Pubdate: Thu, 04 Jul 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: James Risen

U.S. SET TO RESUME ITS ROLE IN HALTING LATIN DRUG PLANES

WASHINGTON, July 3 - President Bush is expected to approve the resumption 
of a program to force down 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, American 
officials say.

Once the president gives final approval, the State Department would take 
over the program from the Central Intelligence Agency. American officials 
said air interdiction operations could begin in Colombia as early as this 
fall and would 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. American officials said the 
governments of both countries had expressed support for restarting the 
operation.

The program's many critics had assumed that the mistaken downing of the 
missionaries' plane, in which two Americans were killed, 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 
American role in stemming drug traffic from Latin America.

The decision to shift the management of the program to the State Department 
came after the C.I.A. 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 C.I.A.'s 
involvement, officials said.

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

But unlike Mr. Tenet, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has expressed 
strong support for resuming the air interdiction operations through the 
State Department, and he has repeatedly inquired about the progress of the 
department's work on the program, officials said.

Although Mr. Bush has not given final approval, the administration is 
already far along in its preparations for resuming the air interdiction 
program, several officials said. The Cessna Citation surveillance jets that 
the C.I.A. had operated in the program have been upgraded and transferred 
to the State Department, officials said. Colombian air force pilots have 
just completed flight training on the Citation jets in the United States 
and are scheduled to begin more advanced training as early as August in how 
to perform the complex interdiction missions.

In April, the State Department awarded a contract to a Maryland-based 
aviation company, Arinc Inc., to help train Colombian and Peruvian pilots 
and manage the 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 C.I.A. But some have refused, at 
least in part because they do not believe that the State Department is 
allotting enough time for training, according to people familiar with the 
program. Other American officials stressed, however, that the State 
Department plans to impose rigorous training standards.

One of the biggest changes under the new plan is that the Citation 
surveillance aircraft, previously flown by C.I.A. contractor crews, would 
be flown by Colombian and Peruvian pilots, officials said. Arinc would have 
one bilingual observer on each surveillance plane to offer 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. The task force, which is based in Key West, Fla., and is 
part of the military's Southern Command, would provide radar and other 
information to help Peru and Colombia know when to start their interceptor 
missions.

The administration suspended the air interdiction program immediately after 
a Peruvian air force interceptor jet shot down the missionaries' plane in 
Peru on April 20, 2001. Veronica Bowers, a missionary, and her 7-month-old 
daughter, Charity, were killed. Her husband, James, and their son, Cory, 
survived. The pilot of the small plane, Kevin Donaldson, was able to 
crash-land it along the Amazon River despite his wounds from the attack. 
The Bush 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 air interdiction program, first begun during the Clinton administration 
in 1995, was designed to halt the shipment of semirefined cocaine from Peru 
to Colombia, where it was processed and then shipped to the United States.

In Peru, the American-piloted Citation jets 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 American 
and Peruvian governments worked out specific procedures expressly to 
protect innocent planes from attack.

The air interdiction program in Peru quickly had a major effect 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, United 
States officials said, there were few drug flights still operating.

American officials say there is evidence of increased drug-related air 
traffic in Colombia since the interdiction operation was suspended, 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 by 
flying over Brazil, but the administration has not asked Brazil to get 
involved in an expanded air interdiction program, officials said.

The State Department office that conducted the inquiry into the downing 
last year would be in charge of the new interdiction program. The State 
Department's August 2001 report on the incident concluded that the program 
had lacked adequate oversight, that over time too many informal shortcuts 
had crept into mission procedures, and that a language barrier had made it 
difficult for the C.I.A. contractors to have much influence over the 
Peruvian fighter pilots.

Officials say that before President Bush could officially sign off on the 
program, he would have to notify Congress that the administration is 
confident of adequate training effective safety procedures. The State 
Department and its contractor are moving ahead with training now so they 
could assure Congress about the program soon after the president formally 
notifies legislators, expected to be in the fall.

Since Congress imposed stricter standards on any resumption of operations 
in Peru, the administration may express readiness to resume air operations 
in Colombia first, and Peru sometime later.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D