Pubdate: Tue, 01 May 2001 Source: Reuters (Wire) Copyright: 2001 Reuters Limited Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/364 Author: Tabassum Zakaria U.S. LAWMAKERS QUESTION U.S. ANTI-DRUG AIR POLICY WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday questioned the wisdom of the policy of assisting Peru's drug interdiction efforts after a missionary plane mistaken for drug smugglers was shot down and an American woman and baby killed. Some lawmakers said such a policy supporting operations in which an aircraft could be shot down without going through the judicial process to determine if drug traffickers were on board would never be allowed to operate inside the United States. ``The Peruvian shoot down policy would never be permitted as a domestic United States policy precisely because it goes against one of our most sacred due process principles, mainly that all persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty,'' Rep. Elijah Cummings (news - bio - voting record), a Maryland Democrat, said. But government witnesses at the House Government Reform subcommittee hearing said air interdiction efforts in Peru had been successful in decreasing the production of drugs which can end up inside the United States. ``We view air interdiction in Peru as having been the single most contributing factor to the dramatic drop in cultivation of coca in the area'' since 1996, said John Crow, director of Latin American and Caribbean Programs at the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the State Department. A CIA report said net coca cultivation in Peru declined to 84,500 acres in 2000 from 233,200 acres in 1996. ``We also believe that air interdiction is essential to sustaining the success of Peru's counternarcotics strategy,'' Crow said at the hearing. Traffickers Prefer The Air ``Air will always be the preferred way to move drugs,'' he said. ``It's fast, it's cheap ... and relatively threat free.'' Members of the committee took the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) to task for declining to appear at the hearing and threatened subpoenas in the future to get details. ``We have been keeping our (intelligence) oversight committees fully informed and we had discussed with them the committee's request for our participation in an open hearing,'' CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said. The CIA was subsequently informed by congressional staff that its presence was no longer required at the hearing, he said. CIA-contracted employees operated a U.S. plane that provided tracking and detection information to the Peruvians and pointed out the missionary plane on April 20. A Peruvian fighter jet was sent to check it out, and ended up shooting the plane down believing it was drug-related. U.S. officials have said the Peruvians did not follow established procedures but rushed through steps that might have prevented the shooting. Separately, a U.S. official told Reuters there were four Americans on board the U.S. anti-drug plane, not three as initially reported. In addition to the pilot, co-pilot and systems operator, a mechanic was on board being given a ride from one base to another, the official said on condition of anonymity. Initial Investigation Results The United States has sent a six-member team to Peru to investigate the incident, and the initial phase was expected to be completed this week, Crow said. The United States has halted its assistance to aerial drug interdiction flights in Peru and Colombia because of the shooting. An American woman and her baby were killed, while her husband and son survived, as did the pilot. ``Some will try to maintain that it was inevitable that such an accident would occur. I disagree,'' Rep. Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana, said. ``It is not inevitable that in one flight there would be a mix-up of flight plans, language problems, failure to identify tail number, failure to make radio contact, failure to fire warning shots or at least make them aware of such an effort,'' he said. ``Furthermore the plane was not using evasive techniques and was headed away from the Colombian border and thus was not in danger of escaping,'' Souder said. ``Any plan that can allow this many errors has a design flaw,'' he added. ``This policy will never be reinstalled'' unless new safeguards are put in place, Souder said. - --- MAP posted-by: Andrew