The antidrug budget proposed by President Bush includes a rare proposal to trim funding for an overseas drug-interdiction program, the Washington Times reported Feb. 17.

The Bush budget calls for spending $442.8 million on the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, 23 percent less than last year and down 40 percent from two years ago. The program provides funding to local programs aimed at reducing illicit-drug trafficking, but has been criticized by some leaders in the region, U.S. counterdrug officials, and Congressional lawmakers.

"It would be the largest across-the-board reduction in aid since the war on drugs began," said one U.S. diplomatic official of the budget proposal.
    
Programs in Peru and Bolivia would be most affected by the cuts, but Hugo Acha, a Bolivian drug-policy consultant, said, "There is no point in the U.S. giving aid if the objectives are not being met. The war on drugs appears to have become a mere formality."

Peruvian Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo countered, "Peru should receive more aid rather than having it cut, in view of the magnitude of the problem we face, which is equal to Colombia." Peruvian government officials plan to travel to Washington to argue against the cuts.

Romulo Pizarro, Peru's top counternarcotics official, said the Bush administration apparently wants to shift the money to the war in Iraq. But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the funds were being shifted to more effective programs. "It's not just an across-the-board, mindless cut on Latin America," she said. "There are some places, for instance, Bolivia, where our opportunities are somewhat more limited than they've been because of the nature of the government there." Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is former head of the nation's coca grower's union.