U.S. CIVILIANS HELP FIGHT COLOMBIAN NARCOTICS WAR

Smaller Military Turns To Outsourcing Missions

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Former Green Beret? Retired CIA? Chopper pilot or
mechanic? If Uncle Sam doesn't want you, DynCorp might.

As $1.3 billion in mostly military U.S. aid pours into Colombia for an
assault on its narcotics industry, firms like DynCorp are providing
security forces with items ranging from coat-and-tie logistics consultants
to helicopter gunship pilots.

With the U.S. military's staff plummeting by 40 percent since the late
1980s, Washington has been increasingly turning to private U.S. firms to
carry out quasi-military missions in foreign trouble spots.

It's not work for the average G.I. Joe retiree.

A team that included several U.S. contract workers landed a helicopter in
the middle of a firefight earlier this month to rescue the crew of a police
chopper downed by leftist guerrilla gunfire in southern Colombia.

U.S. officials call it outsourcing, making it sound as innocuous as
contracting a computer adviser. The firms contracted bill themselves as
consultants or service companies.

If privatization is the trend these days, the argument goes, why not
privatize war, too?

Firms such as DynCorp have been around for decades. Founded in 1946 to
handle post-World War II airplane surpluses, DynCorp is the biggest, with
revenue of $1.2 billion a year.

It runs everything from one of the computer centers that handled the 2000
Census to the administration of a U.S. military air base in the Honduran
town of Palmerola.

Other such firms have trained police in Haiti, armies in the Balkans and
military logistics officers in El Salvador and handled logistics for the
ill-fated U.S. military involvement in Somalia.

But with Washington pumping huge amounts of money into Colombia, the roles
of firms like DynCorp have come under increasing scrutiny -- and aroused
concerns about the safety and accountability of its employees.

They are not bound by the orders to avoid combat that apply to the 200
regular U.S. military trainers in Colombia, and it's unclear whether they
are covered by U.S. congressional restrictions on contacts with Colombian
security units alleged to have links with right-wing paramilitary squads.

As civilians, their work and fate comes under less scrutiny. When a DynCorp
paramedic died of an apparent heart attack in October, the U.S. Embassy
handled his case like the death of any American abroad, declining to
release information on his background or next of kin.

Israeli Defense Industries also has several contracts in Colombia, mostly
in the communications and electronics firm.

Military Professional Resources Inc. of Alexandria, Va., has a contract
with the Defense Department, expiring March 8, to provide a dozen advisors
to Colombia's Joint Chiefs of Staff on mostly administrative and logistics
issues.

MPRI's Web site touts the firm, with reported annual revenues of $12
million, as "the greatest corporate assemblage of military expertise in the
world," with 2,000 retired generals, admirals and other officers on call.

Northrop Grumman of Los Angeles provides an unknown number of U.S. citizens
who operate and maintain five radar stations in eastern and southern
Colombia that track suspected drug smuggling flights.

But by far the largest firm operating in Colombia is DynCorp, hired by the
U.S. State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau
six years ago under a reported $600 million contract to support coca
eradication programs in Colombia as well as in Peru and Bolivia.

DynCorp provides American pilots for herbicide fumigation planes and
helicopter gunships that protect those missions, mechanics and search and
rescue teams like the one that pulled a downed helicopter crew from the
middle of a firefight Feb. 19 in southern Colombia.

American pilots earn about $90,000 a year while mechanics earn about
$60,000, but they must live on remote military bases.

DynCorp employees are under strict orders to avoid journalists.

DynCorp and MPRI officials said they could not comment on their operations
in Colombia under the terms of their contracts with the U.S. government.