The War on Drugs

Veronica and Charity Bowers

In 2001, the Peruvian Air Force shot down a plane flying over the Amazon after receiving information from the CIA that the plane was trafficking narcotics. It was actually filled with Christian missionaries. The attack resulted in the death of 35-year-old Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter, Charity. Their deaths were the product of a joint operation between the CIA and the government of Peru to shoot down suspected drug planes.

Seven years later, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson issued a blistering report finding that the CIA repeatedly lied and covered up details about the plane intercept program, about the downing of Bowers' plane, and about similar incidents that never made the news.

"Within hours, CIA officers began to characterize the shootdown as a one-time mistake in an otherwise well-run program. In fact, this was not the case ... The routine disregard of the required intercept procedures in the ABDP led to the rapid shooting down of target aircraft without adequate safeguards to protect against the loss of innocent life," according to the report.

The report found that officers in the program thought adhering to safeguards too strictly could allow drug-smuggling planes to escape, and that it was easier to shoot planes down than to force them down with other planes. Consequently, "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, and without being given time to respond to such warnings as were given to land."