Knotting Policy with Purse Strings

An aid request for El Salvador makes Congress touchy and testy

What does $110 million represent in an $800 billion federal budget? Not much. Yet the Reagan Administration faces a stiff battle as it tries to get Congress to approve that amount of money in increased military aid to El Salvador. The confrontation is not over the relatively insignificant sum; it is over the policy the money sustains. The stakes involved in the outcome are far higher than the dollars would suggest.

The debate revolves around means, not ends. President Reagan favors negotiations between the Salvadoran government and the leftist guerrillas to get the rebels to participate in elections. Congressional critics have the same goal, but they want to go further than the Administration in spelling out conditions that the Salvadoran government would have to meet in order to get the aid. For example, they say, the government must offer amnesty to guerrillas who join in the voting and guarantee their safety. An unconditional increase in U.S. aid, the critics argue, would prolong the fighting and possibly trap the U.S. in a Viet Nam-style quagmire.

There are substantial dangers, however, in the efforts by the aid critics to use the threat of withholding funds as a lever to pry policy concessions from the Administration. Virtually no one expects the Salvadoran government forces to collapse if the money is withheld. In fact, some U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the government troops could fight on indefinitely without any fresh U.S. aid. The military equipment they need in this "low-tech" war can be secured on the open arms market.

The big risk in withholding U.S. funds is a political one, which, indirectly, could cause the situation in El Salvador to deteriorate into chaos. The U.S. would be perceived as having abandoned the government, making the guerrillas seem to be a far more formidable force than they really are. Feeling betrayed, the government might cancel any further attempts at land reform and remove any restrictions on its trigger-happy troops, leading to even greater violations of human rights. In that bloody atmosphere, sympathy for the guerrillas might grow, and hopes for the very dialogue that opponents of the funding want to promote would be doomed. If Congress rejects the aid request, contends a State Department official, any attempt by the Salvadoran government to open negotiations with the guerrillas would be tantamount to saying, "We're about to surrender."

There is general agreement that the Salvadoran army, while not in imminent danger of being routed, has been performing poorly, and is not improving. One purpose of the extra U.S. funds would be to provide better training for the government forces. Not at all incidentally, the mere announcement of added aid might strengthen their willingness to fight. Indeed, if there is an element of crisis in the aid request, it is that the Salvadoran army could be totally demoralized if Congress withholds the extra funds.

If the aid is finally approved, U.S. advisers in El Salvador have plenty of ideas about how to put it to use. They want to send 1,000 already selected Salvadoran soldiers to training bases in Florida, Arizona and Texas, all of which have climates similar to El Salvador's. They would like to equip 14 light battalions, each consisting of 350 men, to respond quickly to emergency situations created by the rebels. They also hope to be able to work more closely with departmental commanders in the Salvadoran army to develop more effective tactics and strategy.

Sums up a senior U.S. diplomat: "There is no guarantee that El Salvador's democracy will succeed with our help. But there is a guarantee that it will never succeed without it." - This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.