Pubdate: Sun, 03 Dec 2000
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Copyright: 2000 St. Petersburg Times
Contact:  http://www.sptimes.com/
Forum: http://www.sptimes.com/Forums/ubb/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi
Author: Paul La Garza and David Adams

MILITARY AID . . . FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR

When the Pentagon decided to send Colombia military help for the war on 
drugs, it chose to outsource it.

As U.S. assistance to war-fatigued Colombia escalates, the Clinton 
administration portrays American military involvement there as nothing more 
than basic anti-drug fighting aid.

Haunted by the shadows of Vietnam and El Salvador, administration officials 
vow to avoid managing another war by proxy in a foreign land.

The truth, however, isn't that clear cut.

Enlisted U.S. military personnel in Colombia, which average 250 on any 
given day, are under orders to stick to anti-drug efforts, including 
training of three anti-drug battalions.

But the Clinton administration quietly has hired a high-level group of 
former U.S. military personnel whose job far exceeds the narrow focus of 
the drug war and is intended to turn the Colombian military into a 
first-class war machine capable of winning a decades-old leftist insurgency.

These military consultants keep in close contact with Pentagon officials 
while advising Colombians on efforts to improve the Colombian army and even 
advise on the passage of new laws to help make the Colombian military more 
professional and effective. In addition, the consultants are helping to 
revamp the National Police, traditionally charged with fighting the drug 
war in Colombia.

The hiring of military experts -- in this case, Military Professional 
Resources Inc., an Alexandria, Va.-based company run mostly by retired U.S. 
military brass -- is a relatively new development in American foreign 
military assistance programs.

Critics say the practice, known as outsourcing, is intended to bypass 
congressional oversight and provide political cover to the White House if 
something goes wrong. MPRI has done other work for Washington around the 
world, including in the Balkans.

"We're outsourcing the war in a way that is not accountable," says Robin 
Kirk of Human Rights Watch. She argues that because the 130,000-strong 
Colombian military is notorious for human rights violations, it is 
essential for the United States to provide assistance "in accordance with 
international law and in a transparent manner -- not in secret."

Supporters of private military companies, however, argue that not only are 
they more cost-efficient than the U.S. military but that they ease the 
pressure on American troops, burdened by foreign assignments, including 
peacekeeping missions.

MPRI is working full time in Colombia under a $6-million contract. The 
company has dispatched 14 employees to Bogota under the direction of a 
retired Army major general.

Administration officials say MPRI personnel are doing precisely what 
uniformed American soldiers have traditionally done. They say MPRI was 
hired not because it has any special expertise, but because U.S. Southern 
Command in Miami, which oversees American military operations in Latin 
America, cannot spare 14 men to send to Colombia.

"What are we doing with MPRI that Southern Command or someone else can't 
do? In theory, nothing," Brian Sheridan, the senior Pentagon official who 
oversees the work of MPRI, said in congressional testimony in March.

"It's a manpower issue," he said.

Nevertheless, U.S.-Colombia policy experts say the use of firms like MPRI 
is intended primarily to limit the risk of American military casualties there.

"It's very handy to have an outfit not part of the U.S. armed forces, 
obviously," said former U.S. ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette. "If 
somebody gets killed or whatever, you can say it's not a member of the 
armed forces. Nobody wants to see American military men killed."

Although the hiring of MPRI was approved by Congress, it raises serious 
questions about the propriety of U.S. intervention in the affairs of a 
sovereign state, of American civilians participating in a foreign war, and 
whether the United States can guarantee the Colombian military will not 
misuse the assistance it receives from MPRI.

It also raises the question of the privatization of American foreign policy.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking member of the Senate Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, is the author of human rights 
requirements in the $1.3-billion aid package Congress approved in June 
under Plan Colombia, a $7.5-billion internationally funded program with a 
strong U.S. military component designed to brace Colombia against collapse.

He, too, is critical of using companies like MPRI.

"(It) is fraught with dangers, especially when human rights are at stake," 
Leahy said.

"The Congress has little choice but to rely on the Pentagon to supervise 
the contractors, but the Pentagon too often does not pay close attention.

"We have no way of knowing if the contractors are training these Colombian 
soldiers in ways that are fully consistent with U.S. policy, laws and 
procedures."

MPRI and the Pentagon both denied requests by the Times to review the MPRI 
contract, which is renewable each year. MPRI spokesman Ed Soyster, a 
retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense 
Department's Defense Intelligence Agency, compared the need for secrecy in 
Colombia with the need for secrecy in Vietnam.

"When I was in Vietnam, I wouldn't want to tell you about my operation," he 
said. "If the enemy knows about it, he can counter it."

Analytical problem solvers In congressional testimony and in interviews, 
Pentagon and Colombian officials -- including Sheridan; the retired 
Southcom commander, Gen. Charles Wilhelm; and the Colombian ambassador to 
the United States, Luis Alberto Moreno -- have characterized MPRI staff as 
"men in business suits" who assess problems within the Colombian Ministry 
of Defense and provide solutions through detailed analysis that Colombia 
can either accept or reject.

In this view, they aren't any different than the other 50 or so private 
U.S. contractors providing equipment or services paid for by U.S. foreign 
aid in Colombia.

MPRI employees can "from time-to-time go out on a field trip to see 
something," the Pentagon says, including Colombian military operations, but 
they don't participate in battles against the rebel forces.

Its mission, according to MPRI internal documents, is to provide advice to 
the Ministry of Defense "with continued development and implementation of 
military reform measures."

Specifically, MPRI is working with the armed forces and the National Police 
in the areas of planning; operations, including psychological operations; 
training; logistics; intelligence; and personnel management.

Soyster, the MPRI spokesman, compares his company with other U.S. companies 
operating overseas -- "Like Coca-Cola," he said.

But, for the most part, MPRI officials operate out of public view, and 
neither Pentagon nor MPRI officials will talk in great detail about the 
company's activities.

MPRI's stated mission in Colombia is strikingly similar to its stated 
mission in the Balkans.

In January 1996, according to European-based Jane's Intelligence Review, 
Croatia and MPRI signed the Long Range Management Program designed to 
assist the Croats "in establishing the architecture, structure, 
organization and system for planning, programming and budgeting functions 
for the Croatian Ministry of Defense."

MPRI insisted that its work in Croatia was limited to classroom teachings 
and never involved any training in tactics or use of weaponry.

But suspicions were aroused after two successful military operations 
launched by Croatia in 1995, just months after MPRI's contracts began.

The operations "demonstrated that the Croatian army was now able to 
coordinate armor and infantry attacks supported by large artillery forces 
and master new communications techniques," Jane's reported. "Most 
importantly, the Croatian performance did not resemble the usual outmoded 
Warsaw Pact military tactics."

Officially, U.S. aid to Colombia is directed at the drug war, not the rebel 
war that has plagued the country for nearly 40 years.

But even senior administration officials, including drug czar Barry 
McCaffrey, acknowledge that the line between the drug war and the guerrilla 
war has become increasingly blurred because of rebel involvement in the 
drug trade.

Indeed, U.S. military officials familiar with the 18-week training program 
of anti-drug battalions in Colombia say that skills being taught by the 
Special Forces, including sniper training, are transferable to the fight 
against the Marxist rebels.

Farther-reaching influence Among the most provocative parts of the MPRI 
mission are plans for MPRI to recommend legislation, statutes and decrees 
to Colombia regarding a military draft, a professional soldier statute, 
officer entitlements and health law reforms.

"They are using us to carry out American foreign policy," Soyster, the MPRI 
spokesman, said. "We certainly don't determine foreign policy, but we can 
be part of the U.S. government executing its foreign policy."

So delicate is MPRI's work in Colombia that State Department officials say 
there is an ongoing internal debate within the Clinton administration about 
for whom MPRI works -- the United States or Colombia?

Moreno, the Colombian ambassador, said he saw no problem in the contract. 
The United States was paying MPRI, but Colombia was the recipient of its 
military expertise, he said. "Colombia tells MPRI that we need help or we 
need advice in this area."

Moreno said he has met with MPRI personnel and that his country welcomed 
its help.

A country of 41-million people, Colombia has been at war with the rebels, a 
powerful force of 20,000 men, women and children, since 1964. Once fueled 
by Marxist ideology, the insurgency is now fueled by the drug trade, 
critics say.

Complicating peace efforts even further for the government are roving bands 
of right-wing paramilitary death squads, funded by wealthy landowners as 
well as the drug trade. Totaling between 5,000 and 10,000 strong, the 
paramilitaries often have been linked to the Colombian military.

"The military in Colombia has to be very professional and very modern if 
you are going to have peace," Moreno said. "Any time you spend on 
modernizing the Colombian military is time well-spent."

Washington has pumped more money into Colombia because it has grown 
increasingly concerned about the rebel war spilling over into its 
neighbors. Fighting already threatens stability on the border with 
Venezuela, a main U.S. supplier of oil, as well as Ecuador and Panama. Only 
Egypt and Israel get more U.S. foreign aid than Colombia.

U.S. and Colombian officials say one of the strategies in the drug war is 
to cut off funding to the rebels, who earn hundreds of millions of dollars 
by selling protection to the drug traffickers. Colombia provides as much as 
85 percent of the cocaine sold on U.S. streets and an increasing amount of 
heroin.

In explaining the impetus for the use of MPRI, Pentagon officials say they 
have become frustrated over the past 40 years with trying to help reform 
the Colombian military piecemeal, doing exchange programs, for instance, 
that yielded poor results.

State Department officials say Washington is not using MPRI to ram military 
reform down the throats of the Colombians. Colombia can reject MPRI 
suggestions.

Moreno agreed.

When MPRI began operations in Colombia, the Pentagon said the ministry of 
defense already had begun a reform program.

It was Sheridan, the assistant secretary of defense for the Special 
Operations Low-Intensity Conflict, or SOLIC, section of the Pentagon, who 
recommended MPRI to Minister of Defense Luis Fernando Ramirez.

The Pentagon said that every quarter MPRI reports directly to a senior 
steering committee in Washington, including Sheridan, representatives of 
Southcom and Randy Beers, the assistant secretary of state for 
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

Congress, meanwhile, gets no updates about the MPRI mission.

And that makes critics, even within the military, queasy.

In 1998, Col. Bruce D. Grant wrote a strategy research project at the U.S. 
Army War College questioning companies like MPRI.

Not only did he conclude that what they do is illegal, because they 
circumvent congressional oversight, but he also wondered how military men 
and women could sell their expertise to the highest foreign bidder.

"This dangerous trend removes military expertise from public accountability 
and corrupts our military," Grant wrote.

"The unintended consequences of profit-motivated military assistance could 
detract from U.S. foreign policy objectives, result in tragedy when misused 
by recipients and leave a dispirited military."

Military aid is clearly the most sensitive form of aid flowing to Colombia.

Curtis Kamman, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia until a few weeks ago, 
maintained a policy prohibiting reporters from observing Special Forces 
training because he feared the images beamed to television sets back home 
would remind people of Vietnam.

Earlier this year, as conditions in Colombia worsened and the U.S. Congress 
debated the merits of the $1.3-billion aid package, critics often cited 
Vietnam.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said he detests Vietnam analogies, "because nine 
out of 10 times they are all wet."

"But I have to tell you," he said, "this reminds me very much of Vietnam. . 
. . Whatever happens, there are going to be a lot of mothers' sons who are 
going to die who may or may not be Americans."
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