2 U.S. Warships Sailing to Colombia for Drug Patrol

Two U.S. Navy ships are on their way to South American waters to monitor and intercept airborne and seaborne drug traffic off the coast of Colombia, Bush Administration sources said Saturday.

The aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy and the nuclear-powered cruiser Virginia left Norfolk, Va., on Thursday night and are expected to be on station in international waters off Colombia within the next several days.

The Pentagon intends to send additional ships to patrol the Caribbean coast of South America on a rotating basis, officials said.

Colombian radio stations reported the deployment Saturday and described the ships’ arrival as the beginning of an American “blockade” of Colombia. But U.S. sources said that the mission is intended only to interdict drugs and not to block legitimate traffic into and out of Colombia.

In a signal that the Administration intends to move aggressively to employ the military to combat drug trafficking, the deployment began even before President Bush formally endorsed a broad set of Pentagon proposals for an expanded anti-drug mission.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said last week that final preparations were being made for U.S. military actions to help interdict supply routes out of Colombia but that final plans had not yet been approved.

However, the Baltimore Sun, quoting Administration officials, said Colombia objected to the deployment of the aircraft carrier task force. One senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the paper that news accounts of the military drug-interdiction plan and recent White House comments about its general outlines had drawn objections from Colombia.

He said further discussions about the U.S. plan will be held next week with Colombian officials at a meeting on the upcoming Andean drug summit in Bolivia.

The Colombian government issued a communique a week ago saying it had not been consulted on the issue and that the principle of working in concert with the United States remains in effect in the fight against drug trafficking.

It was still unclear Saturday whether Bush had authorized U.S. forces to pursue suspected smugglers into Colombian waters or airspace or whether they would be required to remain in international waters.

An Administration official said Saturday that the two ships, and perhaps several others, also would be used to bolster security for Bush when he travels to Cartagena, Colombia, next month for a Latin American drug summit.

The use of a flotilla off the coast of Colombia was proposed last fall by the Navy’s Atlantic Command after Defense Secretary Dick Cheney ordered all field commanders to come up with new ways to use the military to combat drugs.

Congress has been pressing the Pentagon to take a more active role in the war on drugs, and after initial reluctance to commit military forces to law enforcement duties, the Pentagon has joined the fight with growing enthusiasm.

The ships will serve as a base for troops and aircraft assigned to drug-fighting duty in the region. The rotations will be relatively short--two months as opposed to the Navy’s normal six-month cruises--and aircraft carriers will alternate with amphibious landing craft and helicopter carriers, Navy officials said.

Carrier-based radar and electronic eavesdropping aircraft will patrol the skies over Colombia, and fighters will be used to track suspected drug smugglers, Navy officials said earlier. The military ships and aircraft will be linked with Coast Guard, Customs and Drug Enforcement Administration craft, which will conduct most interceptions and arrests.

The expanded Navy role in drug interdiction is mirrored by the other services, which have scrambled for a piece of the anti-drug budget, which is growing while overall Pentagon spending shrinks.

The Army is stationing troops and ground surveillance devices along the Mexican border, the Air Force is flying Airborne Warning and Control System radar plans over suspected drug routes and the Marines are patrolling suspected infiltration routes in the Southwest.

Longer-term Air Force proposals would enlist high-resolution spy satellites to provide glimpses of shifting ground bases for drug traffickers, including drug processing laboratories hidden deep in jungles.

And Navy budget planners have found in the drug mission a way to resolve the problem of maintaining training hours with a diminishing pot of money.

Their solution is to shift some Atlantic training operations to the Caribbean, where they could serve double duty by keeping watch on drug trafficking.