COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR MIRED IN DOUBT

Officials Say Crucial U.S. Aid Stems Trafficking; Critics Question Results

BOGOTA, Colombia - The aircraft never stop flying over the coca
fields in Colombia.

Associated Press Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been able to
use U.S. aid to bolster security forces fighting the drug war.

"We fly every day," said Col. Yamlik Moreno with the Colombia
National Police's anti-drug division. "We have to be constantly alert
because the drug trafficking never stops, and we have to be there to
combat it."

Since 2000, the U.S. has poured more than $6 billion into Latin
America to fund anti-drug efforts, and the lion's share of that has
gone to "Plan Colombia," the South American country's six-year
anti-drug strategy. Officials in Colombia say the aid is crucial for
keeping tabs on the drug trade as well as the leftist guerrilla
groups that rely on it for their existence.

"It is essential for what we do. Without the funding from other
countries, we would have to reduce our operations by 90 percent,"
Col. Moreno said. "The drug traffickers don't have this problem. They
have money, and they will keep trying to make more."

Plan Colombia is slated to expire at the end of the year. But while
both President Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe have pledged
to follow up with a similar anti-drug effort, there are growing
concerns in both countries that the tangible results have been
lacking in light of the expenditure.

Those concerns are reflected in a recently completed report by the
Government Accounting Office that is sharply critical of assessments
- - particularly those from the office of U.S. drug czar John Walters -
that the U.S. is winning the war on drugs.

But Bush administration officials remain confident that there will be
a successor to Plan Colombia that will be supported by the U.S.

"The fear that this funding is going to end is not well placed," Mr.
Walters said.

Plan Colombia

Plan Colombia was drawn up in the late 1990s by the government of
former President Andres Pastrana in Colombia with the support of the
Clinton administration. The plan prioritized aerial spraying to
destroy coca crops and military operations against traffickers. It
has cost almost $3.5 billion.

According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, in the six years
since Plan Colombia began, coca cultivation in Colombia has been more
than halved to 80,000 hectares, or about 197,700 acres, and cocaine
production fell more than 45 percent to 149 metric tons last year.

Critics say the numbers are illusory since the cultivation figures
have not adequately measured the amount of drugs each hectare
produces and the production totals are highly uncertain. Moreover,
there has been very little change in the demand for the drug on U.S.
streets over that same time period.

"These anti-drug policies have failed to address the real causes, the
real structural reasons that Colombia produces drugs," said Francisco
Thoumi, an economist at Rosario University in Bogota who has studied
the drug situation in his country for more than three decades. "They
confront the problem in a short-term limited way, and there is no
reason to believe that will change with a new version of Plan Colombia."

Growing Criticism

Next week, the Government Accountability Office will release a highly
critical report of the administration's efforts to assess tangible
results from the U.S. efforts to stem the drug trade in Latin America.

"While we want to keep a multipronged approach with our efforts in
Central and South America, we need to ensure that the money that is
being provided, for both military and nonmilitary efforts, is being
used effectively," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who requested
the review. "Basically, it [the GAO report] is saying it is very
difficult to prove the policies are affecting the overall drug trade. "

The 52-page report says that the annual cocaine flow assessment is
not useful for assessing performance of anti-drug initiatives and
that efforts to track illicit drug use in the U.S. are fundamentally
limited. It also found serious problems with the data for assessing
interdiction operations and domestic drug use.

The report also advises policymakers to prepare for a reduction in
anti-drug funding because of the military commitment in Iraq and
Afghanistan as well as the expected expenditures by the Department
for Homeland Security in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Officials in Mr. Walter's office played down the findings of the
report, saying that the data from their office is the best available
and that many of the criticisms derive from the very nature of the
subject under study.

"Making sense of this information is a difficult challenge," said
David Murray, a special assistant to Mr. Walters. "We are trying to
make sense of a business whose very core element is hiding from plain view."

Colombia's Future

Mr. Uribe, who took office in August 2002, has announced that he will
run for re-election next year, and most observers believe he will
win. Recent polls show his approval rating remains above 75 percent.

A key to his popularity has been the success of efforts to increase
the number of security personnel fighting guerrillas, paramilitaries
and drug traffickers.

That policy has been credited with the dramatic drop in homicides and
kidnappings in the country, but it depends heavily on U.S. financial
support said economist Juan Carlos Echeverry with the University of
the Andes in Bogota.

Military spending under Mr. Uribe has increased to historic levels -
approximately 4.5 percent of the country's GDP last year - and most
of that has gone to increasing the military ranks.

"The funds from abroad, particularly the equipment from the United
States, has allowed the administration to focus on that one aspect,"
Mr. Echeverry said.

While that strategy has done a great deal to improve Mr. Uribe's
political situation, it has done little to resolve the lingering
problem of the narcotics trade, Mr. Thoumi said.

"Colombia has not had a consistent policy for dealing with the drug
situation," he said. "There is no policy coordination. It is
basically whatever the president does in connection with the United States."