(Repeats to add dropped word "said" in 4th paragraph) By Patrick Markey BOGOTA, May 15 (Reuters) - Colombia's government sought to ward off a new political scandal on Tuesday after the police revealed their intelligence agents had illegally wiretapped state officials, opposition figures and journalists for years. The incident was a new blow to President Alvaro Uribe, a key Washington ally under pressure over links between some of his lawmaker allies and paramilitaries accused of atrocities in a war with left-wing rebels before they reached a peace deal. Uribe on Monday was forced to replace his national police commander and the police intelligence chief who, along with ministers, said they were clueless about agents carrying out the clandestine operations. "Someone must respond for this politically," said Carlos Gaviria, a leader of the Alternative Democratic Pole opposition party who officials said had been among those bugged. "It is not possible that a democratic government uses military and police intelligence to pursue its opposition." Gaviria told Reuters opposition leaders could call ministers to testify before Congress to evaluate how top government officials were left in the dark about espionage by their own security services. But Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Uribe and his top commanders were unaware of the telephone bugging and sought to ease opposition fears they were targets of a campaign. "Neither he, nor I, nor the government had any idea this was happening," Santos told reporters. "This was not just against the opposition ... there were interceptions of government people, the opposition, journalists, in fact, a broad range of people." OVERSEAS HELP Uribe has received millions in U.S. aid to help quell a four-decade-old conflict fueled by drug trafficking. He has negotiated the disarming of 31,000 paramilitaries and jailed their commanders under a peace deal handing them short prison terms for giving up theirs guns and confessing to crimes. But he is under fire from critics since 13 Congress members and more former politicians have been arrested on charges they colluded with the paramilitary warlords before the peace deal when the militias controlled swaths of Colombia. The scandal has taken its toll internationally. Uribe recently traveled to Washington to convince skeptical U.S. Democrats to approve a free trade deal and renew a military aid package to fight insurgents still battling the government. "We can say this is a tragic day for a country like Colombia, which is being questioned by the international community and seeking help from that community," said political analyst Vicente Torrijos from Bogota's Rosario University. Rights groups say the "para" scandal is unearthing the depths of paramilitary influence, but Uribe says the arrests prove that Colombian justice works and denies any links himself to the paramilitaries. The wiretapping crisis broke on Sunday after a local magazine published a story about recorded conversations it said revealed jailed paramilitary leaders were organizing crimes from their cells in violation of their deal with Uribe. Authorities said they were investigating whether the paramilitary bosses had broken with their deal. If the accusations are proven, some of the jailed paramilitaries could be extradited to face justice in the United States. (Additional reporting by Herbert Villarraga in Bogota)
