By IANTHIA SMITH Guardian Staff Reporter

ianthia@nasguard.com

In just two weeks The Bahamas will be one step closer to finding out which U.S. agency will take over when Army resources pull out of the OPBAT programme next year.

A source at the U.S. Embassy in Nassau yesterday revealed that June 26 has been earmarked for both U.S. and Bahamian officials to determine who would replace the Army's seven Blackhawk helicopters and their crews when they withdraw from Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT). But the source added that details are still sketchy about how relevant this information will be. "I believe that the ambassador is going to be back in town on (June) 26 to speak with the Deputy Prime Minister and I think that's when he will be back from Washington with this information," he said. "I don't know that we will have a final answer at that time, but any new information will certainly not be available sooner than that."

He added that Ambassador Rood is in Miami now in other meetings but will soon be jet-setting to Washington to deal with the pressing OPBAT issue.

A May 15 letter from U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales strongly pushed for the U.S. Army to pull out of the programme, raising questions of a decades-long effort that has resulted in hundreds of arrests and the seizure of tons of cocaine and marijuana. In the letter, Mr. Rumsfeld said it was time to shift the military assets elsewhere.

"The Bahamas' counter- drug programme now competes with resources necessary for the war on terrorism and other activities in support of our nation's defence, with potential adverse effects on the military preparedness of The United States," he said.

Earlier this month, Mr. Rumsfeld's proposal set fire to officials in both countries as they claimed that this move would undo more than two decades' of progress, enticing cocaine and marijuana smugglers to return to the islands.

But right now the fate of OPBAT is still up in the air as U.S. officials hold talks about the issue and Bahamian officials await an answer.

When the programme began in 1982, up to 90 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the U.S. from Latin America came into Florida through The Bahamas and the Caribbean. But most of the cocaine now moves across the U.S. south-western border, in part because of the pressure on traffickers operating off Florida's coasts.

Since 2000, the programme has resulted in seizures of more than 25 tons of cocaine, 82 tons of marijuana and the arrests of 786 people, according to DEA statistics issued in April.