If an Associated Press report has it right, the US government may be close to working an arrangement with Colombia to host a new base from which the US military could launch its counter-drug missions. US Southern Command has been running counterdrug operations from Eloy Alfaro Air Base in Manta, Ecuador, since 1999 but Ecuador earlier this year signaled it wanted to end the lease arrangement by the end of September.
A legislative standoff has led to a lapse in a $4.26 billion small business innovation contracting program widely used by the Air Force and could spell the end of it entirely, industry sources warned Air & Space Forces Magazine.
