TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/010190/01019003.001

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 13KB | 218 lines

NATION, Page 24

Sowing Dragon's Teeth

How Operation Just Cause "decapitated" Panama's Defense Forces,

then bogged down in scattered, and surprisingly tough, street

fighting

By Ed Magnuson/Reported by Wilson Ring and Dick Thompson/Panama

City and Bruce van Voorst/Washington


    Operation Just Cause was less than eight hours old, but General
Colin Powell was all but declaring victory. As Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney looked on approvingly, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff boasted that a 24,000-man U.S. force had "decapitated"
Manuel Antonio Noriega's army and seized control of strategic
facilities along the Panama Canal. Though the crafty dictator was
still on the loose, Powell said that it was only a matter of time
before U.S. soldiers tracked him down. The only bad news in
Powell's rosy report was the uncertain fate of a dozen American
hostages, seized by fleeing Panamanian irregulars as they cut and
ran from approaching American troops.

    On the battleground in Panama, however, a far less optimistic
drama was unfolding. Confounding Pentagon hopes that Noriega's
Panama Defense Forces would quickly crumble under a devastating
U.S. onslaught, the fugitive dictator's men were preparing a
determined counterattack. Instead of the quick and decisive
knockout U.S. commanders had sought, the invasion was in danger of
degenerating into a nasty street fight in densely populated Panama
City. House-to-house fighting in a crowded urban area was something
military planners were leery of because of the threat to civilians.

    In recent months the Pentagon had quietly bolstered American
forces in Panama in preparation for a possible strike, adding 4,500
combat troops, as well as tanks and attack helicopters, to the
8,500 soldiers already deployed at U.S. bases. The force was so
strong that Pentagon planners had briefly considered dispatching
a column of U.S. troops to nab Noriega during an ill-fated uprising
by P.D.F. officers last October. That daring plan was quickly --
and, as it turned out, wisely -- discarded as too risky and
uncertain.

    Just how risky became clear as Operation Just Cause got under
way. Many of Noriega's 4,000 best troops, including units that had
raced to his rescue during the failed coup, were posted far outside
Panama City. Another, less predictable menace was posed by the
brutal Dignity Battalions: 8,000 fanatical pro-Noriega irregulars
who had savagely attacked opposition leaders in the aftermath of
last May's aborted election. Confronted by superior American
forces, many P.D.F. soldiers slipped away, only to reappear later
and launch counterattacks in Panama City.

    When George Bush ordered military action against the
increasingly arrogant dictator, the Pentagon put the finishing
touches on the option it preferred and had been secretly preparing
to implement: a massive simultaneous assault on all P.D.F.
strongholds by a combination of forces already in Panama and a huge
airlift of reinforcements from bases in the U.S.

    The plan called for overwhelming American forces to intimidate
and neutralize the P.D.F. while special units secured vital dams
and the electrical facilities powering the Panama Canal. Once
organized resistance had been shattered, military police and other
units trained in MOUT -- military operations in urban terrain --
would undertake the house-to-house battle against the Dignity
Battalions. At Southern Command Headquarters in Panama City, the
arrival of General Maxwell Thurman last Oct. 1 brought a marked
change in mood. Unlike his predecessor, General Frederick Woerner,
Thurman saw Noriega as primarily a military rather than a political
problem. According to Pentagon sources, Thurman had been bristling
for a fight since American troops stood helplessly by while the
October coup was crushed.

    As Wednesday's H hour approached, huge military transports were
landing at ten-minute intervals at Howard Air Force Base, doubtless
alerting Noriega that a U.S. strike might soon be under way.
Pentagon spokesmen dismissed the airlift as a routine exercise. But
total surprise had never loomed large in Pentagon planning, which
depended on vastly superior manpower, firepower and speedy
execution.

    The initial phases of Operation Just Cause went off as planned.
Shortly before midnight Tuesday, guests at Panama City's ritzy
Marriott Caesar Park Hotel were awakened by sporadic shooting. A
team of Navy SEALs (sea, air and land capability) rushed the nearby
private Paitilla Airport, where Noriega kept a potential getaway
Learjet. In a brief but vicious firefight the SEALs overwhelmed
guards, secured the landing strip and destroyed the aircraft. But
four SEALs were killed, perhaps the earliest casualties of the
conflict. Other SEALS died while disabling boats Noriega could have
used to make an escape by sea.

    At around 12:15 a.m. Wednesday, residents of century-old wooden
houses ringing Noriega's sprawling P.D.F. headquarters, called the
Comandancia, were startled by the roar of circling U.S. AC-130
combat Talon gunships and attack choppers, then the rumble of tanks
in the streets. The tanks fired barrage after barrage at Noriega's
official lair, and the sky was lit by antiaircraft tracers. The
streets soon began to fill as terrified residents ran out of their
flaming houses. An unknown number died in their homes; many were
injured. Meanwhile, U.S. infantry units at Fort Amador opened fire
with howitzers against P.D.F. barracks situated conveniently nearby
at the facility shared by troops of both nations.

    Over the next 24 hours, the American force nearly doubled as
9,500 troops, divided into five task forces, parachuted out of the
Panama skies or scrambled from large transport aircraft:

    TASK FORCE ATLANTIC. Made up of 82nd Airborne Division
paratroopers from Fort Bragg, N.C., and Seventh Infantry troops
from Fort Ord, Calif., backed by special units, it raced to secure
vital facilities at the Caribbean end of the canal, near Colon. It
took over Madden Dam, which stores water used to raise and lower
ships in the canal's locks, and seized control of the electrical
distribution center at Cerro Tigre. The task force encountered
stiff resistance from a P.D.F. naval infantry unit on the northern
coast. This force also freed 48 P.D.F. prisoners at Gamboa prison.

    TASK FORCE SEMPER FIDELIS. Essentially a blocking force
deployed on Panama City's western border, its Marine rifle company
and light armored infantry company occupied the Bridge of the
Americas, which spans the canal, to prevent a P.D.F. counterattack
on the crucial Howard Air Force Base.

    TASK FORCE RED. Assigned targets on both sides of the capital,
its rangers had the night's most difficult chores. As Pathfinder
planes dropped flares to illuminate the drop areas, the Rangers
jumped from planes that flew as low as 500 ft., well within the
range of small-arms fire. The Rangers on the west landed near Rio
Hato, assaulted the barracks of the 6th and 7th P.D.F. companies
and took 250 prisoners. The bulk of P.D.F. soldiers had slipped
away. To the east, other commandos dropped in large numbers on
Torrijos International Airport.

    TASK FORCE PACIFIC. Once Task Force Red had secured the
airport, two waves of 82nd Airborne paratroopers jumped from 20
C-141 transports. They fanned out to assist Rangers and Special
Forces units that had blocked the Pacora River bridge to prevent
Battalion 2000 from reaching Panama City and to turn back any
attack from P.D.F. infantry and cavalry units based at Fort
Cimarron. When the Americans reached the fort, the crack battalion
was no longer there.

    TASK FORCE BAYONET. This mechanized battalion and light tank
force attacked the P.D.F. headquarters with a vengeance, igniting
a huge fire that gutted the main Comandancia building. When the
bombardment was over, its troops searched the building room by room
-- and found no one. By 8 a.m. Wednesday, Powell felt confident
enough to proclaim that "for the most part, organized resistance
has ended."

    U.S. forces then focused on the plight of hostages who had been
seized by Noriega's men. At the Marriott a foreign journalist was
approached at about 12:25 a.m. Wednesday by three gunmen in ski
masks and civilian clothes. They ordered her to join eleven other
guests, including seven Americans being held hostage in the hotel
by thugs toting AK-47s. They were marched into a van, driven to a
house and held in a kitchen for three hours. "You're bombing our
children; you're bombing our people," one told the Americans. "If
we were in another country, we would kill you." The group was
placed in two cars and released near the hotel with a final word
from their captors: "We will continue the fight, the struggle."

    Not until Wednesday night did American troops finally fight
their way through Dignity Battalions to protect 64 frightened
guests and workers at the hotel. The next day one U.S. unit at the
hotel sighted a personnel carrier approaching and opened fire. The
shots were returned. In the hotel parking lot a Spanish
photographer, Juan Antonio Rodriguez, was killed and Patrick
Chauvel, a photographer on assignment for Newsweek, was wounded.
The shooting was a tragic mistake; the approaching vehicle was
carrying American soldiers.

    Elsewhere, a boat filled with Noriega gunmen landed at one of
the San Blas islands off Panama's Caribbean coast and took hostage
eleven people working at a Smithsonian Institutions marine-research
project. The group, including five Americans, was taken to the
mainland and forced to march into the jungle. Next day, they were
abandoned without food and finally rescued. At the international
airport two terrified American women were threatened with death by
a group of 30 P.D.F. soldiers, who used them as a shield against
U.S. paratroopers surrounding the terminal. The two were freed just
before dawn after the American soldiers told the gunmen that
Noriega had been killed and their cause was futile.

    That episode illustrated Noriega's crucial role in the
continuing resistance. American commanders have made capturing him
a high priority, since as long as he remains at large, some
Panamanian units might rally around him. Yet the wily dictator
managed to evade the net. American troops surrounded the Cuban and
Nicaraguan embassies in Panama City to prevent Noriega from seeking
refuge. Six hours after the invasion began, U.S. soldiers burst
into the "Witch House," a Noriega residence on the Pacific
coastline. Inside, they found cigarettes still smoldering in
ashtrays, suggesting that the strongman might have slipped away
only moments before. Later on Wednesday, Noriega's apparently
tape-recorded voice was heard on a private FM station, exhorting
his supporters "to win or die, not one step back."

    That appeal may have worked. As U.S. forces moved into the
chaotic streets of Panama City, they faced not only widespread
looting but also pervasive sniper fire from the Dignity Battalions
and a few black-uniformed members of an elite special-forces unit.
On Friday, as Pentagon briefers asserted that organized resistance
in Panama City had faded, Noriega loyalists opened fire on the car
of newly installed First Vice President Ricardo Arias Calderon as
it sped away from the National Assembly building. Arias was unhurt.
Mortar shells landed near the U.S. Southern Command Headquarters
at Quarry Heights, and fighting erupted at a nearby police station.
Thurman said that the fighting seemed to be "centrally controlled"
and that Noriega himself might be "the guiding force." He estimated
that 1,800 irregular troops might be involved.

    If the resistance persists for long, Operation Just Cause may
lose some of its sheen. As the Pentagon boasted, immense force was
speedily dispatched to Panama, the canal was quickly protected, key
P.D.F. installations were overrun or neutralized, and Noriega was
removed from any effective power. The cost, however, may have been
a distressingly high loss of life among Panamanian civilians. An
unofficial check of hospitals showed that more than 200
noncombatants had died. A drawn-out struggle with rising American
casualties also loomed. At week's end, as 2,000 more troops were
sent into Panama, the Pentagon conceded that it might take more
than a week for Operation Just Cause to pacify the tiny nation's
capital.