Latin Plan Splits State Dept., Pentagon : Contadora Treaty Could Lead to U.S. Troop Role, Report Warns

The State Department and the Pentagon battled Tuesday over a proposed peace treaty for Central America, with the Defense Department warning that a pact promoted by special envoy Philip C. Habib would harm U.S. interests.

The Pentagon, in an unusual policy report, said that the Contadora draft treaty to end the U.S.-backed rebels’ guerrilla war in Nicaragua eventually could require the commitment of 100,000 American troops to the region at a cost of as much as $9.1 billion a year.

A senior State Department official responded by calling the document “the worst report they’ve produced over there in a very long time.”

And the leader of the Republican minority in the House, Rep. Robert H. Michel of Illinois, said that the Administration’s internal bickering over the issue has made him pessimistic over the chances of winning congressional approval of President Reagan’s longstanding request for $100 million in aid for the contras , as the rebels are called.

“We haven’t exactly been speaking with one voice,” Michel said.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes disagreed. He warned reporters against “drawing the conclusion that there is a disagreement in the Administration. That’s absolutely not true.”

At issue is a draft peace treaty between leftist-ruled Nicaragua and its Central American neighbors. The draft is the work of the so-called Contadora Group of nations--Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela--which first met in January, 1983, on the Panamanian resort island of Contadora to work for peace in Central America.

The treaty would require Nicaragua to cut its ties to the Soviet Union and move toward internal democracy in exchange for an end to the contras’ war.

Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz have declared their support for the Contadora proposal and have sent veteran negotiator Habib to Central America to work for a treaty that would meet U.S. concerns.

But the Pentagon report, produced at the direction of a leading Administration hard-liner, Fred C. Ikle, undersecretary of defense for policy, argues that the Sandinistas surely would violate any pact--making massive U.S. military involvement necessary to halt the spread of leftist insurgency in the region.

The result was a suddenly public spat that revealed a long-dormant dispute within the Reagan Administration over its basic goals in Central America: Can the United States live with a leftist Nicaragua constrained by treaties and agreements, or must the Sandinista regime be crushed?

At the State Department, a senior official speaking on condition of anonymity said: “I don’t know what those guys are smoking in the Pentagon. They don’t seem to understand the Administration’s policy.”

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said that the report, written as an internal study and “released without authority,” has “no standing as a United States government document.”

But a Pentagon official declared that “it is a Defense Department document.” The title, “Prospect for Containment of Nicaragua’s Communist Government,” appears under the Defense Department seal on the cover.

‘Nobody’s . . . Enthused’

The Pentagon official sought to play down any split within the government over the issue, remarking: “Nobody’s all that enthused about Contadora.”

State Department officials said the Administration will support a peace treaty with Nicaragua as long as it forces the Sandinistas to move toward democracy. To do that, they said, the pact would have to be completely “verifiable” and protect the contras until the rebels themselves are ready to end their war--conditions that the Sandinistas are almost certain to reject.

But conservative Republicans in Congress have charged that any treaty with the Sandinistas would be “an illusory peace.” They have attacked Habib specifically for his enthusiastic promotion of the idea. Ikle’s report lent support to the conservatives’ complaint from the highest levels within the Administration.

Adding to the continuing controversy, a group of 101 congressmen signed a letter to Reagan urging him to back the Contadora proposal, which they said meets U.S. and regional security concerns. The letter was made public Tuesday.

Less Than Meets the Eye

Both State Department and Pentagon officials said there is less substantive difference between their positions than meets the eye. But, while the State Department apparently has been working to help produce a treaty that the Sandinistas will reject, the Pentagon has been fretting over what might happen if the Sandinistas sign.

The Pentagon report, which runs fewer than 12 full pages, assumes that the Sandinistas would violate an agreement and “maintain or increase their military strength and . . . gradually increase the promotion and support to Communist insurgencies throughout Central America.”

As a result, it said, within two to three years the United States and its regional allies would not feel bound to abide by the pact.

‘Massive Restructuring’

Once it was clear that the agreement had failed, the document states, efforts to contain Nicaragua would require permission from Honduras and Costa Rica, Nicaragua’s neighbors, to undertake “a massive restructuring of their armed forces” and to permit the United States or its allies to station “very sizable numbers” of troops on their soil.

The $9.1-billion annual cost probably would increase, the report states, when the “full magnitude of the mission is better understood.” And ammunition, training, communications and equipment in friendly Central American nations could cost $1.5 billion, it says.

In addition to the 100,000 Army troops, according to the report, the U.S. military involvement could include several aircraft carrier battle groups, which each comprise at least half a dozen destroyers, cruisers and frigates and several squadrons of aircraft.

As evidence supporting its assumption that the Nicaraguan government would violate the agreement, the report cited the experience of agreements to end conflict in Korea and Indochina, which it said were violated by Communist nations.

Times staff writer Sara Fritz contributed to this article.