Routine Disregard Of Required Intercept Procedures Covered Up By CIA

A report from the Central Intelligence Agency's Inspector-General reveals the Agency obstructed the investigation into its role in shooting down a missionary plane in Peru in 2001.

The report described the CIA-backed anti-drug-smuggling effort in Peru as poorly run... with Peruvian air force jets often disregarding standard intercept procedures in a frenzy to shoot down suspect aircraft.

Criticizing the CIA for "needless" deaths, US Representative Pete Hoekstra of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee brought unclassified portions of the report to public light on Thursday. "This issue goes to the heart of the American people's ability to trust the CIA," Hoekstra said. "Americans deserve to know that agencies given the power to operate on their behalf aren't abusing that power or their trust."

The 2001 incident involved a small plane carrying an American missionary family, Jim and Veronica Bowers and their two children, shot down on April 20 by a Peruvian jet after being tracked by a CIA surveillance plane. Crash-landing in the Amazon River, Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity were killed, and pilot Kevin Donaldson was seriously injured.

After the incident, the CIA attempted to portray it as a one-time mistake in an otherwise well-run program, Reuters said. However, the report said, "In fact this was not the case. The routine disregard of the required intercept procedures ... led to the rapid shooting down of target aircraft without adequate safeguards to protect against the loss of innocent life."

Alleging that following the proper identification procedures could have given suspect aircraft time to escape, Peruvians and Americans involved in the program told investigators it was sometimes simply easier to shoot down the aircraft than to force it down. "The result was that in many cases, suspect aircraft were shot down within two to three minutes of being sighted by the Peruvian fighter -- without being properly identified, without being given the required warnings to land," the report said.

"Between 1995 and 2001, the agency incorrectly reported that the program complied with the laws and policies governing it," the report said, adding that in its own internal investigation the CIA found "sustained and significant" violations of procedure, but had obstructed access by Congress, the National Security Council and the Justice Department to its findings.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said although CIA Director Michael Hayden had not yet taken action on the Inspector-General's recommendations, the "CIA takes very seriously questions of responsibility and accountability."

FMI: http://intelligence.house.gov, www.cia.gov