Bush vows he’ll assist Colombia

CARTAGENA, Colombia – Insisting Colombia and the United States together can overcome the drug trade and narco-terrorism, President Bush came to this Caribbean port city Monday to pledge more money for a drug war here that has cost Americans more than $3 billion.

“Our two nations share in the struggle against drugs,” said Bush, standing alongside Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at the Colombian naval academy. “President Uribe and I also share a basic optimism. This war against narco-terrorism can and will be won.”

Bush made a four-hour stop in Cartagena on his way home from a three-day summit of Pacific Rim nations in Chile. Bush and Uribe met over lunch at the academy, within miles of the old walled city of this Spanish colonial-era outpost.

The cocaine traffic out of Colombia, the world’s biggest supplier of the drug, not only has fueled addiction and crime in the United States, but it also has helped finance violent rebels who control regions of Colombia in an ongoing four-decade-old insurgency.

“The drugs that finance terrorism have sacrificed generations of Colombians,” Uribe said. “We cannot stop this task halfway through. We will win, but we have not won yet.”

Bush’s stop here on the way to his Texas ranch for Thanksgiving was intended as a show of unity with Uribe, leader of a nation that has drawn nearly $700 million this year from the United States for its war against drugs. Since 2000, with the start of Plan Colombia, a concerted campaign against drug production here, the United States has provided more than $3 billion.

While the two nations combat the drug trade, legitimate trade between Colombia and the United States has increased, with U.S. exports to Colombia growing by 15 percent this year, according to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.