrant officer. He was buried with military honors at Arlington cemetery
on Monday.