[Shadow_Group] Fw: [Left Hook] Congress Approves Doubling U.S. Troops in Colombia

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Congress Approves Doubling U.S. Troops in Colombia to 800
By JUAN FORERO
NYTimes

Published: October 11, 2004

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Oct. 10 - The number of American military personnel here
will double, to 800, in the coming months, based on a weekend vote in the
United States Congress.

The action was welcomed by President Álvaro Uribe's government for its
fight against Marxist rebels but condemned by human rights monitors, who
warned of a sharp escalation in Colombia's conflict.

The 2005 United States Defense Department authorization act, approved
Saturday by Congress, also permits the Bush administration to increase the
number of American citizens working for private contractors in Colombia to
600 from 400.

The soldiers and many of the contractors will, among other things, develop
and analyze intelligence on rebel movements, do surveillance and train
Colombian troops in counterguerrilla operations.

American officials who lobbied Capitol Hill to lift restrictions said more
American personnel were urgently needed to help Colombia in its nine-month
offensive in the south that pits 18,000 Colombian soldiers against the
country's most formidable rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia. "That requires logistical capabilities, maintaining supply
lines, getting food and fuel to the front, providing medical evacuation
capabilities," said Adam Isacson, a senior analyst at the Center for
International Policy, a Washington group that tracks Colombia. "They need
a lot more American personnel to fill those gaps."

Though the United States has contributed $3.3 billion to Colombia, most of
it in military aid, Mr. Uribe has lobbied hard for a larger American role
in the 40-year-old, drug-fueled conflict.

Lifting the Congressionally mandated limits on troops and contractors, a
little-noticed measure in the 5,000-page Pentagon authorization bill, is
seen by some political analysts and rights advocates as a major step
toward even larger American troop commitments. In the months before the
passage by the United States in 2000 of Plan Colombia, a $1.3 billion
antidrug initiative, members of Congress hotly debated whether involvement
in Colombia could lead to a Vietnam-like quagmire.

"The main concern is two years from now: what is going to stop them from
coming back for more, until Colombia becomes one of our most serious
military commitments," Mr. Isacson said, referring to American military
planners.

The work Americans and others do in Colombia's conflict is perilous.
Eleven contractors, American and other foreign nationals, working for
American companies under Pentagon contracts have been killed since 1998.
Three Americans whose plane crashed in a surveillance mission over rebel
territory remain in guerrilla hands 17 months after being taken hostage.

Under Mr. Uribe's administration, violence has ebbed in Colombia, the
economy has improved and the security forces have made gains eroding rebel
forces and destroying vast fields of coca, the crop used to make cocaine.
But combat remains common, and political assassinations and kidnappings
occur with staggering frequency.

American involvement is being ratcheted up as the United States steadily
increases training for police and military forces in Latin America.

In 2003, American soldiers trained 22,831 Latin American troops and police
officers, 52 percent more than in 2002, said a report released last week
by three Washington-based policy groups, the Center for International
Policy, the Washington Office on Latin America and the Latin America
Working Group Education Fund. In Colombia, nearly 13,000 troops received
American training, up from 6,477 in 2002.

Even before the new policy in Colombia was approved, American officials
and military officers had hinted that support for Mr. Uribe's government
would be expanded.

"We will stay the course," Gen. James Hill, the commander of American
military operations in Latin America, said last week in Bogotá in a
farewell address before he retired. He said that the United States would
"assist the Colombian people in ways that are necessary to win the war."


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