Pubdate: Thu, 01 Nov 2001
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?172 (Peruvian Aircraft Shooting)

SENATE PANEL FAULTS CIA IN SHOOTING OF PLANE

Accident: Committee Says Lack Of Judgment Led To Two Deaths In Peru.

WASHINGTON -- Concluding that inadequate planning and bad judgment led to 
the mistaken shoot-down of a light plane carrying American missionaries in 
Peru, the Senate Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that the CIA should 
be removed from the business of spotting possible drug-runners along Peru's 
border.

"The lack of judgment displayed by key individuals involved was the primary 
factor leading to this disaster," said Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), the panel 
chairman. "Safety procedures, however, had degraded over time to the point 
where this kind of tragedy was almost inevitable. This program needs a 
dramatic overhaul before we should consider restarting it."

Under a program begun in 1994--but suspended indefinitely after the April 
incident--U.S.-owned and CIA-operated surveillance aircraft tracked 
suspected drug flights, providing information to the Peruvian air force, 
which was authorized to shoot them down. On April 20, a Peruvian warplane 
downed the missionary flight. Missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant 
daughter, Charity, were killed. The pilot was wounded.

The Intelligence Committee said the missionary pilot did nothing wrong and 
should not have come under fire.

The report blamed an inadequate air traffic control system in Peru, a 
cumbersome communications and chain-of-command structure and the inability 
of the CIA operatives and Peruvian air force pilots to speak each other's 
language well enough to avoid misunderstandings.

The program should not be resumed until the problems are solved, the 
committee said. Even then, it added, such programs should require annual 
certification from the president, and some agency other than the CIA should 
be responsible for operating them.

"The primary culprit in this case was lax management," said Sen. Richard C. 
Shelby (R-Ala.), the committee's vice chairman. "Established safety 
procedures were permitted to erode unchecked for a period of years. CIA 
officials, from the program manager to the director, failed to properly 
manage this program--with tragic results."
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