MAP's index for the series: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n000/a251.html

Bookmark: Reports about Colombia: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia

A RIVALRY GROWS BETWEEN SPY UNITS

Chapter 16 of a continuing serial

The Americans based at the Search Bloc headquarters in Medellin occupied a
small room where they slept on cots or air mattresses. They covered the
walls with giant photo-maps of the city of Medellin and surrounding areas.

Whenever the American electronic eavesdropping experts from Centra Spike
would forward the coordinates for a target, "Col. Santos," the Delta Force
chief and his men would locate the exact spot on their maps. Col. Hugo
Martinez, the Colombian commander of the Search Bloc, was always glad to
receive the information, and usually acted upon it, but he was too proud to
permit the Americans to help plan his assaults.

For Santos and his squad, usually six U.S. Army Delta operators and Navy
Seals who rotated in for shifts, the mission had become a sometimes numbing
routine. They spent most of their time holding classes for Search Bloc
members, or in their small rooms playing cards or video games and counting
the days until they got to go home.

Two CIA agents and a Centra Spike technician normally shared this cramped
space. Whenever DEA agent Steve Murphy or agent Javier Pena rotated
through, usually for a day or two at the end of the month (enough to
continue qualifying for "danger pay"), they stayed there as well. The
Americans were allowed to wander outside the compound's barbed-wire fence
to visit the little stores or restaurants inside the main checkpoint, but
otherwise they were forbidden to leave the compound.

Despite Ambassador Morris Busby's strict orders, the Delta operators and
DEA agents left the compound anyway, usually for Search Bloc assaults. Over
time, the Americans became illicit forward observers, heading off with a
new set of Centra Spike coordinates, searching for a convenient observation
post where they could watch a suspected hideout, sometimes for days.

Usually they went along with Col. Martinez's assault forces, operating
global positioning devices that they knew how to use better than the
Colombians. Such sojourns were unauthorized, but the Americans believed
they were essential for earning the respect of Martinez and his men.

Escobar's reputation was so frightening that the Search Bloc initially
would only go after him with a large force. In time, Col. Martinez began
employing smaller units for assaults, as Delta suggested, but always the
sound of approaching helicopters or vehicles was enough to send Escobar
fleeing.

"The last hundred yards" became a refrain among the frustrated Americans, a
gap some feared the Search Bloc would never learn to close. The Delta
operators were eager to set up a solo American raid, perhaps four or five
men. They believed they could nail Escobar their first time out.

Santos had to calm them. If one of them were killed or injured it would end
the mission - not to mention their careers. But concerns about getting in
trouble with the U.S. Embassy or with the military chain of command weighed
unimpressively against the risks the Colombians were taking every day.

Pena and Murphy felt the same pressure to put themselves on the line, and
also went along on raids. They continued, according to members of the
Search Bloc, even after they were ordered to stop. It was hard to
continually urge the Colombians to put themselves at risk, then wave
good-bye to them from the safety of the compound.

The Americans would ride in on choppers with Martinez or one of the other
Colombians leading an assault. There were occasional firefights, but few
members of the Search Bloc were killed on such raids; most of the unit's
casualties came when off-duty members were killed by Escobar's assassins.

Sometimes Search Bloc commanders would ask the Americans to accompany them
with a video camera to record payoffs to informants. There was such
suspicion about corruption that the agents were asked to keep the camera
focused on the bag of money from the minute it left the base until it was
handed over to an informant.

When word of unauthorized excursions reached the U.S. Embassy, there was
usually trouble. Murphy was told once, "If you do it again, you will be
back in the United States before your luggage arrives." But with so little
else to do inside the compound, it was hard for the Americans to sit back
and watch.

The Search Bloc was, after all, trained, financed and even clandestinely
guided by Americans. As Col. Martinez later described his feelings, the
whole thing was in that sense an American production.

And now, just as friction between the Americans and Colombians at the
Holquin Academy was beginning to subside, problems developed among the
Americans. There is nothing unusual about competition between military and
nonmilitary units thrown together on a mission, but in Colombia it grew
into a significant bureaucratic battle.

The appetite for fresh intelligence from Medellin was fierce in Washington,
which was pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the hunt. Each
organization was out to prove that its men, equipment and methods were
superior. Success on this unconventional mission in Colombia would likely
have a big impact on future funding.

The CIA operated two kinds of aerial surveillance. It flew the wide-winged,
silent Schweitzer aircraft to provide imagery, and had its own version of
Centra Spike, code-named Majestic Eagle, to electronically eavesdrop on
targets and pinpoint their location.

Centra Spike, the Army's secret unit, had its Beechcraft twin-engine planes
performing essentially the same mission as the CIA's planes, but at a much
lower cost. Centra Spike considered the CIA's radio telemetry inferior.

The Centra Spike team drew from the Army's vast talent pool, recruiting
operators with both language and technical skills. These operators designed
improvements to the system in the field, sending detailed suggestions to
engineers in the United States. When Escobar switched from using standard
cell phones to digital phones in 1989, for instance, it had taken the unit
only 15 days to adapt.

There was always a race to send information back to Bogota and Washington.
Pena remembers seeing the CIA and Centra Spike men actually racing from a
meeting to be the first to telephone back new information.

Escobar's knowledge of electronics and law enforcement capabilities far
exceeded the Middle East terrorists and Central American guerrillas Centra
Spike had chased in the past. When Congress had begun authorizing more
secret funds for Centra Spike after its early successes in Colombia, it was
painful to the CIA. Now, with Escobar at large, the two units were
competing head-to-head.

One problem for Centra Spike was that it reported to the CIA station chief.
So even delivering fresh intelligence first was no guarantee of getting
credit for it.

The Centra Spike operators were furious when a report from the National
Security Council congratulated the CIA for useful information that in fact
had been gathered by Centra Spike. Because budget dollars would grow more
scarce in 1993 and the years ahead, it was more than just galling to see
the CIA taking credit for the Army unit's success. It was a threat to the
unit's survival. The Centra Spike commander, Maj. Steve Jacoby, complained
bitterly to Ambassador Busby.

A competition was arranged: The rival units ran a series of field trials to
see which could do a better job of pinpointing targets. They set up phony
targets over Medellin and flew a series of missions in late 1992.

The contest wasn't even close. Centra Spike pinpointed signals to just
under 200 meters. The best the CIA plane could do was more than four miles,
even after trying three separate telemetry methods. That settled things,
and the CIA backed off its claims for Majestic Eagle.

Centra Spike got another boost in congressional funding, and the operators
looked forward to new equipment in the coming year that would double their
system's accuracy as they tried to close the gap in the hunt for Pablo Escobar.