Column One

GETTING HIGH ON THE WAR ON DRUGS

'Flying here is the biggest rush,' says a Texas crop-duster who now
dodges bullets and trees to kill coca plants in Colombia.

By Chris Kraul, Reporting from Tumaco, Colombia

Spraying 800 pounds of herbicides on coca over treacherous terrain
while getting shot at is not everyone's idea of a good time. But for
Dave, a 35-year-old crop-duster from Texas turned "top gun" of
Tumaco, it's a "kick in the pants."

Every day, weather permitting, the admitted adrenaline junkie starts
up his armored plane, a bulky craft that resembles a horse trailer
with wings. Then he zooms off from a tiny airport here on Colombia's
Pacific coast to do his part in the drug war, a highly choreographed
aerial ballet in which he and three other pilots flying in tight
formation dump their chemicals.

Dave, who asked that his last name not be used because of security
concerns, said his planes have been hit by small-caliber fire 25
times since he started flying crop-eradicating missions here in 2005
for a U.S. defense contractor.

"You know when the plane has been hit; it makes this kind of a
sound," Dave said, slapping a nearby metal table hard, THWACK. "But
there's too much to do piloting these things to have time to worry
about the consequences."

The coca fields may measure miles across or just a few hundred yards,
requiring "trigger pulls" lasting from 30 seconds to a split second.
More often than not, Dave threads his plane through tight mountain
valleys to reach increasingly remote crops that often have to be
detected using satellite imagery.

"Flying here is the biggest rush I've ever had in an airplane," said
Dave, who used to spray cotton and rice in South Texas, where his
father was a crop-duster for 30 years before dying in a 2000 plane crash.

"The physical beauty of Colombia -- the Andes, the rivers, lagoons
and mangroves -- are something else," he said. "And the pay is good.
Plus, I believe in the mission.

"So, I don't see me going anywhere," said the burly, tobacco-chewing
pilot, who has flown 1,000 sorties since he arrived almost five years ago.

Dave and 19 fellow pilots are the "aces" of Plan Colombia, the
U.S.-funded anti-drug and -terrorism aid program that since 2000 has
spent $6 billion to curb the flow of cocaine to the United States.
Colombia is the world's biggest producer of the powder processed from
coca leaves.

Although the amount of coca produced in Colombia declined by 28% last
year from 2007, according to United Nations figures, the
effectiveness of the eradication program is under intense scrutiny in
the United States, and funding has recently been curtailed.

The flyboys, most of whom come from Texas or the Midwest, have dusted
more than 3.2 million acres of coca in the last 14 years, some of it
under a program that was launched five years before Plan Colombia got underway.

The risk level is high, especially here in Narino state, scene of
some of Colombia's most violent clashes between rival rebel groups
and narco gangs vying for control of a crucial cocaine production and
transit corridor. Poor farmers and indigenous groups are often caught
in the crossfire.

Dave said that so far, the 3/4-inch composite armor and ballistic
glass encasing his plane's cockpit, engine and fuel tanks has kept him safe.

But he is aware that rebels are seeking surface-to-air missiles,
which could pose a bigger risk to the planes.

The powerful but lumbering aircraft are easy targets. They have
1,350-horsepower turbojet engines that are nearly as strong as those
that power Abrams tanks. But they fly "low and slow" -- just yards
above the tree line -- and invite potshots by traffickers.

On every mission, Dave and his fellow pilots are accompanied by what
they call a security package: three Black Hawk helicopter gunships
and, on the ground, a brigade of 100 Colombian special forces
soldiers ready to recover him or his comrades in case of a crash.

Still, five pilots have been killed in the course of duty since the
spraying program started in 1995. The danger comes not just from
gunfire, but also high-tension wires, cellphone towers and "skinny
palm trees we call snags" that suddenly jut out from the jungle canopy.

"All it takes is a split second of inattention and these obstacles
could bring a plane down," Dave said.

The danger attracts a certain kind of flier, said an official with
the Narcotics Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, which
overseas the eradication program.

"These guys typically are cocky and they can be arrogant, but they
are also very nonchalant in the face of real danger," said the
official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to
comment. "To do their jobs, they can't be retiring personalities."

Critics say the eradication program has merely pushed coca
cultivation and processing to Peru and Ecuador, where cocaine
production has increased as Colombia's has declined. Citing health
risks, others say the U.S. government should fund only manual eradication.

Others say the spraying only aggravates the misery of farmers who are
pushed into growing coca because they have few other options.

"The question remains the same: Are crop reductions achieved through
forced eradication sustainable if the vast majority of families
vulnerable to growing coca are left without viable legal livelihood
options?" said John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America,
a think tank that has been critical of Plan Colombia.

The Colombian and U.S. governments say glyphosate, the industrial
name for Roundup, is not hazardous, and that Colombians get no more
intense a dose than "average weekend gardeners in the U.S."

The Ecuadorean government disagrees and has filed a claim before the
International Court of Justice in The Hague, saying that winds have
blown glyphosate across the border to its territory, harming crops and humans.

Many Colombian conservation groups are also critical of the program.
A top official with one, who requested anonymity for herself and her
organization because of possible political repercussions, said
spraying especially hurts "marginal" communities.

"We think spraying is a menace," she said. "It hurts legal crops,
damages the forests, forces peasants to abandon their farms and could
even contribute to climate change."

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota says that budget cuts -- not efficiency,
pilot risk or health concerns -- have prompted the White House to
drastically scale back its financial support of both aerial and
manual coca eradication in Colombia.

The Washington-based Center for International Policy estimates that
2009 funding for coca eradication in Colombia was $105 million, down
by $46 million, or nearly a third, from $151 million in 2007.

The coca destroyed this year will total 390,000 acres, down by
one-third from the 570,000 acres sprayed and uprooted in 2008.

Despite declining funds and two fewer planes than the 14 available
three years ago, Dave and his comrades press on. They continue to
refine their techniques to match the narcos' tendency to grow smaller
and smaller crops in out-of-the-way places.

Before each mission, the pilots attend a briefing and settle on the
day's targets around Narino, a lush state bordered by Ecuador to the
south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes to the east.

"I can fly for miles and not see a sign of civilization, only an
occasional smoke plume rising above the jungle. The smoke might be
from a farmer clearing an area to grow licit crops, or it might be a
burning drug lab," Dave said.

"It's easy to forget there is a war going on down there."

As he inspected his plane for bullet holes and fingered the 96 spray
nozzles arranged across the wingspan, Dave said he is also keeping
his reflexes sharp.

"Flying in mountains is inherently dangerous work," he said. "You
suddenly can find yourself in terrain that is climbing faster than
the aircraft can climb."

Patting the ungainly looking aircraft like some oversized pet, Dave
looked up toward the cockpit and said, smiling, "She's just a big pussycat."

Kraul is a special correspondent.