Pubdate: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 Source: Salt Lake Tribune (UT) Copyright: 2002 The Salt Lake Tribune Contact: http://www.sltrib.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/383 Author: Knight Ridder News Service U.S. TO RESUME SHOOTING DOWN SUSPECTED DRUG PLANES WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government is "pretty close" to resuming a program to shoot down suspected drug planes in the Amazon, White House drug czar John Walters says. Walters told Knight Ridder that U.S. officials may want to renew the program first in Colombia, then later in Peru, where a tragic accidental shoot-down over the Amazon River last April killed a U.S. missionary and her infant daughter. That fatal mishap forced the suspension of the program and led to at least two official U.S. investigations and a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. "We're pretty close to deciding within the U.S. government about how we'd like to proceed," Walters said this week. "We're not quite there yet, but we're pretty close." Peru is one of the nations President Bush will visit during a Latin American tour March 21-24. Expectations are high in Lima of imminent renewal of the U.S.-designed strategy to shoot down aircraft suspected of carrying coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine. "We have been informed by the administration that this matter is in a very advanced state of consideration," Peru's ambassador to Washington, Allan Wagner, said Friday. "We hope that this will be accomplished by the time President Bush is in Lima." Coca crops are expanding in both Peru and Colombia, and conservative U.S. legislators are pressing the White House to take more aggressive action. Safeguards in the program eroded with time, making an accident almost inevitable, Senate Intelligence Committee investigators found in October. The panel's report called for a "dramatic overhaul" and said the program was marred by language barriers, inadequate radio systems and failure to alert suspicious pilots that they were about to be shot out of the sky. It also demanded that the CIA not be involved. Last April 20 a Peruvian warplane, working with the CIA, shot down a plane that belonged to the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, a U.S. missionary group. Killed were Veronica Bowers, 35, and her infant daughter, Charity. Her husband, James, and their son, Cory, were unhurt. The pilot, Kevin Donaldson, was shot in both legs, but miraculously landed the plane in - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager