Following his 2002 election, Uribe led an all-out military offensive against leftist guerrilla groups such as the FARC and the ELN with funding and backing from the Clinton and Bush administrations in the form of a $2.8 billion USD direct foreign aid package called "Plan Colombia".

As senator, he served as president of the Seventh Commission[clarification needed] and he supported laws dealing with reform of pensions, labor and social security, as well as promotion of administrative careers, cooperative banking, brown sugar, and protection for women.

Within his jurisdiction, Uribe openly supported a national program of licensed private security services[24] that became known as CONVIVIR, which had been created by Decree 356 issued by the Colombian Defense Ministry in February 1994.

[29] Uribe stated that the government had to first show military superiority in order to eventually make the guerrillas return to the negotiating table with a more flexible position, even if this would only happen after his term in office expired.

[36] After some of the AUC's main leaders had declared a cease-fire and agreed to concentrate in Santa Fe de Ralito, several paramilitary demobilizations began in earnest, thousands of their "rank and file" fighters were disarmed and incorporated into government rehabilitation programs late in 2004.

The main AUC leaders, who would be held responsible for atrocities, remained in the concentration zone and continued talks with the government's High Commissioner for Peace, Luis Carlos Restrepo.

The AUC commanders claimed, as the year ended, that they had difficulties controlling all of their personnel from their isolated position, that they had already demobilized some 20% of their forces, and that they would await for the drafting of the necessary legal framework before making any more significant moves.

[45] In November 2006, a political crisis emerged as several of Uribe's congressional supporters were questioned or charged by the Colombian Supreme Court and the office of the Attorney General for having alleged links to paramilitary groups.

[49][50] On 22 April 2008, former senator Mario Uribe Escobar, one of the Colombian President's cousins and a close political ally, was arrested after being denied asylum at the Costa Rican embassy in Bogotá, as part of a judicial inquiry into the links between politicians and paramilitary groups.

[53] The Colombian newsweekly Revista Semana reported that the paramilitary in question, Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández, had not mentioned Uribe during previous declarations made more than five years ago, when he was sentenced for his own role in the massacre.

[54] In May 2009 Colombian prosecutors officially began an investigation on a series of illegal wiretapping and spying activities carried out against opposition politicians, judges, journalists and others by the Administrative Department of Security (DAS).

[55] Former DAS counterintelligence director Jorge Alberto Lagos has told investigators that information on the country's Supreme Court judges was provided to Bernardo Moreno and José Obdulio, two of Uribe's aides.

[55] Uribe himself has denied ordering any illegal wiretapping and claims that those responsible for spying on the opposition are part of "a mafia group that hurts the Colombian Democracy, freedom, the country and the government itself".

[57] Previously, former DAS computer systems chief Rafael García had claimed that the department and Colombian paramilitaries were involved in a plan to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

We've helped Colombia to strengthen its democracy, to combat drug production, to create a more transparent and effective judicial system, to increase the size and professionalism of its military and police forces, to protect human rights, and to reduce corruption.

Yet, Uribe has participated in multilateral meetings and has held bilateral summits with presidents Hugo Chávez, Martín Torrijos, Lula da Silva, Ricardo Lagos, and Carlos Mesa, among others.

There have been some diplomatic incidents and crises with Venezuela during his term, in particular around the 2005 Rodrigo Granda affair, Colombia's frustrated 2004 acquisition of 46 AMX-30 tanks from Spain, and an Alleged planned Venezuelan coup in 2004 by Colombian paramilitaries.

Uribe's main political problem during 2007 was his handling of the humanitarian exchange situation: the FARC guerrillas held over 700 hostages, living in poor conditions in the Colombian jungle.

[75] In early March 2010, Judge Eloy Velasco of Spain brought forth allegations against Hugo Chávez, the FARC and ETA of conspiring to assassinate Uribe, along with other Colombian political figures.

The "active abstention" and blank voting campaigns that his opponents, in particular the Independent Democratic Pole and the Colombian Liberal Party, had promoted were allegedly successful in convincing enough of their sympathizers to stay home and instead participate in the next day's round of elections.

[84] Contacts begun in 2002 with the paramilitary AUC forces and their leader Carlos Castaño, which had publicly expressed their will to declare a cease-fire, continued in 2003 amid a degree of national and international controversy.

The Organization of American States (OAS) deployed electoral observers in 12 departments: Antioquia, Risaralda, Quindío, Atlántico, Bolívar, Santander, Córdoba, Cauca, César, Nariño, Magdalena and Valle.

[88] In April 2008, Yidis Medina, a former congresswoman from the pro-government Colombian Conservative Party, claimed that members of Uribe's administration had offered her to appoint local officials in her home province, in exchange for voting in favor of the 2004 reelection bill.

[98] According to a June 2009 Ipsos-Napoleón Franco national poll for the 2010 presidential campaign, covering over thirty cities and municipalities, Uribe's overall approval rating was 76% but only 57% would vote in favor of his potential reelection for a third term.

In late 2010, a few months after leaving office, Uribe was named visiting scholar at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service,[108] where he taught students in different disciplines as a guest lecturer in seminars and classes.

[109] A Colombian humorist suggested Uribe teach a course on wiretapping, which his administration illegally conducted on opposition figures, human rights workers, journalists and Supreme Court justices.

[citation needed] Prosecutors accuse Uribe of helping to plan paramilitary massacres in La Granja (1996), San Roque (1996) and El Aro (1997) while he was governor of Antioquia, and the February 1998 assassination of Jesús María Valle, an attorney and human rights defender working with victims in those cases.

The killings were systematically committed by several National Army units as the fourth brigade in Medellin, which lured young people under the pretext of employing them, thus murdering them in the field simulating combat.

In December 2019, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace discovered the first mass grave of false positives in the municipality of Dabeiba, Antioquia, where 50 civilian deaths were found, presented as guerrillas who were killed by National Army units during the Uribe government between 2006 and 2008.

Dana Perino, the White House Press Secretary explained that he received this award "for [his] work to improve the lives of [his] citizens and for [his] efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad".