by Bob Woodward
Earlier that evening General Thurman had arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington for a planned two-day blitz around town—the Pentagon, State, Congress. Thurman liked to explain his trips to the capital by taking out a piece of paper and listing his areas of responsibility as CINCSOUTH. In alphabetical order, the list went Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia . . . down to Uruguay, Venezuela. At the end he would coyly add Washington, D.C., which he designated as his last and perhaps most important area of operations.
From Andrews he had gone to his brother’s house in town, had dinner and gone to bed. At 11 p.m. he was awakened and told about the shooting. He went right to the Pentagon, where he called Panama to talk with Hertzog. Intelligence now was showing that Noriega himself was in charge of managing the aftermath of the shooting incident.
Something always happens when I leave that goddamn joint down there, Thurman thought to himself. He could see events coming to a head. “It’s time for me to go back,” he announced and ordered up his plane. By 1 a.m., now December 17, he was headed back on the five-hour flight to Panama.
• • •
By 6 a.m. more reports were coming into the NMCC from Panama. Another, related incident had occurred at the same PDF checkpoint. Navy Lieutenant Adam J. Curtis and his wife, Bonnie, had been stopped about a half hour before the shooting and told to wait for a check on their identification. While waiting, they had witnessed the shooting. Blindfolded with masking tape, both were taken to a nearby PDF office and then to another building that turned out to be the Comandancia.
A senior PDF officer, at least a major, had overseen a four-hour interrogation of the Curtises, during which they were beaten and verbally abused. Lieutenant Curtis was kicked in the groin repeatedly and hit in the mouth. They were forced to stand against a cell wall with their hands over their heads. After half an hour Bonnie Curtis, 23, collapsed. When Lieutenant Curtis protested, paper was stuffed in his mouth. PDF members came in and said: let’s kill them now, let’s get rid of them. A gun was put to Lieutenant Curtis’s head. The Panamanians fondled Bonnie Curtis’s neck and the back of her legs. She was told that the repeated kicks to her husband’s groin would ensure he would never again be able to perform in bed. At several points she was sexually threatened. She was put in a chair and interrogated about her husband’s job, which the PDF claimed was with the CIA.
After four hours, the Curtises were abruptly released. They returned to the U.S. Naval Station about 2:15 a.m. and reported what had happened. The Naval Investigative Service was conducting extensive follow-up debriefings of the couple.
Kelly wondered if the PDF was coming apart. Had the situation in Panama reached a point of dangerous instability? Previously Noriega had been meticulous about not having a direct face-off that would show senior PDF involvement and a lack of discipline. This was not a matter of a single sergeant or officer out of control. It was a regime out of control. Had Noriega lost authority over his troops? Was the PDF in the process of becoming a renegade force?
The detention and harassment of the Curtises was reported in detail to Powell and Cheney. Cheney said that he wanted to have a meeting in his Pentagon office at ten o’clock Sunday morning to review the options. He called Scowcroft and said that he thought there would have to be a meeting with the President later that day.
Thurman arrived back in Panama at about 6 a.m. and went to his headquarters to review the situation.
At 8:30 a.m. Powell went to the Pentagon and sat down with Kelly and the Crisis Action Team. Kelly reported that Noriega was really scrambling on this one. Noriega had issued a communiqué blaming the shooting incident on the four U.S. officers, alleging that the men had broken through a PDF checkpoint in their car and shot at Noriega’s Comandancia, wounding three Panamanians, including a soldier and a one-year-old girl.
The three officers who had been with Paz had been fully debriefed. Noriega’s communiqué was total bullshit, Kelly said. The U.S. signals intelligence listeners had heard Noriega himself on the telephone and radio working out false stories to shift the blame to the Americans.
Powell talked with Thurman on the secure line. Thurman already had his more than 13,000 troops on so-called Delta Alert, the second-highest state of readiness. It sharply limited the movement of U.S. personnel and dependents. Thurman said that Noriega’s actions were about as inflammatory as could be. He reminded Powell that just two days earlier Noriega’s appointed legislature had named him “maximum leader for national liberation” and declared that Panama was “in a state of war” with the United States. Thurman said that the PDF bullies had soaked up all the rhetoric and were giving Noriega what he wanted.
Thurman said he saw three options: (1) do nothing militarily—just protest; (2) execute some portion of the BLUE SPOON offensive operations against the PDF and try to snatch Noriega; (3) execute the full BLUE SPOON plan.
“Do nothing and we’ll pay a horrendous price,” Thurman said. “Because all that will do is elevate his stature in the minds of his major thugs that are aiding and abetting him.” The killing of Paz in cold blood required an answer.
The snatch job on Noriega puts you in harm’s way, Thurman said, rejecting option two. They were tracking Noriega and knew his whereabouts perhaps 80 percent of the time. If the U.S. military went after him and missed him, and he still had his PDF, no American in Panama would be safe.
Thurman recommended option three—do it all, demolish the PDF, and get it over with. We are rehearsed, he said. The Southern Command would never be readier.
After about ten minutes, Powell said, “Okay, fine, got your pitch on it. . . . I’ve got to go brief Cheney.” Powell was clearly reserving his opinion. “I’ll get back to you later.”
Powell went up to Cheney’s office, where the two sat down alone just before 10 a.m. Powell thought it was critical that he get a sense from Cheney about what was possible. He did not want to go charging off with a military recommendation that was going to be rejected, that was not in the band of politically acceptable options. But as usual, Cheney seemed mainly to want to listen.
There was a lot of premeditation in what the PDF was doing to Americans, Powell said. “It was not a snap judgment by the PDF.” The Chairman said that the BLUE SPOON plan was good. They had rehearsed 100 percent; they might never be more ready.
Cheney nodded, showed no reluctance and left Powell with the impression that they both were of the same mind.
Powell said it was important to conduct such an operation—any military operation—on their own timetable. He was for recommending the execution of the full BLUE SPOON plan.
Cheney did not disagree. He seemed open to all possibilities, but said he wanted to hear what the others had to say.
At this point they were joined by Assistant Secretary Henry Rowen; Richard C. Brown, the deputy assistant secretary for inter-American affairs; spokesman Pete Williams; Rear Admiral Owens, Cheney’s military assistant; Dave Addington, Cheney’s civilian special assistant; and Kelly and Sheafer of the Joint Staff.
After the latest reports about the death of Lieutenant Paz and the beating and harassment of Lieutenant Curtis and his wife were summarized, Cheney said he wanted assessments and recommendations. He went around the room asking each man for his opinion.
Seeing that military action was clearly under consideration, several of the civilians wondered whether that was wise. They asked if the killing of Lieutenant Paz, apparently the main issue, constituted a sufficient smoking gun to justify military action.
“All I know is that he’s dead,” Powell answered. It was the most serious incident in Panama in 25 years.
The civilians pushed. Would the facts as now presented hold up under the scrutiny that would inevitably come? Was Powell sure? Did Noriega’s claim that the U.S. officers had fired first have any merit? Did speeding away from the checkpoint give the PDF justification for shooting?
Powell and the others said they were checking everything but it looked as if the Noriega claim was provab
ly untrue.
The civilians pressed. Was this the catalytic event? Should it be?
Most seemed to agree that the answer might largely turn on the certainty of the information.
When it seemed each man had had his full say, Cheney thanked them all politely.
Whatever the outcome, Williams realized, they were in a crisis. He told Cheney that he had spoken with the Southern Command public affairs officer in Panama, who said that Lieutenant Curtis was coherent and could go on television and explain what had happened to him and his wife. Williams saw this as an interesting possibility.
“Let it pass,” Cheney directed. “We don’t want to whip things up.” Cheney told Williams to draft a statement saying precisely what had happened to Paz and the Curtises, and he wanted to look at it before it was released.
• • •
Cheney asked Powell to stay behind so the two could talk alone again. He realized now that Americans—military and civilian—were seriously at risk in Panama. That changed the entire situation.
Powell agreed.
They talked about the mess in Panama. It had been that way for a long time, but frankly, Cheney said, they now had an obligation, if they were going to have their guys there.
They could not allow this kind of thing to happen, Powell said. It was probably time to act.
Yes, Cheney said. And not just Noriega. The whole PDF. They had finally reached a point where they could justify U.S. military intervention.
Powell said that he would very quietly call the Joint Chiefs together, get their views and make sure they were on board.
• • •
Though by law the Chairman is the principal military adviser to the President and his Secretary of Defense, the other chiefs are also presidential military advisers. Powell wanted them to have more, not less, access to the system, but wanted that access to pass through him. He would go to the White House meetings; he would inform the chiefs of what was under consideration; and he would convey their views to the President.
Now, however, Powell did not know what the White House was thinking. He had not spoken with President Bush, or with Scowcroft or Baker, so he was not sure what might be coming from above. It was time to see what might be coming from below.
Powell did not want to call the chiefs into the Pentagon, where they would almost certainly be noticed. A Sunday meeting of the JCS would alert the press. Instead, he sent word to each of them that he wanted them for coffee at his quarters at 11:30 a.m. Vuono lived just down the street at Quarters 1 and had been on alert; Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Carl Trost, who had been informed of both the Paz killing and the harassment of the Navy couple, was contacted at chapel at the Navy Yard in Washington; Marine Commandant Al Gray was standing by; and General Welch was also anticipating trouble.
The four chiefs gathered in the first-floor study at the back of Quarters 6. Alma Powell had begun redecorating and the walls of the small corner room were a fashionable light orange, with pictures and memorabilia of the Chairman’s Army career on display.
Powell greeted each man warmly—Al, Larry, Carl and Carl. They all took seats and coffee was served. Kelly briefed them for about ten minutes, providing the latest on the killing of Paz and the harassment of the Curtises. He could see from the chiefs’ looks and questions that the plight of the Curtises had caught everybody’s attention more than the shooting. Here were Noriega’s men mistreating a family, a woman, a noncombatant. The Curtises were totally innocent. By no stretch had they provoked the PDF. They had just happened to witness the Paz shooting. Kelly very quickly summarized the BLUE SPOON plan, with which the chiefs were all familiar since they had been briefed the previous month.
Powell told them he had met with Cheney and Cheney’s staff earlier that morning. Both the Secretary and he were inclined to recommend to President Bush later that afternoon that BLUE SPOON be executed. Noriega has pushed us about as far as we can tolerate, the Chairman said. But he and Cheney wanted their views, not just on the military side, but also on the political side. What advice did they individually or collectively wish him to convey to the Secretary and President?
Carl Vuono said that BLUE SPOON was a good plan—complex, yes, but it would achieve the objective of wiping out the PDF. Any attempt to dilute the plan, to throw in some lesser options, had to be resisted. He had vivid memories of Vietnam, where the civilian leadership hadn’t been willing to commit the force necessary to accomplish the military objectives. Panama, unlike Vietnam, had to be done completely and with sufficient force to ensure that the troops did not get bogged down. The force was ready, well trained, fully rehearsed. The units were not undermanned, underled, or inexperienced as in Vietnam.
From a military perspective, Vuono said, the operation was fully supportable and sufficient to achieve the assigned task.
General Al Gray was fidgety. “My world is divided into acceptable and unacceptable acts,” he said. “This is unacceptable.” The situation would not get better and it was time to act, he said forcefully. He was totally in favor of military action, and he was sure the Panamanian people wanted Noriega out. They would be dancing in the streets if the United States acted to remove him.
Kelly silently observed that though Gray seemed 100 percent supportive, he spoke with bittersweet enthusiasm. Gray’s Marines competed with the Army to be the ground force of choice—for the missions, for funding, for respect. Panama was a classic candidate for a Marine landing; it was a small country, virtually all coastline. But BLUE SPOON was almost exclusively an Army operation. Surprise and speed dictated an airborne operation. Marines transported on ships often took too long to arrive; and their presence en route or offshore was difficult to hide.
Wearing a sheepish expression, Gray said that he had a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) of several thousand men heading back from Hawaii. They had just completed a deployment and could not be better trained. The MEU was also special-operations-capable. All Gray had to do, he said, was see that orders were issued for the ships to make a hard right turn and they soon would be ready over the horizon. The Marines could be off the west coast of Panama in several days.
“That’s good to know, Al,” Powell said, “but I can’t change the timelines or the plan now.”
Everyone in the room knew that it would take the Marines too long to get there.
Gray responded with what Kelly thought sounded like a Marine Corps commercial, touting his versatile force, which carried enough supplies for 30 days.
Restraint was not Gray’s strong suit, but he tried to hold himself in. Privately, he felt that these Army light forces that parachuted out of the sky were a sham—a demonstration of the hollowness of the Army. The Army Rangers were light enough to get there quickly, yes, but also light enough to get in trouble if combat lasted more than several days. They came with only several days’ supplies and ammunition.
Gray said that if the fight in Panama got mired down, his Marines would be handy.
Powell made it clear that BLUE SPOON had been designed to ensure quick success: a total of 24,000 U.S. troops against the 16,000-member PDF, only 3,500 of whom were combat-capable; superior equipment, night capability, surprise, superior soldiers. Powell had a notion that when weapons and men were thrown into battle, the combat amounted to teenagers fighting duels. And the American teenagers were much better.
As a final matter, Gray suggested that some amphibious ships with Marines be moved, just in case, off the coast on the Atlantic side of Panama. Since such ships would also be off the coast of Nicaragua, they would be ready if the Sandinistas tried anything.
General Gray had been doing most of the talking. Finally the Chairman cut him off, saying, “Well, this is pretty well settled, but we’ll keep it in mind.”
The Navy had ships in the Caribbean and the Pacific on druginterdiction operations, Admiral Carl Trost knew. They could have been called in. There was some symbolic appeal to the idea of showing the force of a carrier battle group or an amphibious ready group
, but he didn’t think they would be needed or could have much of an impact. A token force of some 800 Navy people would be involved in BLUE SPOON, including some SEALs and troops on small boats. Trost was willing to concede it was predominantly an Army—Air Force operation.
The Chief of Naval Operations felt that the United States, for practical purposes, had control of Panama with the 13,000 troops already there. It was just a matter of dumping Noriega and a couple dozen of his senior officers, and neutralizing the rest of the PDF. He found much private amusement in one aspect of BLUE SPOON. Thousands of Army troops were going to be dropped in by parachute. Some of the early parachute drops made good sense to him, but the rest of the troops could as easily arrive in airplanes on the airstrips that the U.S. forces by then were going to control. The admiral was pretty certain this was all designed to make sure that the maximum number of troops received their combat jump badges. He silently counted many unnecessary broken legs from the parachute drops.
It was evident to Trost that this was not going to be anything resembling a fair fight. Once, years ago, he had hit a rattlesnake with a shovel. It might have been overkill but the shovel got the job done. He did not begrudge the others their shovels.
It also occurred to Trost, though he did not say it, that this would answer the often-lodged criticism that the chiefs were a bunch of wimps who didn’t want to fight and never thought or planned ahead. BLUE SPOON was going to show these detractors. Trost simply told the others that he strongly supported BLUE SPOON.
Characteristically, General Welch listened quietly, not saying a great deal, coming to his own conclusions. This was a very, very important meeting, he thought. For good reason, the chiefs were traditionally conservative on the use of military force. They did not typically support interventions that were hasty or primarily political. He thought the execution of BLUE SPOON would be both.