PERU INCIDENT SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON A SHADOWY PRACTICE

Some call them contractors who do important but dangerous jobs that would
otherwise fall to overburdened U.S. troops in America's war against drugs.

Others say they are mercenaries who shelter the U.S. government from
responsibility when things go bad, and insulate it against political
repercussions from sending GIs into harm's way.

Like the crew of a CIA-contracted plane involved in the downing of an
American missionary plane in Peru, they are private U.S. citizens or
foreigners who work for private firms hired by the U.S. government to,
among other things, man much of the front lines of America's battle against
the South American drug trade.

The incident Friday, which left a U.S. mother and her baby daughter dead,
has shined a spotlight on the shadowy world of such "private military
companies" that increasingly are used by the Pentagon, State Department,
Customs Service and CIA for missions everywhere from Bosnia to Rwanda to
Haiti to Colombia and Peru.

Under the rubric of "outsourcing," firms such as DynCorp Technical Services
Inc. and Military Professional Resources Inc., both of Virginia, have been
paid hundreds of millions of dollars by those agencies to hire retired
military and other specialists to do everything from training foreign
armies and police forces, flying helicopters and planes on drug-plant
eradication missions, and conducting risky rescue operations.

By far, the biggest use of such private forces is against drug growers and
traffickers in Colombia, Peru and other Latin countries. In Friday's
incident, a Peruvian fighter jet, working in tandem with a CIA-contracted
surveillance aircraft, mistook the small missionary plane for that of a
drug smuggler and shot it down.

Neither the CIA nor the Pentagon will reveal the name of the company hired
by the CIA for aerial interdiction duties in Peru, saying such information
is classified.

But no secret is made of the role DynCorp pilots and other personnel have
played for nearly a decade in the war on South American drug smugglers. For
as much as half of the $1.3 billion the United States has spent on
Colombian anti-drug efforts, DynCorp has supplied dozens of mechanics,
trainers, maintenance and administrative workers, logistics experts,
rescuers and pilots.

It's risky work. In February, for instance, a DynCorp crew braved a furious
gunfight in southern Colombia to rescue the crew of a Colombian police
helicopter downed by leftist guerrillas.

The Pentagon, which views the anti-drug war as an all but intractable
conflict with the potential of miring America in a quagmire that would make
the Vietnam War pale in comparison, is more than happy for others to fight
the battle.

"Farming it out gets the military out of a situation it does not want to be
in," said retired Army Col. Dan Smith, now an expert at the nonprofit
Center for Defense Information in Washington.

Smith said that using contractors also serves as a buffer from blame if, as
apparently happened in Peru, a deadly foul-up occurs. Capitol Hill
lawmakers are unlikely to raise as much of a ruckus if the fault for a
failed mission can be laid mostly on the shoulders of a private company, or
if it is private employees getting hurt rather than GIs.

"You don't have the risk of having military members coming home in body
bags," Smith said, noting the low tolerance Congress and many in the public
have for military casualties.

Robert White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and head of the Center
for International Policy think tank in Washington, said such lack of direct
responsibility is dangerous. "The whole point of foreign policy in a
democracy is you are accountable" for things that go right - and wrong, he
said.

But former national drug czar Barry McCaffrey said that "outsourcing" is a
cost-effective way to fight one of America's biggest national threats -
without taxing the already overburdened armed services.

"It provides tremendous bang for the buck," McCaffrey told reporters last year.