Reply #6: Just found the original O Estado story and it says nothing about a military base

[rabs]

The Caracas newspaper El Nacional has distorted the story by saying the United States is negotiating a "military base in Brazil" to fight narco-trafficking. Not so.

What O Estado reported was that Brazil and the United States are discussing a "multinational and multifunctional" base in Rio to monitor illegal drug traffickers and contraband smugglers who use South Atlantic routes.

The monitoring would be done by attaches from the participating countries, and not solely by military types. Any attaches stationed in Rio would be under Brazilian supervision.

The base office in Rio would be similar to the one already in place in Key West, Fl, (to monitor the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico) and one in Lisbon, Portugal, which watches drug trafficking in the North Atlantic.

The Rio office would be the third leg of a "tripod" to combat drug trafficking in the North and South Atlantic. Brazil already has an intelligence attache stationed in Key West.

But at this point, the Rio proposal is at the talking stage, nothing concrete.

Here is the original O Estado story (Portuguese):

http://www.estadao.com.br/estadaodehoje/20100331/not_imp531732,0.php