The Air Bridge Denial (ABD) Program is an anti-narcotics program operated by the U.S.

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. Starting in the 1990s, it targets traffickers transporting

illicit drugs The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. An area has a prohibition of drugs when its government uses the for ...

through the air by forcing down suspicious aircraft, using lethal force if necessary. The program was suspended in April 2001 when a legitimate civilian aircraft was shot down in Peru and two U.S. citizens were killed. It was restarted in Colombia in August 2003 after additional safeguards were established. As of 2005, the United States had provided $68 million for the program, which had so far produced only one drug seizure. In 2010 the

Government Accountability Office The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan government agency within the legislative branch that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the s ...

produced a report stating that the program faced challenges and that the effectiveness of the program at stopping narcotics trafficking was difficult to assess. It noted, however, that the program often advanced broad

foreign policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

objectives of the United States.

Mistaken shootdown of US civilians

In 2001, a small floatplane carrying a family of four

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...

and a pilot was tracked by a CIA spotter plane as a possible drug-running plane. The

Peruvian Air Force The Peruvian Air Force (, FAP) is the branch of the Peruvian Military of Peru, Armed Forces tasked with defending the nation and its interests through the use of aerial warfare, air power. Additional missions include assistance in safeguarding i ...

wrongly identified it as belonging to a drug smuggler, and a Peruvian fighter aircraft shot it down. Of the five people on the plane, Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter were killed in the incident, while her husband Jim and their son Cory, as well as the pilot Kevin Donaldson, managed to survive after crash-landing the plane on the Amazon River despite serious leg wounds. On November 1, 2010 the Central Intelligence Agency declassified a 2008 CIA inspector general report that indicated that retired and current officers were given administrative punishments for their role in the incident. While the report laid the blame for the shoot-down at the feet of the Peruvian military, investigators concluded "there were problems with the program" and mistakes were made, requiring disciplinary action.

References

{{coord missing, Peru 2001 in Peru Central Intelligence Agency operations History of drug control Drugs in Colombia Drugs in Peru Drugs in the United States Colombia–United States relations Peru–United States relations Military history of Peru

Mistaken shootdown of US civilians

See also

References