S.D.-Based Planes Join Escalating War on Drugs : Smuggling: Hawkeye surveillance aircraft and crews were sent last month to Panama as part of the increased Pentagon effort to stop the drug flow into the United States.

While staging the largest military build-up since Vietnam, the Pentagon is also stepping up efforts to fight the flow of drugs to the United States, military officials said Wednesday.

To assist that battle, San Diego-based E-2C Hawkeye surveillance aircraft and crews have shipped out to Panama where they will be stationed at Howard Air Force Base.

The planes, which are based at Miramar Naval Air Station, flew to Panama on Aug. 15--marking the first time Pacific Fleet surveillance planes have been deployed on a long-term basis to ferret out drug traffickers, sources said.

“We will continue to do our work on the war on drugs and, at the same time, try to carry on the Operation Desert Shield. It may mean we put a little less towards the war on drugs,” said Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, chief of naval operations, during a recent press conference in San Diego.

But, for the moment, officials say, they have heightened--not slackened--surveillance to halt the flow of drugs. A senior Administration official says the Pentagon has been able to “enhance detection and monitoring efforts” in international waters and air space despite the Middle East operation.

One San Diego-based unit, comprising about five aircraft, flew to Howard Air Force Base in Panama last month. Normal deployments of this kind are no longer than 90 days, sources said. Officials will periodically evaluate the effectiveness of this unit and decide whether to continue. Citing security concerns, officials declined to identify specific squadrons that are involved.

The $46-million Hawkeye is a fixed-wing propeller plane that distinguishes itself in the sky by the huge, round dish attached above its fuselage. As two pilots fly the plane, three crew members monitor information relayed by the rotating radar dish. They look for aircraft that have not filed a flight plan with the host country, that are flying below or above their filed flight plans, are not using lights, or are showing inappropriate fuselage or identifying markings.

The increase in counter-narcotics efforts are not confined to the Pacific Fleet. The Atlantic Fleet has also sent aircraft and radar equipment to Panama to assist in monitoring smuggling. And the Navy and U.S. Customs officials are using P-3 Orion planes in the eastern Pacific, Atlantic and Caribbean regions.

Crew members and aircraft stationed at the Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico will continue in their current post as lookouts. Four AWACS (Advanced Warning Airborne Command System) and several KC-135 aircraft are stationed there. That group, which has double the funding of its West Coast counterpart, also has at least two Navy task groups that search dozens of boats each month. There are no AWACS stationed permanently in such a capacity on the West Coast.

“We are in the process of increasing our efforts at this time,” said Major Doug Hart, a Department of Defense spokesman. “We are definitely stepping up efforts in the areas of interdiction and intelligence.”

The expansion is possible because the Department of Defense is expecting much more money to devote to interdiction, Hart said. In 1990, Defense spent an estimated $447 million on interdiction; in the proposed 1991 budget, officials have allocated $775 million.

In recent months, West Coast officials have felt the sting of fighting a battle in which their resources are dwarfed by their East Coast counterparts. In April, one lone surveillance plane, operating near San Diego, pursued five drug-smuggling planes at the same time. The AWACS lost track of three of them when they split up over the Gulf of California. Crew members aboard the plane relayed information to Mexican authorities and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, who snared the two planes, along with 3,000 pounds of cocaine.

Navy crew members, along with other military personnel, have no jurisdiction to arrest smugglers. Instead, they forward the information to arresting authorities.

The new enhanced campaign is an effort to carry out plans approved by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney on Sept 18, 1989. At that time, Cheney declared that the Pentagon’s war on drugs was a high priority national security mission.