U.S. Backs Away From Drug Patrol : Colombia: Plan to send warships prompted furor in Bogota. Security adviser Scowcroft cites ‘inaccurate leaks.’

As furor mounted in Colombia on Monday over the prospect of increased U.S. naval activity in the Caribbean, the Bush Administration backed away from a plan to send two warships to intercept drug traffic off the Colombian coast.

U.S. officials denied that the Bush Administration was planning a naval and air blockade of Colombia, as some Colombians charged.

“We are not considering a blockade, only the interdiction of drug traffickers,” State Department spokesman Margaret Tutwiler said.

Tutwiler said the Administration is conducting “low-level” discussions with Colombia about stemming the flow of drugs from that country to the United States. But she insisted that the Administration had never decided to station warships off the Colombian coast as part of that effort.

“Anything that is done, if anything is done, will be done in full consultation and coordination with any other government,” she said.

However, Administration sources, speaking not for attribution, said Saturday that the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy and the nuclear-powered cruiser Virginia had left Norfolk, Va., on Thursday and would shortly be in international waters off Colombia. They said the Navy intended to send additional ships to patrol the Caribbean coast of South America.

Defense Department sources said Monday that the Kennedy and the Virginia are instead conducting “routine operations” off the coast of Florida. They pointed out that the ships could be sent quickly to the Caribbean from there.

“The whole purpose of deploying the ships is that it gives you flexibility,” one source said.

Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security adviser, acknowledged Sunday that reports of the ships movements had interfered with the Administration’s plans.

“There have been some difficulties resulting in some premature and, I think, probably inaccurate leaks about what we have in mind,” Scowcroft said on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.”

Tutwiler, speaking with reporters at the State Department on Monday, said: “I’m not aware that this is a major problem inside of Colombia.”

But Colombia’s newspapers were full of accounts of the U.S. Navy’s plans, and of their reverberations in Colombia. The issue appeared to be particularly sensitive on the heels of last month’s U.S. invasion of Panama, which drew public protests from throughout Latin America that the United States had reverted to “gunboat diplomacy” in the region.

A radio station in Bogota, Colombia’s capital, reported that Foreign Minister Julio Londono Paredes was resigning because he did not have full government backing when he harshly criticized Washington’s move to send the warships to positions near Colombia.

Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas was reported in the local press to favor increased U.S. naval activity in the Caribbean against drug trafficking. The Bogota radio station said Londono would meet with Barco soon to discuss his resignation.

Londono declared Sunday that the Barco government rejects any attempt by the U.S. Navy to search Colombian ships. “The Colombian government does not accept, nor will it ever accept, any type of interference with ships carrying the Colombian flag on the high seas,” he told reporters.

Barco himself, by contrast, said nothing on the issue, and a U.S. Embassy official in Bogota said Monday that Barco has not objected to increased Caribbean patrols by U.S. warships.

La Prensa, a major Bogota newspaper, said the falling out between Barco and Londono began with the U.S. invasion of Panama, which the paper said Barco favored but his foreign minister opposed.

President Bush acknowledged last week that the Panama invasion has aggravated U.S. relations with some Latin American countries, and he announced plans to dispatch Vice President Dan Quayle on a fence-mending mission to the region.

But Tutwiler, asked if the invasion had caused problems for the United States in Colombia, said: “Not that I’m aware of.”