FIRMS IN DRUG EFFORT THWART CONGRESS' RULES

Foreigners Fly For U.S. In Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The U.S. State Department has directed its largest
private contractor in Colombia to hire foreign pilots to fight the drug
war, an order that helps get around Congress' attempt to keep the United
States from slipping further into the country's messy civil war.

Last year, Congress limited to 300 the number of civilian contract workers
participating in U.S.-financed drug-eradication efforts in Colombia. But in
a little-noticed decision, the State Department has counted only U.S.
citizens toward that limit.

As a result, DynCorp has 335 civilians working on the anti-drug campaign
but fewer than one-third are U.S. citizens, the contractor's chief of
operations in Bogota said Friday.

Those figures come on top of the estimated 80 U.S. citizens working for
other companies involved in the drug-eradication effort, such as Bell
Helicopter Textron, Sikorsky Aircraft, Northrop Grumman and
Lockheed-Martin. So at least 400 contract workers in Colombia are paid as
part of last year's $1.3 billion aid package, although fewer than 200 are
U.S. citizens.

A senior aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has been at the forefront
of the battle over U.S. assistance to Colombia, acknowledged that the
language passed by Congress specified that the cap applied to "United
States individual civilians" and that the State Department was not obliged
to include foreigners in their reports to Congress.

"Legally they may be within the law," said the aide, Tim Reiser. "But in
terms of congressional interest in being informed on what U.S. money is
being used for, that is of interest to Congress and it's something that the
Congress should be informed about."

State Department officials say they are not required to inform Congress
that they have ordered DynCorp to hire as many as 50 pilots from Guatemala,
Peru, Colombia and other countries to transport Colombian troops into
cocaine-growing zones.

The pilots, most of them former Latin American air force members who fly
the most dangerous missions, also are hired to reduce the risk of bad
publicity over the downing of a U.S. citizen, said U.S. Embassy officials.

U.S. lawmakers and aides contacted Friday accused the State Department of
circumventing congressional intent to limit U.S. involvement in Colombia's
37-year civil war, in which leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary
forces depend on the cocaine trade for financing.

"This seems to be a loophole around the cap, a way to get around them,"
said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has sought to eliminate the use of
private contractors in the region since a U.S. company was involved in an
accidental downing of a private airplane by the Peruvian military in April
that killed a missionary and her daughter.

"Every time we find out more about what goes on in Colombia, a dozen more
questions are raised," Schakowsky said.