No closer ally in South America

President George W. Bush visited Colombia on Sunday to show support to his closest ally in South America as it fights a decades-old insurgency and drug war supported in part by billions of dollars in U.S. aid.
Bush was the first U.S. president to visit Bogota in 25 years and meets Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at the midpoint of a weeklong, five-nation Latin America tour shadowed by his leftist nemesis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

But security concerns meant Bush was to be in the Colombian capital for only about seven hours, and a growing Colombian political scandal could complicate their meetings.
Worried about Chavez's growing anti-U.S. influence, Bush is seeking to improve relations with leaders of the right and moderate left in Latin America, where the Iraq war and U.S. trade and immigration policy have made him deeply unpopular.
Although Bush has been to Colombia before, he will be the first president to visit the capital since Ronald Reagan in 1982, a decision meant to highlight security improvements under Uribe, the most U.S.-friendly leader in the region.
But the White House was not confident enough to let Bush stay there overnight. The national police chief has said leftist rebels plan attacks during his trip, and a massive security effort has been mounted to keep him safe.
He will spend most of his stopover cloistered in Bogota's Narino Palace, one of Colombia's most heavily guarded sites.
The George W. Bush administration has no closer ally in South America than Colombia, the recipient of more than $4 billion in American aid this decade to combat drug trafficking and guerrilla insurgencies. But a widening scandal tying paramilitary death squads and drug traffickers to close supporters of President Álvaro Uribe clouded Bush's brief visit here on Sunday.
Since the scandal worsened in recent weeks, Democrats in Congress have increased their scrutiny of two important measures before them: a broad trade agreement with Colombia that has already been signed by Bush and Uribe, and a request from the administration for a new $3.9 billion aid package for the country.
Claims of human rights abuses by political allies of Uribe, including the use of information from the executive branch's intelligence service to assassinate union organizers and university professors, have already resulted in the arrest of Jorge Noguera, a former chief of the Colombian secret police who was awarded that job after working on the president's campaign.