By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

Clinton administration officials said yesterday they have reduced the number of U.S. helicopters destined for counter-drug operations in Colombia in order to spend
more money fully arming the aircraft.

The announcement that only 13 Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters would be sent to the Colombian army, instead of the 16 originally approved by Congress
last summer, came as the administration sought to fend off congressional criticism that neither the U.S. government, nor its Colombian counterpart, is ready to carry
out their ambitious, joint anti-narcotics strategy.

A General Accounting Office report released yesterday, titled "U.S. Assistance to Colombia Will Take Years to Produce Results," charged that more than $600
million in past U.S. counternarcotics assistance authorized for Colombia between 1996 and 1999 had been of "limited utility" because of poor planning and
implementation by both governments.

The United States is now committed to supply $1.3 billion in military training and equipment, as well as social development aid, to Colombia over the next two years.
That money is supposed to be combined with $4 billion in Colombian government funds and $2.2 billion from other governments and international lenders, in the $7.5
billion Plan Colombia program that Bogota and Washington have said will cut Colombia's cocaine production by half.

But the GAO report, distributed at a House Government Reform subcommittee hearing, said that "Plan Colombia cannot succeed as envisioned" unless the problems
plaguing past U.S. aid efforts, along with a host of new challenges, are fixed.

Citing both past and current difficulties, Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Subcommittee Chairman John L. Mica (R-Fla.) said he is "deeply concerned about
committing hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to a program that has not worked well in the past."

To some extent, criticism of the program reflected an ongoing political battle between the administration and a group of Republican lawmakers who have long
disagreed with the pace and direction of the administration's anti-drug program in Colombia.

But the report also heightened concerns over the massive aid program among its supporters in the administration and Congress.

The ambitious Plan Colombia program includes a total restructuring of the Colombian armed forces. The United States is also training and equipping a 3,000-soldier
anti-narcotics brigade, which is to be transported by U.S.-supplied helicopters into the heart of Colombia's southern coca-growing region to take back the territory
from the guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary forces that control it. At the same time, the Colombian National Police are to be supplied with additional equipment to
eradicate drug crops and destroy processing labs in the area.

Concurrent with these activities, other U.S. and Colombian-funded programs are intended to assist coca-growing peasant farmers to switch to other cash crops, and
build roads and other infrastructure to help them develop new markets and improve their standard of living. Additional funding is supposed to aid as many as 1 million
Colombians displaced by guerrilla warfare, help restructure and improve the Colombian judicial system, assist ongoing peace negotiations with the rebels and
strengthen human rights organizations.

"The total cost and activities required to meet the plan's goals remain unknown," said the report, "and it will likely take years before drug activities are significantly
reduced." Many of the programs will not be in place until late 2001 or beyond, it said, and "additional funds . . . needed to ensure that equipment provided remains
operable . . . to train pilots and mechanics, provide logistical support, and support the operations of certain U.S.-provided helicopters" have not been budgeted.

Moreover, the GAO said, "Colombia has not completed its plans and installed an organizational structure to implement Plan Colombia. In addition, although
Colombia has pledged $4 billion to support the plan and Colombia is trying to obtain more than $2 billion from other international donors, the source of most of this
funding has not been identified."

Administration officials maintain that they have warned over and over again that organizing and carrying out such a wide-ranging program will be both difficult and
time-consuming. But they insisted in testimony yesterday that they are making progress.

Responding to criticism that the first of the promised new helicopters will not arrive in Colombia for another two years, and that the aircraft were insufficiently
armored and armed to resist rebel attacks, Assistant Secretary of State Randy Beers announced that "a new timetable" established with Sikorsky would allow all of
the Black Hawks to arrive by the end of next year.

In addition, Beers said, Washington and Bogota have agreed that "for the mission and threat level, the Colombian army would be better served" by 13 fully armed
helicopters rather than "16 lesser-equipped aircraft."

A separate delivery of Bell Huey II helicopters, he said, will begin next summer and should be completed within two years. The delay between the orders and
delivery, he said, "will allow pilots and others for those aircraft to be trained at a sustainable rate."

Beers also said that a U.S. planning team "returned from Colombia in September after nearly two months of daily consultations with their Colombian counterparts"
with a comprehensive plan to integrate all elements of the assistance package.

Meanwhile, a high-level task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Inter-American Dialogue yesterday released a report calling for greater
U.S. efforts in finding a diplomatic solution to the Colombian conflict, supporting institutional reform, providing U.S. trade advantages for Colombian products,
mobilizing greater international involvement, and curbing U.S. drug demand. The task force was chaired by Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Brent Scowcroft, White
House national security adviser in the Bush administration.

                                                   © 2000 The Washington Post