U.S. SHOULD REASSESS AERIAL ANTI-DRUG EFFORT IN PERU

It may displease U.S. anti-drug operatives in Peru, but the United States
correctly suspended CIA involvement in aerial drug interdiction efforts
there after the recent deaths of an American missionary and her 7-month-old
daughter aboard a plane.

At issue is how the CIA's initial assertion that the Cessna carried drug
traffickers -- an opinion allegedly withdrawn later -- led to Peru shooting
down the plane over the Amazon River.

CIA Director George Tenet has briefed members of the Senate Intelligence
Committee. Understandably, that briefing was closed to the public. But the
public has a right to know more about the problems in the U.S.-Peruvian
partnership, which is now in its seventh year.

The deaths of Baptist missionary Veronica Bowers and her daughter were the
latest in a tragic series of mistaken identities in the drug war. Bowers'
6-year-old son, her husband and her pilot suffered injuries in the aerial
assault but survived.

There have been other mistakes before this one. U.S. military planes have
come under aerial assault from Peruvian jet fighters. In one case, an
American military pilot was killed. If this is how Peru treats its friends,
woe be to its enemies.

Peru certainly couldn't distinguish -- and apparently neither did CIA
contract employers in that country -- between a plane full of drug runners
and one toting missionaries and children. Isn't it possible that the dove
on the side of the missionary group's plane symbolized peacemakers, not
coca-carrying pigeons?

Shoot-to-kill orders almost guarantee tragic problems and the loss of
innocent lives. A more sensible policy would be to forcibly escort a
questionable aircraft to a landing.

Each government blames the other in this tragedy, and separate
investigations are under way. Surely the U.S. case is weakened by the
presence of a Peruvian military official aboard the Air Force plane that
carried the CIA workers who at first targeted the Bowers plane as being on
a drug run. In this case, there is plenty of blame to go around.

The State Department's suspension of U.S. participation in aerial
interdiction in Colombia is a hopeful sign. It is time for a careful
reassessment of U.S. policy in this area. It deserves close attention in
Congress.