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were always just a half a step in front of us. The Colombians expended an incredible amount of assets. And when you look at the assets that they have, and what they expended, and the amount of money that they spent on this project, it was tremendous. We could not have asked for better support.”
    Butler also defends Colonel Keen’s handling of the situation and the decision not to let the Special Forces in: “If you ran into there helter-skelter hell-bent, the chances are very great that the FARCwould have ambushed them because they probably were expecting somebody to make an attempt to do that. You don’t go into Colombia and just start shooting up. A Special Forces guy will never tell you he can’t do something: ‘We can do anything. Just give us a gun and some bullets, and we can do it.’ I think it was a military decision, and a political decision, to keep the Special Forces there and let them advise the Colombians, because,
one
, they didn’t know where the hostages were, and,
two
, they had no idea what they would’ve been walking into.”
    John McLaughlin, former commander of the State Department Air Wing that oversaw the antinarcotics missions, told BBC News that the poor initial response to the crash was the result of having no “pre-approved agreement among all the participants on how to launch a rescue team.” Had the plane crash occurred in another combat zone outside of Colombia, the crew would likely have come under the protection of the U.S. military. The
Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement
states, “The government at its sole discretion may authorize or may require the use of certain Government-provided logistical or in-country support.” In such hot spots as Bosnia and Somalia, contractors were commonly aided by U.S. troops. However, in Colombia, even though downed aircraft and hostage taking were not uncommon, the U.S. military actually had no direct responsibility to undertake a rescue, because the entirety of the antinarcotics work in Colombia was overseen by the State Department rather than the DOD.
    McLaughlin also felt that the men’s status as contractors, rather than as active-duty U.S. military personnel, was part of the reason the military refused to act immediately after the crash. “If you had military guys flying the mission, they would have the full weight of DOD behind them, ensuring that all the things needed for air safety would be in place before they take on such a mission,” he said. In a 2008 interview in Germany, Keen, who had been promoted to major general, would argue that this was not the case. “It would be the same response,” he said. “We would have the same capability to respond. If it was a downed aircraft, no one would be asking, ‘Is this a contractor, DOD, military?’ It would be ‘Let’s do what we can to locate and recover them.’”
    In the days following the crash, the immediate response of the U.S.government was to bury the story as quickly as possible. A former FBI hostage negotiator working on the case felt that there were several factors behind the government’s desire to keep the kidnapping under wraps. “First and foremost was the government’s belief that media coverage would only enhance Tom, Marc, and Keith’s status, and thereby make them more valuable hostages for the FARC to leverage,” he said. “But in this case, the FARC were clearly aware of their value from day one, regardless of what was or was not in the media. I also believe they kept the story under wraps to avoid bringing unwanted political or public attention to the classified program the guys were working on, and to avoid unwanted scrutiny and criticism of the government’s activities in Colombia.” Adam Isacson, director of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., agreed with this assessment. “Obviously it’s embarrassing to the