U.S. EXPECTED TO RESUME AIR INTERDICTION PROGRAM IN DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON - President Bush is expected to approve the resumption of a
program to force or shoot down airplanes suspected of ferrying drugs in
Latin America, U.S. officials say.

The program was halted a year ago after a plane carrying American
missionaries in Peru was mistakenly shot down.

Plans call for the State Department to take over the program from the CIA
once the president gives final approval. Air interdiction operations could
begin in Colombia as early as the fall and would probably be expanded to
Peru later, U.S. officials said.

The Pentagon would also support the program, providing intelligence about
suspected drug flights gathered from ground-based radars and from other
sources, officials said.

The program calls for the United States to identify and locate suspected
drug planes and for Colombian and Peruvian air force planes to shoot them
down if they do not respond to calls to land. U.S. officials said the
governments of Colombia and Peru had expressed support for restarting the
operation.

The program's many critics had assumed that the mistaken killing of two
Americans would make it impossible for the White House to start it up
again. But the plans for resumption began months ago. In recent weeks,
Colombia's incoming president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, visited Washington to
urge an aggressive U.S. role in the Latin American drug war.

The decision to shift the management of the program to the State Department
came after CIA Director George Tenet made it clear that his agency no
longer wanted any part of the operation, officials said. Since the plane's
downing, Congress has placed restrictions on the CIA's involvement,
officials said.

The CIA said last year that a contractor, Alabama-based Aviation
Development Corp., ran the program on its behalf. But Aviation Development
was actually a CIA front company, and public scrutiny of the program after
the downing of the missionary plane prompted the CIA to dissolve it,
officials familiar with the program said. Alabama state records show that
Aviation Development was dissolved in January.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has expressed strong support for resuming
the air interdiction operations through the State Department and has
repeatedly inquired about the progress of the department's work on the
program, officials said.

Although Bush has not given a final green light, the administration is far
advanced in its preparations for resuming the program, several officials said.

The Cessna Citation surveillance jets that the CIA previously operated in
the program have been upgraded and transferred to the State Department,
officials said. Colombian military pilots have just completed basic
training in the United States on how to fly the Citation jets and are
scheduled to begin advanced training for interdiction missions as early as
August.

In April, the State Department awarded a contract to a Maryland aviation
company, Arinc Corp., to help train Colombian and Peruvian pilots and
manage the air operation, officials said. A spokeswoman for Arinc confirmed
that the company had received the contract.

Arinc has tried to hire back many of the workers who were involved with the
program when it was run by the CIA. But some have refused, at least in part
because they do not think the State Department is allotting sufficient time
for training, according to persons familiar with the program. Other U.S.
officials stressed, however, that the State Department planned to impose
rigorous training standards on the air crews.

One of the biggest changes under the new plan is that the Citation
surveillance aircraft, previously flown by CIA contractor crews, would be
flown by Colombian and Peruvian pilots, officials said. Arinc would have
one bilingual observer on each surveillance plane, offering
recommendations. But the final decision on whether to direct fighter planes
to fire on suspect aircraft would be with the Peruvian and Colombian pilots.

The United States would still provide the crucial intelligence for the
missions, however, through an organization called the Joint Interagency
Task Force-East. The task force, based in Key West, Fla., is part of the
military's Southern Command. It would provide radar and other information
to help the Peruvian and Colombian air forces know when to start their
interceptor missions.

The administration suspended the air interdiction program immediately after
the April 2001 shoot-down in Peru, which killed Veronica Bowers, a
missionary, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity. Bowers' husband, James,
and their son, Cory, survived.

The pilot of the small Cessna, Kevin Donaldson, crash-landed it along the
Amazon River despite wounds he suffered in the attack, carried out by a
Peruvian air force interceptor. The administration has asked Congress to
approve an $8 million compensation payment to the survivors of the attack,
but officials said a final settlement was pending.

The purpose of the interdiction program, begun during the Clinton
administration in 1995, was to halt the shipment of semi-refined cocaine
from Peru to Colombia, where it was processed into cocaine and then shipped
to the United States. American counternarcotics officials realized that the
"air bridge" between Peru and Colombia was a vulnerable choke point in the
narcotics trade.

In Peru, the American-piloted Citation surveillance aircraft helped guide
Peruvian fighter jets to suspected drug flights, often after receiving
intelligence from an interagency task force based in Key West. The final
decision on whether to fire on the suspected aircraft was left to the
Peruvians, but the American and Peruvian governments worked out procedures
to protect innocent planes from attack.

The program quickly had a serious impact on drug flights. Between 1995 and
2001, the Peruvian air force shot down or forced down at least 38 aircraft
involved in drug trafficking and seized a dozen others on the ground.

Eventually, drug traffickers began switching to ground or river
transportation, U.S. officials said, and by the time the missionary plane
was shot down, few drug flights were still using the air bridge.

American officials said they were uncertain how much drug smuggling by air
between Peru and Colombia had increased since the program was suspended
last year. There is evidence of increased drug-related air traffic inside
Colombia, authorities said, but they have only limited information about
the volume of drug flights out of Peru.

Some drug flights now try to skirt the Peru-Colombia border region by
flying over Brazil, but the administration has not asked Brazil to get
involved in an expanded air interdiction program, officials said.

The State Department office that conducted the inquiry into the downing
last year will be in charge of the new interdiction program. The State
Department's August 2001 report on the incident concluded that the program
lacked adequate oversight, that too many shortcuts had crept into mission
procedures and that the language barrier made it difficult for the CIA
contractors to have much influence over the Peruvian pilots.

Officials said that before Bush could officially sign off on the program,
he would have to notify Congress that the administration was confident of
adequate training and effective safety procedures. The State Department and
its contractor are moving ahead with training so they can assure Congress
about the program soon after the president formally notifies legislators,
expected to be in the fall.

Since Congress imposed stricter standards on any resumption of operations
in Peru, the administration may express readiness to resume air operations
in Colombia first and Peru sometime later.