by Tom Clancy
HISTORY
The isthmus of Panama is one of the world's most strategically important pieces of real estate. At its narrowest, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are barely fifty miles apart, making a link between them feasible. The economic, political, and military ramifications of this fact arc incalculable.
Once part of Colombia, Panama won its independence in 1903—with help from the United States, which was eager to build a canal across the isthmus on terms Colombia had opposed. That same year, the new nation signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty, which allowed the United States to build the canal. The United States also gained control over a "canal zone," extending five miles on either side of the fifty-two-mile-long waterway. The canal project was completed in 1914.
As the years passed, the Panamanian people increasingly resented U.S. control of the Canal. Eventually, the United States recognized their concerns, and President Carter negotiated an agreement whereby the United States promised to cede control by the year 2000 and, until that date, to share many U.S. military installations in Panama with Panamanian defense forces. After the handover, the United States would withdraw its troops, and revert all military installations to the Panamanian government.
None of the treaty provisions pleased the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Treaty or no, the Canal remained strategically vital to the United States.
The U.S. Senate shared many of the Joint Chiefs' concerns. In ratifying the treaty, it inserted a provision that permitted the United States to continue to defend the Panama Canal after 1999.
NORIEGA
Manuel Antonio Noriega rose to power as an intelligence officer for the dictator, Brigadier General Omar Torrijos. After Torrijos's 1983 death in a plane crash, Noriega took over the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF), an organization that included that country's armed forces, police, customs, and investigative services. During his rise to power, Noriega had cultivated friends and patrons within the U.S. intelligence community. After Torrijos's death, he continued this practice, but broadened it, to include clients within Colombia's Medellin drug cartel and arms traffickers.
By 1985, Noriega was in total control of the country.
The first confrontation between Noriega and the United States took place in June 1987, after the former PDF chief of staff, Colonel Roberto Diaz-Herrera, had publicly accused Noriega of involvement not only in the death of Torrijos, but also in the 1985 murder of an opposition leader, Doctor Hugo Spadafora, and in electoral fraud. The Panamanian people, who had never supported Noriega, took to the streets, but Noriega's riot police ruthlessly put down the unarmed demonstrations.
The U.S. Senate promptly passed a resolution calling for the dictator to step down. After a Noriega-inflamed mob attacked the U.S. Embassy, the State Department cut off economic and military aid to Panama. Later, on February 5, 1988, federal judges in Miami and Tampa indicted Noriega and assorted henchmen on numerous counts of drug trafficking. Noriega counterattacked by organizing a harassment campaign against U.S. citizens, setting up obstructions to U.S. rights under the 1977 Panama Canal treaties, and turning to other outlaw states — such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Libya — for economic and military assistance. Cuba and Nicaragua provided weapons and instructors to help develop "civilian defense committees," which became known as "Dignity Battalions," for intelligence collection and control of the population, while in 1989, Libya contributed $20 million in return for use of Panama as a base to coordinate terrorist activities and insurgent groups in Latin America.
As a result of this military and economic assistance, the PDF grew to a well-equipped and — armed force numbering some 14,000 men.
CONTINGENCY PLANNING: FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER 1988
After the U.S. federal indictments against Noriega, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed General Frederick F. Woerner, Jr., the Commander in Chief of U.S. Southern Command (USCINCSO), to revise existing contingency plans according to the following guidelines: to protect U.S. lives and propcrty; to keep the canal open; to provide for noncombatant evacuation operations in either peaceful or hostile environments; and to develop a plan to assist the government that would eventually replace the Noriega regime.
A series of new plans followed — collectively known as ELABORATE MAZE — which would be executed by Major General Loefke, commander of U.S. Army South (USARSO), as Commander of the Joint Task Force, Panama (JTFP).
These plans envisioned a massive buildup of forces within U.S. bases in Panama. These forces would either intimidate the PDF leaders and cause them to overthrow Noriega, or failing that, invade Panamanian territory and overthrow the PDF.
Though General Woerner's mass approach offered several serious drawbacks, he favored it over the surprise strategy preferred by some planners, which was that, after a period of buildup, forces from the United States, in concert with Special Operations Forces and General Woerner's troops, would conduct a quick, hard, deliberate attack against Noriega and the PDF.
The most serious drawback to the Woerner approach: It was too slow. It gave the bad guys time to recover and respond. Thus, if Noriega escaped capture during the initial assault, he could flee to the hills and organize guerrilla warfare. The nearly 30,000 U.S. citizens living in Panama were also vulnerable to hostage-taking-or worse — not to mention the likelihood of heavy civilian casualties and property damage.
On March 16, 1988, a PDF faction staged a coup attempt at La Comandancia (the PDF headquarters), which Noriega ruthlessly suppressed. Afterward, he purged from the PDF anyone he considered undependable, declared a state of national emergency, cracked down on political opposition, and stepped up anti-U.S. harassment, in the form of severe travel restrictions, searches, and roadblocks.
After reviewing Woerner's plans, the JCS Chairman, Admiral Crowe, asked Woerner to break OPLAN ELABORATE MAZE into four separate operations orders to facilitate execution. General Woerner's staff named these collectively, PRAYER BOOK. The first, KLONDIKE KEY, covered noncombatant evacuation operations. U.S. citizens located throughout Panama would be escorted to assembly areas in Panama City and Colon for evacuation to the United States (Panama City, on the Pacific side of the Canal, is the capital of the country. Colon is the Caribbean gateway).
According to the second, POST TIME, the Panama-stationed 193rd Infantry Brigade and forces deploying from the continental United States and the U.S. Atlantic Command would defend U.S. citizens and installations, and the Panama Canal. The forces from the United States would include a brigade from the Army's 7th Infantry Division, a mechanized infantry battalion from the 5th Mechanized Division, the 6th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, and a carrier battle group. These would constitute the bulk of the force that would implement the other two operations orders in the PRAYER BOOK series — BLUE SPOON and BLIND LOGIC.
BLUE SPOON called for a joint offensive operation to defeat and dismantle the PDF. It would begin with operations conducted by nearly 12,000 troops already in Panama, and would last up to eight days. During the next two weeks, they would be joined by approximately 10,000 more troops from the United States. Meanwhile, a carrier battle group would interdict air and sea routes to Cuba and provide close air support, while an amphibious task force would provide additional ground troops. In addition to U.S.-based forces listed for POST TIME, the SOUTHCOM Commander would employ a joint task force of special operations forces from SOCOM for operations against the PDF leadership, command-and-control facilities, and airfields. The special operations forces would also rescue hostages, conduct reconnaissance, and locate and seize Manuel Noriega.
The SOUTHCOM Commander would not only exercise overall command of BLUE SPOON, he would be the tactical coordinating command. Together, he, with the Commanders of Joint Task Force Panama and of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, would conduct simultaneous but separate operations.
Once the initial BLUE SPOON assaults had been completed, the joint task force would begin civil military operations under BLIND LOGIC, the fourth operations order in PRAYER BOOK. The civil affairs phase would hel
p reestablish public safety and public health and restore other governmental services, followed by the transfer of control to civilians.
In the longer range, U.S. civil affairs troops would work with a new Panamanian government to restructure the PDF and institutionalize its loyalty to civilian authority and democratic government.
Lieutenant General Thomas W. Kelly, Director of Operations of the Joint Staff (J-3), had differences with SOUTHCOM from the beginning. He was not convinced that SOUTHCOM had enough command-and-control capability to manage, employ, and support all the forces contemplated for BLUE SPOON. Once additional forces from the United States deployed, a Corps Commander would be needed to command and control the whole operation. In his view, the XVIII Airborne Corps had the kind of staff and the rapid deployment capability needed.
During the summer of 1988, General Woerner temporarily resolved this conflict by augmenting his staff with thirteen add-ons and a handful of special operations planners. As he saw it, his staff's expertise and experience with Panama and the PDF made SOUTHCOM fully qualified to serve as the warfighting headquarters for BLUE SPOON, but he also realized that the Corps headquarters would be needed to run the overall operation if the JTFP had to be reinforced with additional major forces from the United States, and on July 5, 1988, he asked Admiral Crowe to include a Corps headquarters in the BLUE SPOON force list. In Woerner's mind, however, the Corps Headquarters would not take over tactical command and control until after the operation began, and only if Woerner decided to deploy the U.S.-based forces on the POST TIME list.
Admiral Crowe approved the CINC's request on October 19, 1988, and directed the Commander of U.S. Army Forces Command,[25] General Joseph T. Palastra, Jr., to revise the force list accordingly. Nine days later, Palastra authorized Lieutenant General John Foss, who was at that time the commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, to establish liaison with SOUTHCOM.
Because he would not have operational control until after BLUE SPOON was under way, and possibly not even then, Foss initially delegated the planning responsibility back to the JTFP Headquarters, but for the next year, he monitored the JTFP planning for the operation.
Meanwhile, Kelly remained unhappy with what he saw as an incremental and disjointed command arrangement, and in November 1988 met with the J-3s from SOUTHCOM and FORSCOM to resolve the issue. His own preference was to deploy the Corps headquarters as a complete package before all the combat forces had deployed, but he could not budge Woerner — even though the SOUTHCOM J-3, Brigadier General Marc Cisncros, agreed with Kelly. It seems that Admiral Crowe also agreed with him, but he did not overrule SOUTHCOM.
ELECTIONS IN PANAMA
On May 7, 1989, after six years of oppression, Panamanians turned out en masse to vote in Noriega-sanctioned elections. He evidently thought his candidates, led by his nominee for president, Carlos Duque, would win casily — especially with the help he'd organized from his friends.
Despite the presence of high-level observers, such as former president Jimmy Carter, and lesser lights from the Catholic Church and the U.S. Congress, Noriega's goon squads and Dignity Battalions did their best to intimidate voters. The people had other ideas, however. The opposition, led by Cuillermo Endara and his vice-presidential running mates, Ricardo Arias Calderon and Guillermo Ford, defeated Noriega's candidates by three to one.
When these results were announced, jubilant Panamanians took to the streets by the thousands.
Noriega did not like what he saw, and on May 10, he annulled the election results — blaming them on foreign interference — then sent the PDF, the national police, and his Dignity Battalions into the streets to put down the demonstrations. Many people were killed, and the opposition leaders went into hiding-after getting dragged out of their victory car and beaten.
All of this increased President Bush's concerns about the safety of the thousands of U.S. citizens in Panama, and he ordered 1,900 additional combat troops to Panama-nearly 1,000 troops of the 7th Infantry Division, from Fort Ord, California; 165 Marines of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; and 750 troops of the 5th Mechanized Division from Fort Polk, Louisiana. All the units arrived in Panama by May 19.
GETTING TOUCHER
Two months earlier, on March 21, former congressman Dick Cheney had become Secretary of Defense. Cheney immediately looked for new ways to pressure Noriega. Meanwhile, members of the National Security Council staff met to discuss other actions, which resulted in presidential approval of National Security Directive 17, issued on July 22, 1989, which ordered military actions in Panama to assert U.S. treaty rights and keep Noriega and his supporters off balance.
Such actions were graded according to category, and ranged from what were called Category One (low risk/low visibility) through Categories Two and Three (low risk/high visibility and medium risk/high visibility) to Category Four (high risk/high visibility).
Category One actions would include publicizing the evacuation of U.S. dependents, expanding anti-Noriega campaigns in the media and psychological operations, and placing PDF members under escort inside U.S. installations.
In the remaining categories, U.S. troops in Panama would take more active roles.
In Category Two, military police would increase their patrols between U.S. installations, battalion-sized forces would deploy to Panama for intensive exercises, and troops stationed in Panama would practice amphibious and night combat operations.
In Category Three, U.S. forces in Panama would increase their reconnaissance and armed convoys near important PDF installations.
In Category Four, U.S. troops would take full control of several key military facilities, such as Fort Amador, Quarry Heights, and Fort Espinar. Fort Amador is located on a peninsula just southwest of Panama City. SOUTHCOM's headquarters were in Quarry Heights in Panama City, and its Operations Center was in a tunnel dug during Canal construction. Fort Espinar is in the north, near Colon. All of these were joint PDF-U.S. installations.
The President's get-tougher policy also had major policy consequences, since he had moved toward the kind of bolder strategy that General Woerner had resisted. He decided to replace General Woerner.
On June 20, Admiral Crowe recommended General Thurman as Woerner's replacement. Thurman had served in Vietnam and though he had somewhat limited warfighting experience or expertise, he was considered a man of action who could make things happen. With that in mind, Crowe asked Thurman to review the prayer BOOK operations orders-especially BLUE SPOON.
On August 4, the day before his scheduled changc-of-command ceremony Thurman came to Fort Bragg for a pair of briefings on BLUE SPOON: one on the JTFP concept for conventional force operations, the other on the Joint Special Operations Task Force concept of special operations.
Stiner could not attend, but he was represented by his deputy commander, Major General Will Roosma. That night, when Roosma laid out for him the substance of the briefings, along with Thurman's questions and comments, Stiner started getting inklings of what Thurman would tell him directly the next day.
BACK TO PANAMA
After his August 5 meeting with Thurman, Stiner wrapped up his duties with the 28th lnfantry Division, but kept his new role in Panama uppermost in his mind. Getting up to speed on BLUE SPOON was an early priority; so far he had not personally reviewed it.
But his first priority was to get down to Panama and SOUTHCOM.
His last visit there had been a couple of years earlier, as the JSOTF Commander. This one would be very different: He was now totally responsible for the major operation that was shaping up.
His overriding concern was the 30,000 Americans, about 5,000 of whom were U.S. dependents living alongside PDF soldiers on joint military installations. This was a ready-made recipe for mass hostage-taking-or even massacre.
Back at Fort Bragg, he put together the team he would take with him-his chief of staff, Brigadier General Ed Scholes; his G-2 and G-3, Colonels Walters and Needham; and six officers from the intellige
nce and operations directorates who had taken part in the initial plan review process. He hoped to leave four of them in Panama (with SATCOM capabilities), so he could have daily reports.
The next night, Stiner and his team, dressed as civilians, left Pope Air Force Base in an unmarked special mission aircraft (a C-20 Gulf Stream), and landed around 9:00 P.M. at Howard Air Force Base, across the Canal from Panama City. He was met by Brigadier General Bill Hartzog, who had replaced Marc Cisneros as the SOUTHCOM J-3. Cisneros had moved over to replace Major General Bernie Loefke as commander of U.S. Army South. They spent most of the rest of the night with Bill I lartzog in Quarry Heights, in the tunnel that housed the SOUTHCOM operations center, receiving briefings on BLUE SPOON revisions. Although General Woerner still commanded SOUTHCOM, I lartzog was aware of General Thurman's and Washington's concerns, and had begun rewriting the blue SPOON operations order.
Stiner also learned many necessary details.
On the minus side, the tactical communications facilities in Panama were not nearly adequate for a major contingency operation. On the plus side, there was a combat service support capability — including a major hospital. Somewhat augmented, this capability would do for the initial stages of combat.
The next morning, Stiner and his party, still in civilian clothes, moved a short distance to Fort Clayton, U.S. Army South headquarters. There he linked up with Brigadier General Cisneros; Colonel Mike Snell, the commander of the 193rd brigade; and Colonel Keith Kellogg, the brigade commander who had come in with the 7th Infantry Division contingent during President Bush's May buildup, and who was now operating in the Colon area.