[The Reaper]

By the end of that year, the ELN had had enough, said a source with close ties to a former Arauca governor and to the guerrillas.

The two rebel groups reached an accord. The pipeline attacks would continue, but not at levels high enough to hamper mutual extortion profits.

Oxy's statistics show that by January 2002, the number of attacks was dropping dramatically.

A New Direction

A few months later, Colombia and the U.S. began their effort to reassert control over Arauca.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota, after consultations with the Colombian government, began sending memos to the State Department urging that the United States fund a pipeline protection brigade, State Department officials said. The State Department responded by pushing the proposal on the Hill.

The United States had never been directly involved in pipeline protection in Colombia. But the authority to do so came in summer 2002, when Congress passed a counter-terrorism measure that lifted the old restrictions on aid to anti-drug operations.

Oxy downplays its role in the push for pipeline protection.

Meriage, the company spokesman, said Occidental never explicitly asked for it, just provided information as requested by the U.S. Embassy. Oxy provided lawmakers with documents that highlighted threats to the company's operations and the consequences of disruptions for the United States and
Colombia, he said.

The company hired lobbyists to advocate on one issue, Meriage said: to beat back an unsuccessful attempt by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who has long been critical of the U.S. government's role in Colombia, to require the company to reimburse the government for the costs of training.

One senior Democratic Senate staffer who was involved in the debate over the pipeline rejected the idea that Oxy was not lobbying for pipeline protection. "Why else were they here?" the staffer asked. "The whole point was that they wanted protection from the daily attacks against the pipeline."

Over the next six months, Congress approved funding totaling $99 million for U.S. Special Forces to train Colombian troops to protect the pipeline. The money also paid for eight new Huey and two Black Hawk helicopters, as well as night vision goggles and other equipment.

In September 2002, newly elected Colombian President Alvaro Uribe issued an emergency decree suspending some constitutional guarantees in the three Arauca counties through which the pipeline passes. The military could detain for up to 24 hours anyone not carrying identification.

The decree was later overturned by the nation's Supreme Court, but it still was part of a massive effort to regain control of the region: The police force tripled from 400 to 1,200. A special prosecutor's task force was sent from Bogota to arrest those responsible for bombing the pipeline. The army saturated the area around the pipeline.

By November 2002, Special Forces soldiers from Ft. Bragg, N.C., had arrived to set up an outpost at the headquarters of the Colombian military's 18th Brigade in the provincial capital, also called Arauca, to train Colombian soldiers to better protect the pipeline.

The fort within a fort looks like a big garage, a spare cinder-block
building surrounded by sand bags and a 30-foot-high chain-link fence to stop incoming mortar shells. U.S. soldiers sit listlessly inside the sweltering base, lifting weights or reading paperbacks, unable to leave because of danger in the surrounding community.

There have been no attacks against the troops, but rebels have
handed out fliers offering a $33,000 reward for each captured U.S. soldier.

"Is it dangerous? Absolutely," the company commander said. "The threat is always out there."

In June 2003, the first U.S.-trained battalion, Counter-Guerrilla Battalion 30, completed training. Mobile Battalion 5 is now in the process.

Army Gen. James T. Hill, head of the Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees U.S. military activities in Latin America, in testimony to Congress in October praised the end of the restrictions on military aid other than for counter-narcotics activities. He said the ability to directly help the Colombian military was "the single most important factor for us to continue
building success in Colombia."

"While this is primarily Colombia's fight to win, we have the opportunity to tip the balance by augmenting their efforts decisively with our unwavering support," Hill said.

Even as he spoke, that support was on display in Arauca.

Operation Red Moon

In September, the Colombian army's Battalion 30 got the chance to put its U.S. training to use in Operation Red Moon.

Working with U.S. military advice and after consulting with Occidental, the Colombian army decided to take the offensive in Arauca. Rather than simply post soldiers along the 60 miles of pipeline running through the province, the military planned to keep the guerrillas on the move and unable to plant bombs.

The area chosen was around Panama de Arauca, a village about 20 miles south of the pipeline in the center of Arauca's fertile prairie. Officially, there were two reasons: It was a FARC stronghold. And it was a center of cocaine growing and production.

As the Colombian military pushed guerrillas southward away from the pipeline, State Department fumigation planes began spraying coca crops.

Although the planes regularly fly missions in coca-heavy regions in the south and north of Colombia, it was the first time they had hit Arauca. They wiped out 30,000 acres of coca. Poor farmers who were growing it streamed into area towns and cities.

"We are not against the destruction of the crops, but they support many families," said Pedro Quintero, director of a nonprofit organization that helps refugees.

Although Colombian army officials denied it, Occidental executives said there was a third reason that Panama de Arauca was chosen: Occidental suspected that there was as much as 20 million barrels of oil waiting beneath the surface in a new field they called Harvest.

Finding new oil fields has taken on major importance for Colombia, which relies on petroleum for as much as a third of its foreign exchange. With several fields nearing exhaustion, the country could become a net importer of oil within four years.

New wells also are important for Oxy. The Caño Limon field pumped its billionth barrel in March 2003. New fields would ensure that the operation remained profitable until 2008, when the company's license expires. It is still uncertain whether exploration of the Harvest field paid off. One of two test wells produced oil, and the company is trying to determine whether
it is economically viable.

Occidental officials in Colombia said they did not ask the Colombian army to attack rebels in the region. They said they told the army about their interest in drilling in the area, as is standard practice.

The army drew up plans to attack guerrilla camps in the area, wipe out cocaine crops and provide the security that Oxy needed to conduct its explorations, company officials said.

"Of course, we had conversations with the army, and this allowed us to be ready" to explore the area, said one Oxy executive who, like all company employees in Colombia, did not speak on the record for security reasons. "We can't go in without security."

Use of the U.S.-trained troops to help Oxy conduct drilling brought sharp condemnation from environmentalists and human rights groups.

The activists complained that the U.S. investment in providing security for Oxy's production amounted to a $3-a-barrel subsidy from the U.S. taxpayer.

With this development, they said, the U.S. was actually helping the company drill new wells.

"It's outrageous if there's a clear relation between a U.S.-funded military operation and a private U.S. company," said Adam Isacson, who tracks Colombia for the left-leaning Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank. "We should not be paying for an oil company's security."