DEALING WITH COLOMBIA

'This is not a closed matter," said an apparently unhappy Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld as he left a high-level White House meeting last Tuesday.
He had just witnessed rejection of the Pentagon's efforts to broaden the
narrow focus, established by the Clinton administration, in dealing with
the disaster in Colombia.

That means no increase in U.S. military aid and no intelligence- sharing
with the beleaguered Colombian armed forces. The questionable peace process
begun by President Andres Pastrana in 1998 is dead. Since their
demilitarized zone was closed down, leftist guerrillas have gone on a
rampage, killing uncooperative civilians.

Luis Alberto Moreno, the normally smooth-talking Colombian ambassador to
Washington, was visibly shaken last Thursday when he pleaded with about 50
congressional staffers for help. Why did Moreno not go to the Bush
administration? Already tried that, he replied.

As the most imperiled Western Hemisphere country, Colombia might seem a
particularly appropriate battleground for President Bush's war against
terrorism. It is not. Non-combative policies of the previous administration
remain unaltered. In Latin America, the legacy of Bill Clinton still
immobilizes George W. Bush.

When I visited Colombia on a 1996 reporting trip, U.S. diplomats laid out
the Clinton Doctrine in blunt detail, as follows: The United States was not
going to get involved in another Salvadoran anti- insurgency operation. If
the FARC leftist guerrillas were about to take over the country, that was a
problem for the undermanned, corrupt Colombian army. Only a threat from
narcotics cartels would be opposed.

With the election of Pastrana in 1998 to replace a corrupt regime, Clinton
administration support for Colombia strengthened but was always tethered to
anti-narcotics justification. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Deputy
Assistant Defense Secretary Rogelio Pardo- Maurer, who once ran the
Nicaraguan contra office in Washington, pushed guidelines that would change
the U.S. focus from counternarcotics to counterinsurgency. Henceforth, the
"basic security" of the country would be protected.

Opposition was immediately voiced by the National Security Council
staff--specifically its Latin American specialist, John Maisto. A career
foreign service officer, Maisto as ambassador to Venezuela privately
advised Congress not to worry about accession of the leftist populist Hugo
Chavez to that nation's presidency. Yet, two days after Bush's
inauguration, Maisto was installed at the NSC. He has unsuccessfully
pressed for normalization with communist Cuba but has proved successful in
retaining the old Colombian guidelines.

Maisto, Pardo-Maurer and other staffers (even note-takers) were shooed out
of what became a "principals-only" meeting Tuesday. Included were Rumsfeld,
Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs. Rice carried the day in rejecting the shift to
counterinsurgency.

Powell was described by administration officers as unhappy when Karen
DeYoung of the Washington Post accurately reported the decision to shelve
the Colombian aid proposals. But Powell has his plate full in trying to
maintain the global anti-terrorism coalition.

Bush's new policymakers at State and Defense feel Pastrana's granting of an
immense demilitarized zone in Colombia to FARC, welcomed with such
gratitude by the Clinton administration, was a horrible mistake that only
strengthened the terrorists. Now, Pentagon officials contend the White
House proposal for a special U.S.-financed Colombian army brigade to
protect the oil pipeline from guerrillas is unachievable militarily and a
sorry excuse for a real anti-insurgency strategy.

The pipeline tactic has been pressed by Rand Beers, a Clinton holdover as
assistant secretary of state for international narcotics. On Feb. 6, five
House Republican committee and subcommittee chairmen wrote Beers asking
whether stated efforts to help Colombian anti-kidnapping means the United
States is changing its focus to anti-insurgency. In Clintonian style, Beers
has not replied at this writing. The answer to their question remains "no,"
as shown by Tuesday's meeting. The tragedy of Colombia deepens.