Pubdate: Wed, 05 May 1999 Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY) Copyright: 1999sRochester Democrat and Chronicle Contact: 55 Exchange Blvd. Rochester, NY 14614 Fax: (716) 258-2356 Website: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/ Author: Associated Press U.S. SAYS LOSING PANAMA BASE HURT ITS ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS WASHINGTON - Anti-drug efforts in Latin America have been weakened by the ending of surveillance flights from a U.S. base in the Canal Zone, the administration said yesterday. The zone is being transferred to Panama. State and Defense Department officials said they planned to restore full operations within two years by building up three smaller staging centers in the region. However, lawmakers at a House hearing charged the administration with handling the changeover badly. "I am deeply alarmed by the administration's disjointed and half-hearted response to the impending withdrawal of U.S. forces from Panama," said Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-Middletown, Orange County, chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Howard Air Force Base in the Canal Zone, which ended flights on May 1, was "the crown jewel in our fight against drugs," Gilman said at a hearing of a Government Reform subcommittee overseeing drug policy. Ana Maria Salazar, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for drug enforcement policy, acknowledged that there would be "a degradation." She estimated that surveillance coverage of the Caribbean region at the moment was only half what it was two years ago. Salazar said the United States had been flying 2,000 counter-drug missions a year out of Howard, and operations should be up to 85 percent next year as a result of new interim agreements for use of airfields in Ecuador and the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curacao. And the government was looking for a third location that would boost surveillance to 110 percent of the 1997 level by 2001. The United States turns the canal over to the Panamanian government on Dec. 31, 1999, under the terms of the treaty negotiated by the Carter administration in 1977. Panama will take over five U.S. military bases, 70,000 acres of land and the waterway that handles 14,000 ships a year. Peter Romero, acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told the House panel that the administration had tried for six years to work out a deal that would allow anti-drug activities to continue. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck