AGENCY CLASHES REPORTED OVER DRUG INTERDICTION IN PERU

PHILADELPHIA -- Right from the beginning, back in 1994 when U.S. officials
were debating the idea of helping Peru interdict drug-smuggling planes --
and possibly shoot them down -- loud voices were warning that the chances
of an accident were just too great.

"There was intense agency fighting," said one former State Department
official. "The hawks were in State, the doves in Defense."

For the Defense Department, according to this source, it was Brian
Sheridan, the assistant secretary in charge of counternarcotics policy, who
expressed fears about just the kind of incident that occurred last Friday
when a missionary aircraft mistaken for a drug-smuggling plane was shot
down, killing an American woman and her infant daughter.

On the other side of the debate was Robert Gelbard, then assistant
secretary of state in charge of narcotics and now the ambassador to
Indonesia. He argued that Washington should do everything possible to
prevent such accidents -- and that if it was not actively engaged in the
interdiction process, "more accidents could result."

"We were giving them equipment that could result in something like what
happened, so we better be engaged," said the former State Department
official of Gelbard's position.

Contemporary accounts in the Washington Post said State Department
officials were telling members of Congress that the Pentagon wanted out of
the war on drugs.

At one point in 1994, before the United States decided to participate in
interdictions, the Clinton administration stopped intelligence-gathering
flights over Colombia and Peru precisely because those countries shot down
drug-carrying planes.

The administration feared government officials or military personnel could
be liable if a civilian craft were accidentally brought down. It later took
legal steps to ensure that liability would be waived if an accident occurred.

This did not satisfy all critics. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association, representing 370,000 civil aviation plane owners and pilots,
said in a letter to Gelbard that "condoning the use of deadly force against
civilian aircraft is irresponsible and fundamentally wrong."

The letter, written by organization president Phil Boyer, recalled two
previous instances in which civilian craft were mistaken for military
planes and shot down. "How can anyone feel assured that a twin-engine
Cessna carrying members of Congress on an overseas fact-finding mission
will never be mistaken for an identical twin-engine Cessna full of drug
smugglers?" Boyer wrote.

The organization was quick to reiterate its view last week that nothing
justified destroying civilian aircraft.

In a typical interdiction, a U.S. surveillance plane carrying CIA contract
personnel and one Peruvian will detect and track a suspect craft. The
Peruvian will alert his authorities, at which point it is up to the
Peruvians to act; the United States is out of the chain of command.