COLOMBIAN AID LIMITS REVIEWED

Pastrana, Bush Ask a Skeptical Congress to Lift Restrictions

Another difficult and controversial foreign policy issue is about to crowd
onto President Bush's already overflowing plate, as Congress takes up his
plan for a major expansion of U.S. involvement in Colombia's guerrilla war.

Hearings scheduled to stretch into next month began last week on the
proposal to stop restricting U.S. military aid to Colombia's fight against
cocaine and heroin production and export.

The restrictions were designed to keep the United States from becoming
directly involved in South America's oldest guerrilla conflict. But the
Bush administration maintains that left- and right-wing insurgents fighting
the Colombian government and each other are both drug traffickers and
terrorists whose activities threaten not only Colombia but the stability
and security of Latin America and the United States.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana arrives in Washington today for a
four-day visit to help lobby for the plan, which would also waive a number
of human rights provisions and other restrictions Congress has attached to
Colombia aid.

With little to show for nearly $2 billion already spent fighting Colombia's
drug war since 2000, however, Bush and Pastrana face an uphill task.
Skeptical legislators have indicated they want a better explanation of past
failures and a far more detailed description of the new policy than has
been provided.

"You're asking for an unprecedented level of decision-making power over
policy in Colombia -- with no specifics," Rep. Jim Kolbe (R- Ariz.) told
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman at a House appropriations
subcommittee hearing last week. "I don't feel I know any more about what
U.S. policy in Colombia is than I did before."

Language authorizing the policy change is contained in one sentence, deep
inside the voluminous White House request for $27 billion in emergency
anti-terrorism aid sent to Congress last month. Superseding all existing
restrictions, it says that all previously approved and future aid "shall be
available to support a unified campaign against narcotics trafficking,
terrorist activities, and other threats to [Colombia's] national security."

The administration has said it will not send U.S. combat troops to
Colombia, nor extend the U.S. military mission beyond training and
supplying military equipment. But there would be no restrictions on
Colombia's use of U.S. equipment and U.S.-trained troops.

The new request explicitly retains Congress's 400-person cap on the number
of U.S. military personnel in Colombia, and observance of a worldwide
requirement for human rights vetting of any foreign troops trained by U.S.
forces.

Grossman explained that the "new authority would allow us to address the
problem of terrorism in Colombia as vigorously as we currently address
narcotics, and help the government of Colombia address the heightened
terrorist risk that resulted" from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The
change, he said, would also help Colombia deal with the collapse of peace
talks last month between Pastrana and the largest rebel group, the leftist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The State Department lists both FARC and the United Self-Defense Forces, a
paramilitary group of equal size and viciousness, as "foreign terrorist
organizations," along with a smaller leftist guerrilla group. All are
financed principally by the illegal drug business that supplies nearly all
of the cocaine that enters the United States, and much of the heroin. The
three groups regularly attack civilians in addition to their battles with
the Colombian army and each other.

FARC, in particular, has escalated attacks against Colombia's national
infrastructure since February, when Pastrana ended three years of
sputtering peace talks following a spate of kidnappings of public officials.

The proposed change in ground rules for Colombian aid marks the first time
since Sept. 11 that the administration has suggested that domestic
insurgents in another country pose a terrorist threat even if they have not
directly targeted the United States and have no known connection to any
group that has.

With virtually no progress in the drug fight, some in Congress have
suggested the administration is creating a terrorist danger in Colombia to
justify throwing good money after bad, and in the process risking a
Vietnam-type quagmire.

Worse than a "slippery slope . . . I think we're approaching a cliff," Rep.
Ron Paul (R-Tex.) told Assistant Secretary of State Otto J. Reich at a
House International Relations subcommittee hearing last week.

Administration officials say that the infusion of drug money into FARC and
AUC has led to their rapid growth and inserted a new element into the long
history of Colombian insurgency. The drug and terror wars are now so
intertwined, they argue, that neither can be won without U.S. involvement
in both.

Beyond the firewall restricting the use of U.S.-trained troops and
U.S-provided equipment to counter-narcotics missions, more specific limits
on Colombia assistance would also be waived under the new policy.

Congress has refused to release any military-related funds in a $300
million Colombia aid package it appropriated for 2002 until the
administration can certify that the Colombian army has ended collusion with
the AUC, suspended and prosecuted senior officers credibly alleged to have
been involved in human rights violations and moved to arrest AUC leaders.
The leftist FARC and the right wing AUC are officially equal enemies, but
both the Colombian and U.S. governments display far more interest in
combating the former than the latter.

Money to continue a U.S.-paid aerial fumigation program has been withheld
pending proof that the herbicide being sprayed on drug crops is nontoxic
and safely used. Neither the military certification nor the herbicide
information has been provided.

In February, the Senate prohibited spending any of the new 2002 money for
any purpose, until the administration provides a more detailed outline of
its strategy.

According to senior Colombian and U.S. officials, the cutoff is beginning
to pinch. "We're scraping bits and pieces" left in accounts from earlier
years to keep the military and spraying programs going, an administration
official said. But "we're at a precipice in terms of where there begins to
be an impact."

While arguing there has been modest progress in all areas of U.S. effort in
Colombia, the administration agrees it has been insufficient. Army
collusion with AUC, which the State Department's human rights reporting
holds responsible for civilian massacres and brutality as well as drug
trafficking, has continued, while there have been few advances in the war
that both are fighting against FARC.

Members of Congress also have asked why the administration proposes
spending more money to defend Colombia, including more than $500 million
requested for 2003, when Colombia itself is spending less.

Although Pastrana increased defense spending in 1998, his first year in
office, it has declined as a percentage of gross domestic product every
year since then. Colombia now spends slightly less than 2 percent of its
GDP on the army, and 3.3 percent for all security forces combined.

"I'm not at all satisfied with the commitments" Colombia has made, Rep.
Sonny Callahan (R-Ala.) told administration officials. "We're talking about
a lot of money going into a very small area that can show me zero progress."