U.S. LAYS PLANS TO WIDEN INTERVENTION IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A top-level Bush administration delegation
unveiled plans Tuesday to widen U.S. involvement in Colombia's civil
war, including training, arming and providing air support to Colombian
troops to protect a pipeline carrying oil to the United States.

U.S. military aid to Colombia had been limited mostly to attempts to
wipe out cocaine- and heroin-producing crops that finance leftist
rebels and their right-wing paramilitary foes.

But with Colombia's 38-year conflict killing about 3,500 people every
year and stunting the potential of this resource-rich, strategically
located country, the officials say Washington needs to do more.

"The proposition that we are making, to the government of Colombia and
to our Congress, is that we ought to take an additional step," a
senior administration official in the delegation told reporters at a
Bogota hotel.

The plan faces potential opposition in Congress, some of whose members
fear U.S. troops could become involved in combat and who reject
tighter links with a military that has a poor human-rights record. But
one visiting U.S. official said the Sept. 11 terror attacks might spur
U.S. lawmakers to approve President Bush's request.