DEWINE BACKS ADMINISTRATION ON COLOMBIA

Before leaving Thursday on a four-day swing through Latin America,
President Bush stressed the importance of allowing besieged Colombia to use
U.S. aid money for more than the war on drugs.

He wants Congress to let him steer some of the assistance flowing to
Colombia into more general initiatives against the terrorist groups that
reap huge profits from the trade in illegal narcotics.

Bush has an ally in Republican Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, one of the Latin
America experts in the Senate and a member of the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence.

DeWine, who has visited Colombia three times and plans another Latin
America trip this year, has been playing a key role in helping the
administration formulate its plan for ratcheting up U.S. involvement in
Colombia. Look for DeWine to be among the administration's most visible and
vocal supporters, as Bush tries to sell Congress on the proposal in the
weeks ahead.

Helping Colombia only on specific anti-drug initiatives leaves terrorist
groups on various sides of the political spectrum in control of large areas
of the country, undermining an increasingly fragile democracy that lies
perilously close to the Panama Canal. DeWine said that makes Colombia a
national-security problem, not just a drug problem.

But, looking ahead, he sees the situation as potentially more grave. Osama
bin Laden, al- Qaida and their Taliban allies benefited greatly from the
drug trade in central Asia, so al-Qaida or some other terrorist group
aiming to attack the United States could try to establish a foothold in a
destabilized Colombia.

"It's a big problem today for the United States. If Osama bin Laden didn't
exist, if Sept. 11 never happened, it (Colombia) would still be a huge
problem for the United States," DeWine said last week.

"Could it also be possibly linked to a bin Laden type terrorist
organization in the future? Yes, it certainly could. Could it be a breeding
ground? Yes it could. The one thing that we have learned, and we keep
having to relearn, is that when there are problems in the world, we better
try to deal with them before they turn into tragedy."

Bush has been careful to say that he doesn't intend to commit U.S. troops.
But offering advisers, intelligence and equipment is key to halting the
drug trade and cutting off the terrorists who reap millions from illegal
narcotics, the president said before leaving on his trip to Mexico, El
Salvador and Peru. In Peru, he will meet with the outgoing president of
Colombia, Andres Pastrana.

"We have no interest in committing ground troops, but we do want to help
them, and we'll do so," Bush said Wednesday, during an interview with a
group of Latin American journalists. Indeed, the danger in the region was
underscored when a car bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy in Lima,
Peru, later that day.

Already, Bush has asked that more money be spent in Colombia, requesting,
in his proposed 2003 budget, more than $500 million in security aid to that
country, up from about $388 million this year.

Ari Fleischer, Bush's spokesman, said last week that the effort to combat
Colombian terrorists is different from going after al-Qaida, because the
Colombians lack a "global reach." Nonetheless, "it is clearly a significant
problem for the government of Colombia and for the region."

DeWine agrees that the U.S. effort should stop short of turning U.S. troops
loose in Colombia. But, he said, Americans also should know that unless
more is done to fight the drug trade and the drug lords masquerading as
insurgent revolutionaries, bin Laden-type global terror eventually could
take root in this country's back yard.

"If there's a vicious dog out there, snarling and getting ready to bite,
you better try to either restrain or kill it before it does something to
you," DeWine said.