CONTRACTORS PLAYING INCREASING ROLE IN U.S. DRUG WAR

BOGOTA, Colombia - Alex B. Pinero's resume reads like that of a man
looking for a lot of action and maybe even a little trouble.

A former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Mr. Pinero has served
in three combat theaters, speaks three languages and specializes in
field medicine, intelligence-gathering and psychological operations.
"I am also well-acquainted with and can operate in virtually any
hostile (geographic, literal or temporal) environment," his resume
boasts.

Mr. Pinero is working in Colombia on a noncombat, private contract
with the U.S. government. Because he is a contract employee, he said,
the government would bear no responsibility should he run into trouble
while helping wage a rapidly escalating U.S. war on drugs in a land
where more than 20,000 leftist guerrillas are gunning for people like
him every day.

Thousands of highly qualified former U.S. service members such as Mr.
Pinero could be the answer to a big riddle dogging the Clinton
administration: How can Washington send $1.6 billion in mostly
military aid to Colombia without sharply increasing the current level
of U.S. military staffing needed to support that aid?

The answer, military officials and other specialists say, is a
well-established private business practice called "outsourcing," in
which companies that employ skilled specialists like Mr. Pinero take
on the jobs that the U.S. military either cannot or will not do.

In private business, outsourcing can be something as simple as hiring
a free-lance computer whiz to design a company Web site or specialized
software. In a military context, outsourcing is an increasingly
popular alternative for the government to provide counterinsurgency
trainers, pilots for surveillance aircraft or to staff
intelligence-gathering outposts in hostile territory without putting
active-duty military personnel at risk.

This is not mercenary work, according to specialists in the field.
U.S. law strictly limits such consultants to providing nonlethal service.

Firms await business

Neither the U.S. nor Colombian government has stated publicly how big
a role outsourcing will play if Congress approves the White House's
proposed $1.6 billion, two-year aid package to Colombia. Most of the
aid would pay for 63 combat helicopters along with the pilot training
and logistical support those aircraft will require, as well as the
training and outfitting of two Colombian army
counterinsurgency/counternarcotics
battalions.

At least six U.S. military-specialty companies have set up operations
in the region, apparently in anticipation of future Colombia-related
contracts, according to U.S. military sources. Two Virginia-based
companies, DynCorp Inc. and Military Professional Resources Inc., or
MPRI, are completing contracts related to logistical support and
training of Colombian police and counterinsurgency forces, officials
of those companies say.

DynCorp, which has employed Vietnam-veteran helicopter pilots in
Colombia, provides maintenance and support for drug-crop eradication
flights, often over guerrilla-dominated territory.

MPRI spokesman Ed Soyster, a retired Army lieutenant general and
former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said his company
is gearing up for new business in case the new aid package is approved.

The company should be well-placed for a contract, since it also helped
the Colombian government devise the official, three-phase "action
plan" that was presented to Congress last month outlining how the $1.6
billion would be allocated.

"We're a military company. We're able to hand-pick our people from a
select group of guys who like to come into this type of environment.
They have an established code of ethics and code of conduct," Mr.
Soyster said. "A guy works in this business and works for us because
he can continue to do the things he likes and does well. He's happy
because he's doing what he's trained to do."

Mr. Soyster said MPRI maintains a database of 11,000 retired officers
and enlisted service members available to work on temporary
assignment. The company also has provided training and logistical
support for military operations in the Balkans, Middle East and
Africa, he said.

"I am unabashedly an admirer of outsourcing. . . . There's very few
things in life you can't outsource," said retired Army general Barry
McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy.

'Deliver the goods'

He said he did not anticipate a large-scale buildup of active-duty
troops to supplement the 80 to 250 U.S. military personnel serving in
Colombia, but he stopped short of saying that any additional training
spots would be given to private contractors.

"It's not my job to design the U.S. support effort to conduct
logistics, maintenance, training support for this $1.6 billion over
the coming five years. I personally do not anticipate a significant
U.S.-enhanced footprint in this country," he said. "Clearly we must
have a U.S. representation adequate to deliver the goods, to make sure
that we know what we're doing. . . . It's a huge package compared to
what we've done in the past."

Colombian Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez acknowledged that
private U.S. military companies already are providing assistance to
the armed forces and that more probably would be contracted if the
U.S. aid package is approved.

"We must put in place the best people to manage these resources," he
explained, adding that private military companies often provide
personnel "with much more experience . . . at a lower cost" than
either his government or Washington can provide.

He revealed that the U.S. Southern Command is considering upgrading
its staffing levels in Colombia and bringing in a general full-time to
manage the military-aid package. Even that job, he suggested, could be
outsourced.

"Probably, it is more costly to send an active-duty general to be
present full-time in Colombia than it is to send a retired officer"
working for a private company, Mr. Ramirez said.

The wrong hands

Serious questions of accountability are raised, however, when private
contractors replace active-duty troops in the field, even if it is
just in an advisory capacity, said Carlos Salinas, Latin America
program director for the human-rights group Amnesty International.
There must be monitors on the advice and training that Colombian
soldiers receive to ensure that those are not passed on to known
human-rights violators, such as army units linked to paramilitary groups.

"The Defense Department itself, in its training, has to comply with
certain human-rights guidelines because they are mandated by law to do
so," Mr. Salinas said. "But it is unclear how far that mandate extends
when one is talking about, essentially, private actors."

James Woods, a Washington lobbyist and former deputy assistant
secretary of defense, said the political risks of using active-duty
troops in such dangerous places as Colombia often outweigh the
advantages. The use of retired military personnel under contract, by
contrast, generally provides a higher level of expertise with lower
overall costs and minimal political risks.

"If the U.S. government wants to pursue a major security-assistance
component - and I think it must - do you do it with a major buildup of
U.S. troops on the ground? I think the answer is no," he said.

Outsourcing has allowed Washington to provide an important military
presence in such war zones as Bosnia, Colombia and the Persian Gulf at
times when manpower shortages, budgetary constraints or political
pressures prevented the Pentagon from deploying active-duty military
personnel, said Georgetown University professor Herbert Howe, a
specialist in military outsourcing.

"The military has dropped over 40 percent in manpower and budget since
the late 1980s. . . . The U.S. government is increasingly shifting
over to outsourcing," Mr. Howe said. "I think we'll be seeing that
more in Colombia as well."

In addition, Mr. Howe said, there is inevitably a public outcry
whenever U.S. troops are injured or killed in a foreign conflict,
whereas less attention is paid when privately contracted military
trainers or specialists suffer the same fate. The government has
minimal reporting requirements regarding casualties suffered by
private contractors.

3 died in crashes

DynCorp has lost three private-contract aviators in fatal crashes over
the last three years. Outsourcing specialists noted the minimal
attention paid in the United States to those deaths compared with the
days of front-page news generated last July when a spy plane carrying
five active-duty U.S. service personnel crashed in southern Colombia.

A former U.S. military officer who was responsible for outsourcing
various counternarcotics operations in Colombia said the "exposure
risks for Uncle Sam" are greatly reduced when private contractors take
over the dangerous assignments.

"The life is certainly just as important, whether it's a contract
employee or a soldier. But exposure-wise, whoa, it's much less," the
retired officer said, asking not to be identified.

"If something goes wrong, it's important for Washington to be able to
say, 'There wasn't a soldier killed.' It still gets attention with a
private contractor, but to the public, it has nowhere near the same
impact," the retired officer said.

Mr. Pinero, a contract employee with DynCorp, agreed to be interviewed
on condition that details of his mission in Colombia not be discussed.
He said he does not feel threatened working in Colombia's hostile
environment. He is, however, looking for another job.

"There is a lot of danger in Colombia. I'm aware of it in an abstract
sense. But then again, I spent 10 years in the Army, so this is
basically an extension of what I did in the Army," he said. "If you're
not jumping out of airplanes in the middle of the night or getting
shot at all the time, it's not that bad."