WASHINGTON — The Bush administration and congressional allies are gearing up to renew a plan for drug eradication in Latin America despite some grim news: The $5.4 billion spent on the plan since 2000 has made no dent in the availability of cocaine on American streets and prices are at all-time lows.
United Nations figures released this month show that coca cultivation in the Andean region increased by 2% in 2004 as declines in Colombia were swamped by massive increases in Peru and Bolivia. And the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said last week that the anti-drug effort had had "no effect" on the price or purity of drugs in the United States.
The findings have fueled skepticism in Congress, where conservative groups have joined efforts to lobby against continued funding. The National Taxpayers Union called the anti-drug program a "boondoggle."
Nonetheless, a House committee last week approved the administration's request for $734.5 million for next year as part of a foreign aid bill. Debate on the bill could start as early as today. President Bush also may unveil a renewed multiyear commitment to South American anti-drug efforts this year when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a staunch U.S. ally, is expected to visit.
"We are heading in the right direction and we are winning," the federal drug czar, John P. Walters, told Congress last month.
"Plan Colombia" -- a six-year effort by Washington and Bogota to eliminate drug trafficking, end more than 40 years of armed conflict with rebels and promote economic and legal reform in Colombia -- expires this year. The Bush administration wants to continue it, a senior State Department official said.
"You adjust your tactics and you adjust your resources," the official said. "There's no inclination on the part of our administration to give up just because it's tough."
Negotiations with Bogota over details of a successor program to Plan Colombia will begin next month, the official said.
Administration and some congressional officials say Plan Colombia has had some striking success. Killings, massacres of villagers and other attacks blamed on drug trafficking all have fallen sharply since 2002, and kidnappings have fallen by half, according to Colombian Defense Ministry figures, even though this year has seen a resurgence of violence.
Drug crop eradication and drug interdictions are cutting into the profits of Colombia's right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels, Walters told Congress last month.
