http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,287531_412,00.shtml
Private
Companies Fight Drug War
Contractors Give Support To Interdiction
Efforts
Some Worry They Are Leading Edge Of Military Conflict
Linked To
Peru's Downing Of American Missionaries
April 24,
2001
(CBS) Peru's downing of a plane carrying American
missionaries, killing a
missionary and her daughter, has focused new
attention on the war on drugs
in South America - a war in which private
citizens are running military
missions.
Peru's government says it
regrets Friday's incident, in which a Peruvian
air force jet working in
tandem with a U.S.-sponsored surveillance plane
mistook the American
missionaries' plane for a drug courier and shot it out
of the
sky.
Peru claims the pilot failed to file a flight plan or establish
communication with the jets tracking it. The missionaries contend that they
did file a flight plan. The White House has criticized the Peruvian action
and U.S. officials say the surveillance plane crew argued against the
shooting.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the plane
involved was
owned by the U.S. government and staffed by a Peruvian officer
and CIA
contractors.
CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports
the Americans were employees
of a private U.S. company, one of several
helping fight the drug war in
Colombia and Peru.
Two of the largest
are Virginia-based DynCorp and, until recently, MPRI.
The firms hold the
contracts for air support and logistics through the $1.3
billion anti-drug
aid package called Plan Colombia.
Washington says the plan, and other aid
to Latin America, is intended to
help local governments cut drug production.
But some in Congress are
skeptical, worried about the possibility of an
escalating American military
commitment.
"This is supposed to be an
aid package, this is supposed to be a counter
narcotics package and yet all
the elements of a war are beginning to
emerge," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky,
D-Ill. " We could be sucked into a kind
of Vietnam conflict.that's going to
take lots of lives and many years to
get out of."
Schakowsky and
others say they can't get the State Department to answer
questions about
private military involvement in South America.
Ed Soyster, a retired
general, says until last month his company, MPRI, was
involved in the
anti-drug effort in Colombia.
"Our focus is with the ministry of defense
and assisting them with
restructuring and focusing their efforts in the
counter-drug area," he
said. "We work with logistics, we work with their
training, intelligence,
those things that function at the ministry
level."
Private military companies are barred by State Department license
from ever
taking part in combat. But observers say it happens.
"For
DynCorp and these other companies to say, 'We're not involved in
combat' is
ridiculous," said Wayne Madsen of the Electronic Privacy
Information
Center.
DynCorp will not discuss one recent incident in which two of its
private
soldiers flew a helicopter into a jungle battle under heavy fire
from rebel
forces. The Americans, said to have been armed with M-16 rifles,
went in to
rescue trapped Colombian police.
"Either we're involved or
we're not. And I think it's clear that we are,
because most of these people
are retired military, retired CIA," said
Schakowsky. "They are armed they
are engaged in ground fights."
Military expert Thomas K. Adams, writing
in the U.S. Army War College
Quarterly, found that "For the risk-averse,
like the U.S. military,
employing such private contractors can help to
overcome the political
reluctance to become involved in situations where
risks are high and there
is little domestic constituency for the involvement
of U.S. troops."
A 1993 presidential directive shifted U.S. anti-drug
efforts from Mexico
and the Caribbean to so-called source countries, like
Colombia and Peru.
The U.S. carries out joint drug interdiction efforts with
Latin American
governments under the National Defense Authorization Act of
1995.
"The U.S. Government provides aerial tracking assistance to many
countries
in the region," Boucher said this week. "Colombia is the only
other country
that employs a program of interdiction similar to that of
Peru."
"Our aircraft provide location data about airplanes that are
flying in the
region, those that are apparently without flight plans," he
said. "We hand
off this location data to the Peruvian air force. Peruvian
aircraft are
responsible for the process of identifying the aircraft and
then deciding
on any further action."
Boucher said more than 30
aircraft have downed as a result of the
operations. The accidental
shoot-down of innocents on Friday, he said, "is
the first time something
like this has happened."
In terms of the dollar value of contracts it was
awarded, DynCorp ranked
17th among Defense Department contractors in 2000,
garnering $771 million
worth.
Some recent deals included $29 million
for work on the Defense Message
System Transition Hub, $12 million for work
with the Central Command's
Prepositioned War Reserve Materiel in Southwest
Asia program, and $78
million "for long range strategic planning and support
for the Directorate
of Strategic Planning, U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief of
Staff for Plans and
Programs," according to the Pentagon.
MPRI was in
1999 awarded a contract that could be worth a total $58 million
"for overall
support for Army Force Management planning, integration and
execution."