LAWMAKERS, BAHAMIANS QUESTION END OF ARMY AIR SUPPORT IN DRUG WAR

MIAMI -- The proposed withdrawal of Army air support from a
U.S.-Bahamas anti-drug effort could entice cocaine and marijuana
smugglers to return to the vast island chain and may undo more than
two decades of progress, key U.S. lawmakers and Bahamian officials said.

"It would clearly have negative consequences for the region as a
whole," Joshua Sears, the Bahamas' ambassador to the United States,
said Thursday in a telephone interview. "The traffickers obviously
would see that as a signal to increase their activity."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, citing war needs elsewhere, said
in a letter last month that he intends to withdraw seven Army
Blackhawk helicopters and their crews from Operation Bahamas, Turks
and Caicos - known as OPBAT for short - by Oct. 1, 2007. The
Associated Press reported the letter's contents Wednesday.

The Blackhawks are a critical air asset for the effort, begun in 1982
and credited by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration with driving
smugglers away from the islands, some of which are only a few hours
by boat from Florida's long coastline. More than 80 percent of
cocaine shipments to the U.S. once came through the Bahamas and
Caribbean, but today the bulk of it crosses the U.S. border with Mexico.

Five U.S. House members, including two Republican committee chairmen,
said it would be a mistake to withdraw the helicopters and urged
Rumsfeld in a May 25 letter to reconsider.

"These assets have proven invaluable in our nation's counterdrug
transit zone strategy in the Caribbean Sea," they wrote. "If you
withdraw the assets in question no other agency is capable of filling
the void and another smuggling route will be significantly undermanned."

Rumsfeld said in a May 15 letter announcing his decision to Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales that he would work with the Justice
Department in finding a suitable replacement for the Blackhawks. The
DEA currently has one helicopter in the Bahamas and the Coast Guard
has three, although the Coast Guard number varies based on mission needs.

Officials at the Pentagon did not respond Thursday to phone calls and
an e-mail seeking comment.

The DEA runs the program out of its field office in Miami using more
than two dozen agents in the Bahamas, some of them undercover. The
helicopters fly out of three bases in the islands and are augmented
by Bahamian police speedboats.

The congressional letter was signed by Reps. Henry Hyde, R-Ill.,
chairman of the International Relations Committee, and Tom Davis,
R-Va., chairman of the Government Reform Committee; Indiana GOP Reps.
Mark E. Souder, chairman of an anti-narcotics subcommittee, and Dan
Burton, head of a western hemisphere subcommittee; and Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.

Sears said his government would respond more formally to the proposal
in the coming months. He noted that removal of the helicopters from
the program runs counter to the spirit of a just-completed
Organization of American States summit that stressed cooperation and
promotion of stability in the hemisphere.

"There are clear benefits and successes of the program and the
potential to reverse the gains that have been made," he said. "It's
not about individual countries, it's about alliances and keeping the
rule of law."