U.S. SET TO RESUME ITS ROLE IN HALTING LATIN DRUG PLANES

WASHINGTON, July 3 - President Bush is expected to approve the resumption
of a program to force down or shoot down airplanes suspected of ferrying
drugs in Latin America, a year after the program was halted by the mistaken
downing of a plane carrying American missionaries in Peru, American
officials say.

Once the president gives final approval, the State Department would take
over the program from the Central Intelligence Agency. American officials
said air interdiction operations could begin in Colombia as early as this
fall and would likely be expanded to Peru later. The Pentagon would support
the program as well, 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. American officials said the
governments of both countries had expressed support for restarting the
operation.

The program's many critics had assumed that the mistaken downing of the
missionaries' plane, in which two Americans were killed, would make it
impossible for the White House to start it up again. But the plans for
resumption began months ago, and in recent weeks, Colombia's incoming
president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, visited Washington to urge an aggressive
American role in stemming drug traffic from Latin America.

The decision to shift the management of the program to the State Department
came after the C.I.A. director, George J. 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 C.I.A.'s
involvement, officials said.

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

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

Although Mr. Bush has not given final approval, the administration is
already far along in its preparations for resuming the air interdiction
program, several officials said. The Cessna Citation surveillance jets that
the C.I.A. had operated in the program have been upgraded and transferred
to the State Department, officials said. Colombian air force pilots have
just completed flight training on the Citation jets in the United States
and are scheduled to begin more advanced training as early as August in how
to perform the complex interdiction missions.

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

Arinc has tried to hire back many of the same workers who were involved
with the program when it was run by the C.I.A. But some have refused, at
least in part because they do not believe that the State Department is
allotting enough time for training, according to people familiar with the
program. Other American officials stressed, however, that the State
Department plans to impose rigorous training standards.

One of the biggest changes under the new plan is that the Citation
surveillance aircraft, previously flown by C.I.A. contractor crews, would
be flown by Colombian and Peruvian pilots, officials said. Arinc would have
one bilingual observer on each surveillance plane to offer 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, which is based in Key West, Fla., and is
part of the military's Southern Command, would provide radar and other
information to help Peru and Colombia know when to start their interceptor
missions.

The administration suspended the air interdiction program immediately after
a Peruvian air force interceptor jet shot down the missionaries' plane in
Peru on April 20, 2001. Veronica Bowers, a missionary, and her 7-month-old
daughter, Charity, were killed. Her husband, James, and their son, Cory,
survived. The pilot of the small plane, Kevin Donaldson, was able to
crash-land it along the Amazon River despite his wounds from the attack.
The Bush administration has asked Congress to approve an $8 million
compensation payment to the survivors of the attack, but officials said a
final settlement was still pending.

The air interdiction program, first begun during the Clinton administration
in 1995, was designed to halt the shipment of semirefined cocaine from Peru
to Colombia, where it was processed and then shipped to the United States.

In Peru, the American-piloted Citation jets 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 specific procedures expressly to
protect innocent planes from attack.

The air interdiction program in Peru quickly had a major effect 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 another
dozen on the ground.

Eventually, drug traffickers began switching to ground or river
transportation, and by the time the missionary plane was shot down, United
States officials said, there were few drug flights still operating.

American officials say there is evidence of increased drug-related air
traffic in Colombia since the interdiction operation was suspended, but
they have only limited information about the volume of drug flights out of
Peru. Some drug flights are now trying to skirt the Peru-Colombia border 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 would be in charge of the new interdiction program. The State
Department's August 2001 report on the incident concluded that the program
had lacked adequate oversight, that over time too many informal shortcuts
had crept into mission procedures, and that a language barrier had made it
difficult for the C.I.A. contractors to have much influence over the
Peruvian fighter pilots.

Officials say that before President Bush could officially sign off on the
program, he would have to notify Congress that the administration is
confident of adequate training effective safety procedures. The State
Department and its contractor are moving ahead with training now so they
could 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.