Myers visit stresses aid; Rumsfeld to follow

BOGOTA, Colombia — The Bush administration is signaling support for Colombia’s war on drugs and terrorism with a series of top-level visits, including a two-day stop by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that ended yesterday.

Other officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, are expected in days ahead, sojourns that coincide with the third anniversary of the U.S.-backed drug and antiterrorism program dubbed “Plan Colombia.”

Gen. Myers met with President Alvaro Uribe, who is credited with cracking down on leftist rebels during his first year in office, Minister of Defense Marta Lucia Ramirez and the top brass in the Colombian military.

In a press conference prior to his departure, Gen. Myers said the United States would continue to be an integral part of the Colombian struggle against the terrorist groups, funded largely by drug money, that have ravaged this nation for nearly four decades.

“Clearly, we’ve been full partners with the Colombian government going back a long way … to their support in the war on terrorism and our continuing support down here to help Colombia rid this country of narco-terrorists, drugs and terrorism,” Gen. Myers said.

“We’re committed to that. This is important not just for Colombia, but it’s important for the region and the Western Hemisphere. So success here is very important for the U.S., and we’ll be a full partner,” he said.

Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid behind Israel and Egypt. But until last year, that support was restricted to helping Colombia battle illegal drugs, not its insurgencies.

Yet the two are intertwined in this country, and the U.S. Congress recently lifted the constraint.

Right now, U.S. Green Berets are helping train Colombian troops in how to prevent guerrillas from blowing up an important oil pipeline.

“We’ll be very involved in training Colombian military,” Gen. Myers said. “We may train in more specialties, as we look at this maybe just slightly differently than we did at the first of the year.”

Next week, Mr. Rumsfeld will make his first trip to Colombia as defense secretary. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez will follow him.

Gen. Myers’ visit came on the heels of a trip to Bogota by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who left promising to explore negotiations on a bilateral free-trade agreement between the United States and Colombia.

U.S. drug policy chief John Walters also dropped in late last month, along with Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman and Gen. James Hill, head of the U.S. Southern Command.

One U.S. official characterized the series of visits as a “good example of how much support the Bush administration is showing for Uribe.”

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