DEBATE HAS LONG MARKED U.S. ROLE IN AIR DRUG WAR

2 Agencies Were Deeply Split In '94, Mostly Over Civilian Risk.

Right from the beginning, back in 1994 when U.S. officials were debating
the idea of helping Peru interdict drug-smuggling planes - and possibly
shoot them out of the air - loud voices already were warning that the
chances of an accident were just too great.

"There was intense agency fighting," said one former State Department
official familiar with the history. "The hawks were in State, the doves
in Defense."

For the Defense Department, according to this source, it was Brian
Sheridan, the assistant secretary in charge of counter-narcotics policy,
who expressed fears about just the kind of incident that occurred Friday
when a missionary aircraft mistaken for a drug-smuggling plane was shot
down, killing an American woman and her infant daughter.

On the other side of the debate was Robert Gelbard, then assistant
secretary of state in charge of narcotics and now the ambassador to
Indonesia. He argued that Washington should do everything possible to
prevent such accidents - and that if it wasn't actively engaged in the
interdiction process, more accidents could result.

"We were giving them equipment that could result in something like what
happened, so we better be engaged," said the former State Department
official of Gelbard's position.

Contemporary accounts in the Washington Post said the debate was so
fierce that Sheridan and Gelbard "are said to be not on speaking terms."
And State Department officials were quoted as telling members of
Congress that the Pentagon wanted out of the war on drugs.

At one point in 1994, before the United States decided to participate in
interdictions, the Clinton administration stopped intelligence-gathering
flights over Colombia and Peru precisely because those countries shot
down drug-carrying planes.

The administration feared that government officials or military
personnel could be liable if a harmless civilian craft was accidentally
brought down. It subsequently reversed itself and took legal steps to
insure that liability would be waived if an accident occurred in the
course of waging the drug war.

This didn't satisfy all critics. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association, representing 370,000 civil aviation plane owners and
pilots, said in a letter to Gelbard that "condoning the use of deadly
force against civilian aircraft is irresponsible and fundamentally
wrong."

The letter, written by organization president Phil Boyer, recalled two
previous instances in which civilian craft were mistaken for military
planes and shot down. "How can anyone feel assured that a twin-engine
Cessna carrying members of Congress on an overseas fact-finding mission
will never be mistaken for an identical twin-engine Cessna full of drug
smugglers," Boyer wrote.

The organization was quick to reiterate its view last week that nothing
justifies destroying civilian aircraft.

In a typical interdiction, a U.S. surveillance plane carrying CIA
contract personnel and one Peruvian will detect and track a suspect
craft. The Peruvian will alert his authorities, at which point it is up
to the Peruvians to act; the United States is out of the chain of
command.

According to rules developed by the two countries, a Peruvian intercept
plane is first supposed to identify the craft, make sure it has filed a
flight plan and establish contact. If all that fails, the Peruvian
plane, is supposed to use international signals to direct the other
craft to an airfield for inspection.

If the signals are ignored, the Peruvians may fire warning shots. If
there is still no response, after getting permission it may try to
disable the craft and then shoot it down.

Americans say the Peruvians did not fully abide by the rules in last
week's accident.

Since 1995, when the surveillance program started, more than 30
narcotics planes have been intercepted. At least once before, in 1997,
Americans say, the Peruvians shot down a plane without adhering to
procedure.

In that case, the craft was in fact carrying drugs, so little was made
of it. But CIA officials insisted on training to make sure the Peruvian
pilots understood the regulations.

Still, there will always be risks. Taking down civilian aircraft is "a
risky, dicey business," deputy CIA director John McLaughlin said this
week in an interview.

Are those risks worth it? Supporters note proudly that Peru is now
cultivating 34,200 hectares of coca, down from 115,000 in 1995, when it
was the world's largest grower.

Bolivia too has dropped, to 14,600 hectares from 48,100, according to
officials, leading to a lowering of overall cultivation.

But Colombia, where interdiction is often impossible because government
control is nonexistent in some areas, has almost made up for that, with
cultivation jumping from 45,000 hectares to 136,000.

So in the end, "in terms of output, it's not much different" than it was
in 1995, said one official in the drug war.