PANAMA PULLOUT PROMPTS DRUG FEARS

As US forces closed the latest of a network of bases in Panama
yesterday, concerns were raised in congress that the accelerating
withdrawal from the central American outpost would leave dangerous
holes in America's defence against drug-smuggling.

The shutdown of the Fort Clayton army base marked the last main phase
of troop withdrawals, and represented the latest step in the
implementation of a 1977 treaty by which the US will relinquish its
hold on the Panama canal by the end of this year.

A US honour guard at the base wore period uniforms from 1903, when
Theodore Roosevelt sent a warship to support Panama's bid for
independence from Colombia in what turned out to be the start of a
96-year military presence.

With US troops now leaving at the rate of more than 600 a month, a
former US general and Republican congressmen called for the
renegotiation of the agreement to allow some forces to remain behind
to intercept traffickers crossing Panamanian airspace on their way
from South American drug cartels to the US market.

Gen George Joulwan, a former Nato commander who once led all US
military operations in Latin America, told a congressional committee:
"Panama is critical to counter-drug efforts."

Critics of the withdrawal focused on the departure on May 1 from
Howard air force base, from where 15,000 flights took off each year,
many of them to track traffickers' planes carrying cocaine and heroin.
US law forbids the military from carrying out police operations, but
agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration rely on the army
and air force for satellite pictures, radar surveillance and
transport. Out of this year's military budget, $982m (pounds 615m) is
set aside for anti-drug operations.

The US troop presence in Panama has been scaled down from 10,200 a few
years ago to about 1,000. The army's jungle warfare training centre at
Fort Sherman, an electronic eavesdropping station at Galeta island,
and Rodman naval station were closed in April.

In November, the Stars and Stripes will be lowered for the last time
over the army's Fort Kobbe, East and West Corozal bases.

Democrats said the relocation of military anti-drug operations to
Miami would more than compensate for the loss of the Panama bases.

But a congressional report argues that the new deployment "will not
replicate the mission capacity in Panama".

The problems have been deepened by Venezuela's refusal to allow US
surveillance planes to use its airspace.

General Barry McCaffrey, the US drug tsar, said this week that
smugglers were "flying over Venezuela in moonless nights at 10,000ft
without changing course. They think they're safe".

It is estimated that the US can now only monitor 15% of the
drug-running corridor from Latin America, compared with 50% before the
Panama withdrawal began.