The Commanders

by Bob Woodward

  • • •

  From his experience in the Ford White House, Cheney knew the human reaction to this kind of crisis. The situation would build and everyone would stay up all night to hear the latest news on events they could do nothing about. Then, when the moment of action or decision arrived, they would all be exhausted and in the worst possible shape to make judgments. So Cheney had gone up to his office after dinner and fallen asleep in a small bunk room there. After several hours, he rose. For the first time, he used his office shower.

  He then went down to the Crisis Situation Room, where he saw that Powell, Kelly and Sheafer were already set up. It was two minutes after one o’clock. He moved in next to Powell at the center of the long table.

  Almost immediately, a second report came in from SOUTHCOM concerning the PDF Zone 3 commander. Great news: the commander had ordered his unit to stand down. This was significant, as it meant several companies were out of action on the PDF side.

  At 1:07 there was a report that U.S. troops using a loudspeaker to order the PDF troops in the Comandancia to lay down their arms had been met instead with return fire. Just two minutes later. CNN reported that U.S. troops had attacked Noriega’s headquarters.

  At 1:11 Powell and Cheney listened as the news came over the loudspeaker that the Delta team was on the roof of the Modelo Prison. Two minutes later, word came that Muse was out.

  At 1:14 the PDF was reported to be retreating at one of the areas of battle, Albrook Air Force Station.

  At 1:17 SOUTHCOM said the Comandancia was calling for reinforcements.

  At 1:19 the Rangers were reported to be parachuting into the key target area of Rio Hato.

  The PDF commander of the 5th Company at Balboa had shut down his operation, Thurman reported at 1:23.

  The next report said the Marines at the U.S. Embassy were taking fire from rocket-propelled grenades.

  Just before 1:30 SOUTHCOM issued a few positive reports. All the Rangers had dropped onto Rio Hato, and the Bridge of the Americas was secure.

  There was a report that the helicopter carrying Muse away from the Modelo Prison had crashed, and it looked as if the crew and Muse might be dead. Disappointment was written all over Powell’s face. Muse was the guy they were going to rescue for the President, and now his helicopter had gone down.

  At about the same time, word came that U.S. troops had broken into Noriega’s most likely hideout, a beach house, and found it empty. This intensified the pessimism in the room. They’d reached a real low—no Muse, no Noriega.

  Powell knew there was an apartment near Colon that was another Noriega hangout. He felt too much time had elapsed between hitting the beach house and the apartment, and he called Thurman to let him know.

  “When are we going to take down the apartment?” Powell snapped.

  “We’re working on it,” Thurman replied.

  Soon Thurman was back with the news that they’d taken down the apartment and it too was a blank. A third downer in a very short period.

  • • •

  Over at the White House, Bush turned on the television set in his study. At 1:40 Marlin Fitzwater appeared on the screen. “The President has directed United States forces to execute at one a.m. this morning pre-planned missions in Panama to protect American lives, restore the democratic process, preserve the integrity of the Panama Canal treaties and apprehend Manuel Noriega.

  “Last Friday,” Fitzwater told the reporters gathered before him, “Noriega declared a state of war with the United States.”

  “Has General Noriega been captured yet, Marlin?” a reporter asked.

  “We don’t know how long it will take, but that is our ultimate objective,” Fitzwater said. “It has not happened at this time.”

  “Marlin,” another reporter asked, “can you tell us who’s got operational control?”

  “Operational control is in the Pentagon.”

  • • •

  Just before 2 a.m., Powell and Cheney received word from Thurman that all was quiet at the U.S. Embassy, and that everything was going okay at Tocumen Airport. The mission at Tocumen was to seize the airport and neutralize a PDF company based there. An hour before, AC-130s and AH-6s had opened fire on the infantry company’s compound, and three minutes later, Rangers had parachuted in to eliminate PDF resistance.

  Minutes later there was a report that the commander of the PDF’s Zone 6 had ordered his troops to abandon posts before the Americans arrived.

  At 2:20 a.m. word came that Muse had survived the crash and was safe. Instantly, the atmosphere became buoyant, almost joyful. Powell and Cheney knew they’d accomplished a main objective.

  Powell picked up the phone and called CIA Director Webster. “Just wanted you to know we got your man out and he’s safe,” Powell said, now bursting with optimism.

  Cheney called the White House. In his first call across the river shortly after arriving at the Crisis Situation Room that night, he had talked to Scowcroft. After that, at the President’s request, Cheney’s calls were all put through directly to the President, about one every half hour. Now he told Bush that Muse was out and safe. What’s more, the Delta team had done the job in record time, even better than the best practice time.

  SOUTHCOM reported at 2:40 that the Comandancia was in flames.

  A sour note was struck at 2:49, when Cheney and Powell listened to Thurman report that Noriega was still at large. Except for this large problem, the operation generally seemed to be going well and was on track. Shortly after 3:00 they learned that PDF forces at Colon, Tocumen Airport and near the Costa Rican border had fallen. The PDF was surrendering left and right, without a fight. Within a half hour, the Comandancia fires were out.

  Powell listened, made notes and talked quietly to Cheney. Neither was trying personally to manage the operation. Both felt they had to let Thurman and the others do their jobs. Although he was glad about all the reports of success, Powell knew that war—particularly war fought in darkness—is a funny thing. It was likely that bad news, especially really bad news, would be the slowest to work its way up the chain to him. He was also aware that the first information to reach him was liable to be wrong.

  More bad news did come. Three platoons of Navy SEALs who had moved into Puenta Paitilla Airport before H-Hour to disable Noriega’s private jet had met heavy PDF resistance. Of the attacking platoon of 15 men, four had been killed by PDF fire, and seven were wounded. Although the SEALs had succeeded in disabling the aircraft, the deaths of these elite fighters shocked those gathered in the Crisis Situation Room.

  The Noriega question tugged at Powell throughout the night. At 3:39, they received a signals intelligence report that the dictator had fled and was still safe. The report was based on an intercepted phone conversation. An hour and a half later, SOUTHCOM said another intercept indicated that Noriega was hiding in a reinforced house, location unknown.

  Cheney continued to give the President half-hour updates. The Comandancia had been reduced to rubble. The key military targets had been overrun, and much of the organized PDF resistance had been eliminated. At 4 a.m. Bush went to bed.

  About 4:30 a.m. Powell started to prepare his end—all the military details—of a public briefing that he and Cheney would be giving in a few hours. He looked over the large operational maps they were using in the NMCC. The maps had far too much detail for a simple show-and-tell—the language of monks, he called it. And the special operations missions, which shouldn’t be revealed to the public, were identifiable. He knew his briefing had to be good, and these graphics weren’t going to cut it. Powell called in the Pentagon’s expert mapmaker and ordered up some instant simplifications.

  He took his notes and went into a little room off to the side of the Crisis Situation Room which had a map of Panama on the wall. Army Brigadier General Tom White, Powell’s executive assistant, brought him a cup of coffee. The Chairman sat there for 15 or 20 minutes, in a kind of trance, alternately making notes and studying the map. He remarked to an aide t
hat the American public’s opinion of the operation would start its rise or fall on the basis of his and Cheney’s presentation. When Powell was done, he went down to his office bathroom, took off his sweater and put on a tie and Army jacket.

  One advantage of the post-midnight H-Hour was that the administration would be able to take an early time slot on morning television and provide its own description of the operation before the news day began. Given the massive influx of U.S. troops, there was a virtual guarantee that some early successes could be reported.

  The plan called for the President to address the nation at about 7 a.m., followed by a briefing and press conference at the Pentagon by Cheney and Powell.

  • • •

  At 6:30 a.m. Bush returned to the Oval Office. An 11-paragraph speech had been prepared. There was not enough time to put it on the TelePrompTer. He would have to read from a typed version with his own notes written in the margin. By 7:20 Bush was before the cameras. He gave a very broad overview of the situation. “General Noriega’s reckless threats and attacks upon Americans in Panama created an imminent danger to the thirty-five thousand American citizens in Panama,” he said.

  “The United States intends to withdraw the forces newly deployed to Panama as quickly as possible.”

  He reminded his audience of “those horrible pictures of newly elected [Panamanian] Vice President Ford, covered head to toe with blood, beaten mercilessly.”

  Bush said, “I took this action only after reaching the conclusion that every other avenue was closed.”

  Immediately afterwards, Cheney and Powell appeared at the Pentagon press room to brief reporters and answer questions. Cheney delivered a seven-paragraph statement that echoed the President’s.

  Powell took the podium as Kelly stood by the newly drawn maps.

  “There will be details that I cannot get into for purposes of operational security,” Powell said. Speaking without notes and taking much more time than Cheney had, he moved confidently over the geography of Panama and the details of the operation, matching units to missions and locations. He preserved enough of the language of monks to show he knew his forces—the 193rd Infantry Brigade, 7th Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division, the 16th Military Police Brigade, etc.—making no less than 16 references to various units.

  He began with a report of success. U.S. forces had taken the prison at Gamboa, “within which there are some PDF personnel who had been put in jail as a result of the coup attempt earlier in the fall, and we now have some forty-seven, forty-eight very happy prisoners who have been released.” The electrical distribution center was secure, he said, as was Madden Dam. A PDF infantry company on the north side had been neutralized. The Bridge of the Americas across the canal had been taken, and the area around Howard Air Force Base was secure. The same with Rio Hato, the Comandancia, and the Torrijos international airport. “We also took special actions to immobilize the PDF Navy,” Powell said. Reports of U.S. hostages were being checked.

  “We have not yet located the General,” Powell said, tight-jawed. “But, as a practical matter, we have decapitated him from the dictatorship of this country and he is now a fugitive and will be treated as such.”

  The American Embassy had taken some fire but nobody was injured.

  So far, he said, preliminary information indicated that nine Americans had been killed in action and 39 wounded.

  Most of the questions were addressed to Powell.

  To one on Noriega, he replied: “He’s demonstrated incredible ability to survive catastrophe. And we’ll see over time whether he survives this catastrophe.”

  “This reign of terror is over,” Powell also said.

  “For the most part, organized resistance is over,” he went on, declaring that many of those still out in the street “are just thugs and rabble rousers.”

  There were more questions on Noriega.

  “We’re looking for him. He’s not running anything, because we own all of the bases he owned eight hours ago.”

  At the end of the session, when the questioning was over, Powell stepped to the microphone and said: “Could I just say that I hope you recognize how complicated an operation this was, and how competently it was carried out by the Armed Forces of the United States. We all, the Secretary and I, all of our associates, deeply regret the loss of American life. But that’s sometimes necessary in pursuit of our national interests and in the fight for democracy.”

  • • •

  Alma Powell had not known her husband was going to be on television that morning, but a family member had called to alert her. Normally very critical of his performances, she called him later that day at the Pentagon. “That was good,” she said.

  • • •

  Powell began receiving calls from Army commanders from all over, offering their forces, pledging their readiness and enthusiasm.

  Among those who called was the commander of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, which had been put on secret alert to move into Nicaragua if the Sandinistas tried a military move. Powell would have had early warning of such a move, thanks to a program called TENCAP—Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities—which harnessed the latest intelligence for immediate use in Panama. Using satellite and ground intercepts of radio and other communications, U.S. intelligence officers were able to monitor Cuban and Nicaraguan reaction to JUST CAUSE, to determine if those countries might somehow come to Noriega’s aid.

  In addition, satellite imagery and photos gathered by reconnaissance aircraft were sent from Fort Bragg via satellite to terminals at Southern Command. This link provided Thurman and Stiner with reconnaissance photos of Tocumen Airport, for example, and imagery reports on other critical sites in Panama, including the Comandancia, Fort Cimarron and Rio Hato.

  By December 21—D-Day plus 1, as it was called in Pentagonese—almost all of the key goals of the operation had been achieved. The various task forces had done their assigned work, securing the key target sites. The JCS ordered the execution of BLIND LOGIC, the operations plan from the original PRAYER BOOK series to help run the new civilian government of Panama. The canal, closed down during the battle, was reopened for daylight operations. A snag that received heavy media attention, the PDF’s holding of U.S. hostages—among them some journalists—at the Marriott Hotel, was resolved on this second day of the operation when the hotel was taken by U.S. soldiers and the hostages were evacuated.

  There was international grumbling about the United States going into Panama. At a press conference on Thursday, the day after the operation, Bush was asked about tough Soviet condemnation of JUST CAUSE. The President said he wanted to send a wire or telegram to Gorbachev saying, “Look, if they kill an American Marine, that’s real bad. And if they threaten and brutalize the wife of an American citizen, sexually threatening the lieutenant’s wife while kicking him in the groin over and over again, then, Mr. Gorbachev, please understand this President is going to do something about it.”

  • • •

  The failure to capture Noriega, along with other problems, including an outbreak of looting in Panama City, resulted in some bad press for the operation on Thursday and Friday. These days were the low point for Powell, but by the time he went home on Friday night, D plus 2, things were looking up. Noriega still hadn’t been found, but the situation otherwise seemed to be under control. He wasn’t surprised to find that many of the newspaper stories he saw that weekend, especially Saturday, were a little outdated and downbeat. Over years of media watching, Powell had learned that newspapers generally lagged 12 hours behind events. He read one article that fingered him by name as the man who’d recommended the Panama invasion.

  I’m being set up, he said to himself, both disturbed and amused. Someone at the White House or State was trying to dump Panama off on him, Powell thought.

  On Sunday, when more positive stories appeared, Bush visited the Pentagon. “Boy, Colin,” he said to Powell, “things sure were grim yesterday. But now they sure look better.
”

  • • •

  The elusive Noriega, still at large, was the most serious stain on the operation. The United States announced that it had put a $1 million bounty on him, hoping that a PDF member or some other Panamanian anxious to end the Noriega era would step forward. Powell began referring to the capture of Noriega as “this last little irritant,” and continued to emphasize that Noriega had been eliminated as a leader. He had come to view the hunt for the fugitive general as a kind of crusade.

  There were reports that large stashes of drugs and strange religious paraphernalia had been found in Noriega’s home, and Powell took to calling Noriega “a dope-sniffing, voodoo-loving thug.” (The alleged drugs found in Noriega’s hangout turned out to be tamales containing slips of paper with the names of Noriega’s enemies written on them. This was apparently part of a ritual to neutralize foes and had nothing to do with drugs.)

  Prior to the operation, the conventional wisdom in the Pentagon was that Noriega would go down shooting rather than let himself be captured. Now just finding him was turning into an obsession.

  “We will destroy his Robin Hood image,” Powell declared in his office on December 23. To a reporter who persisted with questions about the importance of capturing Noriega, Powell retorted, “Stick it.”

  The next day, Sunday, December 24, at about 3:30 p.m., a car drove up to the residence of the Vatican’s representative in Panama, the Papal Nuncio. General Noriega, wearing a T-shirt and carrying two AK-47 semiautomatic rifles over his shoulder, emerged from the car, went inside the nunciature building and requested political asylum.

  Powell knew this did not solve the problem at all. Noriega could stay in the residence indefinitely, creating a diplomatic standoff.

  The Chairman expected Thurman and Stiner would come up with some ideas. He warned them to be careful, but determined that it would be best if he did not know what they might concoct.

  Stiner knew he would have to respect the double sanctity of the Papal Nuncio’s residence as both embassy and Church property. But there were ways to put pressure on the Church. A visiting archbishop was taken on a tour of Noriega’s former house and office. He was shown some of the things that U.S. soldiers had found there: witchcraft materials, a library of books on Hitler, albums of pornographic and torture photos and a large poster of all the Catholic priests in Panama and other high Catholic officials in Central America that suggested they were on a hit list.