Word: colombia
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...initial misgivings about its drug involvement were well founded. Troops trained to locate and destroy hostile forces are less effective at the more delicate task of tracking and arresting smugglers, which more often depends on good police work. In 1984 the U.S. Navy set up sea checkpoints off Colombia in an antidrug maneuver dubbed Operation Hat Trick. The operation was cut short, according to a U.S. military officer, because the results did not seem to justify the costs. Nor does the military have much of an interdiction success record: in Viet Nam it was never able to close the primitive...
...Washington's enthusiasm for enlisting the military in the escalating war against drugs, as well as concerns that the Administration is using a sledgehammer to swat at mosquitoes. But U.S. officials insist that the Kennedy's mission was only to plot patterns of suspicious air and ship traffic off Colombia. That information would help position a network of mobile land radars, supplied by the U.S. but eventually operated by Colombians. Then the Kennedy task force would leave...
...Bush Administration still hopes to get the aircraft carrier under way before the President travels to Cartagena, Colombia, next month for a drug- policy meeting with Barco, whom Washington admires for his gutsy fight against the drug lords. The mistaken reports of a broad U.S. blockade of Colombia sparked a resignation threat from Barco's Foreign Minister. Said a Pentagon officer about Barco's embarrassment: "We almost shot a friendly...
...Mobile ground radar stations would be sent to Bolivia and Peru as well as Colombia. Governments in all three countries insist that only local forces, not Americans, would operate this equipment. In the same Andean nations, Special Operations Forces would increase their training of local antidrug teams in jungle combat, night operations, map reading and intelligence. The three countries are expected to get a contingent of 200 troopers and Green Berets to augment the small groups already in place. Bush last summer approved a National Security directive permitting such American trainers to accompany foreign teams on drug raids...
...jungles to shut down a few coca laboratories in 1986, U.S. troops have done little antidrug work abroad. The Navy has permitted Coast Guard officers aboard its ships along likely drug routes to make arrests if they come across smugglers. Some 75 U.S. military and police advisers are in Colombia on antidrug training missions...