[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
U.S. AIR INTERDICTION EFFORTS IN SOUTH AMERICA AFTER THE PERU INCIDENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 1, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-61
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
78-829 WASHINGTON : 2002
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JIM TURNER, Texas
DOUG OSE, California THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia ------ ------
DAVE WELDON, Florida
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Chris Donesa, Staff Director
Roland Foster, Professional Staff Member
Conn Carroll, Clerk
Denise Wilson, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 1, 2001...................................... 1
Statement of:
Brown, Bob, Acting Deputy Director for Supply Reduction,
Office of National Drug Control Policy; Donnie R. Marshall,
Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration; Chuck
Winwood, Acting Commissioner, U.S. Customs Service; John M.
Crow, Director, Latin American and Caribbean Programs,
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs, Department of State; and Rear Admiral David Belz,
U.S. Coast Guard, Director, Joint Interagency Task Force
East....................................................... 43
Hoekstra, Hon. Pete, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan.......................................... 21
Isacson, Adam, Center for International Policy; Pete West,
National Business Aviation Association; and Andy Messing,
National Defense Council Foundation........................ 102
Weldon, Hon. Curt, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Pennsylvania...................................... 33
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Belz, Rear Admiral David, U.S. Coast Guard, Director, Joint
Interagency Task Force East, prepared statement of......... 73
Brown, Bob, Acting Deputy Director for Supply Reduction,
Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement
of......................................................... 46
Crow, John M., Director, Latin American and Caribbean
Programs, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs, Department of State, prepared
statement of............................................... 69
Davis, Hon. Jo Ann, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 20
Hoekstra, Hon. Pete, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan, articles dated May 1, 2001 and April 29,
2001....................................................... 24
Isacson, Adam, Center for International Policy, prepared
statement of............................................... 106
Marshall, Donnie R., Administrator, Drug Enforcement
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 58
Messing, Andy, National Defense Council Foundation, prepared
statement of............................................... 119
Platts, Hon. Todd Russell, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Pennsylvania, prepared statement of........... 38
Schakowsky, Hon. Janice D., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Illinois, prepared statement of............... 16
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana:
H. Res. 452.............................................. 124
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
West, Pete, National Business Aviation Association, prepared
statement of............................................... 114
Winwood, Chuck, Acting Commissioner, U.S. Customs Service,
prepared statement of...................................... 65
U.S. AIR INTERDICTION EFFORTS IN SOUTH AMERICA AFTER THE PERU INCIDENT
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Burton, Mica, Jo Ann Davis
of Virginia, Platts, Cummings, and Schakowsky.
Staff present: Chris Donesa, staff director; Sharon
Pinkerton, chief counsel; Charley Diaz, congressional fellow;
Roland Foster, professional staff member; Conn Carroll, clerk;
Tony Haywood, minority counsel; Denise Wilson, minority
professional staff member; and Lorran Garrison, minority staff
assistant.
Mr. Souder. The Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy and Human Resources is called to order. Thank you all
for coming this afternoon. Just a little over a week ago, a
terrible tragedy occurred that broke the heart of every
American when, through a preventable mistake, a missionary,
whose life had been committed to serving others on behalf of
God, was killed along with her little girl. The innocent pilot
was also wounded.
God's grace is flowing over her husband and son. Roni and
Charity Bowers now wait to be united in a much happier place.
God's promise is that all things work together for those who
live the Lord. The entire Nation has been able to hear of the
tremendous faith and confidence of this family.
But, from a public policy standpoint, where is the U.S.
Government to head? What will the U.S.' antidrug efforts in
South America be after the Peru incident? The errors in this
particular case already seem pretty clear. An investigative
team is in Peru today, headed by Randy Beers of the State
Department, to verify the facts and propose solutions. We are
looking forward to a speedy presentation to Congress and the
general public of those findings.
The shoot-down policy support by the U.S. Government was
proposed by President Clinton in 1994. It passed the Democrat-
controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate in 1994.
Though this was a Clinton initiative supported by a totally
controlled Democratic Congress, Republicans generally supported
President Clinton's policy as well. This policy was not a
partisan policy then, nor should it be now. President Clinton
stated that the Peruvian Government had adequate checks in
place to assure that a tragedy such as this would not occur.
In President Clinton's statement to Congress he included,
``The use of weapons against any such aircraft in flight by the
Peruvian Air Force may be authorized under very strict
conditions after all attempts to identify innocent aircraft and
to persuade the suspect aircraft to land at a controlled
airfield had been exhausted.'' Guidelines also specified
requirements on flight plans, multiple radio contacts, visual
contact, confirmation of the aircraft's identification and
registry, and the firing of warning shots first. Clearly, these
guidelines were not followed.
Some will try to maintain that it was inevitable that such
an incident would occur. I disagree. It is not inevitable that
in one flight there would be a mix-up of flight plans, language
problems, failure to identify tail numbers, failure to make
radio contact, failure to fire warning shots, or at least make
them aware of such an effort.
On top of that, the plane was headed toward the airfield in
Iquitos where, according to guidelines, the force-down should
have occurred. The plane was not using evasive techniques and
was headed away from the Colombian border where it was not in
danger of escaping. Any plan that can allow this many errors
has a design flaw. At a bare minimum, not enough double-checks
and training.
After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, many actions
were taken to avoid another oil spill, such as adding a second
pilot, having tug escorts, and having spill teams ready to
contain another accident, to name just a few. But around the
world, we have not just given up and said, no more oil. We will
work to avoid a repeat.
But this is certain. This policy will never be reinstalled
unless President Bush, Secretary Powell, Congress and,
ultimately, the American people, believe that such a tragedy as
this is not likely to be repeated because new safeguards have
not been added.
At today's hearing, we will first hear from Congressman
Pete Hoekstra of Michigan who represents Muskegon, MI, the
hometown of the Bowers family, and Congressman Curt Weldon of
Pennsylvania, who represents the injured pilot, Kevin
Donaldson. On the third panel we will hear from several groups
opposed to this policy and one who favors it. The second panel
will discuss the larger question: can the drug war in South
America be successful? Did this shoot-down policy have any
impact on reducing drugs? What is likely to happen without such
a policy in place? What other efforts can be undertaken to
reduce the flow of illegal drugs into our home towns?
It is important to note to all of the members, those in
attendance and those watching, none of the agencies in
attendance today were part of the tragic mistake in any way.
DEA, Customs, ONDCP, the Department of State and JIATF East
were not involved. The CIA was invited to testify today. They
chose not to attend.
I, as chairman of this subcommittee, in fact, have received
repeated requests not to hold today's hearing, but I strongly
believe that this policy should not just be debated behind
closed doors. Information should not just come from selected
leaks to favored media outlets.
Unfortunately, many people in America are becoming
convinced, falsely, that the war on drugs has not worked.
Secret hearings, hoping this will blow over, will not help the
American people understand the difficulty of fighting illegal
drugs. They have been swayed by Hollywood screenwriters more
than facts. They have been influenced more by propaganda from a
few rich drug legalizers than by the hard work of thousands of
dedicated law enforcement officers, anti-drug counselors,
teachers and parents who have rescued the lives of tens of
thousands of Americans.
Many Americans also do not understand the tremendous
sacrifices the people of Peru as well as Colombia, Bolivia,
Ecuador and others have made in trying to solve America's and
Europe's drug problem. We need to thank them for their efforts
more often. Only through open discussions to the degree
possible of our actions can we build popular support for these
needed programs. A common view, one perhaps some will make
today, is that the solution is to drop interdiction and
concentrate solely on demand reduction. Obviously, demand
reduction is a key component of any antidrug strategy. No
effort can possibly succeed without prevention and treatment
programs.
The Federal Government already spends far more on
prevention and treatment than interdiction. Local and State
governments, of course, spend nothing on interdiction, but
millions more on prevention and treatment, but it is still not
enough.
This week in the Education Committee we will be
reauthorizing the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act. For 2 years,
I and others have been working on legislation to make this
program more effective. Over the last few years, I have been a
lead sponsor on the Drug-Free Workplace bill, the Drug-Free
Communities Act, and an advocate for increased funding for drug
courts. I support legislation to expand drug treatment
coverage. My legislation to hold students who receive student
loans accountable if they get convicted of a drug crime has
been in the news lately. One of the charges I constantly hear
in south and central America is that we don't do enough here in
America, especially from students who studied on U.S. college
campuses.
But I have noticed something interesting in the 6 years I
have been in Congress. Many critics of drug interdiction
programs also don't seem to be advocates of tough prevention
programs either. No drug testing, no losing of any benefits, no
clear anti-drug message; after all, marijuana may be medicinal.
We are either serious about the war on drugs or we are not.
Over 200,000 Americans have died from the effects of illegal
drugs, and 34,000 were killed in Korea and 47,000 in battle in
Vietnam. Are we serious about the drug war or not?
What is the alternative of those who oppose the war on
drugs? Having more weed-wacked, meth-wasted, heroin-junkie
crackheads driving a car headed in your direction or prowling
your neighborhood or, perhaps even more painfully, coming home
to beat you or our child?
The facts are simple. When this country focuses on the war
on drugs, we make progress. The witnesses here today from the
various agencies will make that clear. What we lack is a steady
commitment.
Drugs, like other dirty crimes, good and decent people
don't like to think about, like child abuse, spouse abuse,
rape, will never be eliminated. Sin will always exist, but we
can never just abandon a battered spouse or child. We must do
what we can to spare as many as possible the agony and the
pain. We may not eliminate our social ills, but with
dedication, they can, in fact, be controlled.
I now yield to the distinguished ranking member, Mr.
Cummings of Maryland.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I first
want to welcome my colleague and friend, Representative Janice
Schakowsky of Illinois to our committee.
Mr. Chairman, we are all deeply saddened and concerned by
the tragic incident in Peru that claimed the innocent life of
Roni and Charity Bowers and seriously injured pilot Kevin
Donaldson. My serious condolences go out to the families and
loved ones of the deceased. Our thoughts and prayers go out to
John and Cory Bowers who survived the air assault relatively
unharmed thanks to the heroic flying and water landing managed
by Mr. Donaldson.
I think it is safe to say that there is one thing that
unites all of the members of this panel: ensuring that what
happened on April 21st never happens again.
As the ranking member of this subcommittee, it is critical
that we ascertain all the facts surrounding this incident. I am
happy to hear that the Bush administration has dispatched an
interagency investigative team to Lima, Peru to learn the truth
in the various conflicting claims and reports. I hope that we
will soon have an accurate, definitive account of what
happened.
What seems clear based upon what we know is that no one
involved desired this tragic result; namely, the taking of
innocent American lives. What also seems clear, though, is that
the incident was avoidable. Clearly, the danger to innocent
lives was contemplated when Congress and President Clinton
decided to go along with the shoot-down policy adopted by Peru
in 1994. Obviously, somewhere along the way, procedural
safeguards broke down in this case.
The Washington Post has characterized as meticulous Peru's
adherence to these procedures for intercepting suspect aircraft
under the 1995 U.S.-Peru Air Surveillance and Information-
Sharing Agreement. But the record has not been perfect. In
1997, the Peruvian Air Force deviated from the procedures when
it shot down a suspect plane without warning or contact.
Because the lives taken in that incident turned out to be those
of South American drug smugglers, the target of the shoot-down
policy, there was not a controversy that surrounds the recent
incident.
Nevertheless, in the wake of the 1997 shoot-down, the U.S.
Government took steps to ensure that all Peruvian officials
involved in the air interdiction program became well versed in
the procedures. Clearly, another refresher course may be in
order. But is that all?
Mr. Chairman, this incident opens up a range of questions
relating to our air interdiction efforts, including the nuts
and bolts questions about the cooperation, communication and
accountability between and among the various United States and
Peruvian agencies involved. I hope my colleagues and the
administration will also take this occasion to consider the
broader questions of accountability and due process that are
inherent in a program that makes the United States complicit in
a policy that permits, indeed promotes, the killing of
individuals merely suspected of drug smuggling.
Due process is at the heart of the notion of human rights,
embodied in the American justice system, a system that we hold
up as a model to developing democracies and aspiring democratic
movements around the globe. The Peruvian shoot-down policy
would never be permitted as a domestic U.S. policy precisely
because it goes against one of our most sacred, due process
principles; namely, that all persons are presumed innocent
until proven guilty.
The same due process ideal informs international law
prohibiting the shooting down of any civilian aircraft not
engaged in military attack. Under the U.S.-endorsed shoot-down
policy, civilian pilots and passengers in foreign lands are
excepted from that fundamental protection. Guilt or innocence
is determined by military pilots who also man the firing line.
As the recent incident demonstrates, there is a real danger to
all civilian air travelers in areas where the shoot-down policy
is in effect.
As for accountability, news reports suggest that the 1995
U.S.-Peru agreement was designed to avoid U.S. accountability.
The agreement is intentionally silent on the question of
whether U.S. officials have decisionmaking authority in shoot-
down scenarios. Because as one official was quoted as saying,
``We didn't want to assume responsibility when somebody made a
decision to shoot down an airplane.''
According to at least one article, a Defense Department
spokesman immediately distanced the Department from the
controversy. The DOD spokesman vigorously noted that, in this
case, the U.S. surveillance plane was not a Defense Department
asset. DOD, Customs Service, and other U.S. Government assets
are nevertheless readily employed in South America air
interdiction program. As our colleague and newest subcommittee
member, Congresswoman Janice Schakowsky, stressed in an April
24 letter to you, Mr. Chairman, the CIA's use of private
contract employees, including in this case, further clouds the
accountability issue, perhaps by design. All of this begs the
important question: just where does the buck stop?
Mr. Chairman, few, if any, are more aware than I am of the
immense and tragic toll that illicit drugs take on innocent
American lives in communities across this Nation. Certainly
Roni and Charity Bowers are not the first innocent victims of
the war on drugs. It is a policy that also sacrifices core
American values, a prudent and acceptable course to follow.
Unfortunately, we will not hear from the CIA today, but I
look forward to hearing the testimony of all of our witnesses
who will appear before us today. I thank the chairman for
allowing my request to hear from Pete West of the National
Business Aviation Association and Adam Isacson of the Center
for International Policy, who will appear on panel 3, and Phil
Boyer of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, who has
submitted a statement for the record.
I agree with you, Mr. Chairman. We should have hearings in
the open so that the public can fully understand and fully
appreciate what all of us go through in all of our--those
people fighting this war on drugs go through and sacrifice.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you.
Mr. Souder. I thank you.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for holding
this open affair and probing hearing. I think it is important
that this particular issue be aired before the Congress and
before this subcommittee with jurisdiction.
The innocent death of a mother and a baby is almost
impossible to comprehend. Our hearts, our sympathy go out to
the Bowers family. Unfortunately, we are engaged in a silent
war in which there are tens of thousands, even millions of
victims across the United States and across the world. I think
today, as a result of this hearing, it would be horrible to
compound one great tragedy and a loss to a family by developing
policies that would create an even greater tragedy.
It is very difficult to get a handle on the illegal
narcotics problem. I have worked with the chairman, the current
chairman; I served as chairman of this subcommittee, I have
worked with Mr. Cummings and others, and I think we have well-
intended people. Mr. Cummings told you the result of illegal
narcotics in his district, where there were over 300 people
dying per year last year. Through his intervention, we have it
under 300 for the first time.
But just to comprehend the scope of this problem, over
60,000 Americans lost their lives last year, or in the last
recorded year, 1999, to drug-related deaths, overdose and other
deaths. For the first time in the history of this Nation, those
deaths exceeded homicides, and then if we include homicides,
probably half of the homicides were drug-related. The question
is, what do we do? Do we continue this policy of information-
sharing?
I think it was applied by our responsible agencies and
individuals in a responsible fashion, as we intended the law.
Has it had an effect? Yes, it has had an effect. Since 1995, in
Peru, cocaine production is down 68 percent since 1995, and
Bolivia production is down 82 percent. I visited Peru, and I
know others on this panel have, too, when it was in turmoil,
when there was disruption when terrorist activities were being
financed by drug activities. It has been difficult to bring
that under control, but the Peruvians have done their best. I
think that we have to learn from this tragedy. We have to find
out what went wrong, institute further safeguards, make certain
that it does not happen again.
What is at fault here we must remember are people who are
dealing in death and destruction and illegal narcotics, drug
dealers, and that is what we should be targeting, our best way
to go after these people. I strongly advocate continuing this
information-sharing program. I strongly support the Peruvians
in their antinarcotics efforts. I also strongly support
inclusion of safeguards to make certain that we do not have
another tragedy like this, but we also prevent the tragedies
that occur to the extent of having three Columbines a day in
this country with our young people.
So Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you, and I hope that this
can be a productive meeting and result in positive changes.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I now yield to Congresswoman
Schakowsky for an opening statement.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am really
pleased to be at least considered for membership on this
subcommittee, once again. I ask unanimous consent to revise and
extend my remarks and to enter into the record questions for
witnesses and other materials.
Mr. Souder. I am going to do a procedural matter where we
allow all written statements, but unless there is objection, so
ordered.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. I am pleased that the
subcommittee has convened today to hear testimony on the U.S.
policy of intelligence-sharing and participation in air
interdiction operations in South America. I am sorry that it
has taken the loss of two innocent U.S. civilians, and possibly
others, to raise the visibility of this questionable policy.
In March, when the subcommittee heard testimony on U.S.
policy toward Colombia, I raised several questions and concerns
about the use of private contractors by the United States in
the Andean region. I said, the privatization of our military
and police assistance raises important oversight questions as
we get drawn deeper into Colombia's civil war. The most obvious
question is, why do we need to outsource and privatize our
efforts? The American taxpayers already pay $300 billion per
year to fund the world's most powerful military.
Why should they have to pay a second time in order to
privatize our operations? Are we outsourcing in order to avoid
public scrutiny, controversy or embarrassment? Is it to hide
body bags from the media and thus shield them from public
opinion? Or is it to provide deniability because these private
contractors are not covered by the same rules as active duty
U.S. persons? How is the public to know what their tax dollars
are being used for? Is there a potential for a privatized Gulf
of Tonkin incident? The American people deserve to have a full
and open debate before this policy goes any further.
That is what I said in March. Since then, I have introduced
H.R. 1591, legislation that would prohibit U.S. funds from
being used to contract with private military companies in the
Andean region.
The U.S. taxpayers are unwittingly funding a private war
with private soldiers. This is a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-
later policy encouraged by the United States in its war on
drugs. Shooting down unarmed civilian aircraft, even those
thought to be carrying drugs, is contrary to fundamental U.S.
law enforcement policy. I don't think that any of my colleagues
would support U.S. law enforcement officials in this country
shooting down planes or blowing up vans based simply on the
suspicion, or even the conviction that drugs are present. We
believe in due process which should be no less respected in
other countries than it is in our own.
The kind of action we saw in Peru last week amounts to an
extrajudicial killing, and we in this country now have innocent
blood on our hands because of it. Those are the facts, and they
were proven on April 20th, the day the actions of the CIA
contractors resulted in the death of Veronica and Charity
Bowers.
This is what the American public is reading about this
failed policy. In the Miami Herald it said, Peru's Air Force,
with U.S. assistance, committed an unforgivable error. In the
wake of last week's shooting, the Bush administration should
reconsider the merits of the interdiction effort. In the
Chicago Tribune where I am from: Given U.S.-led
counternarcotics strategies in the region since 1994, this
tragedy was bound to happen. Wherever the culpability lies in
this incident, the larger issue is whether the U.S. strategy to
use military interdiction in Peru, Colombia and other Andean
nations, while demand for cocaine still flourishes in America,
amounts to a fool's errand. The Peru incident should set off
alarms in the Bush administration about what could happen in
Colombia as the United States becomes more involved. This is an
opportunity to rethink the whole strategy.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution said in their headline,
deaths in Peru symbolize danger, futility of drug war. The Bush
administration acted quickly, it says, to freeze antidrug
surveillance flights in Peru, but President Bush should have
taken the opportunity to ask for a broad review of the longtime
Washington policy of assisting drug interdiction in foreign
policies. Can anyone point to data that shows that shooting
down planes over Peru has done anything to stop even one addict
in this country from using drugs? This is a war we cannot win.
Finally, the Chicago Sun Times said, their headline was,
``Only Losers in the War That We Can't Win.'' They say, ``the
Bowers are just one example of how the U.S. war on drugs, as
virtuous as its intent may be, has had consequences serious
enough to call into question our ineffective approach to
America's appetite for illegal substances.''
We are here today to reevaluate our policy, to try to pick
up the pieces and move on. I know some of those with us today
would like to put this tragedy behind us and get back to the
business of the drug war. However, there are so many
questionable aspects of our policy and so many unanswered
questions. Why do we have to hire private contractors to do our
work in Andean countries? How much of the public's money has
been spent to hire what some have referred to as mercenaries?
Where is the accountability? Who exactly are they? Do they even
speak Spanish? From what I do know, outsourcing in the Andean
region is a way to avoid congressional oversight and public
scrutiny. The use of private military contractors risks drawing
into regional conflicts and civil war. It is clear to me that
this practice must stop.
I realize that there are those who are willing to risk
another incident like this, but I am not. We have spent
billions of taxpayer dollars, employed personnel from numerous
agencies around the world, and the drugs continue to flow into
the United States. Are the Bowers acceptable collateral damage
in this war on drugs?
We need a new approach. I agree with Secretary of Defense
Don Rumsfeld when he said, ``I am one who believes that the
drug problem is probably overwhelmingly a demand problem, and
that it is going to find, if the demand persists, it is going
to find ways to get what it wants, and if it isn't from
Colombia, it will be from somebody else.''
The administration should rethink its budget request for
the Andean region, but immediately we should go beyond the
suspension of surveillance flights in Peru and to suspend all
U.S. contracts with private military firms in the Andean
region. The audio and videotapes and other materials related to
this and other shoot-downs in the Andean region should also be
shared with the Congress and the public.
Finally, the Bush administration's proposed nomination of
John Walters as the next drug czar raises troubling
implications for the future of this tragic policy. An outspoken
advocate of the shoot-down policy, he has even been criticized
by General Barry MacCaffrey on Meet the Press for being too
focused on interdiction. That was a quote.
I want to thank and welcome our distinguished witnesses for
being here today, and I look forward to their testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Congresswoman Davis.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
would just like to say thank you for calling this hearing, and
I thank the panelists and witnesses for coming. I do have a
written statement I would like entered into the record.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jo Ann Davis follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank the gentlewoman.
Congressman Ose was here earlier. He has been down with us
to South and Central America, and we will have a number of
Members coming in and out today as we are coming back into
session later this afternoon.
Before proceeding I would like to take care of some
procedural matters. First, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements
and questions for the hearing record and that any answers to
written questions provided by the witnesses also be included
into record.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Platts and the gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms.
Schakowsky who are both members of the full committee, be
permitted to participate in the hearing and to question
witnesses under the 5 minute rule in each round after all of
the members of the subcommittee have completed their
questioning.
As you have heard, Ms. Schakowsky has been added to the
committee, but it hasn't been cleared through, but it will be
in our next full meeting. Without objection, it is so ordered.
We will now begin with our first panel who is made up of
both Members of Congress, both long-time friends of mine whose
constituents were involved in the incident of Peru. We welcome
both of you. It is standard practice of our subcommittee to do
a swearing in. We do not do it for Members of Congress because
when we take the oath of office, that is the same as we do for
witnesses here.
So Congressman Hoekstra, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF HON. PETE HOEKSTRA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Hoekstra. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, for inviting me to testify this afternoon. As many
of you now realize, the Bowers family was from Muskegon, MI, in
my congressional district. Over the past several days I have
been deeply involved in this matter. I appreciate this
opportunity to speak publicly about the impact of the downing
of that missionary plane in Peru. I would also like to take
this opportunity to thank my colleague, Curt Weldon, for
working in a partnership over the last 10 days in dealing with
a whole range of issues that I do not think either one of us
have ever dealt with before and hope that we never have to deal
with again.
The events of April 20, once again, show that the policies
we implement and/or support as a Congress have real
consequences. For the Bowers family, Jim, Roni and their
children, Cory and Charity, those consequences have forever
changed their lives. The same is true for the seriously injured
pilot, Kevin Donaldson and his family.
The events of that day are well-known to all of you. As
your subcommittee and others take a closer look at the tragedy
in Peru that took the lives of two innocent people, I would ask
you to remember what the real cost of this event has been. A
young woman, Roni Bowers, a daughter, a wife, a mother, a
friend, and a woman dedicated to sharing her faith with the
people of Peru, along with her young, adopted daughter, Charity
was killed, senselessly and needlessly. There was no reason,
there was no purpose, there was no gain. There is only the
devastation laid on the doorstep of a family whose life was
devoted to sharing the message of God, a message that has been
amplified and one that has helped sustain them during these
last horrible days. I will mention more about that in just a
moment.
As you look at the actual events, the policy that led up to
those events and the reasons the policy contributed to these
deaths, please do not forget that we are talking about real
people. Roni and Charity had a profound effect on the lives
that they touched. They were missionaries, living a lifestyle
of sacrifice, so that they might be able to minister to the
people in that region.
I would like to thank the many agencies, both in the United
States and in Peru, which, in the hours and the days after this
tragedy, worked to help the victims and assist my office in
separating fact from rumor. Their help ensured that I was
equipped to help the Bowers family in the most effective way
possible. I acknowledge the State Department, particularly our
counsel general office in Lima, the Central Intelligence
Agency, with special thanks to Director Tenet, the Drug
Enforcement Agency and the Peruvian Government for their
efforts to expedite the return of both the survivors and those
killed on that fateful morning. The private sector, including
Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines, also stepped up to
the plate to make sure this difficult time was made more
manageable.
When a family is visited by such enormous grief, there is
almost always understandable outrage. But while the Bowers
family has been deeply and permanently hurt, their attitude has
not been accusatory, but rather conciliatory. When many of us
would have withdrawn from the fresh and painful memory of this
horrible incident, the Bowers talked about the all too short,
but miraculous lives, of their beloved Roni and Charity and
expressed their steadfast belief that this incident was part of
a larger plan.
The awesome power of God has been demonstrated through this
event in ways no man could devise. Over the last few months,
Roni had been praying the prayer of Jabez. This prayer calls
for God to expand the territories that someone might influence
for the Lord. Over the last 10 days, the ministry of the Bowers
and the Donaldsons has been seen and experienced by millions of
people throughout the United States and around the world.
Seeing the family and their friends and coworkers handle this
tragedy has been truly inspiring. They have demonstrated a
quiet, yet strong confidence that they gained through their
knowledge of Jesus Christ. I am thankful that these families
knew Jesus and that Jesus has helped them through these
difficult days as he supported them in their earlier ministry.
Now, it is up to us to make sure this never happens again.
As a government, I hope we make public all the relevant
information regarding this event. The families and the American
people deserve to know how this happened. I know there are
certain pieces of this complex puzzle that we will never be
able to explain, but there should be no part that we keep
hidden. As we make this information public, I want it released
in such a way that it is considerate to the families and
victims. The families must be given the choice of reviewing
such information before they see it on the evening news.
We must also review the history of this program. I have
learned that there have been concerns about certain actions of
the Peruvian Air Force in the past, the kind of concerns that
could have been a red flag warning that tragedies such as this
could occur. We need to review those in more detail. But the
question is clear: Did the United States have any indication or
warning that a tragic mistake like this could happen? As we
consider the lives lost and forever altered by this event, we
must consider the policy that led to the involvement of the
United States.
As a Congress, we must weigh our desire to stop the flow of
drugs into this country against the need to keep innocent
people, no matter what their country of origin, safe. We must
carefully consider whether we should continue to embrace a
policy that can and has resulted in unnecessary, unwarranted,
and totally unacceptable loss of life.
Finally, we must reflect on whether we, through our actions
here today and elsewhere, could ensure that this never happens
again. We owe that to Roni and Charity, we owe it to Jim and
Cory. We owe it to Kevin Donaldson and his family, friends and
coworkers.
Mr. Chairman, I would also like to submit for the record
two newspaper articles that I think are very pertinent. The
first is from this morning's Washington Post that does a fine
job of showing the power of the Bowers faith and ministry
called divine intervention. The second is an editorial in
Sunday's Grand Rapids Press by John Douglas entitled, ``The
Real Killers in Peru, U.S. Drug Users.'' I hope you will have
time to read both of them.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify today.
Mr. Souder. Without objection, both articles will be
inserted into the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Congressman Weldon.
STATEMENT OF HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by
thanking you and the distinguished ranking member and the other
members of the subcommittee for responding so quickly to the
letter that our colleague and I sent to you the day after this
incident occurred asking for congressional inquiry into this
outrageous and brutal murder of two American citizens in Peru.
The Peruvian Government needs to be held accountable for this
action and so does the American government and its agencies.
Let me start out by saying I am a supporter of our drug
policy in South America. I have traveled there this year, and
am planning a second trip to spend time understanding the role
of Plan Colombia and its activities and relationships on
neighboring countries, including Peru. I am also a strong
supporter of the military. I have been on the Committee on
Armed Services for eight terms. I chair the Readiness
Subcommittee, which oversees $110 billion of defense spending,
and I will let you be assured that our committee is equally
concerned about this incident and what we can do to get to the
bottom of it.
But I think your committee is in a unique position, because
you can come in as an outsider and look at both the
Intelligence Committee activities and actions and our
Department of Defense actions. We are asking the Department of
Defense for and have received classified briefings, and that is
why my comments today will be based on public records, so that
I don't, in fact, cross that line. But I think there are
questions that this committee, in particular, can get to the
bottom of through your subpoena power and through a necessary
action to understand what really occurred, and the involvement
of both the Peruvian Air Force and our military.
I am going to make my comments rather short, because I did
have a constituent family involved, but I think my colleague
has expressed the condolences that both of us share with that
family and with their loved ones during the days following the
incident.
I want to focus on some basic questions that we need to get
answered. These need to be answered publicly, because the
factors around these questions have been raised publicly. But
up until now, we have seen the agencies hem and haw and not
want to go into depth about the answer to these questions,
which I think lie at the bottom of the investigation that your
committee is about to undertake. I would encourage you to use
your subpoena power, because no agency of the Federal
Government, including the CIA or Defense Intelligence, is above
the oversight of this Congress, and we have an obligation to
make sure that they are abiding by our laws and our
regulations. In fact, our defense authorization bill several
years ago dealt with the policies that are in play in this
particular incident.
So let me proceed with the questions which I would ask your
committee to raise and to get answers to during this hearing
and follow on investigative work with the various agencies of
our government.
First of all, why was this plane brutally fired upon
because it was identified or asked to descend? A common
understanding would be, if you see a plane in an area, you
would, first of all, ask to identify that plane and certainly
instruct it to descend. There are mixed signals in the public
arena about whether or not these directions were given, or
whether or not these questions were asked. We need to know the
factual answer to that question.
No. 2. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher
acknowledged after the incident, ``There are certainly
indications that our folks on the plane were trying to hold the
Peruvians back from taking action in this case.'' Well, this
committee needs to find out what were those indications? Mr.
Boucher was not to the point. He didn't give us the detailed
information that now can be known from the tape recordings that
were on that plane. We need to know what those indications were
that Mr. Boucher was referring to that indicate that our folks
on the plane were trying to hold the Peruvians back on this
incident. I have my doubts until the very end of the actions by
our own people.
No. 3. There is referral in the media that the plane was
flying straight and level which would indicate there was no
effort to evade the Peruvian military. The videotape, which is
available to this committee, either through subpoena or through
voluntary compliance, shows that the Peruvians omitted or
``truncated'' various parts of the procedure that are designed
to avoid the downing of a civilian aircraft. This quote was
made by a U.S. official who reviewed the videotape but did not
want his name used. I would ask this committee to find that
individual or to review that videotape itself and allow the
committee to make a determination about the truncation of the
various parts of a procedure which our government and the
Peruvian Government had agreed upon prior to this action in
terms of these kinds of planes.
No. 4. Were strict procedures followed? The previous
question said there was an allusion by an American official to
a truncation of the process. Well, let's review what the strict
procedures are that were established by our government and the
Peruvian Government when a suspect plane could be shot down.
U.S. monitors patrolling the border zone first had to establish
reasonable suspicion that the aircraft is primarily engaged in
illicit drug trafficking, according to our National Defense
Authorization Act of 1995. That is a bill that my committee
prepared and all of us supported with overwhelming numbers.
That was the criteria in our legislation. Flying without a
flight plan in a high-traffic drug zone is considered grounds
for reasonable suspicion. Once U.S. officials tipped the
Peruvian military about a suspicious airplane, the Peruvians
must try to identify the plane by its markings, make radio
contact, and order it to land for inspection.
If radio contact is not possible, the Peruvian pilot making
the intercept must make visual contact with the suspect
aircraft and direct it to land at a secure airfield. If the
orders are ignored, the Peruvian attack plane must get
permission from superiors to fire warning shots at the
suspicious aircraft first. If the warning shots are ignored,
the military plane may shoot to disable the aircraft. Only if
all of that fails may the pilot shoot down the aircraft.
Mr. Chairman, through the procedures that our government
and the Peruvian Government agreed upon, I am convinced they
were totally violated in this action, and two people were
brutally massacred because of the violations of that
established and agreed-upon procedure. We need to have this
committee get to the bottom of why the procedure was not fully
followed.
No. 5 is also an important point that has to be raised, and
it is somewhat of a difficult point, with the pilot who happens
to be from my district. Was there a flight plan filed? Mr.
Chairman, there are reports by the organization that sponsored
this plane, the aviation director for the Association of
Baptists for World Evangelism, Hank Scheltema, that his group's
plane had contacted the Iquitos Airport 45 minutes after it
took off, or about 15 to 20 minutes before the attack. Now,
Mario Husto, the civil aviation chief at that airport, said the
tower received no communication from the plane until moments
before it was downed.
Mr. Chairman, obviously, someone is not being factually
correct. We need to know if that plane filed a flight plan and
if it did, and if it was filed 45 minutes before it was to
land, then that airport knew that plane was en route, and also
was tracking the CIA operated plane as well.
No. 6, why was there not more aggressive and decisive
action taken by the American crew on board that chaser plane?
Why did that crew not more decisively attempt to abort the
mission if they suspected the target aircraft was not involved
in drug trafficking? Mr. Chairman, I submit to you, and I am
using all unclassified material, there is significant
classified material for you to make that determination. You can
request and should demand those tapes; you should review them,
because this committee needs to make a fair and independent
assessment as to whether or not our employees on that plane
took clear and decisive action. I will let this committee make
that judgment in its wisdom after reviewing those materials.
Finally, was the Iquitos Airport contacted in advance, a
question you need to ask and get a specific response from the
Peruvian Government.
Mr. Chairman, these questions are very difficult for all of
us, but the fact is that two Americans are dead today because,
in my opinion, not just the Peruvian Government, but our
government, failed two of our citizens. This should not have
taken place. This is not about whether or not the drug war
needs to be continually fought. It does. In fact, I agree with
the comments made by our colleagues that much of the battle
needs to be fought in the States. We must stop glorifying the
use of drugs, as we hear every night on the TV set in our
media, and start to go after those people who caused the
problem in the first place, which is the demand, which causes
farmers in Colombia and Peru and Ecuador to sell drugs because
of the huge profits that are being made by those in America who
want to use those very drugs.
One final point, and this follows up on the comments of Ms.
Schakowsky, and that is relative to the use of civilian
contractors. I am not going to go as far as my colleague has
gone, and I respect her tremendously for her leadership in this
area, in saying we should never use contractors, because there
are times, I think, where that case may be able to be made, but
I can tell you that this committee needs to look at the
contractors that our intelligence community utilizes. Why do I
say that? Not just because of this incident.
A decade ago, I lost a nephew, a young nephew who was
sucked out of the Air Force by a recruiter for a CIA contractor
promising him lucrative dollars to fly missions into Angola.
None of us in the family knew that my nephew, Robbie, was
flying on a former CIA contract in Angola. He was shot down and
killed. The plane was demolished. To this day, I have never
been satisfied with the response that I got from our
intelligence community about whether or not that contractor was
still involved with missions of intelligence and whether or not
my nephew was killed in vain.
Mr. Chairman, we owe it to all Americans to let them know
that their government is monitoring our agencies. No agency of
this government is above the law. I applaud you for your
leadership, I applaud my colleagues for their interest, and I
look forward to working with you as a senior member of the
Committee on Armed Services to get the answers we all need.
Mr. Souder. I thank both gentlemen for their statements,
and let me, for the record, first acknowledge that
Congresswoman Schakowsky has, in fact, asked us to look at the
contractor question. We are looking at the best way to approach
that, and we will not be cowed. I appreciate that the
Congressman from Michigan is on the Intelligence Committee, and
the Congressman from Pennsylvania has been a long-time leader
on these issues on intelligence, and just so I can reiterate
the point, this is a bipartisan concern. The original
legislation, ironically, was introduced by then Congressman
Schumer and Congressman Sensenbrenner to do this bill, and then
the House bill was a similar variation on the Peru question was
introduced by Mr. Torricelli, and Mr. Lantos and Mr.
McCandless.
As you mentioned, Mr. Weldon, you were on the committee in
support of this effort. But all of us, in a bipartisan way,
want to make sure it is being implemented the way Congress
passed it. There is no way that Congressman Lantos or Senator
Schumer and the others would support what happened here either.
Nobody is above the law. Chairman Burton and I discussed
over the last few days the possibility of a subpoena on this
hearing for the CIA. At this point we decided not to issue a
subpoena for today's hearing. There is an investigation going
on right now in Peru. As I said in my opening statement, we
want to make sure that is released, and I am more than willing
to let other committees, including the Intelligence Committee,
go ahead. I understand there are many other operations that
have to be worked through. But the American public has a right
to know what we are doing regarding learning the facts about
this.
As Congressman Hoekstra said, he didn't want to see the
audio and videotapes released before the families could see
them, which is a very reasonable request. But at some point
here, once we see quotes and comments in the media by
apparently a few selected members of the media being able to
see this, yet we do not know whether we have seen the whole
tape or heard the audiotape, once you have partial release,
this is now in public domain, and it is endangering all drug
efforts because people assume this kind of stuff goes on all
the time.
There has to be some sunshine on this, because I want to
point out again, this is a bipartisan concern for many times
different reasons, but a general concern about what has
happened here and how, if this policy is ever reinstituted and
other policies, whether it is contracting out or the clearance
and how not to have--because we can't make these kinds of
decisions, but what kind of checks can we have and balances
that are even more tight when we deal with other nations, not
just in the air surveillance, but as we are going to hear in
many different areas.
I would like to now yield to Congressman Platts of
Pennsylvania who represents the district where the Association
is based, for an opening statement.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have submitted a
copy of my opening statement for inclusion in the written
record and won't share all of the aspects of that, and much of
it dovetails with our panel participants.
I just thank you for the scrutiny you are bringing to this
issue. The Association of Baptists for World Evangelism is
located in York County, PA, in my congressional district. We
certainly, as a Nation, need to do our utmost to take a
tremendous personal tragedy of the Bowers family and turn it
into a public good to ensure that no future citizen is an
innocent victim of their life being taken and, in this case, a
mother and wife, a sister, a daughter to Ronald Bowers that we
don't allow this to occur. Again, your efforts as chairman of
the committee will play a very important role in ensuring that
we guard against this occurrence in the future.
I think there are a lot of unanswered questions. Mr. Weldon
and Mr. Hoekstra have raised some very important issues that
you are pursuing, and any way that I can assist as a member of
the full Government Reform Committee, I look forward to doing
so. We need to get to the bottom of this and not allow this
tragedy to go unlearned from for the future. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Todd Russell Platts
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Hoekstra or Mr. Weldon, did you have any
additional comments? Thank you very much for coming today. We
will move ahead now to our second panel, if you could all come
forward.
Our second panel consists of representatives of the Federal
agencies who are most directly involved in our interdiction
efforts on a day-to-day basis. I want to personally thank all
of you for appearing today on very short notice on this
critical issue. Again, I would like to note that the
subcommittee invited CIA Director Tenet or a representative of
the Central Intelligence Agency and that the agency did not
respond to our request. With us today from the Office of
National Drug Policy is Bob Brown, the Acting Deputy Director
for Supply Reduction, who will give us an overview of the
background of the overall interdiction program; from the Drug
Enforcement Administration, Administrator Donnie Marshall; from
the U.S. Customs Service; Acting Commissioner Chuck Winwood;
and from the State Department, we have John Crow, the Director
of Latin American and Caribbean Programs from the Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs; and
finally, to give us an operational and big-picture perspective,
we have Rear Admiral David Belz, U.S. Coast Guard, Director of
the Joint Interagency Task Force East.
As an oversight committee, if you will all stand up again,
it is our standard practice to ask our witnesses to testify
under oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witnesses have all
answered in the affirmative.
We will now recognize the witnesses for their opening
statements. We will ask you to summarize your testimony in 5
minutes and include any fuller statements you may wish to make
in the record.
Mr. Brown, do you have an opening statement?
STATEMENTS OF BOB BROWN, ACTING DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR SUPPLY
REDUCTION, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; DONNIE R.
MARSHALL, ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; CHUCK
WINWOOD, ACTING COMMISSIONER, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE; JOHN M.
CROW, DIRECTOR, LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN PROGRAMS, BUREAU
OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS,
DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND REAR ADMIRAL DAVID BELZ, U.S. COAST
GUARD, DIRECTOR, JOINT INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE EAST
Mr. Brown. Chairman Souder, Mr. Cummings, committee
members, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the
subcommittee. We at ONDCP appreciate your involvement and
oversight of all aspects of our drug policy.
At the outset, let me also express condolences to the
family and friends of the Bowers for their tragic loss. We also
very much regret the injuries suffered by Mr. Donaldson, the
pilot, and wish him a full and speedy recovery. Also with
regard to this incident, I would underscore that a joint
Peruvian and American fact-finding effort began yesterday in
Peru to determine the causes of this terrible accident. All
U.S. Government activities which directly support the air
interdiction programs involved in Colombia and Peru were
immediately suspended after the incident on Friday, April 20,
pending a thorough investigation and review.
While it would be inappropriate for me to discuss the
particular details of this tragedy, given the ongoing
investigation, I think it would be useful to summarize how our
air interdiction program fits into our overall international
drug control strategy. Cocaine remains the Nation's principal
drug concern, with more than 3 million chronic addicts spending
more than $37 billion per year at the retail level.
Although the number of monthly cocaine consumers is down 70
percent from its peak in 1985, cocaine still wreaks devastation
on families and communities across our Nation. Because cocaine
is the most damaging drug, it is therefore our first priority
for supply reduction efforts.
If I could, please direct your attention to chart No. 1,
and I believe there are copies of these charts provided to the
committee members. Here in chart No. 1, we see that cocaine is
produced entirely within the Andean region, that is, Colombia,
Peru and Bolivia. As you see in the insert bar graph and
referred to earlier, the overall cocaine production potential
has dropped 68 percent in Peru and 82 percent in Bolivia
between the years 1995 and 2000. Even considering the expansion
of coca production in Colombia during this period, there has
been an overall reduction of 17 percent in cocaine production
capacity or potential in the Andean region.
Turning to the second chart regarding air interdiction in
Peru, you see how traffickers reacted to enhanced U.S.
supported air interdiction beginning in 1995. On the left of
the chart in the early part of 1990's coca-based flights in
that day--at that time Peru was the dominant coca producer in
the Andean countries--these coca-based flights flew directly
north to finishing labs in Colombia.
After interdiction became more effective, and pilots,
criminal pilots, if you will, were convinced of the risk of
flying, drug traffic flights became extraordinarily expensive
to the traffickers and diverted further and further into the
east, as noted there on the chart.
And finally with the third chart, here you see how
successful air interdiction affected the price that Peruvian
growers could get for coca in Peru and how that caused coca
production to fall over time. In 1994, U.S. assistance was
suspended and by the beginning of 1995, prices reached record
levels. In March 1995, as referred to earlier in our first
panel and earlier commentary, U.S. assistance resumed and the
impact was immediate. Pilots wouldn't fly into central Peru to
pick up a load of drugs. Coca farmers couldn't sell the crop
and began abandoning their fields. Over the last 3 years,
prices have recovered, but for a greatly reduced volume of
coca, again, approximately one quarter of what it was at the
early part of this period.
Let me make two final points. We must continue to support
the Andean region if we are to reduce the supply of illegal
drugs in a meaningful way. The Andes are at the core of the
U.S. drug supply threat. This is why the administration has
launched a comprehensive Andean regional initiative with
assistance, not just for Colombia, but for all the Nations of
the Andean region. As this subcommittee well knows, drug
trafficking and drug abuse continue to exact a considerable
toll on our country. We estimate that the United States suffers
more than 50,000 drug-related deaths annually. Drug abuse costs
our Nation about $110 billion a year from disease, lost
productivity, and crime. Our national drug control strategy
supports effective international cooperation, law enforcement,
and demand reduction programs. This multi-faceted approach over
time has reduced the impact of drugs on the United States.
Finally, I would reiterate our condolences to the Bowers
family regarding this terrible tragedy, and of course would be
happy to respond to any questions that the committee wishes to
offer. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brown follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Marshall, do you
have an opening statement.
Mr. Marshall. Yes, I do. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Member Cummings and the other distinguished members of
the subcommittee. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be
here today to discuss what I think is a very important and
timely topic of our air interdictions in South America. The
loss of lives and the injuries that we saw in the April 20th
incident in Peru is indeed very, very tragic. And I want to
join all of you in honoring the memories of those that
perished. I also extend my deepest condolences to the families
and the friends of those that lost their lives, and I have
remembered all of them in my prayers as well. I know that they
are indeed struggling through some very difficult times in the
aftermath of this incident.
And finally, sir, on behalf of everyone in DEA, I want to
thank this entire committee for your support of our agency and
for all of drug law enforcement. We're present, DEA is present
in over 300 U.S. cities and 512 foreign countries. We have
general aviation aircraft assigned to several of our overseas
offices. In Peru, for example, there are two civilian type
turbo prop aircraft. The pilots of those aircraft are DEA
special agents and the aircraft bear U.S. registration numbers.
They operate there with the full knowledge of the U.S. Embassy
and host country officials and our DEA pilots follow host
nation aviation regulations. The DEA aircraft that we have
assigned in Peru do not participate directly in air
interdiction operations. Rather, their missions normally
include the transportation of special agents, host country
police, prosecutors and equipment that are all needed to
conduct criminal investigations. DEA aircraft are also used to
pinpoint the exact location of clandestine laboratories, drug
storage sites and illegal airstrips. There are other components
of the U.S. Government who conduct joint operations with the
government of Peru in an air interdiction program. This program
is designed to identify and track suspect drug planes used in
the transportation of cocaine hydrochloride and base from Peru
to and neighboring countries. DEA does not conduct operations
in direct support of that initiative. DEA has supported that
program by supplying law enforcement information on clandestine
airstrips, suspect aircraft and the movement of drugs and money
by major criminal organizations.
DEA's primary mission is not interdiction, per se, rather
it is the dismantling of drug trafficking organizations through
the investigation, indictment and imprisonment of the leaders
of those criminal groups. Now, that process involves an
approach that allows criminal investigations, law enforcement
intelligence, and interdiction activities to complement each
other and create a cycle that benefits the overall drug law
enforcement efforts. DEA's primary goal in that process is not
the interdiction of illegal drugs, per se; rather, it is to
permanently remove those ruthless and predatory criminal
organizations that produce and distribute those drugs.
And we see that those criminals market their poison to weak
and vulnerable people in our society. They degrade the quality
of life in communities all across America, they contribute to
crime and violence and death in this country. They destroy the
future of many of our youth. And they rob many people even of
their basic human dignity. And I believe that all of us have a
brave and profound responsibility to protect the countless
victims of drug criminals, and at the same time to do
everything humanly possible to prevent the loss of innocent
lives as we so tragically saw in this April 20th incident.
Mr. Chairman and committee members, again, I want to thank
you for the opportunity to appear today. And I'll be happy to
answer any questions you have at the appropriate time.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marshall follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Winwood, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Winwood. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Winwood. Chairman Souder, Congressman Cummings and
members of the subcommittee, I thank you for the opportunity to
testify on U.S. Customs air operations in South America.
Joining my colleagues and before I begin my statement, I also
want to join in expressing my deepest condolences and
sympathies to the Bowers family for the tragedy they have
endured, and I also want to extend my best wishes to Kevin
Donaldson and his family for his full and speedy recovery.
The mission of the Customs air and marine interdiction
division is to protect the Nation's borders and the American
people from the narcotics smuggling. Customs contributes its
air and marine assets and personnel to joint operations
throughout the source, transit and arrival zones. As a key link
in the frontline of U.S. defense against drug traffickers,
Custom's air and marine division plays a critical role in the
Nation's counterdrug strategy. Customs authority to conduct air
enforcement missions outside the United States arises out of
numerous laws and Presidential directives. In addition to these
provisions, the U.S. Government has international agreements
and arrangements that facilitate our mission overseas.
In 1989, Customs began to support interdiction operations
under the control of the U.S. Southern Command [SOUTHCOM], with
the deployment of air assets to Howard Air Force Base in
Panama. In 1990, Customs was formally integrated into the
Southern Command's planning structure by memorandum of
understanding. Subsequent to that, MOU Customs aircraft and
personnel were deployed to strategic locations throughout
SOUTHCOM's area of responsibility. And under Presidential
Decision Directive 14 issued in 1993, counterdrug strategy
shifted the focus toward the source zone.
Customs responded by flying routine missions over Colombia
and began to pooling their assets at forward operating sites
and locations throughout the region. Our P-3 AEW and Slick
aircraft with detections systems designed explicitly for drug
interdiction have become the mainstay of source zone detection
and monitoring. We also utilize C 550 jets for close tracking.
As the efforts to expand interdiction beyond U.S. borders
have increased, so has the need for Customs presence in the
source zone. Customs is now responsible for the vast majority
of detection and monitoring flights conducted in the source
zone. The last fiscal year approximately 90 percent of those
missions were flown by customs assets.
All Customs air operations in the source zone are under the
tactical command of SOUTHCOM as a sign to the Joint Interagency
Task Force East. Customs detection and monitoring flights are
conducted as coordinated assistance to host countries under the
terms of special bilateral agreements. Thanks to this
cooperative framework, Customs has traditionally enjoyed very
good relations with our host country partners enhancing the
effectiveness of our mission.
We have a longstanding policy that all Customs aviation
missions must be conducted in accordance with strict, standard
operating procedures. Working with our host Nation partners
Customs, air and marine personnel have developed a series of
detailed operating procedures specifically for South American
missions.
We are presently conducting a thorough review of those
procedures. We go to great lengths with our host Nation
partners to ensure that all standard operating procedures are
followed to letter. The complexity of the assets we deploy, the
advanced technologies we bring to bear, and the larger P-3
crews involved in these missions all demand an extremely high
degree of coordination. We are also continuing our efforts to
modernize our air program. From a mission perspective,
modernization will supplement the safety measures and standard
operating procedures already in place. Over the next year, we
will be taking delivery of six new P-3 aircraft.
Mr. Chairman, the Customs service is firmly committed to a
strong and active presence in the source zone. The smuggling
threat in this region is pervasive. The drug cartels who
operate these are flush with resources and ready and able to
exploit any situation to their advantage. We have a
responsibility to ensure that the most rigorous of procedural
standards are applied to this sensitive mission. But the
smugglers should not mistake our thorough concern for the safe
and effective operation of flights as a lack of resolve. From a
Customs standpoint, we will continue to do everything necessary
to guarantee the safety and integrity of our mission in the
region while curtailing the flow of drugs to America. I again
want to thank the committee, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity
to testify and for your constant support for Customs law
enforcement activities. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Winwood follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Crow do you have an opening
statement?
Mr. Crow. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
distinguished members.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Crow, could you see if your microphone is
turned on.
Mr. Crow. Thank you. I would like to, first of all, add one
more voice to the many voices when I say that our hearts very
much go out to the family, to the Bowers family at this time.
And our wishes equally are extended to Mr. Donaldson as he
undertakes what we hope will become a speedy and sure recovery.
Regardless of the outcome of the inquiry that's been initiated
this week and will go on, and in view of Mr. Brown's very
complete historical account of interdiction in Peru, I would
simply add that we view air interdiction in Peru as having been
the single most contributing factor to the dramatic drop in
cultivation of coca, the area of coca under cultivation in Peru
that we've steadily seen since 1996, 1 year after the
institution, that of the air intercept program.
We also believe that air interdiction is essential to
sustaining the success of Peru's counternarcotics strategy,
integrating strategy which combines interdiction with
eradication and alternative development. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And your full statement will be
inserted in the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Crow follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Admiral Belz do you have an opening statement?
Admiral Belz. A very brief one, Mr. Chairman. Good
afternoon, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss counterdrug operations conducted and supported
by Joint Interagency Task Force East. We join others here today
in expressing our condolences to the Bowers family, and our
hope for a speedy recovery for Mr. Donaldson. With your
permission, I would like my full statement to become a part of
the record and also Mr. Chairman in the interest of time, I
will forfeit my remaining time and look forward to answering
any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Belz follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank you and I want to thank you for
clearing your schedule to come up today. I know that JIATF
operations are based down in Florida, and there are many
different things going on and we appreciate the sacrifice. We
felt it was important to get on the record this whole debate in
context because we certainly will have followup hearings as
well. I'll start the questioning, I'm sure we'll go at least
two rounds. So I will start with Mr. Brown. If we could put the
second one of your charts up that showed how the traffic and
Peru has changed. General McCaffrey has said that if this air
bridge is down, I believe I think he said 180 days, if we have
the policy changed we'll see shifts. Could you explain a little
bit more of that chart how it has moved and what you may think
may happen short term.
Mr. Brown. What happened over this entire period of time,
Mr. Chairman, I'm going to defer, or at least would offer Mr.
Crow perhaps to amend this, because for a good bit of this
time, he was, at that time, assigned to our Embassy in Lima.
But generally, what you see is the trafficking aircraft here
appearing as northern bound red arrows actually were Colombian
aircraft, about 600 per year or so, a dozen or 15 per week. I
hope the math works there, but it was something of that volume
at the outset.
As the interdiction efforts began and this particular air
connection with Colombia was a particularly vulnerable aspect
of the drug cocaine production system at that time, those
flights dramatically dropped in number. The prices that the
trafficking cartels in Colombia had to pay for those pilots
escalated dramatically. I'll defer to Mr. Marshall perhaps for
some numbers. And they, as you see geographically went further
and further to the east. Trafficking then tried--if you can see
there on the third chart perhaps, to adjust over time and still
is attempting to adjust by going to surface movements to the
west, to the Peruvian coast and by movements further south in
Peru across Bolivia and Brazil, and out through more indirect
routes.
So I hope, Mr. Chairman, I've generally responded, but the
number of flights dropped, the price went up, the risk was
surely there. And I guess the bottom line point to where you're
headed, perhaps, is the coca production enterprise--then
essentially coca ``campesinos'' cultivating coca--that
essentially collapsed over the next several years. There was
widespread dislocation, there was an aggressive engagement in
our Embassy and the Peruvian Government Alternative Development
and Assistance Programs. So you see the price really was quite
low.
And then, I think the bottom line is, the total cultivation
capacity steadily, as Mr. Crow I think earlier mentioned,
declined from that point until today.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Crow, as someone who both at INL and on the
ground in Peru, maybe you could elaborate on the last point
that Mr. Brown just made, and that is, that in Pucallpa and
Iquitos, as well as meeting with INL people on the ground and
talking with people who have been in cultivation over, I think,
I have been there now four or five times, what's clear is I saw
the pattern change of the willingness to join in the
alternative crop program because when they had higher costs
going through the rivering side they, in fact, offered less
payments to the most poor. And when they offered the less
payments to the most poor, all of a sudden alternative products
seemed to make a difference. One of the questions, if you can
elaborate on that point, and then also now that they have
invested in the rivering, will they move back and how long will
they wait to see what the U.S. Government is going to do?
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, the
pressure put on by cutting off access to the air bridge,
thereby making it more difficult and even impossible for the
traffickers to get their end final refined product or cocaine
base out of the country led as part of a ripple effect to what
we never would have imagined possible. Coca, the price of the
coca leaf at the farm gate dropped to below the break-even
point. So that literally, for the first time ever, coca was
removed from the marketplace as the premier cash crop.
And that set in motion for farmers who were predominantly
noncriminal, that the opportunity to get to alternative
development which for years we had held and believed was the
only way for a given country to get a leg up and to loosen
itself from the grip of trafficking. But at some point even
though the alternative development is a lot more than simple
crop substitution, we couldn't get there because coca always
provided the best return, never mind the farmer, in quotes,
who's essentially a trafficker employee. The honest farmer
would say, yeah, I'd like to help you, but you know I can make
more money with coca than I can with cacao. That changed. It
has never before been something that was realizable we figured.
Mr. Souder. On the rivering question.
Mr. Crow. Rivering. OK. Air will always be the preferred
way to move drugs. But Peru has 8,000 kilometers more or less
of riverway. And the rivering program is an important adjunct.
But air will always be the preferred way.
Mr. Souder. How much cheaper would you say it is to move by
air than by the river network, say, going through the Amazon
basin? And do they have to go out through Venezuela or French
Guyana?
Mr. Crow. It's certainly cheaper in terms of time expended
and in terms of eliminating a lot of the danger of being
apprehended. It's fast, it's cheap, in that regard, and
relatively threat free.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Just Mr. Brown and Mr. Crow. What was our--
what was the situation in Peru prior to the shoot-down policy.
Mr. Brown. You had a rapidly growing coca cultivation
circumstance. The hectare--and we have to refer to the maps--
but I think you see they were perhaps as much as 60 percent of
the total Andean capacity for coca cultivation was then
occurring in central Peru. You had an active Colombian presence
in Peru. Most all of the production of cocaine base
essentially, or going back early in the 1990's was coca paste,
went on to Colombia for final processing, and then marketing.
It was essentially managed by the Colombian cartels of that
day. So if I'm on track with your question, Mr. Cummings,
that's essentially what it was, it was a raw product input
function for an Andean cocaine system managed by the Colombian
criminal group.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Crow.
Mr. Crow. I did my first tour again in counternarcotics
side in the 1980's, in 1984 to 1987 in Peru. And at that time,
light aircraft were literally flying into the Huallaga Valley
with money, dropping off the money and picking up drugs. It was
absolutely wide open. And again, the dramatic change that
occurred when the pressure was put on to deny access to the air
bridge between Peru and Colombia resulted in a night-to-day
change. There is no question about it, and made possible for
legitimate communities to sign up to alternatives, which, in
fact, produced more revenue for them.
Now, having said that, this success, many people have
viewed that and have written Peru off as a success. It's very
fragile. It is very much an imminent success that needs to be
nurtured. Because if any part of the equation falls off,
terrorism comes back, the price goes up, the air bridge breaks
down, then have you the potential very clearly to go back to
the way it was before.
Mr. Cummings. So right now when you talk about it being
fragile, right now with the suspension going on, do you
anticipate that we will have an increase in these flights,
these direct flights situation that you talked about a little
bit earlier?
Mr. Crow. There is a clear potential for that, yes.
Mr. Cummings. Have you seen any indication of that already?
Mr. Crow. I can't cite anything specific, but logic tells
me that it's the potential is there. The price has gone up, the
price of coca. Now it is back up, not across the board but it's
gone up. It's probably much less than coincidental that Plan
Colombia may have generated some of that. But the inability to
control the skies as well as you might want to could add to
that potential for the trend to continue and reverse itself.
Mr. Cummings. You know, gentlemen, when I listen to
Congressman Weldon and when he laid out the various procedures
that you have to go through before you can shoot down a plane,
it seemed to me that if one were to do that, to do all those
things, you would--it would prior--whoever was flying the plane
would almost subject themselves being presumed guilty because
there is so much--there are so many steps there. And I'm just
wondering, do you all see this as a--that is the shooting down
of aircraft as a necessary evil of this whole process?
Mr. Crow. Well, I see whether they need to be shot down or
merely intercepted or made to land, I see the control factor as
an integral need, yes. Because otherwise, again, the airway,
the air part being preferred and being fast and easy, you just
couldn't keep up with them otherwise.
Mr. Brown. I would add, if I may, the policy, this use of
force policy focused on here for Peru, but in many ways
applicable to discussions of Colombia as well, those are
sovereign initiatives by those countries.
So what we're faced with, then, in this common goal that we
have, I would suggest that it's an increasing one to do what we
can demand and supply side both in the hemisphere to address
the problem is to deal with the issue of will we assist with
our information or not. And if we elect to do that, then what
would the conditions be? This has gotten us into the whole
process of the mid 1990's of certifying that indeed drug
trafficking presents a national security threat to both Peru
and Colombia.
And second then, assuring ourselves that the government's
procedures that you referred to we find to be acceptable. It's
an interagency process, or was, at that time in our government,
to guard against the loss of innocent life. Clearly we're here
today because that didn't work on April 20th.
Mr. Cummings. Just one other question, one more if I might.
Do you all, any of you all, think that there should be another
step or two in those safeguards that we talked about just now?
Mr. Brown. I would suggest that we could hardly have
fielded a more qualified capable investigation team than we
just sent down Sunday. John Crow's boss, Assistant Secretary
Beers, people that work for Admiral Belz, various skilled
people, our U.S. interdiction coordinator, a very skilled
team--they will engage with a like-qualified Peruvian team, and
I am confident will make a near term and accurate report on
just what went on during that incident and the failures with
regard to the procedures on or the implementation of those
procedures that occurred. So I hope nothing I say prejudges
that, but I'm confident that we've got a skilled capable team
in the field.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. We've been joined by chairman of the full
Government Reform Committee and ex officio member of this
subcommittee, Congressman Dan Burton.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate you're
being here. I'm a little troubled because, and I apologize for
being late, but I just talked to some staff and they said most
of the witnesses have said that they're waiting for a report
from the people who have gone down there to investigate this
before they make a statement on what actually happened. I
understand from talking to Congressman Weldon that a lot of the
procedures weren't followed, warning shots weren't fired and so
forth. But so far nobody on this panel really seems to be
prepared to answer whether or not that is case.
And I guess my question is when Americans are killed like
this and it's a tragedy, why does it take so long? I know it
has been 10 days, but this government can move pretty speedily
when it wants to. When did the people get down there who are
doing the investigation and why weren't they down there the
next day or two or 3 days afterwards so that the coverage of
the United States could be made aware and the American people
could be made aware of what happened?
Mr. Crow, you want to answer that?
Mr. Crow. I think they wanted to be very certain that the
mix of people who went down was the correct one.
Mr. Burton. The mix of people that went down was the
correct one?
Mr. Crow. Yeah.
Mr. Burton. What do you mean by the mix?
Mr. Crow. Well, a broad enough cross-section to look at
various aspects. I'm conjecturing to a degree because I was not
involved in that.
Mr. Burton. Well, it seems to me, as a person who's been
here for almost 20 years, that within 5 minutes I could say I
want to send somebody from the CIA, DEA and State Department
down there and you cover the bases pretty well. And then you
buy an airline ticket or send them down on U.S. Air Force jet
and get them down there to find out what in the heck happened.
And here we are 10 days later, and the appearance to me is that
you know, Mr. Souder moved as expeditiously as possible to have
this hearing at the request of other members as well, and it
appears to me that maybe the agencies of our government want to
kind of just let this thing go until it kind of slides past and
there's not any more hearings.
But I assure you, if we don't get some answers, we will
have more hearings. Mr. Souder wants more. He wants more
information. And we don't like to send subpoenas out, but if we
have to, we can write pretty fast here and we can do it. We
want to know as quickly as possible why innocent civilians were
shot down, missionaries down there and why it is taking so long
for the various agencies of government to give a report to the
Congress.
Mr. Crow. I understand what you're saying, Congressman
Burton, and I'm sure that you, the people that went down, want
to come up with these same answers, what happened, what went
wrong, and how to avoid it in the future. I think the time went
to select not only the right mix, but the right people in that
mix to do this job. And I am confident that it's a very good
team. It's a good mixture and they are deadly serious about
following through and coming up with the answers.
Mr. Burton. But I won't belabor the questioning, Mr.
Chairman, by taking any more time. I'm just saying that we and
this committee, and especially the subcommittee chairman, will
want a complete report as quickly as possible and if it's
necessary, we'll have another hearing. I'm sure Mr. Souder will
be willing to do that. And if necessary, we'll send subpoenas
out to get whatever information that is not being given to us
as quickly as possible.
Thank you, Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, I'd
like to ask you if, in fact, that plane had been drug
traffickers, and had been shot down, would that mission not
have been considered a great success? Anybody.
Mr. Brown. I think it refers to the purpose of the use of
force policy that we support by the Government of Peru and is
that effective. I think we have indicated, in our view,
retrospectively it certainly has been. It would have been
successful. But the procedures, and I don't want to speak for
the letter of the procedures, but I think generally the
procedures that are operative have been discussed here are
designed not to cause that to happen. They're designed to bring
those sorts of flights to justice.
Ms. Schakowsky. But would there have been any inquires as
to whether or not procedures were followed? Would anybody
really care in missions like that? Is there any investigation
after the fact? For example, what if everyone on board had been
killed and it had been unclear exactly what had happened
because we did not have eye witnesses to that. What kind of an
investigation follows a shoot-down?
Mr. Brown. I will defer to Admiral Belz to discuss after
action reports, but I would suggest to you here two things: No.
1, I know and have been around in the policy circles since the
beginning of this period of time, I know of no incident, save
the one the tragedy of the 20th where it's alleged that sort of
mistake has been made.
Ms. Schakowsky. How do we know--I'd like to know maybe,
it's for Admiral Belz, if there is such an investigation that
goes on and we try and find out exactly the circumstances and
if procedures were followed.
Admiral Belz. Madam, with regard to successful events, I
would say that each and every one of these events that take
place we get information as to the type of event that it turned
out to be, was it legitimate drug traffickers with drugs on
board or not?
Ms. Schakowsky. So that's our only consideration is if in
fact--so the answer is yes, that had they been drug
traffickers, then that would have been viewed as a successful
mission?
Admiral Belz. Barring some other abrogation of procedures
that we would know. We can monitor that. We know what is set
out and required by U.S. endorsement of those procedures and we
watch for compliance with those. We are involved with JIATF
East in detecting, monitoring and tracking drug trafficking
aircraft and vessels. Those vessels, once they are determined
to be suspect vessels, are then turned over to either U.S. or,
in this case, partner nation law enforcement.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask you this: If this kind of
procedure is effective in reducing the use of drugs, why then
don't we use it in the United States, have private contractors
who finger aircraft or vans that are owned by drug traffickers
and then say it is all right if certain warnings are given to
just blow these out of the sky or blow up a van?
Mr. Brown. Ma'am, I would suggest to you that in the United
States, this sort of aerial movement of drugs is not a threat.
In the case of Peru, it is a national security threat. I would
add Colombia to that. This sort of large scale movement of
contraband of drugs feeding the criminal groups, the
aberrations to the local economy that occur, it is assessed and
therefore they propose these use of force initiatives.
Ms. Schakowsky. Are you suggesting that drugs are not flown
in the United States, I mean to neighborhoods in Chicago or
Baltimore or wherever?
Mr. Brown. Yes, that's what I'm suggesting. There is not
the aerial movement of drugs. And I'm not saying there is not
absolutely one flight, but essentially that violation of our
sovereign air space does not occur. We have a much broader law
enforcement structure, we have communications with our air
fields, airstrips. We have a law enforcement presence that does
not exist in Peru or in the southern area of Colombia.
Ms. Schakowsky. But we certainly have all seen air busts
and raids. But are you suggesting that if that's how it
traveled or even if vans, why don't we blow up vans in the
United States? If our goal here is to stop drug use in the
United States, and we can finger those who are actually
suspected of it, or in fact conducting that activity, why is it
that we don't adopt a similar policy? Which to me--I mean, I
would like to answer that question because that is not our law
in the United States. It would be an outrage to the American
public if without due process we were blowing planes out of the
sky or blowing up vans of people who are carrying drugs. And I
guess I'm just perplexed that we would contract out for this
kind of service.
And by the way, I'm sorry the CIA isn't here when I called
to find out who are those private contractors, who is the
contractor responsible for this, I was told as a Member of
Congress that I was not privy to that information, to even know
who it was that is executing U.S. policy in Peru. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. I wanted to clarify one question, Admiral Belz.
Is there not a check-off that any of our pilots would show that
whether the procedures have been followed?
Admiral Belz. Yes, sir. There are published procedures for,
in particular, the detection, monitoring and tracking aspects
of the mission. Of course, I believe the people who are doing
this are monitoring the compliance of those same procedures by
the intercepting air traffic. This is a different and distinct
function as we move to the law enforcement part of that role.
And certainly, that was evident from what I have been able to
also read in the media about the compliance of that checklist
in this particular event. And it was not executed. And I think
that's where you see the indications of the crew attempting to
intervene.
Mr. Souder. Because certainly that would be something that
the Congress and general public would expect to be in addition
in a clarification to be able to analyze is whether or not the
check-offs that were in the legislation were, in fact, followed
by the host nation?
Admiral Belz. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Crow. I would also add that the value of intelligence
is very great. The more intelligence driven a given operation
is a greater chance for success. We would certainly pursue and
have in the United States aircraft or vehicles that we believe
are worthy of being pursued. Whether we shoot them down or make
them land or follow them, as we have through the years, is up
to the individual situation. But intelligence is key. It keeps
you from patrolling the skies until you run out of fuel.
Mr. Souder. Congresswoman Davis.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First I want to make sure that I understood everything clearly.
The CIA flight that provided the information was piloted by a
private contractor. Is that what I am understanding?
Mr. Crow. I can't give you that answer with certainty. I
don't know.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Do you know if that CIA
flight that provided that information that led to the shoot-
down, were they under the control of the State Department or
American Embassy?
Mr. Crow. I'm sorry, I didn't here your question.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. The CIA flight that provided
the information that led to the shooting down of the missionary
plane, was that CIA flight under the control of the State
Department, the American Embassy, or who controlled it?
Mr. Crow. I can't give you that answer either. If it came
out of the Embassy, obviously ultimately the Ambassador would
have potentially known of it or been involved. But I don't have
the particulars of that program. It's not a program that we
run.
Mr. Brown. Let me try to give you perhaps a partial
structural answer to it. We have a national interdiction
command and control plan and architecture administered by our
Defense Department. And in this particular South America or
hemispheric region, it really is operated by Admiral Belz and
his Joint Interagency Task Force, JIATF East. There are then
with Customs aircraft, or any of our other aircraft, a number
of intelligence or end game assistance sorts of efforts
involving aircraft and other operatives, if you will. These all
work under the purview of our Ambassador in whatever particular
country and with his country team there.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. As I understood it, I guess
I'm getting confused on this now, there was a CIA flight that
provided the information that led to shooting down the
missionary plane. Who did that guy work for, that plane?
Mr. Brown. He worked for the Ambassador; whoever that pilot
and whoever that crew was, worked for the Ambassador.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Rear Admiral, Mr. Brown was
saying he was under you.
Mr. Brown. No, I didn't say that, or I didn't intend to say
that. Pardon me if I did. I'm saying that the command and
control structure for air interdiction of the aerial or
maritime movement of drugs--better said the detection and
monitoring function were air and air maritime movement in the
hemisphere as a whole, is managed by Admiral Belz. Now,
specific Customs aircraft or other aircraft that are supporting
our cooperative supply reduction programs in any one of those
countries fall under that particular country team and that
specific Ambassador. In this case, Ambassador Hamilton in Lima.
Mr. Souder. Would the gentlelady yield?
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Yes, be happy to, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Souder. My understanding is that generally the flights,
for example, the Customs flights would be reporting through
SOUTHCOM, of which Admiral Belz is the coordinator of JIATF. So
the information is moving generally through you. But this
particular case, when it is a CIA contractor, does not; is that
correct?
Admiral Belz. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Souder. That whether it's a Customs plane or a CIA
plane, they are nominally under the control of the Ambassador;
is that correct, Mr. Brown?
Mr. Brown. Correct.
Mr. Souder. As a practical matter, when it's a contractor,
they have to follow the guidelines, but they are, generally
speaking, more directly under the control of the CIA on a day-
to-day basis other than in general mission under the
Ambassador; is that correct?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. Is that fair to say, Mr. Crow? Does that
fairly--in other words, each mission isn't necessarily
micromanaged by the Ambassador. He----
Mr. Crow. That's correct. Although ultimately everybody in
the country working in and around answers to the Ambassador.
Mr. Souder. Including the DEA.
Mr. Crow. That's correct.
Mr. Souder. And those are supposed to be coordinated, that
our concept of ONDCP is to have a general person watching the
drug aspect because the Ambassador has far more than just
antinarcotics; is that correct?
Mr. Crow. Well, we have the whole counternarcotics country
team at an Embassy.
Mr. Souder. That's just a subpart of the Ambassador's
overall mission?
Mr. Crow. Yes.
Mr. Souder. Do you have any other? I tried to clarify that
a little bit.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. It didn't clarify that
particular----
Mr. Souder. That particular flight, my understanding is
nominally under the control of the Ambassador. None of the
other agencies had any input into it and on a day-to-day basis,
would have been indirectly under the control of the CIA, but
they contracted it out.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. OK.
Mr. Souder. Does anybody disagree with that statement?
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe a first, a
followup on that very point. Understanding that the day-to-day
oversight is not with the Ambassador it's with the CIA. But
we're now 10, 11 days after the event, and is it accurate that
at this point still, the Department of State's position is that
the Ambassador, even though this flight was under his purview
was statement, you really don't have any specifics about this
flight, as Congresswoman Davis is----
Mr. Brown. I don't think there is any doubt that the
Ambassador would know that flight or any other supporting
flight from Customs or wherever it might be, or even the
logistics aircraft Mr. Marshall mentioned were under his
purview. There would be no question. I would suggest as evasive
as it no doubt will sound, that the specific command and
control relationships and the procedures following the aircraft
involved in the April 20th incident ought to await this
investigation that's ongoing now. It will clarify, and I'm sure
will be made available to the subcommittee and to the Congress
at large to give you a clearer feel for that particular
relationship within Peru.
Mr. Platts. And I appreciate that, and my purpose here is
to learn more about the program in total, and as that more
specific information becomes available, to learn of that. But
it seems, I guess, to the chairman's point, Chairman Burton's
point that we are 11 days in, and we don't have some of the
basics in hand to be shared with this subcommittee and with the
Congress through this subcommittee. And understanding that some
of the specifics need to be further investigated, but some of
the basic questions that have been addressed here have not been
able to be answered. And especially, I guess, for the
Department of State, if the Ambassador is the one ultimately
who has got purview over this flight, that we don't have some
of those basic questions in hand, you know, or answers in hand
today.
So the followup on that issue is, and Mr. Crow, maybe to
you specifically, when is the best guesstimate you can give us
on a timeframe for their ongoing investigation to be concluded
that you will be back before us with some specifics?
Mr. Crow. This could change, but I believe that Randy
Beers' goal was to have this first phase, what may be a first
phase or not, done this very week. Maybe 3 to 5 days. And I
don't want to speak for him, but that is the idea. Whether
there is any followup or not, that needs to be done before it's
all completed. The goal was this week to have the largest part
of it underway and through.
Mr. Platts. That's encouraging to hear that timeframe is
what's being discussed. I'm certain Chairman Souder will be
anxious to have that information made available to the
committee as soon as it is concluded, that first phase, or
perhaps first phase.
Mr. Brown, can you give maybe a quick background on, again,
as one trying to educate myself when we see the numbers, which
make a pretty strong case of the success of the interdiction
efforts in Peru and Bolivia, 68 percent reduction, 82 percent
reduction, but overall, the Andean production is only down 17
percent. And you look at the chart and can see where the
increase is: Colombia. What is your best suggestion, what we're
doing so right in Peru and Bolivia and not doing well enough in
Colombia, or is it more internal with the interactions with the
Colombian Government where the difficulty lies?
Mr. Brown. Well, I think one of the obvious lessons here I
think with regard to this massive cocaine production criminal
enterprise is that it will seek out those areas not controlled
by sovereign governments. And in this Andean region, as perhaps
many of you have experienced yourselves, this is very much or
hinterland, little infrastructure, no law enforcement presence
to speak of by the Colombians. So I think the answer is that
the criminal enterprises, which throughout this period, were
dominated by the Colombians, and, in fact, is many ways still
are, sought out a more assured source of their coca product of
their cultivation, and it then began to expand, reacting to the
threats that were posed in part by the air bridge and other
actions as well. And you see the expansion in Colombia.
We're heartened that the overall production capacity
declined over that period. But surely the criminal enterprises,
the cartels, if you would, sought out places where they could
basically dominate the environment.
Now, you have added complexity in the case of Colombia
because there are significant armed groups there, as perhaps
you're familiar, that themselves have exploited the growing
cocaine production circumstance to their own ends. I might add,
and I did not earlier to Mr. Cummings question, there was in
the mid 1990's, a terrorist or an illegal armed group, a
``SenderoLuminoso'' movement. And in the early 1990's, it was
also influential with regard to the security of these coca
cultivation areas of Peru at this time. That would be my
response.
Mr. Platts. It seems that from the chart, the success we've
enjoyed being specific by nation is how to have that be a
comprehensive regionwide success, and perhaps Plan Colombia
will help us to achieve that. Because if you look at the
tremendous reduction over 500 metric tons in Bolivia and Peru,
but you see an increase of 250 metric tons in Colombia and at
that same time, as you say the patterns are shifting as much as
being won in a great fashion.
Mr. Brown. The cocaine production problem and the demand
problem, which is a problem for these countries as well, is
increasingly seen by all of the leaders to be a common
hemispheric problem. The cocaine situation I refer to, I think
accurately, is indeed a regional problem and ought to be
addressed regionally. And I think you saw in our recent
submission here the administration proposed an Andean Regional
Initiative that would continue these initiatives for the drug
issue and for other issues in Colombia, but would expand that
to the other Andean countries to include Panama and Brazil. The
nature of the assistance would be evenly, generally evenly,
divided between, if you'll allow interdiction, but it's
basically a broader side of law enforcement and supply
reduction assistance, as well as alternative development and
related sorts of assistance in that area.
Mr. Marshall. May I add something, sir, in response to your
question? You asked what were we doing right in Colombia as
well. I think we're doing a lot right throughout the region and
particularly in Colombia. U.S. law enforcement, along with
Colombian law enforcement over the past 7 to 10 years, have
destroyed the Medellin cartel, the Cali cartel, and we've seen
a mutation of the ways these Colombian organizations operate.
We've had great successes against their cells operating in the
United States against in partnership with Colombian law
enforcement who have been really nothing short of heroic. And
what we see now is that we really, I think, have had an impact
on the growth of the cocaine market in the United States. It
appears to me that that market has stabilized in the United
States. It's no longer growing at the rate that it once did.
And we see the Colombian organizations, what's left of them
turning more and more of their attention to increasing their
markets in Europe and other parts of the world rather than
focusing on increasing the U.S. markets.
So we have done a lot right both in the United States and
in Colombia and throughout the region. And I think we have to
continue that.
Mr. Souder. We're going to go to second round.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could make a
final statement, is that I appreciate the efforts on the front
lines of those men and women who are trying to serve our Nation
through the interdiction. I think it's just incumbent upon us
because of the tragic loss of Roni and Charity Bowers that we
renew our commitment from doing it right from top to bottom. I
appreciate your efforts in trying to make that the case, and
Mr. Chairman, in holding this hearing and moving the process
along.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Let me say, first, for the record
that a 17 percent reduction on the interdiction is far more
success than we've seen in prevention programs and treatment
programs. 17 percent reduction isn't as great as what has
happened in Bolivia and Peru. Bolivia has used a totally
different method from the powers of pulling out the crop. There
are different ways that different countries have done it, but
as we move Plan Colombia, and my question, if you can start me
up, Mr. Marshall, is while we've seen success in the region, we
saw some of the overwhelming success in Peru and Bolivia move
over to Colombia.
Now, as we pursue aggressively Plan Colombia, maybe you can
briefly comment again on the eradication effort on the coca,
and as we move to the heroin poppy, there is a danger that is
going to move back into Peru, and Peru is again at risk.
Mr. Marshall. Certainly you see that danger. And I've heard
in my travels and my talks with host country law enforcement
agencies, particularly from Peru and Bolivia, that we must not
think that their problem is solved and forget about them
because they're concerned about the very issue that you raised.
And again, that, I think, is an indicator of the importance of
regional programs to address the problem on a widespread basis.
Mr. Souder. I also wanted to elaborate on a point that you
said, or ask you to elaborate on. You said the primary goal in
DEA is to get to the cartel level. Obviously, that is better
done if the drug dealers are alive. Would DEA not rather
prefer, if possible, to have a force down than a shoot down?
Mr. Marshall. Oh, absolutely. We would rather have an end
game, as we call it, where we could have access to the
aircraft, where we could have access to the evidence that we
seized, get in the data base of the aircraft navigation system,
interview the witnesses, the people that were arrested, and
hopefully gain even more intelligence information about who the
cartels are, who their leaders are, how they operate, what
their weaknesses are, and ultimately then, as I said in my
statement, look to investigate, indict and imprison, bring to
justice, as it were, the leaders of these organizations. It
would be far preferable to accomplish all of that behind each
and every one of these incidents.
Mr. Souder. When I was in Iquitos they have air and
rivering but terrible highways. It takes forever to try to go
over land. If there had been a force-down, had this been a drug
plane, can DEA respond to that? Can we move resources around or
do we need additional resources if, in fact, we want more
aggressive approach?
Mr. Marshall. We try to respond to as many as we possibly
can, but frankly there are, because of the problems that you
outline, it's not possible to respond to all of them. On those
that we have been able to respond to and get to on the ground,
we have gained some significant intelligence that led us to
further criminal investigations out of several of those
incidents.
Mr. Souder. Do we cross-check information in this system
before the process is implemented? Was DEA asked, in any
clearance mechanism when they checked the control tower,
whether you had any information on this plane?
Mr. Marshall. I'm sorry, I didn't hear your question.
Mr. Souder. In other words, how involved is DEA. In other
words, while we hear that the final phase is this, according to
public record, we're a matter of seconds, as they jump phases
clearly, there was an extended period where they were following
the plane. Supposedly, this videotape is 45 minutes. In that
process in the intelligence gathering, is DEA contacted at any
point? And did you have any information on this plane had they
contacted you?
Mr. Marshall. We were not contacted in this instant nor are
we normally contacted in this interdiction operation.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Winwood, Customs clearly is also flying
surveillance in the zone. Do you have source country people on
the plane? I believe you have Peruvians as well in any of your
surveillance?
Mr. Winwood. We operate our own P-3's in the source country
under the command and control of JIATF East. On the aircraft we
have what we call a host nation liaison officer on all P-3
flights, and in most cases, we have a JIATF East coordinator
that is bilingual on our flights. So we're operating in the
source zone. We have those individuals helping us monitor the
air traffic and also to monitor the conversations that might
occur.
Mr. Souder. Admiral Belz, you have source country people at
your base as well?
Admiral Belz. Yes, sir. We have at JIATF East, we have both
Peruvian and Colombian host nation or liaison officers. In the
case of Colombia, both from the air side and the naval side. In
the case of Peru, an Air Force, Peruvian Air Force liaison
officer.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Winwood, could you describe the procedures
you have on board before you would get into the phase where
there is a shoot-down if Customs provided the information?
Mr. Winwood. As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, we have
very stringent operating procedures how we operate in the
source zone. First of all, there is quarterly meetings as to
what assets would be available and we coordinate with JIATF
East and let them though what assets we have available. They
coordinate and set up the area of operations where they want
their missions to be flown. The detail that was laid out by the
first panel as to the steps needed to be taken are a part of
our standard operating procedures. We monitor those very
stringently. When we detect a potential target, and ascertain
that it is a possible target, we make sure that the host nation
liaison officer that is on the aircraft follows those
procedures, because once we detect and----
Mr. Souder. Describe what ``make sure'' means?
Mr. Winwood. Through monitoring the coverages we listen to
what is being said. We make sure the checklist goes through. We
make sure our crews follow the checklist of all the actions
that we have taken. The very first one that is done is to
visually identify the tail number and then we have computers on
board our P-3s, then we can ascertain whether or not it's an
aircraft of concern to us. Because we have not only access to
the registered tail numbers of U.S. aircraft, but also
information on tail numbers of foreign registered aircraft.
Mr. Souder. What happens if they don't follow that
procedure?
Mr. Winwood. Pardon me, sir?
Mr. Souder. What happens if, as you are monitoring them,
they are not following the procedure? Would you prohibit them
from going ahead with the shoot-down?
Mr. Winwood. Well, I can't conjecture on what could happen.
We have never had an incident where there has not been standard
operating procedures followed to the letter, not one. We don't
plan on having any. We do constant training with our host
nation liaisons, we do constant training with the officers and
the people involved in the source country. We just had an
updated training in the latter part of this past September. We
have never had an incident where that would occur.
If such a thing might occur, we immediately would report to
our control, command and control through secure conversations
to JIATF East and notify them immediately that there seems to
be a deviation from the norm. But we have never had such an
incident.
Mr. Souder. If I can ask, what you are saying is, while it
is in process, if you saw it not being followed, in addition
you would contact JIATF East to warn them because they would
also have Peruvians there?
Mr. Winwood. Right. What we have, Mr. Chairman, on our
policy is that while we are involved in the detection and
monitoring of an aircraft, there are three basic procedures to
make sure our crew strictly follow. We monitor all activities
associated with that particular engagement, we record
everything that is occurring during that particular engagement,
and we report everything that occurred as a followup. In
addition to that, there is a debrief of all of our crews once
the plane returns as to any incident that we were engaged with.
So that is constantly a part of our standard operating
procedures.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Can somebody tell me how many airplanes have
been shot down since 1995? Shoot-downs and force-downs?
Mr. Crow. We were not able to come up with one, or agree on
the same figure. The figures which I, for example, heard was
given from post show--we don't have one figure that we all
agree on.
Mr. Souder. Excuse me, Mr. Crow. If you could just pull the
mic toward you a little bit. I think you turned it back off,
too.
Mr. Crow. Sorry.
Mr. Souder. You are on.
Mr. Crow. Sorry. We were just talking about that earlier.
We don't have one figure that we agree on, but there are
figures which show that starting in 1995, aircraft were not all
shot down, some forced down, but through a combination figure
of some 50 aircraft, and that is not precise.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Well, I mean, I am sure you have a
great answer to this question. Why is that an issue? Why can't
you tell me that? I mean, is that--in other words, we are
talking about shooting down people, like dead, I mean and we
are talking about using--I mean this is some serious stuff. I
am trying to figure out, if I was just a regular citizen just
sitting here looking at this and I have some of my top flight
people in the drug war talking about how they don't know how
many shoot-downs or force-downs, I would be a little bit
concerned about what is going on.
Mr. Crow. Well, I understand, and I think that the time
that has passed since the incident, maybe hasn't gotten us to
the point where we have one specific number. But I am confident
that the team that is down there now as a part of its work will
be able to give the precise answer that is required.
Mr. Marshall. Mr. Cummings, if I may, I can give you some
figures on DEA's involvement, the ones that we were involved
in. Since 1995, we have provided intelligence in 46 separate
events, intelligence on suspect aircraft that we believe were
operating up there. Out of those 46 pieces of information that
we provided, there have been 18 events that resulted in force-
down or shoot-down, and out of those 18 events, almost 3 metric
tons of cocaine were recovered.
Mr. Cummings. OK.
Mr. Brown. May I add as well?
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Mr. Brown. We provided a background chart.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, I have that here.
Mr. Brown. If I may, just add to that, I think what you see
is different perspectives of something that is inherently
Peruvian in its development. We have ongoing right now an
incident-by-incident review of the data base related to all of
these incidents during all of these years. It is not available
today, and in the appropriate setting and in the near term, it
would be made available to the committee members. But I think
what you see is different agencies within our government, not
to mention what the Peruvians themselves would say about
incidents that they are familiar with that perhaps we only
partly know or don't know about at all. So resolving that
quantitative understanding is underway now and should be made
available to you soon.
Mr. Cummings. Do you know whether the task force, the group
that has gone over to Peru to do the investigation, do you know
whether they are looking into--and this is why I ask the
question. I wanted to know how many shoot-downs and I wanted to
know how many planes have been shot down, but do you know
whether they would be making a comparison to those situations
where they were able to force a plane down as opposed to
shooting it down? Do you understand the question?
Mr. Crow. Yes. I would presume also that information is
available. In other words, the number of aircraft that were
actually shot down as opposed to made to land or forced down.
Mr. Cummings. I am talking about what happened. Somebody
said something about debriefing, and I guess I am just looking
at what did it take for us to get--and I know all of the
circumstances are different, but there may be some common
threads running through those things, and I was just wondering
if there is a situation where they are looking into an X amount
of flights, we were able to force them down, and this is what
we did. Language was not a barrier, or whatever. Things that
may have--that clearly show that there was a pattern with the
force-down in maybe a certain region, I don't know. But I was
just wondering, is that a part of it? Because it seems--I mean,
I keep--I want to come back to what we are concerned about
here, and that is innocent people being hurt and innocent
people being killed. So here we have a situation where the
pilot was at least able to get the plane down so that there
were some survivors, but the plane had been shot at, and 2
people killed.
So I am trying to figure out where--I mean does this
investigation entail that, and if it does not, I want to make
sure it does.
Rear Admiral, were you about to say something?
Admiral Belz. I was going to refer to Mr. Crow to answer
the specific question, but I certainly think that the trend has
been certainly more recently to have more force-downs or ground
activity than in the shoot-down category.
Mr. Cummings. Do you know why that is?
Admiral Belz. I think I would be premature to speculate. I
have only been at the command for 7 or 8 months myself, but I
think that several things have happened: the drug traffickers
know about this program, so they tend to go to the depths when
they are illegitimate drug traffickers, and in general, there
is also a process in place that is very, very meticulous. The
efforts that we have talked about heretofore are the procedures
that take place after the interdiction. There is also a
considerable amount of effort that goes on to identify a
suspect or a potential suspect aircraft that precedes that.
Mr. Souder. The Admiral's modesty is commendable. He also
headed JIATF West, but it had a different jurisdiction, but he
has the unique distinction of having headed both divisions,
which gives him a great perspective on this.
Chairman Burton.
Mr. Burton. As I understand it right now, there are three
agencies that are involved in intercepts and that is Defense,
Customs and CIA, is that correct, that is involved in
intercepts? Are there other agencies involved, or just those
three?
Mr. Brown. The Coast Guard could be, although not
applicable down in these areas.
Mr. Burton. Coast Guard, though, that is----
Mr. Brown. Broader, yes, sir.
Mr. Burton. That is not in the air, is it?
Mr. Brown. The Coast Guard could be involved in the transit
zone, could be, yes, sir.
Mr. Burton. Coast Guard has planes that do that too, as
well?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir, but so as not to confuse the issue, it
is not applicable in the interior source countries.
Mr. Burton. OK.
Mr. Marshall. Mr. Chairman, DEA is involved in intercept
operations in the Bahamas, but we are not involved in Peru or
any other countries.
Mr. Burton. Well, one of the problems that we have is that
CIA has been reluctant to give information or testimony before
the committee and I think we are going to talk to them, when is
it, Mr. Chairman, tomorrow sometime or in the near future?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Burton. And it seems to me that there ought to be one
agency, maybe two at the most, that are involved in the
intercepts and enforcement of law that could report to Congress
in the event that we have some kind of a problem in a fairly
expeditious manner, and we don't involve--I mean I don't
understand what is so secret about this, that we can't get the
information and get it very quickly. I mean, a plane was shot
down, Americans are in the plane.
We need to know, Americans need to know why it was shot
down, what needs to be done to make sure it never happens
again, and who was responsible. It is not that difficult. And
yet, it seems like we are kind of pulling teeth to get that.
So I guess the question I have is, would it be possible for
Customs, let's say for instance, to take over the intercept and
enforcement of law in this, or would it be another agency that
could do it and consolidate it all into one agency, instead of
having, you know, four or five agencies doing it. One in
particular that is involved in secret covert operations that
cannot really publicly tell us what is going on.
Mr. Brown. The structure, if I may, in part----
Mr. Burton. Can you pull the mic a little closer and turn
it up?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir, indeed. The interdiction command and
control structure is a Department of Defense-led effort for
detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime movement of
drugs toward the United States.
Mr. Burton. So it is a Defense Department----
Mr. Brown. This is expressed through the Defense Department
and through the JIATF that Admiral Belz represents.
Mr. Burton. So the Defense Department has the primary
responsibility, then?
Mr. Brown. For detection and monitoring, yes, sir.
Mr. Burton. Well, could Customs handle that? I mean is this
thing--I mean, do we have several agencies that take various
parts of the overflights to make sure that they are monitoring
possible illegal transportation of drugs by air?
Mr. Brown. The defense--the requirement to adequately
manage this sort of geographic far-flung command and control
structure is almost, it is almost essential that be the Defense
Department.
Mr. Burton. Do you parse out the planes that are doing this
and the agencies that are doing this? Do you put that out into
different agencies as far as areas of responsibility?
Mr. Brown. Admiral Belz can perhaps walk you through the
tasking structure and the forecast requirements. Customs and
other participants commit their aircraft over time.
Mr. Burton. Well, Customs, can you tell us, why is it we
just cannot have one agency doing this so that we have one
agency that is accountable so that we can get answers and get
them in a quick and efficient way?
Mr. Winwood. I have to borrow a mic, sir. This one is not
working.
Mr. Chairman, if I may, I will answer it this way: right
now, we supply the information to JIATF East, which is under
the command of the southern command the assets that we have
available. That is to ensure that there is uniform standard
coordination of all air activities in the source zone. So we
meet quarterly, we lay out what assets we have available, what
our flying hours are, what crew commitment we have and we
supply the information to southern command via JIATF East,
JIATF East then to have a central command coordinates the
missions and notifies us where they want those crews to be and
when, and as long as the aircraft are operative and we have the
crews available, we fly those missions.
Mr. Burton. If you had enough assets, I presume you could
do the job in its entirety though, right?
Mr. Winwood. If I may answer it this way, Mr. Chairman. Any
organization--yes, if we have sufficient assets, one
organization could supply the necessary flight hours and
equipment to allow for the coordination out of the southern
command to cover the missions necessary to give the air
coverage and the radar coverage for this detecting and
monitoring operation.
Mr. Burton. I guess what I don't understand is why that
isn't done. Why do we have the CIA doing part of it, the
Defense Department doing part of it, Customs doing part of it
and DEA. I mean it just looks like to me you have too many
different agencies involved in something that should be a
relatively simple operation. You know you are going to monitor
the flights of planes that may be carrying illegal drugs. I
mean, you guys are all here and willing to testify today, we
have another agency that says, oh, we can't, we have to do
these things in a private setting, and it is very confusing not
only to Congress, but to the people out there who are paying
attention to what is going on.
Why is it that this is not consolidated and streamlined
like you would in a business to make sure that you are running
it efficiently and running it in a way that can be accountable?
Mr. Winwood. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would just say this.
That I think from the standpoint of command and control, and
working out of the U.S. Southern Command through JIATF East,
the coordination of the activity for at least our assets is
coordinated under one command. To answer your question about
the CIA, I can't respond.
Mr. Burton. Maybe you should answer the question, then, of
why is there several different agencies involved in this? One
command is fine, but why do we have several different agencies
that have different rules and regulations on whether or not
they can give information to the Congress of the United States?
Admiral Belz. Sir, I would suggest that the role of the
Department of Defense in this mission is detection, monitoring,
and tracking of both air and maritime assets. It is important
to recognize that there is a broader set of the AOR than this
particular incident. There are also, as was already mentioned,
other assets in each of our countries that are not normally
working within the regional framework that is our focus,
because they are, in essence, country assets. And, as was
already mentioned, those can be of a variety of agencies,
including State Department assets perhaps involved in
eradication. They can be, in fact, DEA assets, as Mr. Marshal
indicated, doing some things.
Mr. Burton. Or CIA?
Admiral Belz. DEA, sir?
Mr. Burton. Or CIA?
Admiral Belz. Or CIA, yes, sir. And generally speaking, the
assets that we have under our purview are U.S. Customs, U.S.
Coast Guard and Department of Defense, both air and sea assets,
and there are also radar infrastructures. So that is the piece
that we bring to this mission. And with regard to other assets,
some of those are doing country-specific operations.
Mr. Burton. If they are under one--I don't want to belabor
this, Mr. Chairman, but if they are under one command and
control, it seems like that command and control organization,
Defense or whatever it is, ought to be able to get answers for
the Congress in the event of a tragedy like this and come up
here in a fairly short period of time and give us an update on
why it happened and how it happened and why it shouldn't happen
again. In this particular case, the chairman and other members
of the committee can't get those answers expeditiously, they
have to kind of get it in pieces.
Admiral Belz. Yes, sir, I would agree, but with regard to
the specifics of the incident that we are speaking of today, I
do think that what we know is what we know. We know what the
procedures are and what they should have been.
Mr. Burton. Well, who was in control of this particular
mission?
Mr. Crow. It is Randy Beers. Randy Beers is leading the
team.
Mr. Burton. Who was in control of the operation when this
plane was shot down? Who was in control of the plane that was
down there.
Mr. Crow. The Peruvians control the operation.
Mr. Burton. Wasn't there a CIA or a DEA--a plane that was
monitoring those flights as well?
Mr. Crow. I understand there was, yes, but----
Mr. Burton. And who was in charge of that?
Mr. Crow. Again, as we said earlier, that would have to be
the Embassy, or the Ambassador, ultimately, since that is an
asset that would be----
Mr. Burton. So it is the State Department?
Mr. Crow. Sorry?
Mr. Burton. It was the Ambassador, you say?
Mr. Crow. The Ambassador, the chief of missions.
Mr. Burton. So the State Department Ambassador, he is a
part of the State Department?
Mr. Crow. That is correct. He is in charge of Embassy,
which is----
Mr. Burton. If the Defense Department is in charge of the
overall operation that State can place down there, if they are
the one that is coordinating all of this, why is it that we
have difficulty finding out what happened if the CIA was the
plane that was involved, ordered by the Ambassador to be up
there?
Mr. Crow. Well, as Admiral Belz mentioned, there are
regional assets and country assets.
Mr. Burton. I understand, but somebody is in charge,
somebody is in control of that operation.
Mr. Crow. But again I submit, that is precisely why this
carefully picked, high-level team went down, to come up with
these answers. I can conjecture, I have been stationed there,
but I can't possibly take the place of somebody who went down
deliberately to be able to satisfy questions like this. I can
assure you that they are taking it most seriously.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I want to again reiterate for the record that
we invited the CIA to testify today. We had earlier asked for a
briefing, did not receive it. They were willing to do a
briefing yesterday, but having gone through in the Government
Reform Committee with other classified information, that I
feared at this point that, in fact, we would be told the things
that were in the public record would were, in fact, classified
and we would not be able to ask questions or sort some of these
things through, it was better to do a classified hearing after
this hearing, because of our past experience.
Clearly, we want some answers. Clearly, this is very
difficult, because as was carefully stated, the CIA has other
missions other than just what they were doing, and how to
untangle a trust from the American public that, in fact, we are
being told the whole story regarding the drug mission without
trying to deal with other things that are, in fact, classified
is a very difficult process.
But the American people want to know what the whole truth
was so we can have confidence that if this is repeated, much
like what we heard today, that we have not--and if I may just
take a second before I yield to Ms. Schakowsky, my
understanding is that even though JIATF East has, in Colombia
and in Peru, coordination of assets that can be involved in the
shoot-down policies and Customs has assets in those areas,
there has been no shoot-down that you have provided information
on; the goal has been force-down, but no shoot-down where
anybody has even made the allegation that the procedures were
not followed; is that correct?
Admiral Belz. That is correct, sir. This is a historical
over the history of the program. Certainly, since the new
procedures were put in place, there has not been anything that
has been alleged to have been that kind of mistake.
Mr. Souder. And that is true for Customs as well?
Mr. Winwood. Right.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just ask, gentlemen, if you would be willing to
respond to written questions, because I doubt that all of the
questions that I am going to ask are going to be able to be
answered now. Does anybody object to that? Thank you.
I thank Chairman Burton for pointing out the kind of
confusion that I--and frustration that I am feeling right now
as well, just our inability somehow to land on what was really
going on in Peru and what exactly the U.S. involvement is.
Am I correct in my understanding that there were no
contract employees working for any of the agencies or direct
personnel working for any of the agencies represented here that
were involved in this incident, in gathering intelligence or
sharing it? Am I correct?
Mr. Marshall. With regard to my agency, DEA, you are
correct, there were no contract employees working for DEA that
were involved in this incident?
Admiral Belz. That is correct, for JIATF East as well,
ma'am.
Ms. Schakowsky. So then given the response to the
chairman's question that, in fact, it was the CIA, if I
subtract correctly, the agencies that are involved in this kind
of surveillance, that it had to be the CIA, because I can't
even get that confirmed when I call the CIA, if they were the
agency involved. Would anybody care to dispute that these were
CIA contractors, or CIA personnel, whatever? You look like, Mr.
Winwood, you want to say something?
Mr. Winwood. No.
Ms. Schakowsky. I wonder if anybody wants a lifeline, make
a phone call.
Mr. Winwood. I can only confirm to you, Congresswoman, that
the U.S. Customs Service was not involved in this incident at
all.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, let me ask you, Mr. Winwood----
Mr. Souder. May I clarify one thing for the record? My
understanding is they can't give a direct answer to your
question because it is classified.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. Thank you. And I am certainly not, Mr.
Chairman, trying to get--let me ask you, Mr. Winwood, does
Customs contract out at all?
Mr. Winwood. The only thing we contract for is, in some
cases, maintenance of our aircraft when they are on the ground.
We have no contract employees that pilot our aircraft, no
enforcement officers in the Customs Service that are contract.
They are all law enforcement officers employed by the Customs
Service.
Ms. Schakowsky. Was there a reason for that? Did you make a
particular decision? I am trying to figure out why other--why
anyone contracts out. Was there a reason why you would not?
Mr. Winwood. Well, I can only go from the standpoint of our
philosophy in the Customs Service. We are a law enforcement
agency. We feel that we should have accountability and
responsibility within our agency, that the people that work
within this type of area should be law enforcement officers
under the control and command of the agency, and that is just
our philosophy.
Ms. Schakowsky. So would you say that there is some
sacrifice in accountability when we do contract out?
Mr. Winwood. No, ma'am, that is not what I am saying. I
simply said that we feel that having the proper accountability
for the actions we take as law enforcement officers, that we
feel that they should be employees of the Customs Service and
that is what we tend to do.
Ms. Schakowsky. And the others?
Mr. Brown. I would add that it is--my personal view is that
contract employees do not equal some suspicion of lack of
control, or that it is inappropriate or just an ineffective way
to do it. In fact, State Department's eradication programs, and
I defer to Mr. Crow to give you the details, but those are, in
large majority, conducted by contracted pilots, contracted
support. So I think that there are a number--if the issue is
broader use of contractors by U.S. departments and agencies
involved in the drug effort in South America, then there would
be other areas where contractors would be involved.
Ms. Schakowsky. I understand. I am asking specifically
about surveillance flights that could lead to shoot-downs or
force-downs.
Admiral Belz, let me ask you this. Don't we have U.S.
personnel who are capable of providing these services? Why are
we contracting--why might we contract out?
Admiral Belz. I can't answer that question specifically,
because it does not apply to our agency. Ma'am, JIATF East is
made up of a composite of many organizations, certainly all of
those represented at this table, and in some cases, I would
concur with Mr. Brown's statement with regard to contractor
use. I can say that for our part, generally speaking, the more
operational the event is, then the greater the tendency is to
see agency employees directly involved.
Ms. Schakowsky. It was stated categorically that all of the
shoot-downs and force-downs that we know about that, as far as
we know, all procedures have been followed. Is there available
to us, either through subpoenas or just through unclassified
information, evidence that we have, in fact, asked that those
procedures be followed?
Mr. Winwood, it sounds as if you do that with Customs and
that we could track how in each case where there is
surveillance done that procedures were followed. Do we know
that? Or someone said there were just no allegations that
procedures were not followed.
Do we proactively assure ourselves that procedures are
followed, and can we as a committee look at that and assure
ourselves?
Admiral Belz. With regard to each air mission, each mission
is thoroughly briefed and thoroughly debriefed. With regard to
vessel assets at sea, certainly there are significant efforts
that go forward to get ready for these deployments, depending
on the length of them, and there certainly is routine reporting
at the end of that, sometimes rather significant in length, and
certainly any events that come up of interest, good and bad, we
would get immediate feedback during the course of that. But
each mission, each mission is, in fact, debriefed.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I would just like to second what Mr. Weldon
said, that I hope that we will continue these hearings and that
we will use our subpoena power to get at the bottom of the many
questions that remain unanswered. I appreciate your willingness
to answer some questions that I am going to submit in writing.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Chairman Burton, did you have another question?
Mr. Burton. I just have one or two real quick questions.
Now, the State Department plane wasn't the one that shot,
that were involved in this operation, Customs wasn't involved,
DEA wasn't involved, and yet nobody can tell us CIA was
involved, because it is classified. Why is that? Why is it
classified? A plane was shot down, Americans were killed, it
was a plane that was a civilian aircraft. Why is that
classified? I don't understand that. This is not a national
security issue. Why is that classified? Why is it you guys
can't tell us that? Speak to me.
Mr. Marshall. I think you would have to ask the CIA if,
indeed, it was their operation, why that is classified.
Mr. Burton. So if the CIA says, OK, it was our plane that
shot this private plane down, and you guys are testifying from
the other agencies and CIA says, this is classified, you guys
can't say, it wasn't us, it was the CIA? You can't even say
that? I tell you.
Mr. Marshall. My understanding, sir, is that we cannot
reveal classified information from another agency, only that--
--
Mr. Burton. Well, we are going to find out why CIA says
this is classified. This is crazy.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Chairman, will you yield for a second?
Mr. Burton. This is crazy.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Crow, can I ask you a different question
that has been troubling a lot of us. Clearly, much of this has
gotten into the media. Could you explain briefly to us in a
crisis like this, or at least a crisis of confidence, it is
history, but the American public now is having doubts combined
with other things about all of our antidrug efforts, which is
totally unfair. How does the declassification process work in a
situation where the State Department would say, there is a
general public interest in this, and how did the information
get into the media if it is classified?
Mr. Crow. I don't know how it got in, but certainly what
happened in Peru became immediately known because of the
interest of the evangelical organization, obvious interest and
concern in the event, and that catapulted it out into the open.
I mean, it went from there. But again, Randy Beers is down
there to find out what happened, what went wrong, and what can
be done to ensure that it won't happen again. I mean if there
is to be any kind of a positive end from a very tragic
situation, that would be it. It is in all of our interests to
come up with these answers.
Mr. Souder. I think we have made it clear, and I am sure
you will take back, that there is going to have to be a pretty
compelling case why that report would be classified. And it is
in all of our interests in trying to work through both fairness
and those of us who work so hard to support the different
efforts, it is very difficult for us to carry the ball here
when we, in fact, have people asking difficult questions,
mostly the majority of the questions today were coming from
conservative Republicans who have been steadfast supporters of
these efforts.
Mr. Crow. I understand, and I want to clarify so that there
is no doubt that these operations, whether they are in Colombia
or Peru or another country are under the control of the host
nation. No American aircraft shoots down or forces down other
aircraft, and that is important, just to reiterate.
Mr. Souder. We provided the information, but we did not
pull the triggers and would not allow our----
Mr. Crow. There are many ways that information is provided,
I suppose most of them classified, but again, Intel-driven ops
or maneuvers are the best way to avoid wasting your time.
Mr. Souder. Well, we know that you have all been here
several hours, we very much appreciate it. This was a difficult
hearing for you all to come to, and I appreciate that very
much. Some additional written questions may come, and I want to
say also for the record, the reason this illustrates part of
the reason in the command and control why we created the Office
of National Drug Control Policy, it is also why that was moved
up to cabinet level position, which hopefully it will stay, if
I can put in a commercial, because, in fact, we have so many
different agencies working with us, that somebody needs to be
focused on a responsible effort to try to coordinate. Each of
you have multiple missions in multiple places, and there needs
to be one agency that at least is providing direct oversight of
the drug issue.
So thank you again for coming. If you have any additional
statements you want to put in the record, you may, and we will
have some additional questions for you.
Panel 2 is now dismissed. If we could move to panel 3.
Our third panel consists of private citizens who represent
groups with an important interest in this issue. From the
Center for International Policy we have Adam Isacson; from the
National Business Aviation Association, we have Pete West; and
from the National Defense Council Foundation we have Andy
Messing. I welcome all of you here. You can remain standing, so
that I may administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Thank you for your patience. It has been a long
afternoon. We will now start with Mr. Isacson.
STATEMENTS OF ADAM ISACSON, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY;
PETE WEST, NATIONAL BUSINESS AVIATION ASSOCIATION; AND ANDY
MESSING, NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL FOUNDATION
Mr. Isacson. Chairman Souder and members of the
subcommittee, it is a pleasure to appear before you today to
testify about this important issue. Thank you for inviting me.
For 5 years I have coordinated a program at the Center for
International Policy that monitors the United States'
relationship with the militaries of Latin America and the
Caribbean. Arms transfers, the training of over 13,000 military
and police each year, exercises and exchanges, bases,
deployments.
I have to admit that among all of these programs, the ``air
bridge denial'' operation in Peru and Colombia was not getting
much of our attention. It seemed less controversial. It was
going after big-time drug criminals, not the peasants growing
coca just to survive. It carried little risk of sucking us into
an armed conflict. There was little risk of massive human
rights violations, or so we thought, because we had been
assured for years that strict rules of engagement were in
place.
So I was shocked and dismayed when I turned on the news a
week ago Friday and saw what had happened to innocent
civilians. I wish now that we researched this policy more,
explored the risks more closely and tried to increase
transparency over the way it was being carried out. We could
have had a debate about this a long time ago.
In the tragedy's aftermath, I must admit I have been
disturbed by the U.S. Government's rush to place all of the
blame on Peru. In the end the details might reveal that U.S.
personnel objected to the use of deadly force that day. But the
United States nonetheless shares the blame. While the Peruvian
pilot pulled the trigger, he pulled the trigger of a gun
provided by the United States while flying a plane provided by
the United States. He was trained in these operations by the
United States, and he was alerted to his target by intelligence
provided by the United States.
I might add, just to cite the New York Times, at least to
get some sort of answers to the questions of the last panel,
congressional officials say they are examining the role played
by CIA contract employees who worked for the aviation
development corporation of Montgomery, AL, just so it is in the
record. That is last Saturday's Times.
Peru was following a policy put in place by the United
States as well. Over the years, Washington has handsomely
rewarded Peru for pursuing its shoot-down policy with extreme
zeal. Peru's regime and its military received aid, base
upgrades and, perhaps just as important, political support from
the United States. U.S. officials always mentioned the
Peruvians' success, not just at hearings like this one, but in
public appearances with officials in Peru, repeating the number
of planes shot down like it was a wartime body count.
But accidental shoot-downs are only one of the risks that
this policy carries. What we are doing in the Andes deserves a
lot more scrutiny than it is getting.
First, our single-minded focus on drugs can severely
distort these countries' political development. Peru is a
perfect example. The United States worked very closely with the
Alberto Fujimori in Peru, simply because it was a loyal partner
in supply reduction efforts. The regime's cooperation earned it
many open shows of U.S. support and quieted U.S. criticism of
many abuses which created a lot of political space for
President Fujimori and his sinister intelligence chief,
Vladimiro Montesinos. I bet that if they had not been shooting
down planes so enthusiastically, Fujimori would have long
become a Japanese citizen and Montesinos a fugitive a long time
before.
As the Washington Post reported 2 days ago, ``The agreement
that established U.S. cooperation with the Peruvian government
was negotiated directly with Vladimiro Montesinos.'' The same
Montesinos who cracked down on Peru's free press, who spied on
Congress people, civic leaders, human rights activists and
opposition parties, and who helped fill jails with political
prisoners, while enriching himself enormously. The same
Montesinos who worked throughout the 1980's as a lawyer
defending large narcotraffickers. The same Montesinos who
helped arrange arms transfers to Colombia's FARC guerillas.
``Montesinos used the drug interdiction agreement as a
political weapon,'' the Post reports. ``He occasionally
threatened to suspend the partnership when it appeared the U.S.
Government was putting too much pressure on Fujimori's
government.'' Even when Fujimori stole an electric outright,
Washington swallowed hard, quieted its cruelest criticism and
went ahead. The U.S. Ambassador attended Fujimori's
inauguration last July.
We ignored what should be a basic rule of counterdrug
strategy. That if a partner nation is flouting the rule of law,
then it is not going to be a reliable partner for long, no
matter how many planes they shoot down or how many bases they
allow us to use.
A weak rule of law fosters corruption, a second policy
risk. Again, we need look no further than Peru, where last
month we saw the arrest of General Nicolas Hermoza, who had
headed the armed forces from 1992 to 1998. General Hermoza is
being charged with aiding and abetting drug traffickers, and he
reportedly has $14.5 million in Swiss bank accounts. This
reminds me of the celebrated case of General Gutierrez Rebollo,
Mexico's drug czar who, it turns out, was cooperating with our
efforts against one drug cartel while helping another cartel.
To what extent has the United States been unwittingly helping
corrupt officials in other countries?
Beyond corruption, warning signs about the reliability of
Peru's military have long been evident for anyone willing to
look. The Peruvian armed forces' respect for democratic rule
has been questionable at best, and it has serious problems with
corruption and human rights abuse. For years, Peru's generals
have been above the law. Why, then, should we expect them to
strictly follow aircraft interdiction procedures?
Third, U.S. anti-drug activities in the region are being
carried out in a way that avoids scrutiny and oversight, as we
have seen. While some secrecy is needed to protect U.S.
personnel and to keep from alerting traffickers to activities,
we need more information in order to be able to gauge the
policy's effectiveness, to be alerted to the risks involved, to
guarantee an informative debate and, let's face it, to prevent
incidents like last Friday's shoot down from occurring ever
began.
Right now, we cannot say with confidence how much the
United States is spending on its interdiction program in the
Andes. We don't know how many U.S. military personnel and
contractors are working in the region. We do know, though, that
the U.S. military presence goes well beyond what most Americans
would imagine. I have included a map in my written testimony
indicating the many radar sites, forward operating locations,
air facilities, training locations and other U.S. presences. I
am sure it is incomplete, but it is remarkable how spread out
our forces are, including some sites where illegal armed groups
are quite active with little public discussion or knowledge.
And this is the U.S. involvement we know about. There are
entire agencies, especially intelligence agencies, whose
operations and budgets are obscured by an informational black
hole.
Another information void surrounds what appears to be a
large and rapidly growing role played by private contractors.
Contractors were involved in the Peru incident, but this
phenomenon has gotten more attention in Colombia. There you
have at least six private U.S. corporations performing services
that include flying drug-crop fumigation aircraft, ferrying
battalions into combat, serving as mechanics and logistics
personnel, performing bottom-up reviews of the armed forces,
and gathering aerial intelligence. Some of these are rather
delicate missions.
In Colombia, three spray-plane pilots have died in crashes
since 1997 and, in February of this year, contractor personnel
working for the Virginia company DynCorp found themselves in a
fire fight with FARC guerillas while performing a search-and-
rescue mission in the Caqueta department.
Again, we know little more about the contractors. What
companies are involved? What other roles are they playing? Are
they taking on missions considered too dangerous for U.S.
personnel? Are they getting too close to shooting wars in other
countries? Are they bound by the same human rights standards
that apply to military aid in the foreign aid budget? Are they
consistently operating in line with U.S. policy goals? Who is
making sure?
These are very serious questions, but I can't come close to
answering them today because contractor operations are taking
place with almost no transparency. There is no annual report to
Congress on contractor activities, and even some good
investigative reporters have been able to uncover very little.
This leads to lack of effective oversight. Lack of
effective oversight leads to bizarre policy choices and
incomprehensible decisions; for instance, putting contractors
who don't speak Spanish on surveillance planes in Peru.
Beyond all of these risks, perhaps the most tragic thing
about the current policy is that the ends don't even justify
the means. We hear all the time about how air bridge denial has
reduced coca cultivation in Peru and Bolivia. But the gross
amount of coca grown in the Andes hasn't budged at all. Coca
cultivation in Colombia has made up the difference, and
Colombia has lots of room to grow. I know the aggregate amount
looks like it is decreasing since 1995, but if you measure from
1990, the amount of hecterage grown has hardly budged, and it
has gone down less since 1995, and demand for cocaine has gone
down in the United States.
The shoot-down policy has succeeded only in inconveniencing
drug traffickers, annoying them a bit, forcing them to use
routes other than air to get their product out. We haven't
found anything approaching a defense against short-hop
transshipment flights, and the use of rivers and oceans to move
drugs.
Moving coca cultivation elsewhere, enforcing traffickers to
use other shipments methods are not policy successes. And they
certainly don't justify a large military presence, a risky
shoot-down policy, and close relations with corrupt and abusive
governments. Let's hope that the April 20th incident signals
the beginning of a change in our policy. There are many new
directions we must urgently take.
First, nobody thinks that narco traffickers have a right to
fly illegal drugs around at will. But the shoot-down policy can
be less aggressive without sacrificing much effectiveness.
Since the policy already skirts the edges of international law
and ignores due process, it makes sense to err on the side of
caution.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Isacson, you are a couple of minutes over,
so if you can just summarize. I know you are almost done. We
will put your whole statement in the record.
Mr. Isacson. Second, let's put some limits on the use of
contractors. Third, let's be more careful about who we are
working with in the drug war. Fourth, let's focus much more on
demand, on the need for treatment. Drug treatment has nowhere
near been met in the United States. Finally, let's pay more
attention to the reasons why poor people in the Andes are
growing drug crops to begin with.
I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Isacson follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. West.
Mr. West. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Ms. Schakowsky
and Chairman Burton. Thanks for asking me to testify and
represent NBAA here.
The National Business Aviation Association represents over
6,400 member companies nationwide and some around the country,
but mainly in this country, operating or involved with 8,700
general aviation aircraft that are used for business
transportation. NBAA member companies earn annual revenues
collectively in excess of $5 trillion, about half the gross
domestic product, and employ more than 19 million people
worldwide. The Association's vision is to be a recognized
effective force for enhancing safety, efficiency and acceptance
of business aviation. Our mission is to serve the needs of the
NBA member companies and the broader business aviation
community. Clearly, safety is the first and foremost element of
our vision and the most important need of our members and the
broader community. This is true for all of aviation, and
aviation safety is my focus in the context of today's
deliberations.
As much as this committee is to be commended for holding
this hearing, it is unfortunate that we are compelled to gather
here today because of the terrible tragedy experienced by the
Bower family and Mr. Donaldson on Friday, April 21st. I am here
simply to reassert the most important argument NBAA and others
familiar with the dynamics of civil aviation made in the past
and continue to make against the dangerous shoot-down approach
to drug interdiction, the serious risk to innocent lives.
Again, unfortunately, this argument was validated by the
incident in Peru last month. At this point, on behalf of
everyone associated with NBAA, and personally as a husband with
an 8-year-old son and a 1-year-old baby daughter, I want Mr.
Bowers and his son, Cory, as well as Mr. Donaldson, to know
that our hearts and thoughts are with them.
The fact that this matter is under intense investigation
should be and is respected. It is comforting that the U.S. air
interdiction efforts have reportedly been suspended in much, if
not all of the region, and that related policies are being
reexamined. Hopefully, that reexamination will allow this
situation to be addressed in the context of what is rational
and relevant to available technology, which I do not present
myself as having any expertise in.
Specifically, this panel is correct in exploring issues
such as filing and verifying flight plans, especially in
trafficking areas; suspect aircraft evaluation procedures,
communications with suspect aircraft procedures and radio
frequencies involved with that, and deadly force conditions. It
seems absolutely essential that there be a review of overall
management coordination of the program to ensure that there is
thoughtful planning and strategy that incorporates appropriate
and accountable safeguards, domestically and internationally.
We would also encourage further review of the important
rationale supporting the position of ICAO with regard to this
issue and the civil aviation.
NBAA commends those involved in the global fight against
drugs for their commitment to this challenging and vital
endeavor. However, this is a tragedy that could and should have
been avoided. It could have been experienced by any other
innocent people finding themselves in harm's way because of a
policy that allows those involved in drug interdiction, albeit
blinded by the bright light of good intentions, to ignore the
need for caution and patience. It is especially sad when
considering the differences between the capabilities of the
military aircraft used in interdiction efforts and some of the
small civilian aircraft being monitored and ``evaluated.''
There is at least the capability to communicate by radio
and, failing that, the ability to send clear messages visually
with certain standard procedures.
A colleague of mine, the Honorable Jeff Shane, former State
Department and Transportation Department official, now a
partner with Hogan & Hartson, recently shared some relevant
information with me in an e-mail. He wrote, ``Sadly, precedent
language can be found throughout the statements issued in
opposition to the 1994 change in the U.S. law that facilitated
the restoration of U.S. cooperation with Peru and Colombia,
despite their newly adopted shoot-down policies. He provided
the following: Senator Nancy Kasselbaum, September 14, 1994.
``to sanction the use of deadly force against civilian aircraft
as this legislation does is beyond ill-conceived. In a deadly
game of chance, this legislation lets the United States help
foreign governments shoot down civilian planes based on little
more than an educated guess.''
Senator Malcolm Wallop, September 14, 1994, ``I believe
that abandoning our unconditional opposition to shooting down
civil aircraft sends a very bad message, even if the rationale
interdicting the flow of illicit drugs is a worthy one. By
passing this law, we will encourage Colombia and Peru to become
more aggressive in implementing their shoot-down policies.
Accidents happen all too often without American engagement.''
Airline Pilots Association President Randy Babbitt, and
AFL-CIO the president, Lane Kirkland, in a letter to Secretary
of State Warren Christopher, July 15, 1994, ``U.S. airlines
operate in the vicinity of countries whose government's
commitments to the rule of international law is suspect. We do
not want such governments to be provided an opportunity to
justify actions destructive to international civil aviation by
citing a U.S. Government policy that legitimizes violence
against civilian aircraft.''
Mr. Souder. Mr. West, you are over time by about 2 minutes.
You can summarize.
Mr. West. I will summarize by saying, I won't give you any
more quotes, I will just give you one last quote, the president
of NBAA who said on June 30, 1994, ``the potential for tragic
error resulting in the loss of innocent lives is too great to
warrant the support for the shoot-down approach for drug
interdiction. We are ready to help you all help all of us.''
[The prepared statement of Mr. West follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. Major Messing.
Major Messing. Mr. Chairman, I would first like to begin by
thanking you and this esteemed committee for convening this
hearing at an extremely important time. In recent years,
support for the war on drugs has been dwindling and skepticism
pervasive. Misinformation, fear and confusion is increasing to
the point that people are reaching for unrealistic solutions
like stopping or limiting supply side efforts, or legalization
without understanding the harsh ramifications. For the first
time in history, drug-induced deaths outnumber homicide in this
country starting in 1998. This is not the time to cease U.S.
efforts. This most recent misfortune involving missionaries
over Peru is a tragic accident, but cannot be allowed to stop
what has been an effective component of counter drug policy for
the United States. As a result of United States and indigenous
aerial interdiction programs over both Peru and Colombia, the
narco trafficking air bridge has been significantly reduced.
Breaking down this air bridge is just one part of this
comprehensive counterdrug strategy, countertrafficking
strategy.
The other components include restricting the land bridge,
the river bridges and the ocean bridge. These factors have been
addressed by indigenous ground, air, Navy forces in the region
with select U.S. military aid, like U.S. Army special forces,
Marines, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Navy working alongside
them.
I have just returned from my 15th fact-finding mission to
Colombia since 1985 and the 30th such trip in the Andean region
concentrating on Peru. While on this trip, I met with the
director of DANTI, the anti-narcotics police in Colombia.
According to him, the narcos are now being given the green
light to empty the store houses and move the coca base by
aircraft into Colombia. Given this, there has never been a
greater urgency for continuation of U.S. aid to aerial
interdiction programs.
Since 1985, when the U.S. Congress approved the start of
these programs, the Peruvian Air Force has positively
identified and shot down 30 airplanes engaged in drug
smuggling. Additionally, over a dozen planes have been seized
while on the ground thanks to U.S. help. Moreover, U.S.
intelligence in counternarcotics trafficking has helped the
Colombian forces. The Colombian Air Force chief, General Hector
Velasco states, ``About 20 of 48 suspected drug trafficking
planes destroyed by the Colombian Air Force in their territory
and air space during the past 3 years were flights first
detected by U.S. authorities.'' U.S. efforts in Peru and
Colombia alone have brought down nearly 100 aircraft shipping
drugs that would have undoubtedly wound up on America's streets
poisoning our children.
It seems important to point out to the distinguished
members of this committee that each ton of cocaine brought into
the United States cost us approximately $1 billion of direct
and indirect costs associated with health care, losses in
business, crime in judicial systems costs, to name some of the
problems. We are not even talking about the human costs, which
are so very tragic.
The United States must simultaneously help our neighbors to
the south get a handle on supply side part of the equation
while capitalizing on this reduced supply to gain tracks on the
demand side effort in this country. So long as our streets are
inundated with massive quantities of low-priced, highly
purified drugs, the war on drugs will undoubtedly be hopeless.
We can never win the war on drugs, but we can reduce it to its
lowest manageable level. Less product means less use, less use
means less devastation, and therefore, America's supply side
efforts are important.
Since 1995, the same year that this program was put into
effect, cultivation of coca in both Peru and Bolivia has
declined by approximately 70 percent. Some of this can be
directly attributed to reducing the air bridge that we are
discussing. This most recent incident in Peru, though, was
simply a tragic accident. We will not know all the facts for
some time, yet preliminary reports show that CIA contractors in
the surveillance aircraft urged the Peruvians to slow down.
Whatever the failure, the program of aerial interdiction has
brought mainly praise from American agencies engaged in
combating the drug trade and had tangible reductions in drug
trafficking and cultivation. It is the failure of
implementation, not policy, per se. As such, it is necessary
that a proper investigation be conducted regarding this
incident and finding out what went wrong, and surveillance
flights must be continued as soon as possible.
Last, I want to convey my condolences to the Bowers family
and the family of the crew chief killed on a USC 130 aircraft
that was also destroyed by the Peruvian Air Force a couple of
years ago. I hope this doesn't reflect a sinister pattern by
possibly malevolent elements in the Peruvian Government bent on
reversing the present modus operandi. Our investigation will
hopefully dispel this lingering notion. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Messing follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I want to thank each of you again for your
patience today.
I have a couple of things I want to do here. One, given
that we reraised the debate in 1994, I want to insert into the
record the resolution from Mr. Schumer and Mr. Sensenbrenner,
who is now chairman of the Judiciary Committee that expressed
the sense of the House of Representatives should resume support
of the operations for interdiction of illegal drug trafficking
whereas illegal drugs, it goes through a whole series of why,
the whereas clause basically says the Department of Defense and
other departments and agencies of the United States should
resume their former authorized practice of providing aid,
information, and material support to locate, interdict and
prevent the illegal drugs. I want to insert that into the
record.
Also, the bill from Mr. Torricelli and Mr. Lantos who head
our human rights efforts and Mr. McCandless. Certainly I don't
want to imply that I support anything that happened here
because in fact, the bill is drafted to try to prohibit this
from happening, but I think it is important for the record to
have in what the Members of Congress, at that time in the
Democratic majority, intended by putting this policy in.
I also had a couple of questions for Mr. West. This is
difficult, because as you can tell, I certainly believe that
there should be a lot stricter standards, and I have generally
supported most of the pilots' association different requests
that have come to me, and obviously, there is risk in piloting
in any case. Certainly, given that this is the only case we
know for sure that any innocent pilot has been shot and that it
is the only case, it appears that the procedures weren't
followed, and I think we all agree the procedures weren't
followed, and I think as more information comes out, that will
become even more clear, but the fact is that both where we have
the written testimony from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association, one of the things I have supported from them is
the Back Country Landing Strip Access Act. Certainly, that puts
more pilots at risk in some of these back country airstrips,
yet that association is asking Congress to keep these open,
even though it puts more pilots at risk.
I would insert that into the record from the home page of
the American Pilots Association. In the National Business
Aviation Association, there is testimony on your home page from
the President asking that the FAA not on the emergency
certificate revocations that the person maintains the right to
operate while the process is pending, which certainly puts
people's lives at risk.
In other words, there is a certain amount of risk you are
going to have as a pilot. What we want to do is minimize that
risk, but to maintain that other people's lives should not be
put at risk when, in fact, there is a--compared to most of what
you do, almost zero risk of an innocent pilot getting killed.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Souder. When you're backing other things in Congress
that actually increase risk I think is a little bit of an
inconsistent position. I would like to give you a chance to
respond.
Mr. West. That's an interesting approach you've taken.
First of all, as you know, aviation has the best safety
record of any form of transportation. Business aviation is as
safe or safer than the airlines. So we have the safest safety
record.
I'm not specifically involved in the back country runways.
The other issue that you raised about our president, Jack
Alcott, on another risk-related matter, really, I don't see
how--and please forgive me, but it's sort of apples and
oranges. We're talking about a military aircraft not following
procedures. Maybe you say it was the one time, but they
didn't----
Mr. Souder. But it is the only time.
Mr. West. But so what?
Mr. Souder. They should follow procedures.
Mr. West. They should follow procedures. But the point is
they were in a position----
Mr. Souder. If there is one accident and things should be
suspended--why wouldn't that be the case in these others?
Mr. West. Well, the risk is always there. There was no
effective radio communication. There was no procedures followed
to go by and look in. It was just----
Mr. Souder. We agree on that.
Mr. West. Something was in error. Something was wrong.
Something was amiss.
Chairman Burton raised a question here that didn't get
answered, so that could take us into a whole another arena. But
I really do think that it's apples and oranges.
Mr. Souder. You didn't propose trying to make the policy
more fail-safe. You oppose the policy. Is that correct?
Mr. West. Excuse me?
Mr. Souder. You weren't proposing to make the policy more
fail-safe. You oppose the policy per se.
Mr. West. Actually, I was proposing--in terms of the shoot-
down policy, first, I was proposing that--first, I was saying
that we are comfortable that there is a reexamination of this
thing.
Mr. Souder. Which I agree with.
Mr. West. If you ask the Bowers and you ask Mr. Donaldson
how they feel about that, I think they would appreciate it as
well. I don't think we should ignore what happened, and I do
think the reexamination will allow us to look more clearly at
how we translate to our foreign partners or foreign
relationships.
Mr. Souder. So you don't oppose the policy necessarily, if
we can address those questions.
Mr. West. We opposed it in 1994 because there seemed to be
an ignorance of the serious impact and risk that is put out for
civil aviation operations, the type of possibilities that
existed.
I will relay to you a conversation I had with former
Senator Sam Nunn. I'm from Georgia, and he was from Georgia. I
used to head up legislative affairs for Delta Airlines, but I
had joined Business Aviation. In 1994, we talked about the
shoot-down.
He was a very vigorous proponent for drug interdiction, but
he focused me on the specific issue of the military aircraft
versus the smaller civil aviation aircraft. He emphasized the
incredible risk that some Member of Congress flying or running
a general aviation aircraft, a dentist and his or her family,
missionaries like that experienced in Peru--he said, this can
happen, and we have to be very, very careful that we understand
the differences between the capabilities of these two types of
aircraft.
He almost tongue in cheek said, you know, some of these
aircraft are so advanced they could go to Europe and back
before the private pilot could get from the Bahamas back to the
country. They're so effective, and they're very, very
dangerous. He said, it's very dangerous territory.
I trusted his judgment then, and I trust his observations
now.
Mr. Souder. Obviously, he--go ahead and finish.
Mr. West. He obviously what?
Mr. Souder. Go ahead and finish your comments.
Mr. West. I appreciate--we appreciate the battle against
drugs. We appreciate what risk that drugs have to people's
lives. I'm just saying a rational and responsible reexamination
of this issue seems of the utmost importance because, yes,
lives were lost; and I don't look at things and just say, well,
that's just one time.
Mr. Souder. You know, I appreciate the gentleman's
comments, but I want to point again for record that it passed,
signed clearly, that we, in fact, only know of one case where
innocent people were shot down. We know other pilots have lost
their lives in many ways, none of which I defend, but that
there are risks whenever you institute a policy. And your
association and the other airline pilots association are asking
Congress to actually make some risk expanded and that it seems
like an inconsistent position. However, a reevaluation is
absolutely essential, and we're trying to address that question
and put in as many safeguards as possible.
Mr. West. Can I just say one thing? I appreciate our
agreement--our aggressive agreement on reevaluation,
reexamination. I'm just saying the apples and oranges are guns,
shooting, fighting aircraft versus risk inherent in the growth
of the society and the culture and how we do things.
Mr. Souder. Let me say for the record you said twice it's
apples and oranges. It is not apples and oranges. Risks in
shorter landing strips where there are trees on runways and the
runway may not be kept up as other runways are risks also that
are just as fatal to pilots when there's an error.
When the FCC says a pilot is unqualified to fly and you
want to have a stay of whether that was an emergency
qualification, the ruling on the pilot could be argued is a
direct safety question.
Now, I tend to support the airline owners, but don't come
to us with double standards. These are apples and apples. We
disagree on a point here, but I think it's apples, apples.
Congresswoman Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. West, I am assuming that none of the six private
companies that are conducting operations in the Andean region
are members of the National Business Aviation Association.
Mr. West. I actually checked. First of all, the record of
NBAA member companies throughout our 53-year history is that
there is no evidence of any member company ever being involved
in drug trafficking.
Second, I looked into our membership----
Ms. Schakowsky. Not drug trafficking. You mean drug
surveillance or drug trafficking.
Mr. West. Trafficking.
Ms. Schakowsky. Oh, you did mean trafficking.
Mr. West. I am not aware--we only have one member company
in Peru, and it is an aviation services company. It is not a
company that is involved with surveillance.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. Did you check like DynCorps, any of the
U.S. companies?
Mr. West. I would love to have a list of those six
companies and check my membership list.
Ms. Schakowsky. Maybe you could provide us some
information.
Mr. West. I would love to contact them if they are members.
Ms. Schakowsky. I also will say I have less confidence,
although I am certainly wanting to look at the record of the
shoot-downs. I am certain that there weren't any other American
civilians that were shot down, but I think it would bear
looking at some of the records to make sure that there were no
other civilians that were mistakenly shot down. I just feel
somewhat less confident that that's the case without
scrutinizing some of the records.
Mr. Isacson, you seem to question the assertion that the
policies that we've been employing in interdiction are
successful, that this 17 percent reduction in production has
resulted somehow in helping us in the United States or that--I
just wonder if you would just expand a bit on the success of
our missions in Central--in South America.
Mr. Isacson. Sure. If you look, as in the last panel, we
saw a bar graph showing the aggregate amount of coca bean
growing decreasing since 1995. If you were to add the years
1988 or 1989 or so, you would see that it had went up during
the first half of the 1990's, and it has just gone back to
early 1990's levels. We've had no net reduction since the early
1990's. What reduction we have had is really due to the fact
that less Americans are buying cocaine than were 8, 9, 10 years
ago. The demand for crack especially has gone way down. That
explains that.
What we have seen as a result of interdiction efforts, yes,
it does certainly affect the way the drug trade gets carried
out, but what we have instead is sort of a game of hopscotch
where we have moved from Peru and Bolivia being the main
producing countries to the Guaviare area in Central Colombia
being the epicenter of coca growing and then to Putamayo
Colombia after we started spraying in Guaviare.
Where are we going to go next? It's anybody's guess now
that Plan Colombia has started. But chances are there are
about--there are any number of places where the coca trade can
move in the Amazon basin.
Ms. Schakowsky. How do you account for the drop in cocaine
use if not this eradication program?
Mr. Isacson. I am not really an expert on this. I am more
of a foreign policy focus. But what I have been told and what I
have read is a lot of it owes to the fact that, yes, the crack
plague has ebbed. There is no new wave of crack addicts on the
level of what we saw in the late 1980's early 1990's. It's more
of a shrift in user trends. Heroin has gone up somewhat, while
coca has gone down. And, yes, education and treatment have had
some effect.
Ms. Schakowsky. Do we have evidence that the coca growing
is just moving around?
Mr. Isacson. Certainly all you need to do is even look at
the last chart in that they showed in the last panel showing by
the three major coca-producing countries whereas as recently as
1995 most coca was grown in Peru, now most is grown in
Colombia. Looking in Colombia you can see that it's moved
within Colombia as well, yes.
Ms. Schakowsky. I wondered also if you could elaborate--
I've been focusing on legislation on an increase on the
contractor issue. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little
bit about your concerns about that.
Mr. Isacson. My concerns mainly deal right now with
accountability. I just don't know enough. There is no access to
information. I can't even name those six companies in Colombia.
I just got that number from an article in the Miami Herald. You
can't tell what the companies are; you can't tell what missions
they're carrying out. But that, of course, led the imagination
to wander a bit. What could these guys be doing? How close are
they getting to combat?
I would not have dreamed for that February incident in
Caqueta that we have been involved in firefights or carrying M-
16s as they were in Caqueta. Are they involved with units that
violate human rights regularly? Are they involved with para
militaries? There is any number of questions that we just
cannot answer because we can't get even the most basic
information about them right now.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Congressman Burton.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have two real
quick questions.
First of all, I share your concern about lack of
information, especially after having listened to that last
panel. Let me start with you, Major Messing. You say that
aerial interdiction should start again as soon as possible.
Obviously, I guess it's because drugs are pouring in through
the air during this hiatus. Is that the main reason?
Mr. Messing. That's my impression. You have to keep
concerted pressure on all four avenues of approach, so to
speak. Right now, there is a void; and obviously they'll pick
up on that and move product through.
Mr. Burton. And I presume right now that the aerial
surveillance has been curtailed around Colombia and Peru.
Mr. Messing. That's my understanding. And the indigenous
forces in the region, the Peruvians and the Colombians, don't
have the complete capability to bridge that gap, so to speak.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Isacson, did you mention that out at
Maxwell Air Force Base there's a private contacting company
operating this, involved in the----
Mr. Isacson. Yes, I got that in from the few newspaper
articles that have appeared since Saturday in major papers.
Mr. Burton. Is that operating in Montgomery, AL?
Mr. Isacson. Aviation Development Corp., yes, at Maxwell
Air Force Base.
Mr. Burton. I didn't see that article. Did it say that
was--was that the contractor that was flying that surveillance
plane down there when this plane was shot down?
Mr. Isacson. According to this and a few other articles,
yes.
Mr. Burton. And it was a private contractor hired by the
CIA?
Mr. Isacson. According to this, yes. I have never heard of
this company myself.
Mr. Burton. We'll check into that further tomorrow.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. First of all, I want to thank you gentlemen
for being here. Did you all hear the testimony of the previous
panel?
Mr. Isacson. No, I didn't.
Mr. Cummings. You heard it?
Mr. Messing. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, sir.
Mr. Messing. I did.
Mr. West. I got here late.
Mr. Messing. I have been here since 1:30.
Mr. Cummings. Was there anything that surprised you in any
of that testimony?
Mr. Messing. I share Congressman--Chairman Burton's
concerns about a lack of centralized control. I think this is a
problem in the drug war. I share the gentle Congresswoman's
concerns with regard to contractors. I'm a right of center
organization; and my colleague, who is a left of center
organization, you know, he articulated quite accurately and
correctly some of the problems that we're having with this
contractor phenomenon.
I don't know if you're aware, Congresswoman, but Senator
Byrd put a limit on contractors on the Senate side of 300. I
was one of the architects that put the cap on the military
because I was concerned about the military-industrial complex
fueling this conflict. It's a 500 limit in Colombia for
military and 300 for contractors. I think 300 for contractors
is a little high. I've talked to the American Ambassador
Patterson, who is an incredibly competent and skillful
diplomat, with regard to my concerns.
I think that it's something that has to be examined. I
think that any time you don't--as a Vietnam veteran and also a
guy who was in Grenada and also in El Salvador as a reservist,
I have to tell you that any time you don't explain to the
American people in detail what the heck you're doing, you're
making a major mistake. Any time you're trying to slip things
under the carpet, like these contractors, you're making a major
mistake.
One of the comments was, it's cheaper. Well, you don't
``cheap'' on something like this. Because this involves a major
impact on our society, on our social, political, economic and
security aspects of our society.
I have worked in homeless shelters as a volunteer for a
year and a half twice a week. I have seen one-third of the
people coming in there that have ruined their lives on drugs. I
have held crack babies. I have gone on drug raids with the San
Diego police, with the Fairfax police, the Los Vegas police. I
have gone on drug raids with the Colombian National Police. I
have to tell you that at every level you have to have concerted
pressure; and any time you take off a pressure point here or
pressure point there, the drug dealers exploit it to the max.
This was a very unfortunate incident. It was unfortunate in
four ways--innocent people, Americans, a beautiful family, and
Christian missionaries. But, you know, we can't throw the baby
out with the bath water with regard to policy. It has stopped--
as the testimony you heard in the previous two panels, it
stopped all kinds of tons of cocaine from coming up.
Now one of the reasons we've had a diminishing level of
some cocaine use, as pointed out, is we've had increased
methamphetamine production in our own United States. In
addition, the Chinese are gearing up in a massive way to
methamphetamine production. The Filipinos who I am in contact
with, Filipino intelligence services, who, by the way, are one
of the best--one of the top 10 intelligence services in the
world, have indicated to me that methamphetamine production
coming out of China is going to come in waves like we just
don't have any idea. And methamphetamines will become drugs of
choice in the 2000's.
Back in 1990 I predicted to the DEA that Mexican heroin and
heroin would become drug of choice in the 1990's with a guy
named Bruce Hazelwood. We wrote a report on it, which is on our
Web site at www.NDCF.org. That report predicted heroin becoming
the drug of choice in the latter part of the 1990's, which it
did.
When I heard the DEA guy make his comments I sort of rolled
my eyes, because they've always been consistently wrong about
predicting trends. I don't know why that is. They get a lot of
money. They should be able to predict it. But we're going to
have a methamphetamine problem that's going to be out of this
world here very shortly.
But getting back to the subject at hand, I don't want to
see us wind up throwing out the baby with the bath water. I
hope that this investigative committee winds up determining
some of the problems that my colleague over here to my left, I
might point out, pointed out with regard to some of the
permeations and corruptions that have occurred with people that
we supposedly are cooperating with. We better not be naive
about this and think that everybody we work with is our friend.
We better work with caution.
I hope that answers your question.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Ms. Schakowsky. I would just like to say, Major Messing,
while I agree with much of what you said, including the drugs
of choice changing, I think in some ways that--I would see that
as proving my concern that if we're engaged in interdiction on
cocaine then does that really--is that really going to end
drug--substance abuse and drug addiction? That I think it
underscores the need that we better deal with demand or we're
just going to see the drug of choice keep changing and we're
going to keep sending military personnel, over a million here
and there around the world, that we have got to seriously
address the demand problem.
Mr. Messing. Well, ma'am, demand is important. It's like a
juggler: You throw up two balls, one is demand and one is
supply. As a juggler, you got to have the same equal and
consistent effort on both of them.
For instance, on the demand side, nobody has ever mentioned
that the acreage that he's talking about, 900,000 acres of
pristine jungle, the lungs of the world, and tens of millions
of animals have been killed and the headwaters of the Amazon
River have been polluted because of the craven requirements of
people in our own country and other parts of the world that
have been involved ingesting this illicit and stupid drug.
But the point is that demand side issues cannot get
traction if there's an abundance, an overabundance, if you
will, of product. So any time we can place pressure on pushing
down product, like I said in my testimony, less product means
less use, less use means less devastation. So that's why we
have to constantly be pushing against the bad guys, so to
speak.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
I want to reiterate your last point, too. You can see from
the air the precursor chemicals in the feeding streams into the
Amazon, and you can see places where there are no birds at this
point. We often don't hear that part of the debate.
Mr. Messing. Greenhouse effect, pollution is phenomenal,
because it's a slash-and-burn policy by drug dealers.
Mr. Souder. I also want to reiterate that the common story
today is that none of us want to see any pilot, any
missionaries, any Congressman, for that matter, shot down; and
we want to make sure that if the policy is reinstituted that
there are additional safeguards. We also don't want the people
of Peru and Colombia to be shot down either.
This isn't just a question of innocent people from America.
It has to be a worldwide phenomena.
I also want to point out that synthetic drugs clearly are a
phenomena that Congress is seeing across the country. We're
trying to deal with the methamphetamine and Ecstasy and other
drugs. Hopefully, Congressman Cummings as well as myself at--
the next international narcotics conference is next spring in
Japan, and the focus is going to be methamphetamines and
synthetic. Europe is facing it, and the United States and other
countries as well.
The last thing I would like to do for the record is to
insert an AP story that ran yesterday. A missionary says the
United States should quickly resume drug surveillance flights
suspended after his wife and adopted baby were killed in Peru
when they were mistaken for drug smugglers and shot down. Jim
Bowers, who survived unharmed when their small plane crash
landed after being fired upon by a Peruvian war plane April
20th, said Monday he has expressed that view in a call to
Secretary of State Colin Powell's office. To say there needs to
be an entire review of the whole program and suspend it and to
let the drug people continue their business as usual is wrong.
He said clearly they need to find out, but he believes it was
an error.
Obviously, we're going to have an extended debate and
reiterate again, regardless of where you stand on this issue,
clearly the policy needs to be reviewed. We need to have this
in public. We need to have the debate in public. But it is not
clear-cut what the end answer should be.
With that, I thank the witnesses today. I thank all of our
panelists. Look forward to our next hearing on the subject.
With that, the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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