BREVARD BASE GUIDES ANTI-DRUG FIGHT

PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE -- A big part of the war on drugs in Colombia is
being waged from a conference room wedged between two hangars at this
military complex near Cocoa Beach.

Maps line the walls, showing the latest target areas where Colombian
peasants and their drug-trade landlords are trying to make a living.

Red dots, identifying coca fields in Colombia's southern plains, swarm the
bottoms and sides of the poster-sized maps. The yellow areas show recent
spray sorties by U.S. planes in the embattled South American nation.

Inside one of the many cramped, subdivided offices, mapping analysts stay
busy plotting the latest spray patterns and grids of Colombia's coca and
opium fields -- the raw crops for cocaine and heroin -- with colorful
computer graphics. Outside, mechanics inspect spare parts. They refurbish
surplus Vietnam War-era helicopters and convert military planes into
crop-dusters.

This sprawling base, better known for its support role in Air Force rocket
launches from nearby Cape Canaveral, is the nerve center for U.S.
drug-eradication programs in Colombia and elsewhere. As the maintenance,
planning and training center for the U.S. State Department's Air Wing, it
plays a crucial role in the $1.3 billion U.S. aid package approved last
year for Plan Colombia.

One of the major goals of the plan: cut coca production in half within
three years and, in doing so, take away a major source of income for armed
groups who are fueling acivil war that kills nearly 4,000 Colombians a year.

But it's still too early to tell whether Plan Colombia will succeed.

So far this year, U.S. and Colombian pilots have sprayed 94,000 acres, or
about one-fourth of the crop.

Despite the record spraying, though, varying estimates show that coca is
still booming and that cultivation is sprouting in other areas.

The spraying campaign also is igniting widespread criticism -- especially
from growers and Colombian politicians who claim the effort is making
farmers sick, damaging the environment and killing other crops such as
bananas and corn. In response, Colombian authorities are drawing up new
environmental-impact studies.

Critics also say the early stages of Plan Colombia have not lived up to
Colombian President Andres Pastrana's promise to complement the fumigation
with simultaneousinvestments in alternative crops.

Regardless, a State Department official said Friday that the spraying will
succeed because the United States is throwing more resources into the
campaign, including a doubling of the crop-dusting fleet from 11 to 22.

'No secrets'

It's dangerous and controversial work directed by career State Department
officers but often executed by for-profit U.S. companies. At Patrick alone,
the State Department employs 158 people, the bulk of whom are contractors.

The practice, known as "outsourcing," is under growing scrutiny, especially
after the downing of a U.S. missionary plane over Peru in April. That was a
CIA-contracted operation erroneously linked to DynCorp, the State
Department's defoliation contractor in Colombia. DynCorp, a Fortune 500
company based in Reston, Va., takes in more than $1 billion a year in
revenue from government contracts in the United States and abroad. It
subcontracts the airplane-pilot portion of the drug-fumigation program to
Eagle Aviation Services & Technology (EAST Inc.), also of Virginia.

Critics, including defense specialists, human-rights groups and
congressmen, have frequently said the trend of privatizing U.S. government
operations is convenient for foreign policy. It lacks accountability, the
contracts often are hidden from the public and it gives government agencies
a perfect cover in case something goes wrong abroad.

Conversely, government agencies and the military argue that private
contractors are more efficient and cheaper.

John McLaughlin, the State Department's air-division chief at Patrick, is
an avowed advocate of aerial spraying and outsourcing. McLaughlin, a
22-year agency veteran, believes only a steady commitment to spraying in
countries such as Colombia will have a lasting effect.

In fact, $119 million for aerial fumigation was allocated in last year's
U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia.

"It's not a black program," said McLaughlin, 59, using the term for covert
government operations. "I can't think of anything that's secret."

The State Department, however, often shuns publicity, and its contractors
are barred from publicizing their work. McLaughlin, a former Air Force jet
pilot, calls them "patriots" who are often drawn to the work because of
their military background.

DynCorp employees at Patrick said they resent being portrayed as Uncle
Sam's mercenaries.

"Quite frankly, it's been insulting to us," chief helicopter mechanic Earl
Meade, 35, said.

The Army veteran and former Apache helicopter crew chief said money --
pilots' salaries run from $95,000 to $180,000 -- is not the only incentive.

"It's about the mission," Meade said.

For him, it's a personal crusade to stamp out drugs from American streets.

"I'm raising three children. There's not a whole lot of fathers who can say
they're actually doing something about it."

High-risk acrobats

Up to six flight trainers take advantage of Brevard County's vast rural
landscape to teach American and foreign recruits how to fly at more than
200 mph only dozens of feet above treetops while releasing a powerful mist
of weedkiller.

Aviators learn how to apply the herbicide glyphosate using satellite-guided
panels while their helicopter counterparts and crews learn how to maneuver
in hostile territory and escort the planes. Paramedics are taught to rappel
from choppers during search-and-rescue missions. And equally important,
everybody undergoes survival training in case of capture by armed groups.

In this case, the enemy is Colombia's powerful leftist guerrillas.

From the wide canopy of a refurbished OV-10 Bronco military airplane at
2,000 feet, Central Florida's palms, pines and other foliage below look
eerily similar to Colombia's lowlands. That's where the similarities end,
though.

In Colombia's plains and lush countryside, pilots and crews face armed
peasants and guerrillas. The ground fire comes not only from small arms
such as AK-47 assault rifles, but also from guerrillas toting
rocket-propelled-grenade launchers. The low-flying acrobats sometimes
encounter gunfire at point-blank range as they zoom past rooftops and shacks.

The hazards on the ground or the skies are ever present.

The State Department measures the threat in bullet hits. Through mid-May,
State Department aircraft had taken at least 81 bullets, a figure expected
to surpass last year's record 124 hits.

Some of those holes and impressions are clearly visible on the aircraft
when they return to Patrick for maintenance.

Though no contractors have been killed or wounded from ground fire, three
American pilots have died in accidents in Colombia since 1997. Another U.S.
contract pilot was injured during an ejection from an OV-10 spray plane
last year.

To lessen the dangers, State Department planes have armor-plated fuselages
and bulletproof cockpits. Night-vision goggles allow operations to continue
under the cover of darkness. And forward-looking infrared systems guide
escorting Colombian helicopter gunners who often spray machine-gun fire to
deter ground attacks. Civilian contractors are not supposed to engage armed
groups directly. But it happened in February when a search-and-rescue
helicopter team was called in to save the crew of a downed Colombian police
helicopter. The U.S.-Colombian team landed in the middle of a gunfight in
the region of Caqueta, not far from a 16,000-square-mile zone ceded by the
government to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
rebels, but escaped unscathed.

The missions

Five days before last Christmas, a fleet of six OV-10 Broncos and six T-65
Turbo Thrushes took to the skies in the southern province of Putumayo and
began a 45-day fumigation campaign that extended into neighboring Caqueta
province.

Before them, two U.S.Green Beret-trained Colombian army counter-narcotics
battalions had begun an air assault with dozens of Bell UH-1N Hueys
recently renovated at Patrick. They secured large swaths of coca-growing
fields ahead of the fumigation pilots.

Their mission: to unload thousands of gallons of glyphosate, the chemical
weedkiller also present in the household product Roundup.

After the campaign, U.S. and Colombian government officials reacted with
glee at one of the most prolonged spray operations in recent history.

When the aviators and crews, both U.S. and foreign, had finished, about
61,700 acres of coca fields had been sprayed with littleresistance.
Observers said that wasn't surprising, considering Colombia's powerful
right-wing paramilitaries controlled the targeted areas and did not object
to the spray.

The story on the ground was different.

Peasants, backed by indigenous groups and local politicians, fiercely
complained of having their livelihoods wrecked by the fumigation. Reports
of skin rashes and respiratory ailments were common.But the growers found a
way to fight the wilting effects of herbicides on their small 5-acre plots:
They clipped the bushes soon after they were sprayed so the roots and stems
survived. Officials estimate they are saving up to a quarter of their coca.

High-tech future

Sometimes, estimating drug crops in Colombia can be tricky. The United
Nations, the CIA, the State Department and even Colombian authorities have
all offered differing predictions. As recently as last month, the U.N.
drug-control office in Bogota presented a satellite study that showed far
more cultivated coca than previously thought.

Despite the criticism, U.S. government officials remain hopeful that more
extensive mapping at Patrick, the conversion of the newer A-10 Warthog
military aircraft to crop-dusters and more spraying finally will start
having an impact.

For example, before the spray missions in the Putumayo, a Cessna plane
mounted with a $1.7 million digital-imaging system took pictures of the
coca fields and then used a satellite to find coordinates for targeted
areas. That information later was copied onto computer programs that
alerted airborne pilots when to open the spray nozzles.

The eventual goal of the fumigation program is to transfer the equipment,
technology and know-how to Colombian agencies in a couple of years.

However, government officials and experts are predicting the U.S. presence
- -- and Patrick Air Force Base's contribution -- may well last longer.

"The difference between the previous effort and now is . . . we have a
larger program and resources," said Rand Beers, head of international
narcotics and law-enforcement affairs for the State Department.