by Tom Clancy
For the next two days, Stiner learned everything he could, about Noriega and the PDF on the one hand, and about the training and readiness of forces in Panama on the other.
Noriega had recently stepped up provocations aimed at disrupting what were called "Sand Flea" exercises — training activities allowed by the treaty. IIe then used the media reports of those confrontations to spread his hostile message. Though the U.S. troops involved had performed with exemplary professionalism so far, this kind of thing was a potential flash point for larger conflict and had to be closely watched.
Before Stiner and his team left Panama, Cisneros okayed the installation of Stiner's cell of four smart majors — planners — in the operations center.
His final business was to give Hartzog his assessment:
The revised blue SPOON, Stiner knew, was going to be considerably changed from General Woerner's original plan. In Stiner's view, any successful operation required surprise, overwhelming combat power, and the cover of darkness, to take advantage of the U.S. Army's unequaled night-fighting capabilities. It would not be a slow buildup, but a short, sharp, overwhelming shock.
Even though the commanders he'd met had shown an invaluable knowledge of the PDF and the local environment, Stiner had discovered holes that needed filling. Units in Panama were not as ready and proficient in urban live-fire operations at night as the forces coming in from the United States. This would require an intensified training program. Additionally, the aviation unit was short on pilots, and the majority of crews were not sufficiently proficient in nighttime battalion-size combat air assaults — though in a crunch, Stincr knew that, if he had to, he could make up for it with trained and ready crews already available in the XVIII Airborne Corps aviation battalions.
Back at Fort Bragg, Stiner reviewed his visit to Panama with General Thurman — an experience that had left Stiner particularly unimpressed with the centerpiece of BLUE SPOON, the gradual buildup. The recent buildup in May hadn't deterred Noriega one bit, and there was no guarantee that BLUE SPOON would have more than a fifty-fifty chance of success.
"My people at Bragg," Stiner told his boss, "will get to work on a plan to neutralize Noriega's power base. We plan to take out the PDF and the national police in one fell swoop, and in one night.
"With your blessing, sir, he continued, "I hope to visit Panama again in about two weeks, together with the leaders of the units that I will most likely select for this operation, and I plan to continue visiting Panama frequently until all this is over"
"Drive on," Thurman said. "And keep me informed."
On August 10, 1989, the President nominated General Colin Powell to be the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to take office on October 1. Earlier, General Powell had taken over the United States Forces Command from General Palastra, which had made him Stiner's immediate boss; but he already knew General Powell well from his days at JSOTF, when Powell had been the Executive Assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.
While General Powell was still at FORSCOM, he scheduled a one-day trip to Bragg to get a firsthand look at the XVIII Corps's readiness and planning initiatives for Panama. Though his visit was scheduled for only one day, bad weather kept him at Bragg, and Stiner took advantage of the opportunity to point out the revisions he had in mind for BLUE SPOON.
Powell agreed with Stiner — and Thurman — that the force buildup originally envisaged for BLUE SPOON took too long (twenty-two days) especially if a crisis hit. A quick-strike, one-night operation using the capabilities of the XVIII Airborne Corps and the Special Operations Command was the way to go. Stiner, of course, knew the capabilities of both commands better than anybody else, and he also knew how to meld them together as one fighting team.
"Continue revising the plan," Powell told Stiner.
Later that month, Thurman, Stiner, Hartzog, and Gary Luck, the JSOTF commander, met to get up-to-date. Since April 1988, they concluded, when BLUE SPOON had been published, Noriega had grown increasingly defiant and his forces better equipped and trained. A twenty-two-day buildup could result in prolonged fighting, more casualties, and more opportunities for Noriega to take hostages or escape to the hills to lead a guerrilla war. Stiner wanted a quick strike that would lead to decisive victory.
During September, as the staffs of the XVIII Airborne Corps, SOUTHCOM, and SOCOM continued to revise the plan in that direction, Stiner made another visit to Panama, this time with the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, the Assistant Division Commander of the 7th Infantry Division, the Ranger Regimental Commander, and Gary Luck, along with their operations and intelligence officers — including another of his best planners, to augment the four he'd already left there. Again, they traveled at night in civilian clothes, and in the same C-20 used for the first trip. At Howard AFB, they were met by Hartzog and Cisneros, and went directly to Fort Clayton for briefings.
The next day, the party broke into smaller groups and took off on clandestine reconnaissance missions, to get a better feel for the targets that had been selected, if a contingency operation was launched. Twenty-seven prime targets had been selected. Some key installations and facilities would have to be protected. Other targets would have to be "taken out" — or "neutralized."
Targets to be protected included the Pacora River Bridge, the three locks on the Canal, Madden Dam, the Bridge of Americas (crossing the Canal at Panama City), Howard Air Force Base, the U.S. Embassy, and all U.S. dependents living on military installations shared by the PDF.
Targets to be taken out included the Comandancia and all PDF military installations.
The reconnaissance gave the commanders awareness of what they would actually be facing — though no one knew yet which targets would be assigned to which commander. Stiner later made these decisions, based on his knowledge of unit capabilities. Some targets could be taken only by SOF forces, while others were better suited for conventional units.
Meanwhile, the Senate had confirmed General Thurman as CINC, and on Saturday, September 30, 1989, he took command from General Woerner at SOCOM headquarters in Panama. One day later, at midnight, Colin Powell took over as chairman of the JCS; his welcoming ceremony occurred the next day.
THE OCTOBER 3 COUP ATTEMPT
On Sunday evening, October 1, a woman phoned the CIA station chief in Panama City: "Can you meet me downtown where we can talk? 1 have something that you need to know about." Though she refused to identify herself, the meeting was arranged.
She turned out to be the wife of Major Moises Giroldi, the commander of Noriega's security forces at the Comandancia.
"My husband is very worried about what the Noriega regime is doing to our country," she told the station chief, "and has decided to take action. Tomorrow morning at nine, as Noriega arrives at the Comandancia, my husband and others who oppose him will conduct a coup. We may need U.S. help to block PDF forces moving against the coup. We'll be back in touch."
That night, when the meeting was reported to General Thurman, he immediately went to his command post in the tunnel at Quarry Heights, where he hoped to pick up more news.
Sometime after midnight, a pair of CIA agents went straight from a meeting with Major Giroldi to Quarry Heights, where they confirmed to Thurman that the conspirators planned to grab Noriega at about nine that morning and take control of the Comandancia, thus cutting him off from communications with his field units. However, they might need U.S. help to block the major roads from the west, in case PDF units reacted to the coup.
Once in control, Giroldi planned to talk Noriega into retiring to Chiriqui Province in western Panama, where Noriega had a country house — one of his many luxury homes.
The CIA agents went on to explain that Giroldi, who had played a large part in crushing the coup attempt eighteen months earlier (he'd identified the conspirators, who had then all been jailed and tortured), was not exactly a man of conspicuous integrity, and could not be totally trusted now.
Though he had a bad feeling about the
entire CIA report, General Thurman decided to pass it up to the Pentagon, just in case, and at about 2:30 in the morning, he reached General Kelly at home on his secure phone. After Thurman described what was going on, Kelly asked for his thoughts. "My advice is to wait and see what happens," Thurman said.
Soon after that, Generals Kelly and Powell met in the Pentagon with Rear Admiral Ted Shafer, the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose analysts were already busy trying to check out the coup information. The immediate consensus was that the whole thing was likely a trick or a deception; but if not, the plan was ill-conceived and unlikely to succeed.
By this time, Secretary Cheney was in his office for a heads-up from Powell, followed by a further review by Kelly and Shafer. All four then went to the Oval Office to update the President, where Powell recommended holding off on a decision until there was further information. "If there's a coup," Powell told the President, "we need to watch it develop before we act." The President agreed.
That day, the coup did not go off. But Mrs. Giroldi reported it was on for the next morning, October 3.
That morning, Noriega arrived earlier than usual at the Comandancia; the ceremonial guard force met the entourage in the normal way, but then took the dictator into custody — sparking an immediate argument between Noriega and Giroldi. Shots were fired, which General Thurman could hear at his quarters in Quarry Heights about a mile from the Comandancia.
Thurman immediately called Powell with a report.
By 9:00, it was clear a coup was under way, but its outcome was still far from certain. By noon, Panamanian radio announced that a coup was in progress.
Meanwhile, under the guise of a routine exercise, U.S. forces blocked the road to Fort Amador, though the Panamanian 5th Infantry Company based there had not attempted to react. At about the same time, two PDF lieutenants, identified as coup liaison negotiators, arrived at the front gate of Fort Clayton and asked to see Cisneros (now a major general), who spoke fluent Spanish. Thurman told Cisneros to talk to them.
According to the lieutenants, the coup leaders had control of Noriega and his staff, and were now looking for an honorable way for the dictator to step down, yet remain in Panama; but when Cisneros offered to take him into custody at Fort Clayton, the lieutenants refused. They had no intention of turning him over to the United States. They still pressed for a U.S. roadblock at the Bridge of the Americas, however, to prevent Panamanian forces from coming up from Rio Hato.
Cisneros made no promises.
Talking Noriega into stepping down turned out to be a much more formidable undertaking than Giroldi had imagined. What the two men said to each other, we'll never know, but we do know that Noriega out-talked Giroldi. Rather than continue the conversation, Giroldi left Noriega in a locked room for a few minutes, then went off to regroup. It was a fatal mistake: The room had a telephone. Noriega (it was later learned) evidently got in touch with Vicki Amado, his number-one mistress, and asked her to contact the commanders of the 6th and 7th Companies at Rio Hato and the PDF Mechanized Battalion 2000 at Fort Cimarron, some twenty miles northeast of the city.
Soon, a 727 launched from Tocumen International Airport, ten miles east of Panama City, landed at Rio Hato and began shuttling the 6th and 7th Companies back to Tocumen. Meanwhile, Battalion 2000, ten miles farther east at Fort Cimarron, headed to Tocumen with a convoy of trucks and V- 150 and V-300 armored cars. There they picked up the 6th and 7th Companies and went on to the Comandancia.
The forces the coup leaders feared had merely flown over the Comandancia, linked up with other reinforcements, and entered the compound from the eastern side — actions that proved very enlightening to Stiner and his planners as they revised BLUE SPOON.
At this point, it was obvious the coup was over. Shots from inside the Comandancia could be heard — executions. Major Giroldi and his number two, a PDF captain, were taken to Tinajitas (five miles north of the city, and the home of the 1st Infantry Company), tortured until they identified the other coup leaders, and executed.
"The PDF's response to the coup seriously demonstrated considerable military capability and resourcefulness," Carl Stiner remarks. "That day's events made it very apparent to me that if democracy was ever going to succeed in Panama, we had to clean out the whole kit and caboodle, including Noriega, his PDF force, the command-and-control structure (specifically the Comandancia) — and the national police as well. That was not all — as we came to learn. Noriega had placed his disciples in control of every key position in every institution of government, and all of them were on the take in some form or other. They would all have to go."
BOOSTING READINESS
After the failed coup, General Thurman acted to improve readiness: All personnel on duty now wore camouflage fatigues. Marksmanship training was intensified, and everyone — individuals and crews — had to be qualified in their weapon systems. Category three and four exercises were increased, and companies on Sand Flea exercises visited some of the twenty-seven planned targets daily (although the troops involved didn't know this). A nightly helicopter assault exercise was also conducted, to improve proficiency with night-vision goggles.
In order to beef up command and control, General Thurman officially designated Stincr as his war planner and war fighter; and on October 10, Stiner was named commander of Joint Task Force South.[26]
Stiner and his staff were already well ahead of the game with planning revisions to BLUE SPOON. In early September, Major General Will Roosma and a team of planners met with the SOUTHCOM staff to further integrate planning. On October 9, Stiner and his key staff flew to Panama for a contingency planning summit with the CINC — again wearing civilian clothes and traveling in an unmarked airplane. For the next three days, the two staffs worked in the SOUTHCOM command post in Quarry Heights, ironing out operational and tactical details.
Meanwhile, Stiner took time off to make a clandestine helicopter reconnaissance of the likely targets, which was critical for finalizing plan development. He was accompanied by Colonel Mike Snell, the commander of the 193rd Infantry Brigade, who was intimately familiar with the country and PDF locations.
As the meetings were concluding, General Thurman announced that Stiner would be in overall command of all U.S. combat forces in Panama, including special operations forces, and that the contingency plan for Joint Task Force South would include the following objectives, to: protect U.S. lives, key sites, and facilities; capture and deliver Noriega to competent authority; neutralize the Panamanian defense forces; support the establishment of a U.S.-recognized government in Panama; and restructure the PDF as directed by the duly-elected government.
An unwritten but high-priority mission from Washington was to rescue Kurt Muse, a CIA operative who had been arrested by Noriega and imprisoned in the high-security Modelo prison. Muse had been told that he would be executed if U.S. forces launched an attack against Panama. His executioner kept him under constant observation.
To accomplish these objectives, Joint Task Force South would have to either protect or neutralize the twenty-seven major targets. Many of them were in or near Panama City, but several, including the elite companies at Rio Hato, Battalion 2000 at Fort Cimarron, and Torrijos-Tocumen Airport, were some miles from the capital (the airport was dual-use: Tocumen was the civilian side, Torrijos the military). There were also major targets in the Colon area, on the Caribbean side of the country some forty miles northwest of Panama City.
Now that the targets had been determined and prioritized, Stiner and his commanders had to decide on the tactics and forces best suited for each.
At the end of the three days, Stiner summarized his "Commander's Intent" for the operation.[27]
In essence, he said: "Using electronic warfare capabilities to jam PDF communications, together with our EC–C130s (Volant Solo and Compass Call) to override civilian media stations and broadcast our message to the people of Panama, we will take advantage of surprise and darkness to attack or secure all twenty
-seven targets simultaneously. A vital part of the operation is the protection of U.S. lives, beginning from H-hour and until stability has been achieved. The key to success is surprise and the simultaneous takedown of the PDF, its command-and-control capability, and the national police. The majority of the fighting must be over by daylight, with our forces in control of the area bounded by Panama City to Colon in the north, and from Rio Hato in the southwest to Fort Cimarron in the northeast. Most Panamanians are our friends, and therefore we must minimize casualtics and collateral damage. We will employ psychological operations at the tactical unit level to try to persuade each installation to surrender without a fight. If this does not achieve results, then measured force will be applied to accomplish the mission. At daylight, because there will be no law and order, the tactical units must be prepared to begin stability operations to protect life and property. To support this requirement, we will begin bringing in the rest of the 7th Infantry Division and the remainder of the 16th Military Police Brigade, beginning at H+4 hours and closing by H+24 hours. The capture of Noriega, the rescue of Kurt Muse from the Modelo prison, and other special mission requirements are the responsibility of the JSOTF. These operations are an integral part of the success of this operation, and will commence concurrently with all other operations at H-hour. I hope that the signal which will be sent by our actions at H-hour will make our job much easier as we fan out to take down PDF units in the rest of the country. If we can achieve some degree of surprise, and if we do this right, I don't expect much staying power out of the PDF."
At the same time, Stiner laid out his warfighting philosophy: "Hit first; surprise the enemy; overwhelm him with heavy combat power; use the cover of darkness to take maximum advantage of our night-fighting capabilities during the initial assault and follow-on attacks, so that our superior forces are on the objectives come dawn; and always fight under favorable conditions."