Threat to Air Force One Dismissed : White House Can’t Confirm Reports of Drug Lords’ Plot

President Bush’s spokesman today shrugged off news reports that Colombian drug lords are plotting to shoot down Air Force One and voiced confidence in the Secret Service’s ability to protect the President.

“The Secret Service says it can provide the President security and the President intends to go” to a drug summit in Cartagena, Colombia, next month, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said.

Similarly, the Colombian ambassador to the United States, Victor Mosquera Chaux, dismissed the report.

“I believe Colombian terrorists don’t yet have missiles,” he said. “I believe that it’s a simple rumor. If they had them, they would have used them already” against government helicopters and aircraft.

Mosquera said his government is “confident that we can and will provide the necessary security required for this meeting.”

CBS News reported Monday the Secret Service was checking reports that Colombian drug lords were smuggling SA-7 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles into Colombia for an attack on Air Force One when Bush attends the meeting Feb. 15.

But Fitzwater said his own inquiries on the matter had drawn a blank and that the Secret Service apparently also is unaware of such specific threats.

“Nobody here seems to have heard of missiles,” Fitzwater said.

He said the Secret Service “has made several survey tours” to the summit site and is convinced it can protect the President.

Bush and the presidents of Colombia and Bolivia are expected to sign an accord to fight drug traffickers at the Cartagena meeting. Peruvian President Alan Garcia says he will send a minister in his stead unless U.S. invasion forces are out of Panama by then.

CBS said some warnings of threats against Bush are being dismissed as attempts by informants to curry favor with law enforcement officials, but that the surface-to-air missile threats are being taken seriously.

The New York Times said it had confirmed the gist of the CBS report. Both news organizations quoted unidentified sources.