Word: colombianizing
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...beauty pageant last year, Colombia's precautions for this week's antidrug summit are extraordinarily tight. Though a spokesman for the drug cartels against which Colombia has been waging an all-out war promised that they would not make trouble, the government is taking no risks. Hundreds of Colombian and U.S. undercover agents disguised as beach vendors, taxi drivers, bellboys and happy-go-lucky tourists are prowling the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena, where George Bush and the leaders of the three South American nations that are the source of virtually all the world's cocaine will hold their five...
...sound. In a matter of seconds, it can zero in on a plane, blasting it from the sky in a sickening burst of flame and smoke. Moreover, such missiles are all too available to terrorist groups and criminals around the world. Last week intelligence reports indicated that the Colombian cocaine cartels may be stockpiling just such antiaircraft devices. The fear is that the drug lords could use them to mount an attack on President George Bush when he flies into the Colombian city of Cartagena for a four-nation antidrug summit starting...
...most serious threat comes from surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) launched either just before the President's plane lands or just after it takes off. Although the Colombian drug cartels have apparently never used such weapons before -- and there is still no hard evidence that they have acquired them -- there are certainly plenty of SAMs, primarily U.S.-made Stingers and Soviet-built SA-7 Grails, available through illegal channels. Both are portable, shoulder-mounted rockets that use tiny infrared sensors to home in on the heat generated by a jet engine...
...missiles are heat seekers. Air Force One must also be protected against radar-directed air-to-air missiles, like the French-built R-530s that Colombian air force jets are known to carry. These rockets spot their prey with radar beams and follow the echoes toward the target. One way to divert a missile flying along a radar beam is to fire off a burst of metallic chaff particles. They cause the missile's radar guidance system to go haywire amid a blizzard of electronic gibberish...
...report that Colombian drug lords may be stockpiling antiaircraft missiles focuses attention on the President's plane and the electronic gear that guards...