Colombian leader to ask U.S. for military aid

BOGOTA, Colombia -- President Andres Pastrana says Washington should widen its involvement in Colombia's war to assure a continued flow of oil from this South American country.

Colombia is the 10th-biggest supplier of oil to the United States. But attacks by leftist guerrillas have squeezed Colombia's output to 600,000 barrels per day.

Pastrana said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that his government will ask Washington to have U.S. soldiers train Colombian troops to protect oil pipelines, bridges and other infrastructure from rebel attacks. Currently, U.S. aid is restricted mainly to supporting Colombian anti-narcotics troops.

"Today, the world is ready to unite against those who are attacking the interests of nations -- and in this case the interest is energy," Pastrana said.

A vice president for Occidental Petroleum, the biggest U.S. oil company in Colombia with a 35 percent stake in the country's second-largest oil field, applauded Pastrana's proposal.

"It's very encouraging they're looking hard at that," Lawrence Meriage said in a telephone interview from Occidental's Los Angeles headquarters.

Meriage said rebel bombings of the Cano-Limon pipeline serving the Occidental field -- which has a capacity of pumping some 115,000 barrels per day -- shut down operations 56 percent of the time last year.

In all, rebel sabotage of U.S. and Colombian oil operations prevented the production of more than 24 million barrels of crude last year, according to state oil company Ecopetrol. The raids also scare away foreign investors seeking to exploit Colombia's untapped reserves.

There was no immediate comment from Washington on Pastrana's proposal. Any broadening of the U.S. aid effort could run into opposition in Congress, where concerns run high about getting too deeply involved in Colombia.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said recently that foreign investment in Colombia can only flourish if there is an end to the 38-year-old war.

With only seven months left in office, Pastrana said in the interview -- held in a sitting room in the presidential palace -- that he wants to be remembered as the man who set Colombia on an "irreversible" path to peace.