REPORT BLAMES PERUVIAN AIR FORCE FOR MISSIONARY SHOOT-DOWN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An investigation into the shooting down of an U.S.
missionary plane in April reveals that the Peruvian air force failed to
follow procedures of a U.S.-Peruvian aerial drug interception program,
senior Bush administration officials tell CNN.

Missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter were killed in April
when the Peruvian air force shot down the single-engine Cessna after the
crew of another plane -- owned by the U.S. Department of Defense and
chartered by the CIA as part of a joint Peru-U.S. drug interdiction program
- -- spotted the plane and notified the Peruvian officer aboard that plane.
The officer, a lieutenant colonel, notified the Peruvian air force, which
in turn authorized the shoot-down by a Peruvian air force fighter. The
Americans, U.S. officials said, tried to persuade the Peruvians to proceed
cautiously and take time to get a definitive identification of the plane.

The investigation into the accident was conducted with the Peruvian
government and involved all of the agencies participating in the U.S.-Peru
interception program, including the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA.

The Clinton administration instituted procedures at the beginning of the
joint U.S.-Peruvian "force-down" intercept program. However, senior
administration officials tell CNN that procedures weren't followed at the
time of the accident in April. In 1994, at the program's inception, a long
and rigid list of procedures was developed to avoid any shooting down of
civilian crafts. Those procedures required Peruvian air force pilots to
make checks of the flight plan of aircraft traveling through the drug
interdiction areas, trail suspicious aircraft through a significant amount
of territory, check their serial numbers and attempt radio communication.

The Peruvians were then expected to attempt visual contact by tilting or
"wiggling" the wings of their own plane to signal the suspicious plane to land.

Only after all of those methods failed were the Peruvians permitted to fire
a warning shot at the plane, and only with the permission of the regional
air force commander himself.

But as the investigators went through the chronology of the accident, "they
found the procedures had been adjusted," one senior official said. This
official said that over time, the number of steps which the Peruvians had
to take before firing disabling shots was shortened.

Officials further found that even the new, abridged version of procedures
was not followed by the Peruvian air force on the day the accident took place.

The CIA-contracted flight crew, which tracked the plane before the Peruvian
air force pilot shot it down, was cited in the report as also bearing some
responsibility for the accident, officials said.

"There is some comment as to whether additional steps, over and above the
procedures set in place, that the crew could have taken when they saw
clearly that the Peruvian air force was acting precipitously," one senior
administration official said. He added that the investigation poses the
question as to whether the missionary plane should have even caught the
attention of the U.S. crew, "other than for the fact that it was flying in
a zone it shouldn't have been."

Additionally, the investigation found a "communication difficulty" between
the U.S. flight crew whose Spanish was "extremely marginal"; the Peruvian
air force liaison aboard the CIA flight, whose English was also "marginal";
and the Peruvian air force pilots in the intercept plane, whose English was
"non-existent."

One official said the investigation showed that the pilot of the Cessna,
Kevin Donaldson, did not file a customary return flight plan and did not
respond to radio calls from the Peruvian air force, warning him to land the
plane. The official said the pilot either did not have his in-flight radio
tuned to the right frequency or simply did not respond.

"Somehow, either through technical issues or human error, he failed to
respond to several warning messages," the official said. But he added that
the report only gives a "very light touch" to Donaldson's errors during the
tragic accident.

"He appears to be an expert pilot who flew the region quite a bit," the
official said.

Drug traffickers 'take advantage' of lull

All aerial interdiction programs in the region have been suspended since
the April accident, and officials fear the longer this remains the case,
drug traffickers will take advantage of the lull. Already they say they see
an increase in movement and air activity in areas where the programs have
been halted.

"The longer this state of uncertainty goes on, the greater the risk," one
senior administration official said. "If the aerial interdiction program is
not resumed, we could build alternatives, although they won't be as good.
But we are ending our third month without the program, and with the window
of opportunity, some confident drug traffickers are taking advantage of it."

Officials said that the force-down element of the interception program is
an essential part of the total U.S. counter-narcotics efforts in the
region, and that while the April accident was indeed a tragedy, the program
has largely been a success. They point to a near elimination of cocaine
production in Peru and Bolivia over the last several years because the
traffickers were not able to fly out of the country as a result of the program.

While the investigation into the April accident is complete, a review of
the force-down intercept programs in Latin America is still under way and
could take a few more weeks. Officials said the review, led by former U.S.
Ambassador to Colombia Morris Busby, will look at the larger picture of how
the program impacts overall U.S. cooperation on counter-narcotics in the
region and will make recommendations on whether to renew the program, end
it or modify it.

Officials said the Busby review will likely recommend a modified force-down
program with enhanced safeguards and procedures to U.S. President George W.
Bush's national security advisers. One official said Busby is expected to
offer a "series of options" for the timing and sequence of the program and
for what the CIA role in tracking the flights should be.

"The loss of two people who were obviously, utterly and completely innocent
is a tragedy," one senior Bush administration official said. "So we better
ensure the likelihood of this happening again is as close to zero as
humanly possible."