Pubdate: Wed, 23 June 1999 Source: Washington Post (DC) Copyright: 1999 The Washington Post Company Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071 Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Author: George Gedda, Associated Press Writer DRUG WAR COSTING LESS WASHINGTON (AP) -- It used to cost U.S. taxpayers about $1.5 million a week to run counter-narcotics surveillance flights out of Panama. But with that option no longer available, the United States is using two tiny islands in the southern Caribbean as cheaper substitutes. Early results are encouraging, U.S. officials say. The locations are the international airports in the Dutch dependencies of Aruba and Curacao. Flights also are planned from an airfield in the Ecuadorian coastal city of Manta. Talks also are under way with the government of a Central America country, which U.S. officials declined to identify, to provide another staging area. The new approach became necessary because the Panama Canal treaties mandate an end to the U.S. military presence in that country. In their first month of operations in May, officials said, the surveillance flights led to the forcing down of seven U.S.-bound narcotics flights from South America -- a higher total than during the comparable period a year ago when the flights operated from Panama. In addition, the operations led to two large seizures of cocaine, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Still, the administration faces an uphill battle in its efforts to halt illicit drug flows, especially from Colombia. A new report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, says the drug trafficking threat from Colombia is increasing. Coca cultivation has risen 50 percent since 1996 and heroin shipments to the United States also are increasing. Colombian drug traffickers are taking advantage of the reduced U.S. military presence in Panama by stepping up cocaine shipments to that country, U.S. officials said. The main purpose of the U.S. surveillance flights is to detect and track narcotics flights. According to normal procedures, if a suspect aircraft is spotted over Colombia, for instance, authorities from that country are alerted and dispatch a plane to force down the offending aircraft. While the officials are encouraged by the project thus far, they are not ready to declare the experiment a definitive success. The Panama Canal treaties do not require the departure of U.S. forces until the end of the year, but the phasing out process is well under way. Howard Air Force Base, the starting point for 2,000 surveillance flights annually for many years, essentially went out of business in May, although a residual U.S. presence remains. GOP Rep. Benjamin Gilman of New York, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said at a hearing in May that the air base was "the crown jewel in our fight against drugs" and that the administration had not done enough to compensate for losing the base. But Gen. Charles Wilhelm, the ranking U.S. military officer for Latin America, testified Tuesday that once all the new staging areas are ready, surveillance will be 110 percent of what it was when Howard was the base of operations. Wilhelm told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee it could cost $122 million to upgrade airports at the staging areas. But he said this would be a one-time payment compared with annual $75 million outlays at Howard. Another advantage is that the local governments pay for security. At Howard, this was a U.S. responsibility. There is no charge to the U.S. military for use of the airports at the new staging areas. Other analysts note that the facilities in Panama were used for more than drug surveillance operations. Their mandate included search-and-rescue operations and humanitarian relief. Tons of supplies were flown from Panama to assist victims of Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua and Honduras last fall. In recent weeks, the United States shut down an intelligence gathering facility at Galeta Island in Panama and also Fort Sherman, which was used as a training facility for almost 50 years. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck