U.S. Security Policy in the Western Hemisphere

April 25 - 26, 2005, Washington, DC and Miami, Florida; April 27-29, Colombia
Contact: Washington Foreign Press Center Program Officer: Dale Prince
Telephone: 202-504-6320, Email: princed@state.gov

Fourteen Western Hemisphere and one Middle Eastern journalists participated in a reporting tour on U.S. Security Policy in the Western Hemisphere, April 25-30, 2005.  The group was in Washington on April 25, Miami on April 26, and in Colombia on April 27-29.  In Washington the journalists met with David Murray, a senior advisor in the Office of National Drug Control Policy; Linda Jewell, Deputy Assistant Secretary in WHA; and Roger Pardo-Maurer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.  In Miami they had an extensive briefing and Q & A session by Col. David McWilliams, Director of Public Affairs at the U.S. Southern Command, as well as a briefing at the Coast Guard's Seventh District headquarters.  Capping off the U.S. portion of the tour, the Coast Guard gave them a courtesy excursion on a Coast Guard cutter near the Port of Miami and Fisher Island.  Journalists used the reporting opportunities to press their interlocutors on important issues such as U.S. relations with Venezuela, our position in the ongoing political crisis in Ecuador, our efforts to secure Article 98 agreements throughout the region, our efforts to achieve the destruction of certain light weapons held by the Nicaraguan government and other matters.