U.S. TO ESTABLISH COUNTERDRUG FORWARD OPERATING BASE IN EL SALVADOR

The United States quietly signed an agreement with El Salvador last
month to open a forward operating location at the international
airport in the capital city of San Salvador, U.S. officials tell
Inside the Pentagon. The site is to play host to U.S. military forces
as they conduct counternarcotics surveillance and reconnaissance
missions in the region.

With the surprising new pact, El Salvador joins Ecuador and the
Netherlands as host nations for U.S. forward operating locations, or
FOLs, which are designed to replace the permanent basing facilities
the United States maintained in Panama until last year. Under the 1978
Panama Canal Treaties, the United States pulled its last forces from
Howard AFB and other facilities in Panama in December.

FOLs have been set up in two Dutch Caribbean islands -- Curacao and
Aruba -- and in the coastal town of Manta in Ecuador. U.S. military
forces based in the United States and elsewhere rotate in and out of
the FOLs as they patrol the narcotics source zone in South America,
where drugs are grown and processed, and the transit zone in the
Caribbean, Central America and Mexico, through which drugs are shipped
to the United States.

The new agreement, signed March 31, will allow the United States to
use the new FOL in San Salvador for a 10-year period, a State
Department official said this week. The pact is renewable for periods
of five years thereafter, if desired by the two nations.

That such an agreement was even under negotiation between the United
States and El Salvador came as a surprise to many officials in
Washington involved in or tracking the U.S. military's
counternarcotics mission. The pact was reached after just two months
of low-profile talks between the Salvadoran government and the U.S.
State Department, supported by the U.S. Southern Command, sources said.

The State Department official said the U.S. government has not
formally announced the new pact, but officials there will answer
reporters' questions as they arise.

With the new agreement, El Salvador will become the home of SOUTHCOM's
Central American FOL. Previously, SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Charles
Wilhelm had said Costa Rica may offer airfield facilities at Liberia
for a Central American FOL, to be run by the U.S. Navy.

But speaking "on background," U.S. defense officials consistently told
ITP that Costa Rica, which disbanded its Army in 1948, had little
serious interest in hosting U.S. forces, even on an expeditionary
basis as the FOLs entail. Essentially, sources said, Costa Rica served
as a place-holder until U.S. forces could either return to Panama
under a new agreement or find another site in the region for a new
FOL.

Navy officials, having long ago laid out their requirements for a
Central American FOL, were not heavily involved in the negotiations
with El Salvador. In fact, Pentagon officials said El Salvador readily
agreed to virtually every U.S. demand, such that there were few or no
areas of disagreement in the talks.

"We told them what we wanted and they said yes," according to one
Pentagon official.

The FOL will be set up at Comalapa International Airport in San
Salvador, according to other Pentagon officials. The Navy will likely
utilize existing facilities on the restricted military side of the
airport, although it remained unclear this week whether additional
U.S. military construction will be required.

Officials said it also remains uncertain when Navy personnel -- just
eight to 12 are likely -- will arrive in El Salvador to prepare for
initial FOL operations there.

First, the executive agreement must be approved by the Salvadoran
legislature; U.S. officials were reluctant to estimate how long that
might take. The Clinton administration will also notify the U.S.
Congress about the pact, but the agreement does not require Senate
ratification.

Using the new FOL will not increase the number of operating hours for
Navy aircraft in the region, according to one Pentagon official.
However, it will enhance the service's ability to perform its mission
by affording operators more valuable "on-station" time because time
now spent in transit from bases in the Caribbean and South America
will be eliminated.

The airfield will host Navy P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, Air Force
E-3 Airborne Warning and Surveillance planes, Army Airborne
Reconnaissance Low aircraft and Customs Service Citation planes,
according to the State Department official.