U.S. FORCED TO SCATTER ANTI-DRUG WAR SKY WATCH

Commercial air travelers, mostly tourists flying to tiny Willemstad,
Curacao, for a few days of fun, are reminded there's a war being waged
in the Caribbean.

A few yards from the commercial flights that come and go on the
island, an occasional C-130 or P-3 can be seen among the F-16s parked
on the tarmac, waiting for their next counter-drug mission.

These forays, once a mainstay at Panama's Howard Air Force Base in the
1990s, had to find a new home once the base closed and troops withdrew.

Now in Curacao, Aruba, Ecuador and, soon, El Salvador, foreign
airports improved with American dollars are serving as launch points
for drug interdiction missions.

Almost a year after Howard closed, only two of the four locations are
fully operational. The number of interdiction missions has plunged to
half the number flown out of Panama. And the money to complete
improvements to other two airports -- about $117 million -- is bogged
down in Congress.

Military officials contend that once improvements are made, the four
sites, known as forward operating locations or FOLs, will provide
better capabilities in the aerial war on drugs that the United States
fought from Howard, and for less money.

Critics, however, contend that far from representing a leaner, more
efficient use of resources, the FOLs will cost more than operations
did at Howard for less impact.

The U.S. military was drawn into the international war on drugs in the
1990s. The program at Howard and now at the FOLs are part of its
attempts to reduce supply. The military's sophisticated intelligence
equipment is used to identify cultivation fields, drug production and
lab sites, and monitor suspected air and group shipment routes.
Information is passed on to the foreign governments working with the
United States to eliminate the drug trade. Data shared

Information on suspected flights is given to the Colombian and
Peruvian air forces, for example, so their pilots can bring the plane
down voluntarily or with gunfire.

The effort seemed to be working. Production of coca leaf dropped from
263,900 metric tons in 1997 to 229,900 tons in 1998, the most recent
figures available from the Office of National Drug Control Policy show.

As the first year under the new system draws to a close, observers
give high marks to the FOLs, but acknowledge problems.

"Overall the transition period has been fairly smooth," said Eduardo
Gamarra, an expert on the narcotics trade at Florida International
University. "It's not that it hasn't gone off without a glitch. It's
been problematic. There are areas that are not covered as well as they
were before. It's become a lot more expensive to do."

Most of the expense has come from improvements that were needed at new
sites. The airports at Curacao and Aruba were designed for lighter,
commercial flights. Because military planes are heavier than their
commercial counterparts, concrete needs to be strengthened. In Manta,
where flights eventually will cover the Andean Ridge, including
Colombia's Putumayoprovince, a prime cocaine-producing region and
stronghold of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
guerrillas, an airstrip is under reconstruction, courtesy of Uncle
Sam.

Military officials last year estimated construction costs for all
three FOLs to be $45 million. An additional request is awaiting
congressional approval for $117 million, and officials at the Southern
Command now estimate total construction costs at $137.4 million,
including $38.6 million to improve the military airfield at Manta,
Ecuador; $44.1 million for the international airport at Curacao; $38.6
million for the international airport at Aruba; and another $10.4
million at the International Airport of El Salvador at Comalapa. Save
money

But savings on the operating costs should recover the cost of the
improvements in 30 months, and ultimately save taxpayers money. Howard
ran on $75.8 million a year. For the three FOLs that are operational,
and the fourth location in Central America, total annual operating
expenses are estimated between $17 million and $22 million, said Steve
Lucas, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, headquartered in
Miami.

No one, including the Southern Command, pretends that the FOLs are
providing coverage as effectively as the effort that was run out of
Panama.

"A FOL is a bare-boned concept compared with any kind of base," said
Lt. Col. Lanny McNeely, Coronet Nighthawk commander in Curacao.

Barry McCaffrey, the nation's drug czar, testified at congressional
hearings in February that the FOLs would fly between 1,000 and 1,500
interdiction sorties, half the number flown in Howard Air Force Base's
last year of operation. When improvements are completed at Aruba,
Curacao and Manta, scheduled for October 2001, the coverage will rise
to 80 percent. When work is completed in El Salvador, the coverage
will actually increase, through northern Central America and Mexico.

The Andean Ridge and Venezuela are the weak links. While the Caribbean
is well covered from Aruba and Curacao, the western corridor, which
runs from Central America through the Andean Ridge countries of
Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, is not as well monitored. That
will have to wait until the Central America location is opened and
work on the Manta airfield is completed and can accommodate the
military's heavier planes.

Putumayo, a mountainous, jungle-choked region of Colombia that sits on
the border with Peru, is one of the principal cocaine cultivation and
processing areas controlled by the FARC, the insurgent guerrilla
movement. The area is now largely uncovered, said FIU's Gamarra.

"When Howard was up and running the air bridge between Peru and
Colombia was closed," said Gamarra. "With the transition, there have
been gaps."

Drug shipments that had to be carted overland between Colombia and
Peru when Howard was open have again taken to the air.

Additionally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has refused to allow
U.S. planes to chase suspected drug shippers into Venezuelan airspace.
In the first two months of operation, five out of 12 planes suspected
of transporting drugs disappeared into Venezuelan airspace, according
to government figures.

"If that plane flies into Venezuelan airspace, there's nothing they
can do," said Gamarra. "Venezuela says they'll do something, but there
are complaints from Colombia and the U.S. that they don't do their
job. Many traffickers are assuming the airspace over Venezuela is free
airspace."

And there are suspicions that intelligence gleaned from the
interdiction flights over Colombia is not used only for drug
shipments, especially in the Putumayo region at the Peruvian border.

The military has tried to keep the drug war in Colombia separate from
the guerrilla war. Southern Command's Steve Lucas insists U.S.
military assets are being used strictly against narco-traffickers.

"The only time we would share information that's not counter drug is
if it's an issue of force protection, or if someone's under attack, or
we have to move our people."

But considering the drugs coming here in shipping containers, some
question whether money for air interdiction is well spent.

"From an operational perspective, they're doing a good job," said
FIU's Gamarra. "You're going to need to shut down Brazil, and Ecuador
and over the Pacific."