Pubdate: Thu, 04 Jul 2002
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: James Risen, of The New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?172 (Peruvian Aircraft Shooting)

DRUG PLANES A U.S. TARGET AGAIN

State Dept. To Take Over Program Shelved After Missionaries Downed

Washington -- President Bush is expected to approve the resumption of a 
program to force or shoot down airplanes suspected of ferrying drugs in 
Latin America, a year after the program was halted by the mistaken downing 
of a plane carrying American missionaries in Peru, U.S. officials say.

Once the president gives his final approval, the State Department would 
take over the program from the Central Intelligence Agency, and U.S. 
officials said air interdiction operations could begin in Colombia as early 
as this fall and would most likely be expanded to Peru later.

The Pentagon would support the program as well, providing intelligence 
about suspected drug flights gathered from ground-based radars and from 
other sources, officials said.

The program calls for the United States to identify and locate suspected 
drug planes, and for Colombian and Peruvian air force planes to shoot them 
down if they do not respond to calls to land. U.S. officials said the 
governments of both Colombia and Peru had expressed support for restarting 
the operation.

The program's many critics had assumed that the mistaken killings of two 
Americans would make it impossible for the White House to start it up 
again. But the plans for resumption began months ago, and in recent weeks 
Colombia's incoming president, Alvaro Uribe, visited Washington to urge an 
aggressive U.S. role in Latin American anti-drug efforts.

The decision to shift the management of the program to the State Department 
came after CIA Director George Tenet made it clear that his agency no 
longer wanted any part of the operation, officials said. Since the 
missionary plane's downing, Congress has placed restrictions on the CIA's 
involvement, officials said.

The CIA said last year that a contractor, Aviation Development Corp. in 
Alabama, ran the program on its behalf. But Aviation Development was 
actually a CIA front company, and public scrutiny of the program after the 
downing of the plane prompted the CIA to dissolve it, officials familiar 
with the program said. Alabama state records show that Aviation Development 
was dissolved in January.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has expressed strong support for resuming 
the air interdiction operations. Although Bush has not given a final green 
light, the administration is already far advanced in its preparations for 
resuming the program, several officials said.

The Cessna Citation surveillance jets that the CIA previously operated in 
the air interdiction program have been upgraded and transferred to the 
State Department, officials said. Colombian air force pilots have just 
completed basic training in the United States on how to fly the Citation 
jets and are scheduled to begin more advanced training in how to perform 
the complex interdiction missions as early as August.

In April, the State Department awarded a contract to an aviation company 
based in Maryland, ARINC Corp., to help train Colombian and Peruvian pilots 
and manage the air operation, officials said. A spokeswoman for ARINC 
confirmed that the company had received the contract.

ARINC has tried to hire back many of the same workers who were involved 
with the program when it was run by the CIA. But some have refused, at 
least in part because they do not believe that the State Department is 
allotting sufficient time for training, according to people familiar with 
the program.

One of the biggest changes under the new plan is that the Citation 
surveillance aircraft, previously flown by CIA contractor crews, would be 
flown by Colombian and Peruvian pilots, officials said.

ARINC will have one bilingual observer on each surveillance plane, offering 
recommendations. But the final decision on whether to direct fighter planes 
to fire on suspect aircraft would be with the Peruvian and Colombian pilots.

The United States would still provide the crucial intelligence for the 
missions, however, through an organization called the Joint Interagency 
Task Force-East. Based in Key West, Fla., the task force, which is part of 
the military's Southern Command, would provide radar and other information 
to help the Peruvian and Colombian air forces know when to start their 
interceptor missions.

The administration suspended the air interdiction program immediately after 
the April 2001 downing in Peru, which killed Veronica Bowers, a missionary, 
and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity. Her husband, James, and their son, 
Cory, survived. The pilot of the small Cessna, Kevin Donaldson, was able to 
crash-land it along the Amazon River despite his wounds from the attack by 
a Peruvian air force interceptor.

The administration has asked Congress to approve an $8 million compensation 
payment to the survivors of the attack, but officials said a final 
settlement was still pending.

The purpose of the air interdiction program, first begun during the Clinton 
administration in 1995, was to halt the shipment of semirefined cocaine 
from Peru to Colombia, where it was processed into cocaine and then shipped 
to the United States. American counternarcotics officials realized that the 
"air bridge" between Peru and Colombia was a vulnerable choke point in the 
narcotics trade.

The air interdiction program in Peru quickly had a major impact on drug 
flights. Between 1995 and 2001, the Peruvian air force shot down or forced 
down at least 38 aircraft involved in drug trafficking and seized another 
dozen on the ground.

Eventually, drug traffickers began switching to ground or river 
transportation, and by the time the missionary plane was shot down, U.S. 
officials said, there were few drug flights still using the air bridge.

American officials say they are uncertain how much drug smuggling by air 
between Peru and Colombia has increased since the suspension of the air 
interdiction program last year. Authorities say there is now evidence of 
increased drug-related air traffic inside Colombia, but they have only 
limited information about the volume of drug flights out of Peru.

Some drug flights are now trying to skirt the Peru-Colombia border region 
by flying over Brazil, but the administration has not asked Brazil to get 
involved in an expanded air interdiction program, officials said.
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