U.S. PICKS ECUADOR FOR DRUG WAR BASE

Flights Could Lead To Military Hub

WASHINGTON -- The United States will expand its military presence in
South America this fall when a major anti-drug airborne surveillance
facility begins operating at the coastal airport of Manta, Ecuador,
U.S. officials said.

The buildup will be the first in Latin America since U.S military
bases closed in Panama in 1999 and will intensify American operations
in the war against the drug trade centered in Colombia, the world's
largest cocaine producer.

Arms control advocates said in interviews yesterday that Ecuador would
become a new Honduras, the hub of U.S. military operations during the
Central American wars of the 1980s. The think tank RAND last week
recommended a multinational effort to contain Colombia's civil war.

When the runway is lengthened by the end of September at the
Ecuadorean Air Force base, two large Airborne Warning and Control
System planes and two KC-135 refueling aircraft will be able to land
there simultaneously if need be.

The U.S. Southern Command, in charge from Miami of American military
operations in Latin America, said it would also deploy one or two Navy
P-3 aircraft, like the one captured by China, plus two U.S. Coast
Guard P-3s and two C-130 transport planes.

The apron will be able to accommodate three ARL airborne
reconnaissance aircraft developed by the U.S. Army to carry out
low-profile intelligence work by day or night.

A Southcom spokeswoman said the AWACS would not be assigned
permanently to the Andean region, but would fly out of U.S. home bases
and not use Manta at the same time.

But the maintenance and flying of the planes will mean a significant
increase in U.S. military personnel in Manta to a maximum of 400
stipulated in a November 1999 agreement with Ecuador allowing use of
the base for 10 years.

State Department officials said the aircraft would be used exclusively
for aerial detection, monitoring and tracking of drug traffickers in
the Andean region and the eastern Pacific.

They said they could not estimate the number of U.S. military
personnel who would be in Manta at any given time, because it would
fluctuate according to mission requirements. But they assured that the
U.S. presence would remain under the agreed ceiling of 400 people.

Washington is spending $30 million to renovate and lengthen the runway
and $18.4 million on hangars, housing, maintenance facilities and an
operations building, contractors said.

The surveillance base in Ecuador follows an increased role in
Colombia, where the U.S. government is funding and training a
military-police offensive against drug plantations protected by armed
Marxist and right-wing groups in southern Colombia.

The operations are the largest by U.S. military in Latin America since
the 1980s in Central America, with the exceptions of the 1989 Panama
invasion to oust dictator Manuel Noriega for his ties to drug
traffickers and the 1994 task force to restore Haiti's deposed
president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Ecuador is a prime target for the drug business if the eradication of
drug crops in Colombia succeeds. The Andean nation, emerging from
economic and political crises, has warned of the dangers of a
spill-over of fighting and coca growing from Colombia.

Ecuadorean authorities have reported an increase in refugees crossing
the Colombian border, early signs of coca planting and incursions by
Marxist guerrillas from Colombia.

The Bush administration has requested $800 million in its 2002 budget
to fund an expanded anti-drug plan in the Andes, with funds going to
Colombia's neighbors, including Panama, Brazil and Venezuela.

U.S. drug interception flights are flowing from "forward operating
locations" in El Salvador, Aruba and Curacao.

The Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for preparing the Manta air
base, is contracting construction work in Central and South America,
including a facility in the Peruvian jungle at Puerto Maldonado,
according to bids posted on the Internet.

While some Washington analysts fear the United States could becoming
bogged down in an unwinnable Vietnam-like conflict, others say the
guerrillas, not the drugs, are the real threat.