Quite simply, the Salvadoran military has worn out its welcome on Capitol Hill. Congressional leaders have vowed that the murder of six Jesuit priests by Army troops during the rebel offensive a year ago cannot go unpunished. A House task-force report last August accused the Salvadoran Army of “a conspiracy to obstruct justice” in the case. Such frustration is increasingly echoed in the Pentagon, where many U.S. military advisers have come home from EI Salvador disillusioned with the Salvadorans’ lackluster combat performance and abusive tactics. Once gung ho on “low-intensity conflict,” some Defence officials speak of “Lebanonization”: leave and let the locals slug it out themselves. “We’re pouringmoney down a bad hole,” says one Pentagon official. An end to the U.S. role is also popular on the right: some conservative senators have privately advised Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani to renounce future U.S. aid and the human-rights interference that comes with it. “It would be easier to fight the war without the United States,” says a Republican Senate aide.
The State Department and congressional moderates are holding out for continued involvement. A U.S. pullout, they argue, would only encourage hard-liners on both sides, depriving Q. the United States lever age to restrain military abuses and push for a negotiated settlement. “El Salvador cannot be written off,” says a State Department official. The bill Bush signed tries to exercise U.S. influence on both sides: it would restore arms aid if the president certifies the rebels launched a new offensive or bargained in bad faith.
But the guerrillas are better positioned than Washington to stage-manage the negotiations. With sentiment running against San Salvador in Congress, says Salvadoran politician Mario Aguinada Carranza, a rebel supporter, the guerrillas won’t overplay their hand; instead they’ll peck away with hit-and-run attacks. Meanwhile, the military is shopping for arms elsewhere and stockpiling its American supplies. The residual zest for fighting on both sides has many wondering why the United States ever harbored high hopes for EI Salvador, where the war has left more than 70,000 dead. “They’ve just got a lot of killing left in them,” said a Senate Democratic aide. But American patience is running out.
