With Biden as one of its most hard-line backers, Plan Colombia was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 2000 and promised roughly $10 billion in U.S. aid. Biden was key to killing efforts by his Senate colleagues, including Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone, to redirect the military portions of the aid to domestic drug treatment programs in the U.S. Clinton would go on to waive large portions of the human rights restrictions attached to the aid, citing national security. Biden accompanied Clinton on a trip to Colombia to celebrate the deal. “This is not Vietnam. Neither is it Yankee imperialism,” Clinton said, responding to criticisms that the U.S. was arming the Colombian government in a violent civil conflict. “I can assure you — a lot of the opposition to this plan is coming from people who are afraid it will work.” Biden was thrilled that Plan Colombia opened the spigot for military support to Colombia. “We are training three full battalions of anti-narcotic military forces, trained by U.S. military personnel, and they will be given the equipment, the capability of lifting those forces, and lifting them quickly, and getting them over long distances because of the Huey helicopters we’re providing as well as the Black Hawk helicopters,” Biden said soon after Clinton signed the bill into law.
"
