BUSH: CIA'S ROLE LIMITED

Missionaries Received Permission To Land Before They Were Shot Out Of
The Sky, Relatives Claim In Dispute With Peruvian Officials' Reports

WASHINGTON - A Peruvian jet shot down a plane carrying American
missionaries just one hour after being notified by a CIA-operated
surveillance plane that it might be a flight ferrying illegal drugs,
a U.S. intelligence official said Sunday.

Meanwhile, relatives of the missionaries said the plane had received
clearance to land moments before it was fired on without warning, a
contention at odds with Peru's military, which said the plane failed
to identify itself and was flying without a flight plan.

Missionary Veronica Bowers, 35, and her infant daughter, Charity,
were both killed by the Peruvian gunfire Friday, apparently by a
single bullet that passed through the woman's body and entered the
child's skull as she sat on her mother's lap, her brother-in-law said.

The single-engine plane, which was being tracked by a U.S. anti-drug
surveillance plane, had contacted the air tower in the jungle city of
Iquitos and received landing clearance about 10 minutes before it was
downed, said Richmond Donaldson, father of pilot Kevin Donaldson.

The Baptist group's director of aviation, Hank Scheltema, said the
missionary plane and the fighter jet were communicating on different
radio frequencies. He said the Iquitos control tower recorded the
missionary pilot's panicked radio call to controllers.

"They have recorded his voice when he was crying, 'They're going to
kill us! They're going to kill us!' " Scheltema said.

President Bush on Sunday pledged to find out what went wrong, but
said the role of the U.S. surveillance plane was "simply to pass on
information" about aircraft suspected of carrying drugs.

Specifically, the American role is to spot planes' tail numbers and
identify aircraft that fail to file flight plans, Bush said.

The surveillance flights, he said, have been suspended "until we get
to the bottom of the situation, to fully understand all the facts, to
understand what went wrong in this terrible tragedy."

The U.S. official said the crew of the CIA plane (which is owned by
the Defense Department) included a civilian pilot, co-pilot and
systems operator who work under contract for the CIA. Also on board
was a Peruvian air force officer who was responsible for coordinating
with Peruvian authorities on the ground.

The U.S. intelligence official said the three CIA employees aboard
the Cessna Citation jet were not involved in the decision to shoot
down the plane carrying the missionaries. This official said the CIA
employees believed the Peruvian air force officer, once he was unable
to contact the other plane's pilot on three different radio
frequencies, moved too quickly through the established procedures for
determining what action to take against the suspect plane.

Under current agreements, Peru can use U.S. data only to attack a
plane that is flying without a flight plan. Peruvian fighters must
first try to make radio contact and visually signal a suspect
aircraft to land for inspection before opening fire. If the pilot
balks, warning shots must be fired.

"None of that was done," said Jim Bowers' older brother, Phil, a
trained pilot who sat in on his brother's debriefing by Peruvian
authorities.

Richmond Donaldson said that he saw a copy of a flight plan Saturday,
which he believes his son submitted before making the flight.