BUSH EXPECTED TO OK DOWNING OF DRUG PLANES

Operation in Latin America was halted last year after U.S. missionaries
were mistaken for drug carriers and killed.

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush is expected to approve the resumption
of a program to force or shoot down airplanes suspected of ferrying drugs
in Latin America, a year after the program was halted by the mistaken
downing of a plane carrying American missionaries in Peru, U.S. officials say.

Once the president gives his final approval, the State Department would
take over the program from the CIA, and U.S. officials said air-
interdiction operations could begin in Colombia as early as this fall and
would likely be expanded to Peru. The Pentagon would support the program as
well, providing intelligence about suspected drug flights gathered from
ground-based radar and other sources, officials said.

The program calls for the United States to identify and locate suspected
drug planes and for Colombian and Peruvian air force planes to shoot them
down if they don't respond to calls to land. U.S. officials said the
governments of both Colombia and Peru had expressed support for restarting
the operation.

The program's many critics had assumed that the mistaken killings of two
Americans would make it impossible for the White House to start it up
again. But the plans for resumption began months ago, and in recent weeks,
Colombia's incoming president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, visited Washington to
urge an aggressive U.S. role in the Latin American drug war.

The decision to shift the management of the program to the State Department
came after the CIA director, George J. Tenet, made it clear that his agency
no longer wanted any part of the operation, officials said. Since the
plane's downing, Congress has placed restrictions on the CIA's involvement,
officials said.

The CIA said last year that a contractor, Alabama-based Aviation
Development Corp., ran the program on its behalf. But Aviation Development
was actually a CIA front company, and public scrutiny of the program after
the downing of the missionary plane prompted the CIA to dissolve it,
officials familiar with the program said. Alabama state records show that
Aviation Development was dissolved in January.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has expressed strong support for resuming
the air-interdiction operations through the State Department and has
repeatedly inquired about the progress of the department's work on the
program, officials said.

Although Bush has not given a final green light, the administration is
already far advanced in its preparations for resuming the program, several
officials said.

The Cessna Citation surveillance jets that the CIA previously operated in
the air-interdiction program have been upgraded and transferred to the
State Department, officials said.

Colombian Air Force pilots have just completed basic training in the United
States on how to fly the Citation jets and are scheduled to begin more
advanced training in how to perform the complex interdiction missions as
early as August.

In April, the State Department awarded a contract to a Maryland-based
aviation company, ARINC Corp., to help train Colombian and Peruvian pilots
and manage the air operation, officials said. A spokeswoman for ARINC
confirmed that the company had received the contract.

ARINC has tried to hire back many of the same workers who were involved
with the program when it was run by the CIA. But some have refused, at
least in part because they do not believe that the State Department is
allotting sufficient time for training, according to people familiar with
the program. Other U.S. officials stressed, however, that the State
Department plans to impose rigorous training standards on the air crews.

One of the biggest changes under the new plan is that the Citation
surveillance aircraft, previously flown by CIA contractor crews, would now
be flown by Colombian and Peruvian pilots, officials said. ARINC will have
one bilingual observer on each surveillance plane, offering
recommendations. The final call on whether to direct fighter planes to fire
on suspect aircraft would be with the Peruvian and Colombian pilots.

The U.S. would still provide the crucial intelligence for the missions,
however, through an organization called the Joint Interagency Task Force-East.

Based in Key West, Fla., the task force, which is part of the military's
Southern Command, would provide radar and other information to help the
Peruvian and Colombian air forces know when to start their interceptor
missions.

The administration suspended the air-interdiction program immediately after
the April 2001 downing in Peru, which killed Veronica Bowers, a missionary,
and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity. Her husband, James, and their son,
Cory, survived.

The pilot of the small Cessna, Kevin Donaldson, was able to crash-land it
along the Amazon River despite his wounds from the attack by a Peruvian air
force interceptor. The administration has asked Congress to approve an $8
million compensation payment to the survivors of the attack, but officials
said a final settlement was still pending.

The purpose of the air-interdiction program, first begun during the Clinton
administration in 1995, was to halt the shipment of semi- refined cocaine
from Peru to Colombia, where it was processed into cocaine and then shipped
to the United States. U.S. counternarcotics officials realized that the
"air bridge" between Peru and Colombia was a vulnerable choke point in the
drug trade.

In Peru, the U.S.-piloted Citation surveillance aircraft helped guide
Peruvian fighter jets to suspected drug flights, often after receiving
intelligence from an interagency task force based in Key West. The final
decision on whether to fire on the suspected aircraft was left to the
Peruvians, but the U.S. and Peruvian governments worked out specific
procedures expressly to protect innocent planes from attack.

The air-interdiction program in Peru quickly had a major affect on drug
flights. Between 1995 and 2001, the Peruvian air force shot down or forced
down at least 38 aircraft involved in drug trafficking and seized another
dozen on the ground.

Eventually, drug traffickers began switching to ground or river
transportation, and by the time the missionary plane was shot down, U.S.
officials said, there were few drug flights using the air bridge.

American officials say they are uncertain how much drug smuggling by air
between Peru and Colombia has increased since the suspension of the
air-interdiction program last year.