WASHINGTON — The U.S. military says it flew thousands of spy flights over Colombian jungles trying to find and free three Pentagon contractors since their kidnapping in 2003.
In the end, it was a daring operation by Colombian military- intelligence agents that finally rescued the American trio from leftist rebels.
On Thursday, Col. William Costello, spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said the command made 3,600 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights, followed up on 175 intelligence leads and spent $250 million trying.
“We’ve been actively searching for these guys every day for the past 5 1/2 years,” Costello said.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the agency sent crisis negotiators and investigators on “countless trips to Bogotá” since the kidnapping.
One official said a Defense Intelligence Agency cell that primarily works to track captured or missing U.S. troops has been working on the case of the civilian contractors. Another said it was U.S. intelligence that located the hostages.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, and the Bush administration was adamant about giving the Colombians the credit.
