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Yesterday the spokesman at the State Department said that negotiations with Panama to continue to use Howard Air Force Base for the drug interdiction, they were dead. Those negotiations died I think back in September. My first question is, is that the way the DoD sees it? That Panama is not going to be available at the end of next year for U.S. basing?
And second, was there any success this past trip of the SecDef to find other Latin American nations that would base the U.S. planes used in that drug interdiction?
And finally, can you comment on the choice of Puerto Rico as the new headquarters for that drug work?
A: You've asked a lot of questions.
First, we are preparing to move all U.S. troops out of Panama, as scheduled, by the end of 1999. We see nothing that will interrupt that movement. We did have some discussions with the Panamanians about a continued U.S. presence, but those discussions did not amount to anything.
Howard Air Force Base--specifically, we plan to be out by May 1, 1999.
Some of the military elements are either in the process of moving to or have been moved to Puerto Rico. That includes the U.S. Army South, also, some of the, I think the Air Force headquarters, will be moved there as well.
In addition, we would like to negotiate access to military facilities in the Caribbean and in Latin America. We would like to have access to what we call a forward operating location, another one in the Caribbean. We would probably like one or two in Central America and maybe access to several forward operating locations along the Andean spine of South America.
We're in the process of talking to countries about that, and those talks are continuing.
Q: Has Colombia turned the U.S. down entirely on basing?
A: I'm not aware that we have, specifically, we have reached the point of asking people and sealing deals at this time. One thing that is very clear to us and to our friends in the region is that a continued U.S. presence in the region has many benefits. Those benefits were demonstrated by our rapid response to the devastation of Hurricane Mitch. We had aircraft in Honduras, and as a result they were able to begin rescue operations even before the storm had ended. That probably contributed to saving hundreds of lives that might not have been saved if we didn't have helicopters and planes in the area.
In addition, the fact that we had aircraft in the area at Soto Cano made it easier for us to begin the aid flow very quickly.
So I think there are a lot of benefits to continuing U.S. presence in the region. I'm confident that other countries appreciate those benefits, and I'm confident that we will be able to negotiate access to locations as we need to.
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