The key issue remained whether we had sufficient provocation to act. We had reasons—Noriega’s contempt for democracy, his drug trafficking and indictment, the death of the American Marine, the threat to our treaty rights to the canal with this unreliable figure ruling Panama. And, unspoken, there was George Bush’s personal antipathy to Noriega, a third-rate dictator thumbing his nose at the United States. I shared that distaste.
The President himself pushed me on casualties. “Mr. President,” I said, “I can’t be more specific.”
“When will we be ready to go?” he asked.
“In two and a half days,” I replied. “We want to attack at night. We’re well equipped to fight in the dark, and that should give us tactical surprise.”
The questions continued, thick and fast, until it started to look as if we were drifting away from the decision at hand. I could see Tom Kelly, in his first meeting with this group, growing uneasy. But then Bush, after everyone had had his say, gripped the arms of his chair and rose. “Okay, let’s do it,” he said. “The hell with it.”
Back at the Pentagon, I called Max Thurman and other key commanders and spoke again to the chiefs. D-Day was set for December 20, and H-Hour at 0100.
A few weeks earlier, Cheney had called me to his office alone. “You’re off to a good start as chairman,” he said, offering me a seat. “You’re forceful and you’re taking charge. But you tend to funnel all the information coming to me. That’s not the way I want it.” He went on to say that he expected information from numerous sources. He had me dead to rights. Information is power. He knew it as well as I did. And I had tended to control it. I told him I understood, as long as we both recognized my obligation, as his senior military advisor, to give him my counsel. Matters could get choppy if he were to operate on military advice or information of which I was unaware. “Fine,” he said, “as long as we understand each other… Colin.” The slight hesitation let me know that the relationship was still familiar but that I was being shown my place in it.
I eventually became accustomed to the man’s manner, so different from that of the paternal, courtly Cap Weinberger. Cheney was a cerebral Wyoming cowboy, used to wide-open spaces where one did not have to deal with many people. He was a conservative by nature and in his politics, a loner who would take your counsel, but preferred to go off by himself to make up his mind. And he was supremely self-confident, or the next best thing, he managed to give that impression. Here was someone else who had learned never to let ’em see you sweat. I enjoyed working with a master of the game.
As D-Day approached, I told Tom Kelly to make sure Cheney got every scrap of information about Blue Spoon. I still preferred to brief the Secretary myself, or at least be present while he was briefed. But over the next feverish forty-eight hours I would not have time, and after our recent discussion I certainly did not want Cheney to feel cut off from any source. He began vacuuming up data. How many men in a squad? What equipment do SEALs carry? Why do Rangers jump from five hundred feet? He wanted to have it all by H-Hour, and I understood why. When the dust settled on this invasion, I would still be an advisor; but he and the President would have to bear the responsibility.
In one of my several phone conversations with Max Thurman, I mentioned that Blue Spoon might be fine as a code name to hide an operation, but it was hardly a rousing call to arms when the time came to go public. You do not risk people’s lives for Blue Spoons. We kicked around a number of ideas and finally settled on Max’s suggestion, Just Cause. Along with the inspirational ring, I liked something else about it. Even our severest critics would have to utter “Just Cause” while denouncing us.
War planning is a mosaic of thousands of troubling details. The weather was turning bad, and icing conditions stateside were going to affect our ability to assemble the required airlift. Rules of engagement, the instructions to our troops as to when they could use deadly force, had to be approved. I had to tell Thurman to change the F-117A target list. We did not want to bomb Noriega’s country villas in the hope he might be there and end up killing maids and children instead.
The last night before the invasion, sitting alone in the dark in the backseat of my car on the drive home, I felt full of foreboding. I was going to be involved in conducting a war, one that I had urged, one that was sure to spill blood. Had I been right? Had my advice been sound? What if the icy weather in the States hampered the airlift? How would we then support the troops already in Panama? What would our casualties be? How many civilians might lose their lives in the fighting? Was it all worth it? I went to bed gnawed by self-doubt.
When I got to the Pentagon early on Tuesday morning, December 19, I found that my Joint Staff, under its able director, Lieutenant General Mike Cams, and Max Thurman’s SOUTHCOM staff in Panama were on top of things. Army Lieutenant General Howard Graves was skillfully merging our military plans with State and NSC political and diplomatic efforts. All loose ends were being tied up. We were “good to go.” My confidence came surging back. My worries vanished, and I entered the calm before the storm.
That afternoon, with the country going to war in less than ten hours, I had a student named Tiffani Starks in my office asking me to explain why I had chosen a military career. The conversation was part of the girl’s high school project to interview a “famous person.” Earlier, I had had lunch with Thomas P. Daily, an Annapolis midshipman, the payoff after my losing a bet on the recent Army-Navy football game. I went through these innocent encounters as scheduled to make my day look normal and thus protect the security of Just Cause.
After talking with Miss Starks, I slipped off to the White House for one last meeting. Jim Baker and the State Department had worked out a plan to spirit Endara from his hiding place just before H-Hour to Fort Clayton, home to U.S. Army South, where he would be sworn in as president. We did not yet have Endara’s agreement to the plan and would not know if he would go along until later in the evening. Endara’s participation was the last check-off point before the invasion. If we did not have him on board, President Bush would have to decide whether to go ahead without him or to abort the mission.
What about Noriega? the President kept asking. Were we going to nab him? Was this operation going to be branded a failure if we could not deliver Noriega’s head? “Mr. President,” I said, “we don’t have any way of knowing where he’ll be at H-Hour, but wherever he is, he won’t be El Jefe. He won’t be able to show his face.” I also cautioned against demonizing one individual and resting our success on his fate alone. Still, a President has to rally the country behind his policies. And when that policy is war, it is tough to arouse public opinion against political abstractions. A flesh-and-blood villain serves better. And Noriega was rich villain material.
I was at home at 7:40 Tuesday night when Cheney called to say that Endara was on board. Just Cause could go forward. I went back to the Pentagon at 8:30, telling Alma only that I might not be home for a while. I did not elaborate. I was tired from the incessant tension of the previous days and grabbed a quick nap in my office. At 11:30 P.M. I joined Dick Cheney in the National Military Command Center, a maze of rooms jammed with computers, maps, radios and telephones, and action officers scurrying all over the place. Tom Kelly had recently carved out a crisis room in the middle of this jumble for me, my principal staff officers, and the Secretary of Defense. We sat there at a table with two large television monitors in front of us on which to receive situation reports from Panama. Behind us on another table were telephones, providing direct, secure lines to Thurman, Stiner, and their staffs in the headquarters at Quarry Heights in Panama.
Tom Kelly leaned over my shoulder. “The weather held us up,” Tom said. “But all planes are in the air.” They were headed to Panama from Pope Air Force Base, next to Fort Bragg, and bases around the United States. The press, we knew, had spotted the unusual air activity, but was reporting it as a show of force or a reinforcement operation. We had achieved strategic surprise. But now that our forces were on the way, i
t would be hard to maintain tactical surprise.
The Panama Defense Force had figured out by 9:00 P.M. that something was up, but was not sure what to do about it. PDF troops began firing around Fort Amador soon after midnight and mortally wounded an American schoolteacher. General Stiner decided to move up H-Hour by fifteen minutes, and at 0045 hours, December 20, troops of the 193d Infantry Brigade swept out of their barracks and down into the city to attack the Comandancia. Just Cause was under way. Reports dribbled into the crisis center in frustrating bits and pieces: “Delta Force landing on the roof of Modelo Prison…. Delta has killed the guards…. Delta Force in…. Kurt Muse out of his cell…. Delta Force leaving in helicopters from the roof. It’s okay. No! The helo is taking fire. It’s hit! It’s coming down! No, it’s going down the street … it’s hit … it’s down … they’re okay….” This rescue operation took six minutes that lasted an eternity.
Intense fighting erupted around the Comandancia. The PDF headquarters was soon in flames, and the fire spread to a neighboring shanty area. The Rangers landed at Río Hato, preceded by F-117As dropping two-thousand-pound bombs to stun Panamanian soldiers in the barracks long enough for the paratroopers to hit the ground. More Rangers and the 82d Airborne force began dropping over the Torrijos International Airport complex east of the city. The Marines took the Bridge of the Americas. On the Atlantic side, 7th Division and 82d Airborne troops entered the city of Colón against stiff opposition. The PDF was putting up a better fight than expected, though our casualties were light. The biggest loss, so far, was sustained by Navy SEALs attacking Punta Paitilla Airport, where four of them were killed in a poorly conceived attack. We had made the mistake of assigning the SEALs, however tough and brave, to a mission more appropriate to the infantry.
Almost every report coming into the crisis center corrected the previous report, confirming the old adage “Never believe the first thing you hear.” Sitting in that small room in the National Military Command Center, I felt as if I were on an emotional roller coaster. Combat, especially night fighting, is organized confusion. Journalists, historians, and Monday-morning quarterbacks can never fully appreciate the opportunities for error facing people who have to make life-and-death decisions in the midst of chaos with limited, even wrong, information. Cheney sat there that night quietly observing his first war. He kept asking sharp, relevant questions, and every hour or so he moved into the next room to report on a secure hot line to Scowcroft and the President. The chain of command was clean and clear. The President talked to Cheney; Cheney talked to me; and I talked to Max Thurman, who talked to Carl Stiner. Thurman and Stiner were the pros on the scene, and our job in Washington was to let the plan unfold without getting in their way.
At 7:40 the next morning, the President went on television to explain to the American people why we had invaded Panama. The cameras then shifted to the Pentagon, where, at 8:30, Cheney spoke first, describing in greater detail the provocations that had led to the invasion. Then it was my turn to explain the military operation.
During that night, while the fighting was still raging, I had left the crisis center and had gone to an adjacent room to think through what I wanted to say when I faced the public and the press. Army Major Ray Melnyk, an operations officer on Tom Kelly’s staff, had prepared briefing maps and charts for me. I sent them back because they were full of military jargon, suitable for Fort Benning, maybe, but not helpful in explaining to the American people what their sons and daughters were doing in Panama. Melnyk quickly drafted simpler maps, and I spent the next hour memorizing the missions, the units, and our twenty-seven targets.
That morning, on television, after Cheney spoke, I explained every detail down to the last platoon assault. I reminded the audience that this was an ongoing campaign. Most of our objectives had been taken, but we expected continued resistance from PDF remnants and paramilitary units, called “Dignity Battalions,” mostly street gangs armed by Noriega. So far, we had lost only four soldiers, but we should expect more casualties. My intention was to convey a sense of calm and confidence that we knew what we were doing. The reputation of the American armed forces was on the line. Desert One, the bombing of the Marine headquarters in Lebanon, the messy Grenada invasion, and the shootdown of the Iranian airliner had all contributed to skepticism about the U.S. military and its leadership. I remembered our Project 14 advice to General Wickham six years earier—we have got to win cleanly the next time.
I took questions from the reporters, and right off the bat they wanted to know about Noriega. If we did not catch him, what was the point of invading Panama? I responded, “We have now decapitated him from the dictatorship of his country.” Wouldn’t it make life miserable for the U.S. forces down there, a reporter asked, if Noriega was still running around in the Panamanian wilds? “It’s been some years,” I answered, “since Mr. Noriega … had been living in a jungle. He’s used to a different kind of lifestyle, and I’m not sure he would be up to being chased around the countryside by Army Rangers, Special Forces, and light infantry units.” Another reporter persisted: could we really consider Just Cause successful as long as we did not have Noriega in custody? “The operation is a success already,” I said, “because we cut off the head of that government, and there is a new government that was elected by the Panamanian people.” Still, it would be more convincing, I knew, if we could produce the head.
When I got back to my office the phone was ringing. It was Alma. “You were pretty good,” she said. My sternest critic had given me a passing grade.
By the next day, most of the fighting was over, except for scattered skirmishes with the Dignity Battalions. Noriega, however, still eluded us. We brought in more infantrymen from the 7th Division to comb the countryside and run down the remainder of the PDF. These troops went from town to town shouting “boo,” which convinced the once feared PDF detachments to surrender. We packed Panama City with more troops to maintain order. We put up temporary housing for Panamanians displaced by the fighting and fires that had burned down several blocks, particularly around the Comandancia.
President Endara had been sworn in a few hours before H-Hour and was now in the Presidential Palace. Twenty-four Americans gave their lives in Panama to achieve this victory for democracy. My private estimate to Cheney had been that we would lose about twenty troops. Our armed forces had acquitted themselves superbly, although we had made some mistakes. We did not plan well enough for reintroducing civil government. Our press arrangements produced recriminations on both sides. We were slow in getting the press pool to Panama and to the action. Pete Williams, the Defense Department spokesman, tried to compensate by sending a commercial airliner to Panama loaded with a couple of hundred reporters whom we could not properly accommodate. Consequently, the press ate us alive, with some justification. In the future, I knew, we needed to do a far better job.
Yet things had happened on the press side during Just Cause that tested to the limit my customary support of the media. On the second day of the invasion, I watched President Bush during a televised press conference. He was visibly upbeat after the quick success of Just Cause. The President could not know that as he was giving occasionally smiling answers to reporters, the networks were simultaneously showing on split screens a transport plane at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, unloading the bodies of the first American casualties. The effect was to make the President look callous. Sensational images, but cheap-shot journalism.
I was angered when the press started trying to direct the war as well as cover it. Near the center of Panama City stood a radio tower. Every armchair strategist knows that you have to knock out the enemy’s capacity to communicate. And look at that, the U.S. military had foolishly left this transmitter operating, broadcasting prerecorded Noriega propaganda. The White House started taking flak from the press over the still-standing tower. And I started taking flak from Brent Scowcroft. I told him that the tower was not bothering us, and we did not yet have troops in that part of town to take it. We d
id not want to knock the tower down anyway, because President Endara would need it in a day or so. No dice. The press heat was too great and the tower had to go. I told Thurman and Stiner to destroy it. They were mad as hell at being over-managed from the sidelines and for being ordered to take a pointless objective. But soon, Cobra attack helicopters were shooting missiles at the girders, not unlike my old Vietnamese buddies shooting down trees with a rifle.
After the first night at the crisis center, we were back in our offices. I got another call at the Pentagon from Brent Scowcroft telling me that several correspondents were trapped in the Marriott Hotel in Panama City. “We’ve got to put troops in to rescue them,” Brent said.
“They’re in no danger,” I pointed out. “I’ve checked the situation. They’re safe in the basement of the hotel. The fighting will soon sweep right past them.”
I thought I had convinced Brent until I got a second call. He was taking terrific presssure from bureau chiefs and network executives in New York. “We’ve got to do something,” he said.
“We shouldn’t do anything,” I reiterated. “We’ve got a perfectly competent commander on the ground. He’s got a plan, and it’s working.” Were kibitzers supposed to direct the fighting in Panama from executive suites in Manhattan? I reminded Brent that there were 35,000 other American citizens in Panama, and we were trying to ensure the safety of all of them. Only a few minutes passed before Cheney called. There was no discussion. Do it, he said. No more arguments.
Again, I reluctantly called Thurman and Stiner. “I hate to tell you this,” I said as I explained the situation. “But get those reporters out, and I’ll try to keep Washington off your backs in the future.” Stiner sent in units of the 82d Airborne to storm the Marriott. On the way, they ran into a stiff firefight. We got the reporters out, but the 82d took casualties, three GIs wounded, one seriously, and a Spanish photographer was killed by American fire while covering the rescue.
My American Journey Page 53