Alabama CIA Air Contractor: We Don't Know Nuthin' 'bout No Peru

Washington -- In January 1998, five twin-engine Cessna Citation V jets owned by the Defense Department arrived at Alabama's Maxwell Air Force Base. Their landing was heralded by the local Montgomery Advertiser, which noted in a short but enthusiastic piece that the aircraft were part of a $10 million program the military had outsourced to a recently incorporated local contractor.

According to the paper, the new company, Aviation Development Corporation, had been retained to test state-of-the-art airborne radar, forward-looking infrared, and signals intercept sensors -- sensors that, according to a base spokesman, had broad applications for aerial law enforcement operations and military search-and-rescue missions. It wasn't a stretch to conclude that the sensors-equipped aircraft were destined for Latin America, where a number of private military companies have spent the past decade flying a variety of anti-drug missions for the U.S. government.

On April 20, 2001, a Peruvian air force jet shot down a small single-prop plane full of Baptist missionaries, killing Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter. The Baptist plane was not fingered by the Peruvians, but by what the Washington Post initially reported was a CIA surveillance aircraft -- a Cessna Citation V, to be precise. Subsequent reports noted that the aircraft was in fact owned by the Defense Department, but operated by a crew of outside contractors who have gone unidentified -- a perfect example of the lack of accountability due to the privatization of the drug war.

An In These Times investigation has revealed that the contract aircrew is employed by Aviation Development Corporation, the same company that handled the Cessna surveillance tests in Alabama. "All I'm going to say about who was flying that plane in Peru," a Pentagon official told In These Times, "is that you should look around Maxwell Air Force Base," where ADC is based.

No one answers ADC's phone, and its president, Edward A. "Lex" Thistlethwaite Jr., did not return messages left at his home. Despite having a listing in the Maxwell Air Force Base phone directory, spokesman Capt. Ken Hoffman was also unable to reach anyone from ADC. Nor was he able to find anyone at the base who knew anything about the company or the current location of the Cessna Citations.

When Glenn Owen -- whom Alabama records list as the company's secretary -- was reached at his home, he refused to answer any questions about ADC's connections with the U.S. government or its Latin American operations. "I'm not free to comment," he said, refusing to elaborate. "And I don't see anyone getting back to you."

In the name of counter-narcotics, the U.S. government has been waging a private war in the Andes for years. While active-duty U.S. soldiers are allowed to train South American military units, under congressional mandate and Pentagon regulations, they're not allowed to take part in combat, and limitations are placed on the number of personnel who can be in-country. (For example, Plan Colombia caps the number of active-duty soldiers in-country at 500.)

However, the same restrictions do not apply to private military companies under contract with the U.S. government. While a State Department rule technically prohibits contractors from taking part in combat operations, the rule has been clearly violated, and a handful of contractors have been killed in combat operations. Three helicopter pilots employed by Virginia-based DynCorp were shot down and killed in Peru in 1992, and this past February, four DynCorp "contractors" -- all ex-Special Forces -- ended up in a near-fatal firefight rescuing the crew of a helicopter downed by Colombian FARC rebels.

Because these U.S. agents in Latin America are contractors, as opposed to actual servicemen, both their activities and their deaths attract little attention. This is hardly surprising given the notoriously opaque qualities intrinsic to private military companies, and very attractive to U.S. policy-makers who tremble at the thought of actual servicemen either being linked to local human rights violators or shipped home in coffins.