Back in April 2001, an American family was flying back to Peru from Brazil when their plane was shot down, killing the mother and daughter. Now a report by the CIA inspector general finds that the agency has blood on its hands.
CIA officials caused the deaths of an American mother and child in a tragic plane shootdown above Peru, according to a blistering new report, by operating a counter-drug program outside the rules for six years and then lying about it to their superiors.
The report also says that after Roni Bowers and her daughter Charity died, the officials tried to cover up how it happened by "repeatedly" lying to Congress.
According to the report, almost two dozen agents involved in the Airbridge Denial Program repeatedly lied to Congress about the agency's actions, and even went as far as to interfere with a Justice Department investigation into this snafu. Now Justice is making noises about bringing the agents up on criminal charges.
The report reveals what can only be described as ghastly blunders on the CIA's part. While it blames the Peruvian Air Force for shooting down the plane, it also blames the CIA for first misidentifying the plane, then not even trying to correct its mistake. For instance, it didn't even try to identify the plane's tail number, then didn't pull the Peruvians back despite repeated doubts that the plane fit the profile.
The IG also found that the Bowers shootdown was one of several instances where agents violated their own procedures.
The so-called Airbridge Denial Program (ABDP) shot down a total of 15 aircraft between 1995 and 2001, all of them except the Bowers' reportedly piloted by drug smugglers. The program had to be authorized by an executive order from President Bill Clinton in 1994 because of international laws prohibiting firing on civilian planes. Offiicials were supposed to follow a series of steps to differentiate between an innocent passenger plane and a drug plane before shooting any aircraft down, but did not follow those steps on April 20, 2001 or in 13 of the other 14 cases, according to the report.
If they were this reckless, it's a miracle an innocent person wasn't killed before the Bowers incident. Justice says it'll prosecute if there isn't an "administrative" plan in place to discipline those responsible. Sorry, that's not enough. We need to make an example of these rogue agents.