By Patrick Markey BOGOTA, May 16 (Reuters) - Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe furiously defended his government on Wednesday over suspected ties with illegal paramilitaries and the clandestine wiretapping of foes that some are dubbing a local "Watergate". The president's response came after a jailed former top paramilitary commander testified that he met Uribe's vice president and his defense minister in the 1990s, and police admitted agents bugged officials, politicians and journalists. The news broke at a sensitive time for Uribe as he seeks to persuade U.S. Democrats in Congress to approve a free trade deal and renew a multimillion dollar military aid package for Colombia to help counter a left-wing insurgency. "I have every confidence in this office, in the honesty of the vice president of the Republic and my companions who make up the national government," Uribe told local Caracol radio. Aided by U.S. financing, Uribe has reduced guerrilla violence and disarmed 31,000 paramilitaries. Their commanders are imprisoned under a peace deal handing them short sentences for giving up the gun and confessing to atrocities and massacres they committed in the name of counter-insurgency. But Uribe is under fire 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 brutally controlled large areas of Colombia. Rights groups believe the warlords have kept criminal and drug-trafficking rings alive despite the peace deal. Former paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso testified on Tuesday that he and other bosses met with Vice President Francisco Santos and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos before they were in government, witnesses who attended the testimony said. But Uribe and his defense minister said on Wednesday those meetings were public knowledge. Francisco Santos was a newspaper columnist at the time and Juan Manuel Santos said he was seeking to broker a peace deal with the paramilitaries. Uribe was also forced on Monday to replace his national police commander and the police intelligence chief after the government acknowledged police agents had illegally wiretapped opposition figures and journalists for two years. Clearly irate, the Colombian leader denied his government had any knowledge of the wiretapping operation. "No one can say the president has ordered any one to be recorded, I will not accept that," Uribe said, angry over a comparison to the famous U.S. "Watergate" wiretapping scandal, which pushed President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974. But opposition leaders have demanded a full investigation into the wiretapping and say they could seek hearings in Congress with ministers to answer why they were apparently unaware of spying on the part of their security services.
