READING BETWEEN THE LINES -
Assuming the segment from the media (below) is accurate, one has to ponder the horror represented by the CIA operating U.S. Air Force Aircraft, particularly in a foreign country.
Drug interdiction is not a function of national security; it is crime prevention and law enforcement. For the CIA to be getting into that extreme of privilege is astounding. If the CIA can't get involved with the Chinese nuclear espionage, nor the terrorist matters directly affecting the U.S., what are they doing playing 'sky cop.'
In a similar fashion the U.S. Secret Service (note the title) did a study on U.S. teenagers, relative to the school shootings. While the study was appropriate for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, it is equally astounding that the Secret Service did it. What else are they into?
Think of what the CIA might do to an airliner? Does PA-103 come to mind? KAL-007?
In the interim, the FAA 'says no' to airline safety.
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"BUSH DESCRIBES U.S. ROLE
After almost two days of conflicting information, the United States sought Sunday to portray its drug surveillance role as advisory in nature.
The U.S. aircraft is owned by the Defense Department but was operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, a U.S. official said.
President Bush has pledged to find out what went wrong, but said the role of the U.S. surveillance plane was “simply to pass on information” about aircraft suspected of carrying drugs.
The surveillance flights, he added Sunday, have been suspended “until we get to the bottom of the situation, to fully understand all the facts, to understand what went wrong in this terrible tragedy.”
The surveillance plane recorded the entire event on audio and video, and U.S. officials in Washington were studying the tapes to determine what went wrong, Miklaszewski reported.
The CIA has been involved in such surveillance flights over Peru since 1995 under authority provided in a law passed in 1994. The law permits U.S. government employees to assist foreign nations in interdicting aircraft when there is reasonable suspicion of illicit drug trade.