U.S. backs restart of in-air drug war

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a one-day visit to Colombia, said on Tuesday that the United States would support Colombia in resuming a policy that allows Colombian fighter pilots to force or shoot down planes suspected of ferrying drugs.

Such a policy, which has been criticized by human rights groups, was suspended over Colombia and Peru in 2001 after a Peruvian fighter jet mistakenly shot down a private plane carrying American missionaries, killing two people, one an infant.

A White House statement said that President Bush had determined that Colombia had since "put in place appropriate procedures to protect against loss of innocent life."

The announcement did not specify those safeguards, but U.S. officials said they would include radio or visual contact first trying to force suspect planes to land, and then firing warning shots. Only as a last resort, U.S. officials said, would a plane be downed.

"Some of these procedures existed in the old program," one U.S. official said, "but they were not enforced."

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