cannabisnews.com: Drug Surveillance Hampered, White House Says 





Drug Surveillance Hampered, White House Says 
Posted by FoM on June 10, 2000 at 09:11:22 PT
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer
Source: Washington Post
U.S. ability to fly counterdrug surveillance missions over Colombia, Peru and Bolivia has been severely hampered by drawn-out negotiations with other governments over landing facilities and by congressional funding delays, administration officials testified yesterday.In response, congressional Republicans accused the Clinton administration of failing to make adequate plans to replace lost drug flight facilities at Howard Air Base in Panama following U.S. withdrawal from the Panama Canal Zone last year.
At a hearing of the drug policy subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, Chairman John L. Mica (R-Fla.) noted that cocaine exports from Colombia had vastly increased at the same time U.S. aerial surveillance capabilities had decreased. Mica waved a letter from Gen. Charles Wilhelm, head of the U.S. Southern Command, stating that drug "source country" overflights were now only one-third of what they were when Panama was available.Officials insisted that once new airfield agreements with El Salvador and Ecuador are implemented, they will provide even better monitoring than was available at Howard. In the meantime, they testified, surveillance flights operating from the Netherlands Antilles islands of Curacao and Aruba are tracking drug smugglers flying over the Caribbean at rates that have increased since Howard closed.But without the money and final agreements for the other flight locations, "we cannot execute our congressionally mandated mission," said Ana Maria Salazar, deputy assistant secretary of defense for drug enforcement policy.Yesterday's hearing provided a reprise of long-standing Republican charges that the administration--bound by the 1979 Panama Canal treaties to turn over U.S. military facilities and the canal itself last year--dropped the ball in losing access to Howard and the civil contract to manage ship traffic in the strategically crucial canal. The Panamanian government chose a Hong Kong company over U.S. bidders in what some Republicans have charged was a corrupt selection process.Citing concern over "Chinese communist presence in Panama," Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.) said Beijing now not only had putative control over the canal, but that Chinese organized crime was moving into Panama to smuggle drugs and launder money.The Republicans were aided in their charges by a leaked U.S. Customs Service intelligence report that said drug seizures in Panama, a major transit point for Colombian cocaine, had fallen drastically last year. The report described Panamanian law enforcement as "corrupt and ill-trained."Panama, said Mica, "is ripe for takeover by narco-terrorists" from Colombia, who already have made several incursions over their shared border.Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers and William E. Ledwith, international operations chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, acknowledged ongoing problems with Panamanian banks and vast smuggling operations through the Colon Free Zone on the Caribbean coast. But, they said, Panamanian drug seizures so far this year had greatly increased, rivaling the banner year of 1998.The much bigger problem, said all three administration witnesses, is the delay in implementing plans for a series of "forward operating locations," the combination of airfields in the region from which surveillance flights eventually will exceed those flown from Howard.Last November, the administration signed a 10-year agreement for use of the Ecuadoran Air Force field at Manta. Although P-3 and other surveillance aircraft from the Navy and the Customs Service are flying out of the field, its runway must be improved before it can be used by E-3 AWACS planes that would provide broad coverage over cocaine source-countries Colombia and Peru.Real-time information from such surveillance would improve the ability of those countries to interdict drug flights before they leave their air space. But money for the improvements is part of the administration's $1.6 billion emergency appropriations request that has been stuck in the Senate for months.Although flights have begun out of Curacao and Aruba, the Dutch Parliament has not yet ratified the 10-year agreement signed by that government.The government of El Salvador has agreed to allow U.S. use of Comalapa Air Base, adjacent to San Salvador's international airport, but the accord is still being debated by the Salvadoran legislative assembly. Ironically, Comalapa was a staging base for U.S. military resupply of the Salvador Army during its 10-year war with leftist guerrillas, who are now part of the legislature and must approve the agreement. By Karen DeYoungWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday , June 10, 2000 ; A05 © 2000 The Washington Post Company Related Articles:Anti-Drug Effort Stalls in Colombia http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5883.shtmlColombia Anti-Drug Spraying Beginshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5857.shtmlDrug War and Colombia Deny and Escalate http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5735.shtmlBreaking Rank for Human Rights http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5770.shtmlDrug Control or Bio Warfare? http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5616.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on June 10, 2000 at 18:34:32 PT
Another Failure
It's funny and sad how they're wasting our money.
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