COLOMBIA SAYS IT CUT COCA CROP

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 -- The government of Colombia said today that it had
significantly reduced the amount of coca under cultivation through an
aggressive, American-backed eradication campaign. But Washington is
delaying the release of its own estimates, which have fueled disagreement
between administration policy makers and C.I.A. analysts.

The annual estimates of production of coca -- the raw material for cocaine
- -- are important in determining the effectiveness of a strategy at the core
of the United States' counternarcotics plan in the Andes in which
Washington has invested more than $1.3 billion.

This year's results are especially significant because they reflect a
sustained fumigation effort under Plan Colombia, which set a goal of
cutting overall cultivation in half within five years. Focused in the
southern provinces of Putumayo and Caqueta, the drive has involved
crop-dusters spraying herbicides, combat helicopters and American-trained
counternarcotics battalions.

Colombia's justice minister, Romulo Gonzalez, announced today that the
total amount of coca under cultivation was about 358,000 acres as of Nov.
1, an 11 percent reduction over the previous 14-month period.

The Bush administration, meanwhile, is struggling with its own estimates.
Officials said there is a dispute between C.I.A. analysts who believe that
coca production has stabilized or slightly increased, and administration
policymakers who insist it has gone down.

The State Department's counter-narcotics office, had planned to release its
estimates on Colombia on Friday as part of its annual report to Congress on
the narcotics fight worldwide, a spokeswoman said. But the office has not
yet received final numbers from the Central Intelligence Agency, she said.

The C.I.A.'s Crime and Narcotics Center uses satellite imagery and sampling
techniques to determine the amount of illegal drugs under cultivation
around the world.

Mark Mansfield, a C.I.A. spokesman, said the analysts would present their
estimate for Colombia within a few days. He declined to discuss the
results. Last year, the administration reported that coca growth had surged
by 11 percent in Colombia.

Colombian officials today challenged the C.I.A.'s methodology and sampling
techniques. "I don't think they are in a position to refute our figures,
not scientifically or technically," Mr. Gonzalez told reporters.

The chief United Nations counter-narcotics representative in Colombia today
said he agreed with the Colombians' findings.

"We are very comfortable with that figure," said the representative, Klaus
Nyholm. "It's based on satellite photos, overflights and visits on the
ground. It's not 100 percent, but it's as close as it gets."

A State Department official said it was the first time she could recall
that the department would release its worldwide report on drugs without the
statistics from Colombia. She attributed the delay to technical problems,
not a dispute over what the numbers would show.

"We've always gotten our numbers from them," the official said. "The people
who put the numbers together are analysts, not political types."