A COLOMBIA ARMS DEAL AND THE PERILS OF BLOWBACK

As Colombia's 38-year civil war careers toward a showdown between Latin
America's largest rebel group and government forces backed by the United
States, it is worth asking where the rebels got their some of their vast
supply of weapons.

Part of the answer may come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with the
murky world of arms dealing: A substantial shipment of guns was air dropped
to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as the result of a
1999 deal involving two men, each with his own connections to U.S.
intelligence agencies.

One was Vladimiro Montesinos, then the Peruvian spy chief, who was on the
CIA payroll for years.

The other, Sarkis Soghanalian -- a permanent U.S. resident nicknamed the
"merchant of death" by some U.S. officials -- has a long history of
conducting covert arms trafficking.

How did people with ties to U.S. intelligence agencies become involved in a
deal that provided weapons to a narco-insurgency, which the United States
has devoted more than $1 billion, as well as military advisers, to defeating?

Soghanalian has said he was duped -- that he believed the arms were
destined for Peruvian forces.

Montesinos, now in jail in Peru facing charges of arms and drug
trafficking, isn't talking. Whatever happened, no one denies that their
deal ended up putting 10,000 Kalashnikov rifles in the hands of the FARC.

The transaction is more than a commentary on the war in Colombia, Peruvian
politics or Soghanalian's business practices.

It should also serve as a cautionary tale to members of the Bush
administration who want to make it easier for U.S. intelligence agencies to
deal with unsavory characters in the name of national security.

At the end of the day, their agenda is not necessarily our agenda, their
motives might be very different from our own, and they can end up
threatening our security down the road.

Soghanalian is a familiar name in intelligence circles.

The Turkish-born Lebanese citizen, who has lived in the United States for
more than 20 years and who has offices in Paris, Amman and Miami, has been
in the arms business for more than three decades.

His clients have included various international pariahs, ranging from
Nicaragua's Gen. Anastasio Somoza to Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

How theFARC became another recipient is a complicated story that emerges
from court records, public statements and interviews with officials here
and abroad.

In 1999, Soghanalian and a Miami-based partner, international financier
Charles Acelor, arranged to ship Kalashnikovs from Jordan. According to
U.S. law enforcement officials and Peruvian court documents, about 10,000
of them were air dropped in crates fitted with parachutes over the FARC's
jungle stronghold during four flights between March and August 1999. This
was enough for the 17,000-member FARC to engage new recruits and keep its
veterans amply stocked.

This fresh supply of arms helped the FARC intensify its military attacks
recently.

It has shot down U.S.-supplied helicopters, hijacked a Colombian plane and
kidnapped a senior Colombian senator running for president. In response, on
Feb. 21, the Colombian government abandoned cease-fire talks and launched a
military assault to take over the Switzerland-sized zone held by the rebels.

The overwhelming majority of the casualties have been innocent civilians.

Soghanalian has a long history of collaboration with U.S. agencies,
including the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and the FBI. He has
rented planes to the CIA, helped bust a Lebanese counterfeit operation that
was printing $100 bills and served (unsuccessfully) as an interlocutor in
attempts to free American hostage Terry Anderson, held in Beirut from 1985
to 1991. Convictedin two separate cases of three felony charges,this
gunrunner has nonetheless ingratiated himself with successive U.S.
administrations. As a result, his punishment has been mild, when he has
been punished at all.

Even if one accepts Soghanalian's explanation that he believed the Peruvian
government to be the final destination of the shipment, he may have
violated a 1996 law requiring him to obtain a license for such a deal. In
fact, he had been prohibited from arms brokering under the earlier Arms
Export Control Act after his 1991 conviction for conspiring to sell 103
combat helicopters to Iraq. Moreover, his protestations of ignorance are
open to question.

We have examined about 500 pages of Peruvian court records and interviewed
officials from U.S. Customs, the FBI, and the Jordanian and Peruvian
governments. They suggest that Soghanalian took steps to disguise the
transaction, including the filing of circuitous flight plans and the
arranging of air drops in remote areas, which would seem unnecessary if the
customer were legitimate. In addition, it appears he only backed out of the
multiphase deal -- which was supposed to include another 40,000 guns --
after it became a public scandal.

We at the Fund for Peace have presented details of this case to federal
prosecutors, the State and Justice departments, and U.S. Customs. If the
past is any guide, U.S. authorities are used to stepping lightly around
Soghanalian's affairs.

Forhisunrelated conviction of defrauding a California bank, Soghanalian was
sentenced last year to time served after a U.S. attorney presented the
judge with secret documents detailing Soghanalian's "substantial assistance
to law enforcement." Similarly, for the 1991 conviction in the Iraqi
helicopter deal, Soghanalian was released after serving just two years of a
6 1/2 year sentence because of his cooperation on the Lebanon
counterfeiting case.

On Jan. 29, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration
quietly indicated that the 10-year restriction on Soghanalian's ability to
export any commercial goods from the United States had expired.
Fortunately, the State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls
restrictions applied in 1992 remain in effect.

They bar him from exporting defense articles, and have extra-territorial scope.

In 1996, the U.S. Congress -- acknowledging the role that arms brokers play
in fomenting conflict and terrorism around the world -- passed an amendment
to the Arms Export Control Act. The change was aimed at closing the
loophole for offshore arms trafficking by requiring U.S. nationals living
anywhere and foreign nationals residing or conducting business in the
United States to register and obtain licenses for all arms deals that they
transact, whether on or off U.S. soil.

Soghanalian is precisely the kind of person Congress was trying to target.
Under the amendment, Soghanalian would have been required to register and
obtain a U.S. license for a possible transaction with Peru.

If, as we believe, Soghanalian knew that these weapons were destined for
the FARC, which was designated a terrorist group by the United States in
1997, that could be a violation of a variety of U.S. and other nations'
laws, including the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996.

The United States has long relied upon arms dealers and dubious characters
to do its dirty work. In the mid-1990s, Congress tried to scale back this
reliance, but its efforts have proved insufficient, largely because the
U.S. government has lacked the political will to enforce them. In the wake
of Sept. 11, the Bush administration is rolling back the standards.

On Dec. 28, President Bush signed the Intelligence Authorization Act, which
effectively removes some of the restrictions on CIA recruitment of human
rights violators.

The 1996 arms brokering amendment hasnever been tested in court.

Without a precedent-setting case, many in our government remain ignorant of
its existence, and arms traffickers carry on without being put onnotice.
Meanwhile, in perfect step,former CIA operative Robert Baer has written a
new book extolling the government's need to lie down with more dirty dogs.

But by now Americans should be amply warned about these partnerships of
expediency. As the cases of Osama bin Laden and other former U.S. proxies
have demonstrated, relying on undesirable people often leads to unintended,
and undesirable, consequences -- a phenomenon common enough to merit its
own name -- "blowback," in CIA jargon.

The danger of using -- and funding -- these intermediaries has far exceeded
any utilitarian value they may serve.

To counter the well-armed FARC, the Bush administration is proposing nearly
$600 million in counternarcotics training, equipment and other assistance
in its fiscal 2003 budget, plus a non-narcotics component of $98 million in
training and helicopters to protect a frequently attacked oil pipeline.

The human toll is harder for us to gauge since the victims often live in
remote areas and do not figure into our national security interests.

As we contemplate a further escalation of our involvement and investment in
Colombia's civil war, we have sent a message to Colombia's government:
Sever ties with those abusive elements in your country, the paramilitaries,
that you use to do your dirty work.

It is high time to heed our own advice.