Pubdate: Mon, 19 Jun 2000
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2000 The Dallas Morning News
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Author: Tod Robberson / The Dallas Morning News

COLOMBIA'S DRUG BATTLE GROUNDED

Lobbies Stall Aircraft For U.S-Trained Troops

BOGOTA, Colombia - They know where the enemy is hiding. They
know how to strike at his jugular. And after $6 million worth of U.S.
training, the Colombian army's new counternarcotics battalion is
pumped, primed and ready for the battlefront.

If only the troops had a way to get there. Since December, a
950-member counternarcotics battalion, funded by U.S. taxpayers, has
languished at an isolated southwestern base for lack of helicopters
and fuel needed to confront the heavily armed insurgent forces
protecting the nation's growing drug trade.

A bill that would provide funding for Colombia's drug war is stalled
in the U.S. Senate. Without that funding, this nation's premier
narcotics-fighting force must spend most of its time confined to the
isolated southwestern base of Tres Esquinas, with no viable means of
transportation. Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez said the troops
have been reduced to doing "gymnastics" at a cost of $3 million to the
cash-strapped Colombian government over the last six months.

"Here, the mobility offered by helicopters is absolutely
indispensable" to the battalion's operations, he said.

To get where the troops need to go these days, a U.S. Embassy official
said, "They've walked - literally, walked for eight or nine days" to
carry out the few counternarcotics operations they have undertaken.
"They have not been doing simply jumping jacks and push-ups all the
time." Morale among the troops is flagging, Mr. Ramirez added, while
the skills they received during months of U.S. training are beginning
to diminish as they await the arrival of U.S. aid.

Mr. Ramirez and other senior officials blame the equipment and supply
shortages on competing corporate lobbies in Washington and bickering
among congressional delegations, which have spent months debating a
$1.6 billion counternarcotics-aid package proposed by the Clinton
administration late last year for Colombia.

Huey vs. Black Hawk The U.S. aid is part of a $7.5 billion program
known as Plan Colombia, which President Andres Pastrana unveiled late
last year to end a four-decade guerrilla insurgency, restore economic
stability and reverse the nation's status as the world's biggest
cocaine producer and largest source of the heroin sold on American
streets.

Colombian and U.S. military officials complain that instead of
focusing on fighting drugs, Congress has allowed Plan Colombia to turn
into a debate over special interests. Helicopter manufacturers are
particularly to blame, they said. "I don't doubt that the lobbies are
[behind the delays]. They are businessmen," said Gen. Fabio Velazco,
commander of the Colombian air force. "It also has to do with the
congressmen in the states where the helicopters are produced."

Officials of both countries say a large part of the delay is due to
competing lobbying campaigns by Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter
Textron and Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to ensure that
their helicopters are included in the package.

The $400 million price tag for the counternarcotics battalion's
aircraft constitutes the biggest item in the Clinton administration's
proposal. In March, the House approved a $1.3 billion package for
Colombia that included 30 Sikorsky Black Hawk combat helicopters. The
Pentagon, State Department and Colombian military have repeatedly said
they prefer Black Hawks as the primary means of transportation for the
battalion. But last month, over Colombian and Clinton administration
objections, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to remove all
Black Hawks from the package and replace them with 60 Bell Huey II's,
an upgraded version of the workhorse helicopter used by the U.S.
military in Vietnam. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the committee
chairman, justified the substitution on economic grounds. The upgrade
kits to convert a used Huey UH-1H into a Huey II sell for about $1.8
million, compared with the $12.8 million price tag for a new Black
Hawk.

Colombian officials insist the savings are not worth the sacrifices.
"It's like comparing a '60 Ford to a new Mercedes," Gen. Velazco said.
"The Huey is a good helicopter that served excellently in Vietnam. But
the truth is, it is the helicopter of another generation."

No money left for fuel The counternarcotics battalion is the first of
three 950-man units scheduled to be trained and outfitted by the U.S.
military. The second battalion is expected to begin training within
days. The U.S. government expects to spend an additional $25 million
to put the full brigade-strength force into action.

Anticipating short-term delays in approval of the aid package, the
State Department purchased 18 Bell UH-1N helicopters to transport the
Colombian troops for the first few months of this year. But the cost
of those and other expenses drained the department's Colombia
counternarcotics budget for this fiscal year, an embassy official
said. As a result, there are now no funds to purchase fuel for those
helicopters.

"We took that money out of our operating budgets - both us and the
State Department air wing - to get this moving forward ... with the
assumption that Plan Colombia would come back and we could back-fill
those funds with the supplemental money," the embassy official said.

Because Tres Esquinas is accessible only by river and aircraft, the
counternarcotics battalion will have to cover hundreds of square miles
of jungle terrain by air, relying largely on the rapid, mass
deployment of troops and the element of surprise to overcome the
insurgents who guard coca laboratories, cultivation fields and
airstrips. Mr. Ramirez said a number of factors led the Colombian and
U.S. governments to support the Black Hawk over the Huey II for such a
mission. In Colombia's high altitudes, the Huey II has a limited range
and cannot reach the mountainous areas where opium poppy, the base
crop for heroin, is grown. He added that the Black Hawk can transport
up to 20 soldiers, whereas the Huey II is limited to about eight.

During attacks on drug laboratories, which typically are guarded by
heavily armed insurgents, the element of surprise would be crucial,
the defense minister explained.

"When the Huey is coming, they say the first thing you hear is the
noise, even 10 minutes before you see it," he said. "It's a very noisy
helicopter. With the Black Hawk, by the time you hear it, it is
practically overhead." Heightened risk A military source familiar with
the debate explained that Colombia's jungle terrain allows insurgents
to hide easily before ambushing the smaller military or police units
used in the past to attack drug laboratories. Black Hawks, he said,
would enable the counternarcotics battalion to deploy more soldiers at
one time.

With Hueys, the source said, "you totally lose the element of
surprise. You put your men at risk, because you can only drop a few
into a zone at a time. Those men are going to be sitting ducks until
the Hueys go back to pick up" the remaining members of the attack force.

Bell officials in Fort Worth did not respond to repeated requests for
comment. To argue its case before the Colombian government, Bell sent
representatives in late April to meet with military officials at
various bases, Gen. Velazco and other officials said. The
representatives brought along a Super Cobra attack helicopter, a sleek
and sophisticated Vietnam-era aircraft normally equipped for anti-tank
warfare. The military source said that Gen. Charles Wilhelm, head of
the U.S. Southern Command, intervened directly to dissuade Bell from
attempting to market the Cobra further in Colombia.

"I tried to be impartial. We opened our doors to Bell," Gen. Velazco
said. But after the Cobra presentation, the air force commander
declined to consider any Bell purchases for now. "We told them our
selection is made. We had formed a committee, and the selection was
for the Black Hawk." Days later, however, the Senate Appropriations
Committee voted to remove Black Hawks from the aid package and
substitute Huey IIs. "I would say the debate is absolutely political,
and not between the Democrats and Republicans but rather between the
lobbies of Sikorsky and Bell," said Rafael Nieto, a Colombian military
analyst based in Washington. "What is very unfortunate is that they
are not taking into consideration the strategies in [the war on drugs]
but rather the political-economic considerations of the companies involved."

'The right equipment' A House International Relations Committee staff
report last week supported a restoration of Black Hawks to the aid
package, suggesting they had played a key role in a recent monthlong
government offensive to seize drug laboratories in northern Colombia.

"The Black Hawks made the decisive difference in taking down 151
coca-base labs and the destruction of 23,000 acres of coca leaf in
guerrilla-infested areas," said a senior staff member of the
committee, asking not to be identified. "What it shows is, if you give
the right equipment to the right people with the right defensive
weapons, they can do the right job." Mr. Nieto warned that the delays
and attempts to alter the aid package ultimately could lead to tragedy
for the counternarcotics battalion. "Without a doubt, they [lobbyists]
are playing with the security and the lives of the soldiers and police
who will be carrying out the forced eradication of illicit crops," he
said. "They're also putting Plan Colombia itself in danger. It's going
to be much more difficult to carry out with Hueys, and it's much more
probable that, in the end, they will not be successful."
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