Bolivian Leader's Ouster Seen as Warning on U.S. Drug Policy

On a visit to the White House last year, President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada told President Bush that he would push ahead with a plan to eradicate coca but that he needed more money to ease the impact on farmers.

Otherwise, the Bolivian president's advisers recalled him as saying, "I may be back here in a year, this time seeking political asylum."

Bush said "Ha, ha!"

Now Mr. Sánchez de Lozada, Washington's most stalwart ally in South America, is living in exile in the United States after being toppled last week by a popular uprising, a potentially crippling blow to Washington's anti-drug policy in the Andean region.