WATCHDOG CHALLENGES U.S. DRUG WAR IN COLOMBIA

Bogota, Colombia -- A U.S. government report to be released next week
raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the
multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-drug campaign in Colombia, despite moves
by the Bush administration to extend the program.

The 52-page report by the Government Accountability Office, an advance
copy of which has been obtained by The Chronicle, challenges
administration conclusions that the drug interdiction effort known as
Plan Colombia -- a five-year program that ends this year -- has
reduced the amount of cocaine available in the United States.

The report was skeptical of the statistics the government relied on
for its upbeat assessments, calling its information on cocaine
production and use problematic. It also said the Office of National
Drug Control Policy had failed to fully address previous
"recommendations for improving illicit drug data collection and analysis."

On Nov. 9 in Bogota, John Walters, director of the White House Office
of National Drug Control Policy, said Plan Colombia had been
responsible for a substantial increase in the street price of cocaine
in the United States and a drop in its quality from Colombia, which
supplies an estimated 90 percent of the world's cocaine, and an
estimated $65 billion in illegal drugs to the U.S. market.

"There were those who did not believe it was possible to change the
availability of cocaine in the United States," Walters said. "What
we're announcing today is, there's no question that's happened."

But the GAO, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress,
specifically criticized those figures, saying that they reflected
trends that "could reflect law enforcement patterns rather than drug
availability patterns" and that the number of U.S. cocaine users
remained constant at about 2 million. "Other sources estimate the
number of chronic and occasional cocaine users may be as high as 6
million," the report stated.

The GAO also found the White House assessment of the amount of cocaine
entering the United States in 2004 -- 325 metric tons to 675 metric
tons -- to be too varied to be "useful for assessing interdiction efforts."

In an interview, David Murray, a special assistant to Walters,
downplayed the report. "We have more data and more analysts working on
this out of our office than anyone," he said. "We feel we have some of
the best information in the world on the issue. We are trying to make
sense of a business whose very core element is hiding from plain view."

Since 2000, the United States has poured about $6 billion into Latin
America to fund antidrug efforts, more than half of it earmarked for
Plan Colombia. Its supporters in Colombia say the program is crucial
not only for battling the drug trade but also to combat left-wing
guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries involved in the nation's
four-decade armed conflict that depend on financing from drug profits.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- the country's
largest rebel group -- raked in as much as $1.3 billion in 2003, of
which an estimated 45 percent came from cocaine, according to a report
released earlier this year by the Joint Intelligence Command, the
Colombian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Council. Plan
Colombia "is essential for what we do," said Col. Yamlik Moreno of the
National Police's antidrug division. "Without the funding ... we would
have to reduce our operations by 90 percent."

The U.S.-Colombia strategy, which targets cocaine production at its
source, is aimed at reducing supply and driving up prices and thereby
discouraging consumption in the United States. Military aid provided
by Washington over the years includes combat helicopters, light
weapons ranging from machine guns to rocket launchers and intelligence
technology as well as advisers, chemicals and fumigation planes to
spray coca fields. Just last month, Walters helped inaugurate a $12
million helicopter hanger just north of Bogota.

Colombian officials also say they are winning the drug war and point
to an increase in the fumigation of coca fields and record seizures of
cocaine. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says the amount
of acreage devoted to coca cultivation has been reduced by more than
half in the past five years, to about 200,000 acres from 403,551 acres
in 2000, while production has fallen more than 45 percent to 149
metric tons last year.

But critics say that spraying has merely pushed coca production into
more remote areas and that statistics do not adequately measure the
amount of drug each acre produces.

"These antidrug 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 followed
the drug trade 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."

Colombia will send its proposal for an extension of Plan Colombia to
the U.S. State Department, as required by international protocol,
within the next few months. Walters says he is confident the new plan
will be accepted by both countries. "We have been clear we intend to
continue this policy," he told The Chronicle.

Congress recently approved $712 million in fiscal year 2005-06 for the
Andean Counter Drug Initiative, an antidrug aid package for South America.

Last summer, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.,
requested the GAO study to review official statistics used to evaluate
the program.

Grassley noted that GAO criticism was likely to hurt the
administration's push to extend the program, at least at its current
funding levels.

"While we want to keep a multi-pronged 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 Grassley in an e-mail message. "Basically, it
(GAO report) is saying it is very difficult to prove the policies are
affecting the overall drug trade."

In Bogota, government officials remain closemouthed about the
follow-up to Plan Colombia. President Alvaro Uribe, who has high
approval ratings and is expected to run for re-election next year, has
been an enthusiastic supporter of the program. But opposition
candidates and even some members of the government have started to
voice criticisms, noting the lack of tangible results in contrast to
the program's high cost over the past six years.

"Under no circumstances are we saying we do not need the aid or that
the aid is not important," said Comptroller-General Antonio Hernandez.
"The question we have to ask is if this set of actions, efforts and
sacrifices ... requires a different path. We are asking if there is
another way of approaching the problem. "