by Tom Clancy
Task Force Green, commanded by Colonel "Pete," and Task Force Blue, his Navy special mission unit, commanded by Navy SEAL Captain "Rick," supported by quick reaction helicopters and AC-130 gunships, had been given the difficult job of capturing the Dictator. The first mission of both task forces was to search Noriega's plush apartments and houses scattered throughout Panama. Task Force Green operated within Panama City. Task Force Blue was assigned the Colon area and western Panama.
Wayne Downing continues:
Rolling up the infrastructure accomplished two goals: The Noriega gang was all bad; we had to bring them to justice. And we needed to deny Noriega options. We wanted him to have nowhere to lay his head: And so we went after every Noriega crony and hangout we could find, and we rolled them up.
These people were incredible. There are so many tales, people walking around with thousands of dollars in hundred-dollar bills in their pockets — drug money. And mistresses, girlfriends — we ran into just about anything you can think of. These were dirty people.
Here is an example of how we did it — though it's not exactly typical.
There was one guy that everyone in the neighborhood feared, rich and ruthless, the baddest of the bad; no one dared to speak against him. So our guys went to his place to pick him up.
It was like a movie. They came up and the door was very heavy, very fancy, with a gold doorknob, and locked. So they put a door charge on it, to blow the door open.
Inside, the bad guy was in his living room, where he had built an enormous, 5,000-gallon aquarium; it took up an entire wall and was filled with all kinds of exotic fish. When he heard our troops outside, he panicked and started to run, crouched down and bent over, with his arms protecting his head. That was when they blew the door. The doorknob shot out across the room, drove up into his rectum, and got wedged up there.
Meanwhile, shards from the blown-down door were flying around, and some of them shattered the aquarium. So when our troops came in, they found this bad guy hopping around with a gold doorknob up his rear, and fish flopping all over the floor and stuck to the ceiling. This wasn't intentional — we were sorry for the fish — but it made a story our guys will tell their grandchildren.
A few minutes after all this, the local people were out in the street cheering. Because this guy was so bad.
After a lot of operations like this (most of them not so vivid), the SEALs and Special Forces from the special missions units broke Noriega's infrastructure. And he could not escape. Every place he went, he ran into where we had been. We'd covered every possible safe haven.
Downing's people worked day and night, and they were amazingly successful.
Raids on Noriega's offices and houses had captured almost $8 million in U.S. currency, a briefcase containing a list of bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, and diaries laying out his involvement in witchcraft and voodoo worship. The money and documents were temporarily turned over to SOUTHCOM until a proper place could be found for securing them.
Two days after H-hour, nearly everyone on the most wanted list had been picked up and interrogated. Most of them — looking out for their own skin — cooperated with the interrogators and provided names of other key people in Noriega's infrastructure who had not yet been identified. A list of about a hundred people was developed from this information, and Downing's forces immediately set out to find them.
And yet, by the morning of December 23, Noriega was still missing.
Carl Stiner continues:
The first break came midmorning on December 23 when one of Noriega's inner circle of bodyguards appeared at the main gate at Fort Clayton with a proposition for Marc Cisneros: He had information about Noriega that he would exchange for protection for himself and his family. Though these guys were all real thugs, he got his guarantee, and it was his information that filled in the details of Noriega's movements on the evening before H-hour — his diversion on the way back from Colon, his rendezvous with the prostitute at the Ceremi rest camp, his escape from the Ranger's roadblock.
This was good news. It meant Noriega was still in Panama City; we would continue relentless pressure until he could be cornered. Part of the pressure involved our watching embassies where he might find asylum.
At 8:30 the next morning, another Noriega bodyguard showed up with the same proposition. When he met Cisneros, he said, "I just now slipped away from Noriega and his other bodyguards. He's at the end of his rope, he's taking drugs and alcohol, and he's crazy as hell. He'll kill us all.
"I can tell you where he is, but you have to hurry. They're about to move on. When 1 left, bags were packed. They're driving a blue Montero SUV"
Within minutes, Downing was on the scene with his Panzer Gruppe.
They found the place abandoned, but the coffeepot was still hot, and cigarettes were still burning in the ashtrays. A call to all units was immediately put out to watch for the Montero.
Marc Cisneros and I spent most of the day checking on stability operations, but arranged to return to headquarters at 3:00 P.M. At 3:00, I went directly to my operations center, and Cisneros went to his office on the second floor of the same building. When he got there, he learned he had an urgent phone call from Monsignor Laboa, the Papal Nuncio. This was Laboa's second call; he had something important on his mind. Cisneros took the phone.
"Noriega is here," Laboa whispered, "in the Papal Nunciatore. I called you earlier, hoping you could intercept him. Come over here. I need to talk to you." The Papal Nunciatore was the Vatican's Embassy in Panama City, and had the same immunities as any other embassy recognized by the U.S. government.
Cisneros hurried to me with the news.
"Go ahead and see Laboa," 1 told him. "Call me as soon as you have details. I'll tell General Thurman and Downing."
I immediately called Downing: "We've got a problem," I said. "Noriega's in the Nunciatore — a sanctuary. Get over there right away and take charge of the situation. Secure it."
Then I called Thurman.
Within minutes, Downing had surrounded the Nunciatore with his troops.
The Nunciatore, located in one of the wealthier parts of the city, was a two-story stucco building with a pleasant, well-groomed yard, all surrounded by a seven-foot-high concrete wall.
Meanwhile, I was thinking. "Why the Nunciatore?" I asked myself. "We have been watching the Nicaraguan Embassy, the Cuban Embassy, the Peruvian Embassy, and all the others where we thought he might hole up; but we never considered the Nunciatore. All the same, now we have him; it's just a matter of how to get him out."
Shortly, Cisneros phoned with the Nuncio's story:
Noriega and Captain Guitan, his aide, had called to ask for refuge. "What we want you to do," Noriega demanded, "is pick us up at an ice-cream stand," which he named, "and bring us to the Nunciatore. If you don't, we'll go to the mountains and start a guerrilla war."
Laboa felt he had no choice. He sent a car to pick them up.
"My earlier call," he explained to Cisneros, "was to let you know about the car. I'd hoped U.S. forces would intercept it before it returned to the Nunciatore — and you'd do me a favor if you took your soldiers right now and dragged him out; but unfortunately, that's impossible. We both have to recognize the diplomatic protocols."
"That's fine," I told Cisneros. "Now what I want you to do is find out from Laboa if anyone else has taken asylum in the Nunciatorc, and if they have weapons. And tell him that Downing is establishing a security perimeter around the Nunciatore and will be our man on the scene."
Forty-five minutes later, Cisneros returned to headquarters. "The Nuncio doesn't think Noriega brought weapons with him," he told me, "but he's not sure." We were fairly certain he had weapons, and this complicated matters: We were in a potential hostage situation. "Several others in Noriega's inner circle are also there," Cisneros continued, "as well as a few women, and eight to ten children."
The others turned out to be: Captain Guitan; Colonel Castergen, the Navy Commander; Lieute
nant Colonel Velarde, a chaplain; Captain Castillo, Noriega's personal bodyguard; and Colonel Madrinan, Chief of the Department of National Investigation. Five Basque separatist terrorists had also come in with the Noriega gang, on the reasonable assumption that we'd want to pick them up.
By then, Downing had secured the area with Colonel "Pete" and his forces from Task Force Green, and had established his operational center in the elementary school across the street. I called him there: "Tell Laboa that he's in a very dangerous situation, and as far as we're concerned, he violated the Nunciatore's immunities when he went out and fetched an indicted criminal, then brought him inside and provided refuge.
"Advise the Nuncio that he's living in a bed of snakes who could care less about him and could kill him at any time."
We then talked about the best way to get the women and children out of there, in order to simplify the situation.
Downing met Laboa in the elementary school.
"I'll do what I can to help," Laboa said nervously when Downing gave him my message. It had scared him badly.
Then Downing asked, "Will you authorize a rescue operation if we hear shots from inside? We believe Noriega has weapons."
"I can do that," Laboa answered.
"Will you put that in writing?"
"Yes," the Nuncio responded.
"I have two other questions," Downing said: "Will you help us to get the women and children out?"
"Yes, of course."
"And will you and your staff leave after that?"
"No, we can't do that," Laboa replied, then went back inside the Nunciatore.
Thirty minutes later, a priest delivered an envelope with a note typed on Vatican parchment and signed by Laboa that authorized a rescue operation if shots were fired inside the Nunciatore. This was a "get out of jail free" card for Laboa if anything beyond his control happened, but it was also our trump card. If anything did happen, we had authority to conduct an immediate assault. And we had a plan to accomplish it.
I quickly called General Thurman to give him an update. At the same time, I asked him for a change in his rules of engagement to allow an assault if the lives of those inside were in danger. This was approved by SECDEF.
Meanwhile, Downing went to work getting the women and children out, and it turned out they were not the only ones who were eager to leave; several men wanted out as well — all demanding to be flown to Nicaragua, Cuba, or Venezuela.
"We'll see about that," Downing said.
Toward evening. Downing's old yellow Panzer Gruppe school bus rolled up, and about ten men and women and twelve children came out. They were then loaded and taken to a secure location, where they were segregated. The women and children were taken to their homes, and the men were sent to our detention camp.
"I didn't offer them asylum," Downing said when he called me. "I didn't have the authority. I just told them we'd work on it. But what I had to do is get the women and children out; it was a very dangerous situation."
Still inside were Noriega, five of his henchmen, and the five Basque separatists — all bad people, except possibly for the chaplain, who may have stayed inside out of hope to take care of Noriega's spiritual needs.
In the meantime, while we tried to figure out how to get Noriega out of there, we'd begun to discover just how bad Noriega and his crew really were. Downing's task force had added ever more fascinating evidence to what Marc Cisneros had come up with after we captured the PDF side of Fort Amador.
On Christmas Eve, I received a call from Jim Johnson: "We have secured Noriega's main residence in downtown Panama City," he said, "and found things you need to take a look at. I would recommend that you come out tomorrow."
"What did you find?"
"He's heavily involved in witchcraft, for one thing. But that's only a beginning." That caught my attention.
"I'll try to get out there tomorrow morning," 1 told him.
When I dropped all this on my staff at a meeting that night, the J-2 spoke up: "You won't believe this," he announced, "but 1 ran into a warrant officer in the MI Battalion with a master's degree in witchcraft. You need to take him along."
"I didn't even know there was such a degree," I said. "But get him ready to go, and we'll leave tomorrow about eight-thirty."
The next morning, I flew out and linked up with Johnson at Paitilla airfield. From there we were escorted to Noriega's house. When we got there, I had a hard time believing my eyes.
The house was lavishly furnished with gaudy "objets d'art." Large silver pelicans — estimated at about $25,000 each — were all over the place. In the main study was probably the biggest collection of ceramic frogs in the world. In the office was a world-class collection of busts of Hitler; he had at least twenty-five of them. Also in the office was a large poster board containing the pictures of the Catholic Church's representatives in each of the Central American countries with "X" s marked beside several names. Presumably, an "X" meant future elimination.
Behind the house was a patio, connecting the residence to what was called the "girls' dollhouse," built for his daughters when they were children; it was as large as most people's homes. On each end of the patio were two large altars set up for voodoo worship and witchcraft. Noriega had brought to Panama two "high-powered witches from Brazil. One of them was reputed to be the world's leading witch; he lived on the causeway to Fort Amador in a house where at H-hour the SEALs had established a roadblock (I don't know what became of him).
The MI warrant officer explained each of the altars. On one was arranged containers of blood, a skull, crows' feathers, and cars of corn with multicolored kernels. All of this, the warrant officer explained, puts the "worshiper" in the right frame of mind for some kind of atrocity or evil act.
On the other altar were arranged stuffed doves, pictures of babies, and other "nice" things. The "worshiper" would cleanse his soul here afterward.
In Noriega's bedroom were several pairs of red silk bikini underwear — a Noriega trademark. We had found them just about everywhere Noriega showed his face. According to the warrant officer, the witch doctor had likely told Noriega they would protect him from physical harm.
"Maintain tight security here," I told Johnson as I left. "I don't want anything disturbed before we show it to the right people. After that, we'll turn it over to Panamanian authority." Among those whom I especially wanted to see all this — and what we had found at Fort Amador — were high-level officials of the Catholic Church. As soon as Noriega had himself brought to the Nunciatore, General Thurman started talking with the Catholic hierarchy, and of course with Washington, about ways to resolve the problem. When I got the chance, I suggested to Thurman that he invite some selected Catholic officials down to show them what we'd found.
It was an eyeful, that's for sure; but it gave us real insights into the man Noriega. It also began to give me ideas about how to get Noriega out of the Nunciatore.
The first thing I did after 1 left was meet with Downing. We were particularly interested in finding a use for Noriega's red underwear. For all we knew, he was wearing a pair right then. If he ever had a need for the powers they gave, it was certainly then.
Our first idea was to hang a pair on a clothesline outside his window (Laboa had told us where it was) and shoot them full of holes to show him how empty their powers were.
"I can take care of that," Downing said, and the demonstration was carried out later that afternoon.
Meanwhile, I'd picked up an interesting detail from the warrant officer: A goat was a very bad omen. That set me thinking.
This led to an instruction to my J-2 to come up with the ugliest, stinkingest billygoat he could find, and doctor him up for Noriega. The next day the J-2 produced a goat with really impressive horns and a beard that came down just short of his knees. They decked him out in a pair of red bikini underwear, rigged him up so a remote control signal sent smoke blowing out of his nostrils and ears, and tied him outside Noriega window.
We never knew how
Noriega took all this, but it couldn't have helped his digestion.
On the night of December 23, the media was cleared into Panama.
Well before the operation was launched, Thurman and I agreed on how we would work media affairs. Essentially, his headquarters would handle them, under his public affairs officer, an Air Force colonel; and I provided my public affairs officer, Jake Dye, an Army colonel, to SOUTIICOM, which established a media center in a large tent just outside the headquarters. There would be two daily press briefings — one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
From the beginning the operation had been kept secret, but on the night of the twentieth, there were enough media already in Panama to cover a good part of the activities in the vicinity of the Comandancia. TVs are common in Panama; which meant civilians could watch the battles taking place live on their home screens.
On the night of the twenty-third, Panama's airspace was still closed to everything but military traffic. A call came in from Pete Kemph at Howard Air Force Base. A Lockheed L-1011 was overhead, asking permission to land.
"Who's on it?" 1 asked.
Kemph called back, "It's a load of media; they've been cleared from Washington."
"We have no alternative but to let them land," I said.
They were met on the ground by Thurman and taken to Quarry Heights, where they were given a complete briefing. Afterward, Thurman announced that the plan was to put them out in groups of three or four with each rifle company so they could get front-line coverage. Company commanders would be responsible for their security, food, and protection. Every day they would select a small number to travel around in a helicopter and pick up their "take," which they'd have time to file for the evening news.
The media found this arrangement totally unacceptable. Each media team wanted helicopters of its own, so they could immediately get to the action (one team had a satellite communications set it would take a Chinook to carry).