Chicago Tribune, August 18, 2001
BYLINE: By T. Christian Miller, Special to the Tribune. T. Christian
Miller is a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune newspaper.
DATELINE: BOGOTA, Colombia
The U.S. State Department has directed its largest private contractor
in Colombia to hire foreign pilots to fight the drug war, an order that
helps get around Congress' attempt to keep the United States from slipping
further into the country's messy civil war.
Last year, Congress limited to 300 the number of civilian contract workers
participating in U.S.-financed drug-eradication efforts in Colombia. But
in a little-noticed decision, the State Department has counted only U.S.
citizens toward that limit. As a result, DynCorp has 335 civilians working
on the anti-drug campaign but fewer than one-third are U.S. citizens, the
contractor's chief of operations in Bogota said Friday.
Those figures come on top of the estimated 80 U.S. citizens working
for other companies involved in the drug-eradication effort, such as Bell
Helicopter Textron, Sikorsky Aircraft, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed-Martin.
So at least 400 contract workers in Colombia are paid as part of last year's
$1.3 billion aid package, although fewer than 200 are U.S. citizens.
A senior aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has been at the forefront
of the battle over U.S. assistance to Colombia, acknowledged that the language
passed by Congress specified that the cap applied to "United States individual
civilians" and that the State Department was not obliged to include foreigners
in their reports to Congress.
"Legally they may be within the law," said the aide, Tim Reiser. "But
in terms of congressional interest in being informed on what U.S. money
is being used for, that is of interest to Congress and it's something that
the Congress should be informed about."
State Department officials say they are not required to inform Congress
that they have ordered DynCorp to hire as many as 50 pilots from Guatemala,
Peru, Colombia and other countries to transport Colombian troops into cocaine-growing
zones.
The pilots, most of them former Latin American air force members who
fly the most dangerous missions, also are hired to reduce the risk of bad
publicity over the downing of a U.S. citizen, said U.S. Embassy officials.
U.S. lawmakers and aides contacted Friday accused the State Department
of circumventing congressional intent to limit U.S. involvement in Colombia's
37-year civil war, in which leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary
forces depend on the cocaine trade for financing.
"This seems to be a loophole around the cap, a way to get around them,"
said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has sought to eliminate the use
of private contractors in the region since a U.S. company was involved
in an accidental downing of a private airplane by the Peruvian military
in April that killed a missionary and her daughter.
"Every time we find out more about what goes on in Colombia, a dozen
more questions are raised," Schakowsky said.
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