By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service

SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia -- Returning to a base abandoned three years earlier to guerrilla forces, soldiers of the Colombian army's Hunters
Battalion took a few moments to make it their own again. About 50 men, dressed in camouflage battle fatigues despite breathtaking heat, carefully trimmed the lawn
with hedge clippers and painted the stones along pathways a gleaming white.

The housekeeping duties may have seemed an odd priority only hours after the army swept into San Vicente del Caguan, a rebel haven during now-abandoned
peace negotiations. But the business-as-usual attitude was a fair representation of Colombia's national mood at the outset of what officials say could be the decisive
phase of the 38-year-old civil war.

Many Colombians have yet to register that, while the end of peace talks was painless, the broader war ahead is likely to demand sharp sacrifices, according to
political analysts, government officials and military officers. They agree that the conflict will deepen for years to come before peace talks are likely to resume.

"I have no worries about the military forces of Colombia being defeated militarily by terrorist groups," Gen. Fernando Tapias, head of Colombia's armed forces, said
in an interview. "My concern is that the Colombian society and state do not have enough strength and preparation to face terrorism. This war is going to take a long
time, and in a war on terrorism no one can be a spectator."

By ending negotiations last month with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, President Andres Pastrana launched a military campaign that is
popular so far, particularly among the urban well-to-do who have been least affected by the conflict, but that is likely to last longer and cost more than many
Colombians expect.

The government's foes have grown more powerful during the three years of peace talks. There are three irregular armies here: the FARC; a smaller Marxist-oriented
rebel group, the National Liberation Army; and the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a right-wing paramilitary group that opposes the guerrillas,
often in concert with the army. In all, roughly 35,000 guerrilla and militia troops are at war with the state or with each other, twice as many as when peace talks
began.

The Colombian army's 70,000 troops face nearly impossible odds against the FARC's 18,000 seasoned guerrillas. The group, which emerged in 1964 as a
rural-based Marxist insurgency, buys its arms with profits derived from taxing drug production and from kidnapping and extortion. Senior guerrilla commanders have
talked about "thousands of dead" as the war intensifies.

U.S. officials agree with military analysts here who say the army must double in size just to begin slowing the FARC's growth, let alone roll back its presence in every
Colombian province and major city. Where those resources would come from is unclear. The Bush administration has decided against taking a larger step into the
conflict, as Pastrana has sought, by allowing U.S. military aid earmarked for anti-drug operations to be used in the fight against insurgents.

A new intelligence-sharing arrangement is taking shape, however. Foreign intelligence sources say the United States is now helping to identify potential urban terrorist
targets and to prevent kidnappings. But analysts question how much good that will do.

"Intelligence is only as good as your ability to act on it," said Luis Guillermo Velez, a former senior Defense Ministry official. "What the Americans will do is not the
key to success here. There are many other things that need to be done first. It's going to cost a lot of money and it's going to cost a lot of lives. And people are going
to be demanding results very fast."

Tapias, who complained he "would need four armies of this size to do the work I need to," said his objective in the former rebel haven is to "restore the area to
normalcy." He defined that as bringing security forces into all its major towns, controlling roads and uprooting about 50,000 acres of coca that helped finance the
FARC.

But the work has gone slowly since the army moved into the former rebel safe haven on Feb. 21. The army has been unable to keep a major road from this town to
the provincial capital of Florencia free of guerrilla roadblocks. The general responsible for the region was fired last week for failing to do so.

The FARC, meanwhile, has cut power and phone service to more than 60 urban centers around the country, including at least two provincial capitals. FARC
guerrillas have closed roads, burned trucks and killed villagers inside the former haven for allegedly aiding the growing AUC paramilitary force, now numbering
15,000 members.

Military officials estimate that the army's mission in the former haven could last six months and involve 13,000 troops. That is about 20 percent of the army's total
troop deployment at a time when the FARC has dispersed thousands of fighters to other regions.

"What is the most important aspect of this operation is what could happen to the protection of the rest of the country, its infrastructure and all the Colombians," said
German Vargas, an opposition senator. "Up to now, the army has left some holes and has failed to prevent terrorist acts all over the country."

When it comes to the war, Tapias said, Colombia "knows what must be done but doesn't want to really understand it." Pastrana waited a week to invoke special war
powers because, political analysts said, he felt pressure from business leaders not to frighten off investors. He finally declared martial law Thursday in parts of six
provinces, but he has not called up reserves, as his senior commanders have requested.

Some military analysts believe Pastrana must double military spending to effectively challenge the FARC. Colombia has received $1.3 billion as part of a U.S.
anti-narcotics aid package that includes $650 million for military equipment. The military component, which includes some 80 transport helicopters, was four times
the amount of Colombia's annual budget for military equipment.

Tapias has increased the proportion of professional, rather than conscripted, soldiers in ranks of combat troops and has created elite mobile units styled after the
U.S. Army Rangers. With its own fleet of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, the Colombian military has become swift enough to react to large guerrilla troop
movements.

President Bush has included a $98 million request in his fiscal 2003 budget to train a new battalion to protect Colombia's 480-mile Cano Limon oil pipeline.

The scarcity of resources already has affected operations in the former rebel haven. An aerial bombing campaign to begin the offensive struck 85 guerrilla targets in
more than 200 sorties. But the effort used a large part of the air force's $85 million operational budget and its supply of 500-pound bombs.

                                               © 2002