In Colombia, the large cartels that once dominated the trade have been largely dismantled. Colombia has resumed extraditing criminals to the United States. Countries that a decade ago appeared to lack the political will to combat drugs are now our partners in this effort. That's the good news. The bad news is that the scope of the problem is still much the same.
Cocaine continues to flow out of the region at extremely high levels.
Moreover, the face of the battle in Colombia has changed. In sum, we face a different set of challenges in the region today than we did a decade ago. I hope Congress will act promptly on the President's request for an extra one billion dollars in Fiscal 2000. The proposal to train and equip counter-narcotics battalions in the Colombian Army is not without risk. Because the drug trade and Colombia's civil war are intertwined in southern Colombia, it seems almost inevitable that these battalions will occasionally become engaged in counter-insurgency operations.