McCaffrey wants to be king of columbia. One hopes he's taken out by something less abstract than smurfs. Wednesday February 9 2:54 PM ET U.S. Says Colombia Rebels Awash in Drug Money By Michael Christie MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey said on Wednesday that $500 million a year in drug money is going to rebels in Colombia and fueling ``unbelievable'' violence and ``enormous'' suffering. McCaffrey, a retired general who heads the White House anti-drug effort, was in Mexico where he defended the Clinton administration budget request to Congress for $1.3 billion in military assistance to help fund a two-year campaign against the drug trade and its allies in southern Colombia. The bulk of the funds, which Congress is expected to approve, will go to buy helicopters for mobile battalions trained to take on the leftist guerrillas if they block Colombian police action to destroy drug crops and labs. The new money would add to $150 million a year in U.S. anti-drug assistance, and would complement a $7.5 billion plan proposed by Colombian President Andres Pastrana to eradicate drug production, promote alternative crops, negotiate peace and pull Colombia out of a deep recession. McCaffrey said other countries in the region had an obligation to help the Colombian government. ``Colombia is in trouble,'' he said. ``The violence is unbelievable, they've lost control of 40 percent of their land area. The suffering is enormous. The economy is terrible.'' Eighty percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States and most of the heroin comes from Colombia. U.S. law enforcement officials say drug production has soared in the south where the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has fought the government for almost four decades and now controls vast areas. McCaffrey said the guerrilla's drug wealth was evident in their equipment -- brand new uniforms, new machine guns, helicopters, aircraft and high-tech wire-tapping systems. But he expressed support for the Colombian government in its two-front battle against insurgents and drug traffickers. ''Fortunately what isn't lacking in Colombia is political will, what isn't lacking in Colombia is courage,'' he said after delivering a speech in Mexico City. McCaffrey said the guerrillas could not win at the ballot box. But their fight to overthrow the government was being aided by ``a huge amount of money'' from drugs. ``If it was just kidnapping, just bank robberies, just extortion, just blowing up the oil pipelines, that would be one level of problem. Add in let's say $500 million a year ... that's the suffering that's going on in Colombia. They're really in a very perilous situation and we ought to stand with them.'' Some Democrats in Congress worry that deepening U.S. military involvement in Colombia is a foreign policy mistake, and that additional aid for military solutions will only worsen the rebel conflict in which 35,000 people have died in the past 10 years.
