ANSWERS FROM COLOMBIA

Should the United States give Alvaro Uribe money? Should the United
States give Alvaro Uribe weapons?

Mr. Uribe's name draws blank looks now, but it probably won't after
May 26. That's when voters in Colombia are expected to make him their
country's next president. Mr. Uribe's policies and plans therefore
are of vital interest as President Bush asks Congress for more money
and military leeway to help Colombia fight . . . whoever it is
Colombia is fighting.

Mr. Uribe is the Harvard-educated son of a rancher. He has been mayor
of Medellin, home of the infamous drug cartel, and head of Colombia's
civil aviation authority. Much more than the current president,
Andres Pastrana, Mr. Uribe is a law-and-order candidate. His outlook
is born of personal tragedy. Guerrillas assassinated his father in
1983. So if the United States gives Colombia more aid and more
leeway, Mr. Uribe is likely to use it enthusiastically against . . .
whoever Colombia is fighting.

Why the hesitation about who the enemy is? Consider the recently
assassinated Archbishop Isaias Duarte. The government said the
killers worked for drug lords. Then it said leftist guerrillas might
be responsible. The emerging U.S. position is that the killers must
be terrorists.

All three possibilities can be right because the same killers can be
all three. Guerrilla organizations that have spent four decades
trying to overthrow Colombia's government pay for their operations
with drug money. Their kidnapping and killing of civilians make them
terrorists. We have pretended that the three aspects were distinct.
Colombia can use U.S. aid to fight drug dealers who ship most of
America's heroin and cocaine. But the nearly $2 billion in
helicopters, training and intelligence can't be used to fight rebels
or terrorists.

If Congress approves new aid and looser restrictions, Congress also
must insist on increased oversight. This week's bombing in Peru
before President Bush's visit underscores the importance of Colombia
in the region. If instability becomes routine in northern South
America, the area could become a haven for terrorists.

The war in Afghanistan isn't over. Enemy leaders and soldiers slip
away. U.S. troops are going to the Philippines and Yemen. There's
talk of war in Iraq. Given those involvements, the legal limit on
U.S. troops -- set by Congress at 400 -- should not be increased.
Colombia might need freer reign to use U.S. aid, but that must come
with a promise that Congress will know who is getting the aid and
what is happening to it.