Pubdate: Thu, 04 Jul 2002
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2002 The Orange County Register
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: James Risen, The New York Times

BUSH EXPECTED TO OK DOWNING OF DRUG PLANES

Operation in Latin America was halted last year after U.S. missionaries 
were mistaken for drug carriers and killed.

WASHINGTON - President George W. 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 CIA, and U.S. officials said air- 
interdiction operations could begin in Colombia as early as this fall and 
would likely be expanded to Peru. The Pentagon would support the program as 
well, providing intelligence about suspected drug flights gathered from 
ground-based radar and 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 don't 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 Velez, visited Washington to 
urge an aggressive U.S. role in the Latin American drug war.

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

The CIA said last year that a contractor, Alabama-based Aviation 
Development Corp., 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 missionary 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 through the State Department and has 
repeatedly inquired about the progress of the department's work on the 
program, officials said.

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 a Maryland-based 
aviation company, 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. Other U.S. officials stressed, however, that the State 
Department plans to impose rigorous training standards on the air crews.

One of the biggest changes under the new plan is that the Citation 
surveillance aircraft, previously flown by CIA contractor crews, would now 
be flown by Colombian and Peruvian pilots, officials said. ARINC will have 
one bilingual observer on each surveillance plane, offering 
recommendations. The final call on whether to direct fighter planes to fire 
on suspect aircraft would be with the Peruvian and Colombian pilots.

The U.S. 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 semi- refined cocaine 
from Peru to Colombia, where it was processed into cocaine and then shipped 
to the United States. U.S. counternarcotics officials realized that the 
"air bridge" between Peru and Colombia was a vulnerable choke point in the 
drug trade.

In Peru, the U.S.-piloted Citation surveillance aircraft helped guide 
Peruvian fighter jets to suspected drug flights, often after receiving 
intelligence from an interagency task force based in Key West. The final 
decision on whether to fire on the suspected aircraft was left to the 
Peruvians, but the U.S. and Peruvian governments worked out specific 
procedures expressly to protect innocent planes from attack.

The air-interdiction program in Peru quickly had a major affect 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 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.
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MAP posted-by: Beth