U.S. WILL REVIVE POLICY TO DOWN NARCOTICS PLANES

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will revive a policy to help Peru and
Colombia shoot down suspected narcotics planes in the Andean region within
six months but is edging the CIA out of any involvement.

The shoot-down program was suspended a year ago after a CIA spotter aircraft
helped Peruvian warplanes mistakenly pursue and fire on a U.S. missionary
plane over the Amazon River, killing an American mother and her infant.

Renewal still needs final White House approval, and Congress must be
formally notified.

But a senior State Department official this week said U.S. officials are
designing ''a very robust oversight program'' to avert new tragedies once
the program is renewed.

SHORTCOMINGS

He said the officials are addressing a wide range of shortcomings, including
language and chain-of-command problems, that led Peruvian attack aircraft on
April 20, 2001, to shoot down a single-engine U.S. hydroplane -- an action
taken without visually signaling to the stunned American pilot, Kevin
Donaldson, that his plane was considered suspicious.

The accident prompted some horrified U.S. legislators to demand that the
U.S.-sponsored program be scrapped entirely.

Last October, the Senate Intelligence Committee said the program should only
be renewed if it undergoes a ``dramatic overhaul.''

DRUG PRODUCTION

But heavy coca production in Peru and Colombia, the sources of nearly all
the world's cocaine, has led other legislators to say the shoot-down policy
should be revived -- with tighter safeguards.

''The amount of drugs moving through there has never been higher,'' said a
former Pentagon official.

The U.S.-sponsored program began in 1994 and led Peru, and to a lesser
extent Colombia, to shoot down or force down dozens of planes suspected of
carrying narcotics.

The CIA will no longer take part in chasing suspicious aircraft, the State
Department official said.

In the past, CIA contract employees flew Citation spotter aircraft equipped
with radar to assist the air forces of Peru and Colombia in identifying and
attacking small planes suspected of carrying cocaine.

''They are not going to fly the planes. They are not going to run the
planes. They are not going to maintain the planes,'' he said.

While the CIA will still gather intelligence on drug trafficking, the Bush
administration wants to make the air interdiction program more transparent
and ''not encumbered by a secrecy requirement,'' he said.

SAFEGUARDS

All U.S. employees and foreigners will be bilingual, he said, avoiding the
communication failures that contributed to the fatal shoot-down.

The Bush administration will no longer use U.S. government aircraft to tail
suspicious planes.

Instead, CIA-owned aircraft will be handed over to Peru and Colombia, the
official said. A U.S. official will ride aboard those donated planes.

Even with tighter procedures, one minority House member said she will try to
block the program.

''Resuming the shoot-down of civilian airplanes in the name of reducing the
flow of drugs to the United States will lead to more tragedies like the
death of American missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter,'' said
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois.

Leaders of the organization hit by the mistaken shoot-down, the Association
of Baptists for World Evangelism of New Cumberland, Pa., said they had been
briefed on the new security procedures.

''If they implement the same kind of guidelines but ensure that they work,
then it's possible that our pilots would be safe,'' said Donald F. Davis,
staff counsel for the group.

SCARED TO FLY

But the pilot whose legs were shot up in the shoot-down, and who continues
to live in the Peruvian jungles near Iquitos, is scared to return to the
Peruvian skies.

''Kevin's preference is that they not have a shoot-down policy, period. He
doesn't want to fly in Peru,'' Davis said.