Pubdate: Wed, 28 Jun 2000
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191
Fax: (619) 293-1440
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Author: Arianna Huffington, http://www.ariannaonline.com/

WHICH HELICOPTER WILL WIN DRUG WAR?

A full three months after the House approved a $1.7 billion drug-war aid 
package for Colombia, the Senate finally passed its own scaled-down $934 
million version. You might assume that the world's greatest deliberative 
body took so long because of a heated debate over the merits of further 
involving ourselves in a country in the midst of a 40-year-old civil war 
or, indeed, over the merits of fighting the drug war through interdiction 
rather than treatment. But you'd be wrong.

The delay actually had a lot to do with a Blackhawks vs. Hueys Beltway 
battle. Call it Chopper Wars -- a behind-the-scenes dogfight as absurd as 
it is revealing about what drives public policy.

The prize was a huge contract to manufacture Colombia's copter of choice. 
On one side were lobbyists for United Technologies, whose Sikorsky Aircraft 
produces the Blackhawks. On the other were lobbyists for Bell Helicopter 
Textron, which produces the Hueys.

The House had split the difference and approved a package that included 
roughly 30 of each aircraft, at a total cost of nearly $450 million. But 
despite the fact that the Colombian military, the Pentagon and the State 
Department made it abundantly clear that they preferred the high-tech 
Blackhawk to the smaller, slower, far less expensive Huey, bargain-hunting 
senators on the Appropriations Committee shot down the Blackhawks and 
settled for 60 refurbished Hueys -- a steal at the priced-to-move cost of 
$188 million. "There's no reason for anybody to be ashamed to fly a Huey 
into combat," harrumphed Appropriations chair Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., begged to differ. Usually a stickler on 
human rights and a hands-off approach in Latin America, he has lately taken 
the lead on pumping millions in military aid to the Colombian army, one of 
the worst human-rights abusers in the world. Why? Well, it's probably just 
a coincidence, but Sikorsky just happens to be headquartered in his state, 
and through its parent company has -- also coincidentally, no doubt -- 
given Dodd more than $38,000 worth of combat aid (in the form of campaign 
donations) in the last election cycle.

Anyway, Dodd wasn't about to let his hometown helicopter go down without a 
fight. He took to the Senate floor and offered an amendment that would 
leave the choice of choppers to the "experts" in the Pentagon and the 
Colombian military -- a smooth move that would have guaranteed the 
Blackhawks would prevail.

In the end, the Hueys won the Senate dogfight, but the Blackhawks will 
clearly live to fight another day. As the House-Senate Conference Committee 
tries to reconcile the two bills, Colombia's ambassador to Washington has 
warned that his country will insist on the state-of-the-art Blackhawk.

As absurd as the Chopper Wars are, they are in keeping with the overblown 
rhetoric of the Colombian coke issue. Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., announced 
that "Colombia is the heart of the drug war, and we'd better get on with 
it. If we lose Colombia, then we lose everywhere." It's the domino theory 
all over again, with coke instead of Communists.

Dodd was equally overwrought: "When we step up and offer the Colombian 
democracy a chance to fight for themselves, we're not only doing it for 
them, we're doing it for ourselves." Translation: "When we step up and 
offer a major campaign contributor a chance to make an enormous profit, 
we're not only doing it for them, we're doing it for ourselves."

But the crowning absurdity was the ongoing pretense that the Colombian aid 
package is about winning the drug war at home. If that were really the 
goal, you'd think all those senators looking to get more bang for their 
bucks would have relished the chance to vote for Sen. Paul Wellstone's, 
D-Minn., amendment that, had it passed, would have transferred $225 million 
from military aid in Colombia to drug-treatment programs in the United 
States. Treatment, after all, has proved to be 10 times more cost-effective 
than interdiction.

As if to underscore the futility of the drug-war package, Colombia's 
national police chief, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, who has been hailed on The 
Hill as "the best cop in the world," stepped down last Friday. "We'd rather 
see drug consumption drop than get any of this aid," he told the Associated 
Press.

If everyone knows that's how to win the drug war, then why are we spending 
more than a billion dollars in Colombia? And if everyone doesn't know it, 
why aren't we debating that instead of bickering over Blackhawks and Hueys?

Huffington can be reached via e-mail at  ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D