LOSS OF PANAMA BASE HURTS ANTIDRUG EFFORTS

The united states is scrambling to locate new facilities in
the region. Aerial surveillance has suffered.

The May transfer of a U.S. military base to Panama has left a gaping
hole in American counter-drug efforts in Central America and the
Caribbean, forcing the Clinton administration to scramble for new
facilities that can be used to track drug shipments from South
America. All U.S. forces are scheduled to leave Panama, formerly
headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command, by the end of the year
under terms of the Panama Canal treaties.

On May 1, Howard Air Force Base was turned over to Panama, depriving
the United States of a base for 22 surveillance aircraft and causing a
sharp drop in antidrug coverage of the region.

To maintain a presence in the area, the Clinton administration has
hastily negotiated a short-term agreement with the Netherlands to
station aircraft at airports in the Dutch Caribbean protectorates of
Aruba and Curacao. It negotiated a similar agreement with Ecuador to
station planes in the Pacific coast city of Manta.

Washington seeks a third such agreement in Central America and is
negotiating with Costa Rica. All those airfields, however, will
require substantial improvements, including new maintenance facilities
and housing, that will cost more than $100 million, Pentagon officials
said.

U.S. aircraft flew about 2,000 surveillance missions from Howard last
year, gathering counterdrug intelligence for the United States and
other countries in the region, officials said. Pentagon officials said
that even under ideal circumstances regaining the surveillance
capability that they had in Panama would take two to three years.

All the cocaine and most of the heroin used in the United States is
produced in South America and moved north by airplane or ship through
Central America and Mexico or the Caribbean.

In a May 20 letter to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, four
Republican congressmen warned that the loss of Howard had presented
the United States with "one of the worst disasters in our U.S.
counterdrug history."

"These counterdrug flights are essential for information-sharing with
other countries in the region, for eradication and narcotics
interdiction," said the letter from representatives John L. Mica of
Florida, Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, Mark Souder of Indiana and
Bob Barr of Georgia. "Without these essential flights the department
is creating a wide-open door to drug traffickers and destroying the
first line of defense against illegal narcotics traffickers."

The letter said that "failed negotiations" with Panama and "the
absence of adequate advance planning" had endangered the drug war.

Barry R. McCaffrey, national drug policy director, said he was
"worried" by the loss of Howard but blamed the delay in getting the
new bases operational on then-Panamanian President Ernesto Perez
Balladares, who, he said, had agreed privately to extend the U.S.
presence in Panama, then backed out last September.

"I'm very disappointed," McCaffrey said. "It has put us in a
scramble."

Ana Maria Salazar, deputy assistant secretary of defense for drug
enforcement policy, said at a congressional hearing on May 4 that the
Pentagon could not approach other countries about hosting U.S.
surveillance aircraft until the talks with Panama formally ended. That
left little time to put other agreements together, she said.

The opening of the centers in Aruba and Curacao will eventually allow
the United States to fly about 65 percent of the surveillance missions
that it flew out of Howard last year, Pentagon officials said. That
level will increase to 110 percent after the center at Manta and a
third site in Central America begin operating, the officials said.

The agreement with the Netherlands runs through September, and the
agreement with Ecuador expires next May. But U.S. officials expressed
confidence that the host countries would agree to long-term
arrangements.