PORTION OF U.S. AID TO COLOMBIA DISAPPEARS

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - The United States has partially
suspended aid for Colombia's war on drugs after a ''significant
amount of money'' destined for the anti-narcotics police disappeared,
a U.S. Embassy official said on Thursday.

The head of the anti-narcotics police in the world's biggest cocaine
producer, Gen. Gustavo Socha, confirmed an investigation was under
way, and said he had fired six officers. Socha said he did not know
how much U.S. aid was missing, but denied local media reports it was
$2 million.

The funds were taken from an account earmarked to help offset
administrative expenses of the police. The United States has only
frozen aid that would normally enter this account -- a relatively
small proportion of the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. funds
for Colombia's anti-drug fight.

The scandal comes at an awkward moment, just as the U.S. Congress
mulls expanding U.S. aid beyond the drug war to help Bogota fight
Latin America's oldest and largest leftist rebel force, the
17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

``We discovered about two months ago a diversion of U.S. government
funds from an account used by the Colombian counter-narcotics
police,'' the embassy official told Reuters.

``We are confident that action will be taken against the individuals
involved. When this has happened, we anticipate resuming full support
for (anti-narcotics police) activities.''

The line between Colombia's drug war and the guerrilla conflict has
been blurring over the past year, and the United States indicted
three FARC leaders on cocaine trafficking charges in March.
Washington has already sunk $1 billion into the Plan Colombia
anti-drug offensive, but has yet to see any impact on cocaine output
or prices on American streets.

At a news conference, Socha said he would not step down from his post
of two years. Playing down the possibility of theft, he said the
funds might have been misdirected to otherwise legitimate government
ends not directly linked to the drug fight.

``It is possible that the purchase of something like drinking water
in remote, jungle zones, where there is no running water ... well, it
could have been prioritized as a necessity and it might not have been
budgeted,'' Socha said.

The U.S. Embassy denied local press reports that the scandal had
prompted the United States to freeze funds for Colombia's fleet of 33
U.S.-donated UH1-N helicopters -- operated by the anti-drug police.

Instead, the embassy said that some funding for the Colombian
military had been delayed as a routine procedure pending U.S.
certification of the armed forces' respect for human rights norms.

Colombia's guerrilla conflict is increasingly fueled by the drug
trade, and claims about 3,500 lives a year.