The U.S. military is investigating what has gone wrong with its operations in Colombia, where troops have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling drugs and selling arms to far-right militias, a senior U.S. officer said on Wednesday.
Gen. Bantz Craddock, commander of the U.S. military's Southern Command, said he was concerned by the recent incidents.
"I have talked to the commander of the units involved. We are initiating a complete review of our procedures, our processes and our security standards," Craddock told Reuters while visiting Colombian troops on a high mountain plain above Bogota -- recently a strategic transit route for Marxist rebels -- as a Black Hawk helicopter whirred overhead.
Colombian police arrested two American soldiers last week on suspicion of planning to sell stolen ammunition to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, an outlawed far-right militia group classified as "terrorist" by the United States.
Just over a month earlier, another five troops were detained in the United States for allegedly trying to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine on a U.S. military aircraft leaving Colombia.
The arrests damaged the image of the large U.S. anti-drug operation here and led to calls by some Colombian officials and lawmakers for revision of a treaty granting immunity from prosecution to American personnel.
A Colombian Senate committee on Tuesday invited U.S. Ambassador William Wood to appear before it and explain how U.S. authorities were conducting the investigations.
Luis Jaime Acosta - Reuters
The United States on Friday said Colombian prosecutors could question two U.S. soldiers accused of selling arms to far-right death squads.
The U.S. concession came amid growing anger in Colombia over Washington's refusal to allow the suspects to be tried in Colombia. But U.S. Ambassador William Wood said the soldiers will be severely punished if found guilty by a U.S. military court. - Kim Housego/AP
The rare act underscores the seething anger many Colombians feel over the arrests of five U.S. soldiers for allegedly smuggling cocaine on U.S. military aircraft from Colombia and the arrests last week of two Green Berets accused of selling thousands of rounds of ammunition to right-wing death squads.
All the soldiers have diplomatic immunity and were flown to the United States. - ABC International/AP
