Colombia: Bush Plot Foiled

(CBS/AP)  The largest guerrilla group in Colombia ordered an assassination attempt on President Bush during his visit to the country last week, a senior official said.

Colombian Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe said Mr. Bush was targeted in Cartagena last Monday. He said informers and other intelligence sources revealed the attempt.

"When we found out President Bush was coming, we immediately activated all the alerts to be prepared," he told reporters Saturday. "Later we found out through informants and various sources that different groups of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) had been instructed by the (rebels' leadership) secretariat to attack President Bush."

Colombian authorities say the attempt was thwarted by the heavy security net thrown up around Mr. Bush.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller says, "It was well known that (the president's) visit to Colombia was risky. That's why it was held in the coastal city of Cartagena, and not the capital, Bogota. It was further reflected in the 15,000 police and army troops mobilized in the city to protect Mr. Bush."

It's also why the visit was kept to only four hours, Knoller notes.

CBS News reporter Nicole Carsin, who is in Colombia, points out that the FARC killed three American citizens in 1999, and has been holding three U.S. defense contractor employees hostage in Colombia's jungles for nearly two years.

The FARC has a long list of reasons for wanting Mr. Bush dead, analysts say, the most pressing being that Washington provides more than $600 million in mainly military aid to Bogota, and supplies intelligence from U.S. listening stations, satellites and spy planes that are focused on Colombia.

Also, the FARC has long accused the U.S. of meddling in the country's 40-year civil war.

Another reason is the issue of extradition. The U.S. has indicted much of the FARC high command on drugs trafficking charges, and two senior FARC commanders in prison seem set to face American justice.