A Small War in

The main Air Force contribution to Operation Just Cause was the airlift, which doubled the number of combat troops

in the country. By John T. Correll

n 1989, the decided “You could not buy , juries in Miami and Tampa, Fla., to take down the Noriega regime in but you could rent him,” said Gen. Colin indicted Noriega on 13 counts of Panama by military force. Manuel L. Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs violating US racketeering and drug Antonio Noriega had been dictator of Staff. laws. The indictments said he took Iof the country since 1983. Over the In addition to his moonlighting for the $4.6 million in payoffs for allowing the years, he had been on and off the CIA CIA, Noriega had side deals with Cuba, Colombian cartel to use Panamanian payroll, but that relationship soured as Libya, and other intelligence customers, ports and airports to ship cocaine to the his corruption, repression, and collusion and he allowed the Soviet KGB to oper- United States. In retaliation, the PDF in drug smuggling became too blatant ate freely in Panama. His ties with the intensified harassment of US military to ignore. Medellin drug cartel in Colombia were members and dependents in Panama. Noriega had risen in the service of close and of long standing. The United States had a stake in Panama’s previous dictator, Omar Torrijos, Noriega was ruthless in eliminating Panamanian affairs because of both who called him “my gangster.” the opposition. He ousted two elected the drug smuggling and continuing US Torrijos died in an airplane crash in Presidents when they resisted his will. responsibility for security. 1981, and Noriega eventually emerged as In September 1985, the headless body The treaty adopted in 1979 set a 20-year his successor—promoting himself from of one of his enemies was dumped transition period, with full control of the lieutenant colonel to four-star . across the border in Costa Rica in a canal to pass from the United States to His power base was command of the US mailbag. Roving paramilitary gangs Panama in 1999. Panama Defense Force, which included called “dignity battalions” or “digbats” Until then, US forces were based at not only the armed forces but also the intimidated dissenters. a dozen installations in what had pre- police, customs, and investigative services. In June 1987, the US Senate adopted viously been the . The PDF owned hotels, liquor stores, by a vote of 84-to-two a resolution The Army had an infantry brigade at and newspapers and extorted millions calling for Noriega and his associates Ft. Clayton. Rotational Air National of dollars through its protection rackets. to “relinquish their duties” pending an Guard and Reserve units and some The nominal government leaders, the independent investigation of the cor- special operations forces were stationed President and the national assembly, did ruption and political violence charges at Howard Air Force Base in Panama. Noriega’s bidding. against them. In February 1988, grand About 50,000 US citizens lived in 56 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2009 when he was director of the CIA, Bush Facing page: C-141 and C-130 trans- had met with Noriega. As vice president ports flew airlift missions into Panama, in 1988, Bush had urged the Reagan beefing up personnel and supplies in preparation for Just Cause. Above: Administration to support the grand Flames overtake city buildings during jury indictments in Florida. His position the operation. became still tougher after the election in Panama in May 1989. The anti-Noriega Nothing had to be done to energize Thur- coalition, led by Guillermo Endara, won man. “He is mobilized when he gets up by a three-to-one margin, but Noriega in the morning, which is in the middle of annulled the election results. Digbats the night,” an admirer on the Joint Staff armed with clubs and metal bars attacked said. Thurman chose Lt. Gen. Carl W. Endara and the other winners. Endara, Stiner to be his war planner, in command struck in the head, was hospitalized and of Joint Task Force South. The chain afterward was attacked again. One of of command was to be simple. “Carl his bodyguards was killed. Stiner is my warfighter, and everybody in Panama carrying a gun works for Carl Sand Fleas Stiner,” Thurman said. Several days later, Bush sent 2,000 Powell, a principal in the activity to additional troops to Panama, supposedly come, became Chairman of the Joint Manuel Noriega holds a placard show- to protect American lives and property. Chiefs of Staff Oct. 1, 1989. On Oct. ing his federal ID number at his booking Southern Command conducted exercises 3, three days after Thurman assumed by the US Marshals Service in Miami. called “Sand Fleas” to visibly assert US command, disgruntled elements of the treaty and maneuver rights. PDF attempted to overthrow Noriega in Panama, 10,300 of them members of In September, Secretary of Defense a coup that failed. As with a similar coup the armed forces. The headquarters of Richard B. Cheney relieved Army Gen. attempt that failed the previous year, the US Southern Command was at Quarry Frederick F. Woerner in the middle of United States avoided involvement, see- Heights in , 600 yards up his tour as commander of Southern ing no advantage in trading one bunch the hill from PDF headquarters at the Command. of PDF thugs for another. Comandancia. Woerner, regarded as too easygoing Thurman concentrated on prepara- The Bush Administration, which to handle the situation, was replaced by tions to carry out an operations plan, came to office in January 1989, took a Gen. Maxwell R. Thurman, one of the dubbed “Blue Spoon,” to topple the hard line toward Noriega. Years earlier, hardest-charging officers in the Army. regime and capture Noriega. The AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2009 57 However, all efforts to preserve tac- tical surprise soon evaporated. With C-141s landing at Howard every 10 minutes, it was obvious that something AP photo/Terry Ashe was about to happen. US troops warned their Panamanian girlfriends to stay home. That informa- tion soon reached the PDF, as did reports of various conversations by Americans overheard by Panamanians. At 10 p.m., Dan Rather reported on CBS that “US military transport planes have left Ft. Bragg. ... The Pentagon declines to say whether or not they’re bound for Panama.” The loss of security might have been more serious except that the PDF’s key decision-maker, Manuel Noriega, was drunk and carousing. When the para- A C-130 Hercules skims the Panamanian coast en route to Howard AFB, Panama, troopers landed at Tocumen, Noriega’s during Just Cause. aides rousted the groggy general and his companion of the evening from Justice Department ruled that the US forces in Panama. Other Air Force a nearby bungalow and rushed them restriction on use of military forces elements, notably AC-130 gunships, into hiding. to enforce civilian laws—the Posse would provide strong support for the Just before midnight, a new govern- Comitatus Act—did not necessarily operation. ment—President Guillermo Endara prevent forces from helping enforce and others who had been legally elected US laws outside territorial jurisdiction A Loss of Security in May 1989—were sworn in at Quarry of the United States. Execution of Blue “Trigger events” were not long in Heights by a Panamanian judge. Spoon awaited what planners called a coming. On Dec. 15, Panama’s National By H-Hour or shortly afterward, “trigger event.” Assembly passed a resolution declar- MAC had brought in 7,000 additional The PDF did not amount to much as ing that a state of war existed with the troops, including the paratroopers. Over a military threat. Its total strength was United States. It named Noriega the the next several days, the airlift would 12,800, of which 4,000 were combat “Maximum Leader.” deliver another 7,000, raising the total forces. It had 38 light airplanes, 17 he- On Dec. 16, the PDF shot three of US forces in Panama to 27,000, most licopters, and no significant air defense American officers at a road block, of them combat forces. capability. In a conflict, there would be killing one of them. The PDF also The job for Stiner’s joint task force no air attack on US ground forces. The arrested and assaulted a US naval of- was to neutralize or secure 27 key posi- United States had more than air supe- ficer and his wife who had witnessed tions and PDF installations, most of them riority. It had an air monopoly. the shooting. Almost 13,000 US troops were in As D-Day approached, Operation Panama prior to reinforcement. The Blue Spoon was renamed “Just Cause.” operation would be mostly launched D-Day would be Dec. 20, with H-Hour from the in-country US bases, which at 1 a.m. were close to the targets to be assaulted. In November, Military Airlift Com- Thurman’s command center was in a mand C-5s had secretly delivered Army secure area of Quarry Heights, next door helicopters and tanks to Howard Air to the Comandancia. Stiner’s headquar- Force Base, where they were concealed ters was at Ft. Clayton. Army Maj. Gen. in hangars and under cover. More troops Wayne A. Downing, commander of the and supplies arrived in December. Joint Special Operations Task Force, was US paratroopers would jump on the at Howard Air Force Base, just across big PDF base at Rio Hato, on the Pacific the canal from Panama City. The force coast 100 miles west of Panama City, assigned to attack the Comandancia and on the Tocumen military airfield, was at Ft. Clayton, only four miles from adjacent to Torrijos Airport east of the Panama City. city. The airlift began the afternoon of It was primarily an Army operation. Dec. 19 when C-130s picked up Army The Marine Corps was ready to perform Rangers from airfields at Ft. Benning, an amphibious landing, but that was Ga., and Ft. Stewart, Ga. A few hours ruled out. Marines and Navy SEALs later, C-141s took off from Pope AFB, would participate in the general assault, N.C., with 82nd Airborne paratroopers but their roles would be secondary. The from Ft. Bragg, N.C. Other C-141s Army Gen. Maxwell Thurman became main Air Force contribution would be lifted heavy equipment for the airdrop head of Southern Command in the an airlift that doubled the number of from Charleston AFB, S.C. months before Just Cause. 58 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2009 around the capital or along the Panama Canal. At 12:45 a.m., 15 minutes before Fantasy and Fact About the F-117 Strike H-Hour, three infantry battalions moved The F-117 strike at Rio Hato was a relatively minor part of the operation, out from Ft. Clayton through Panama but it played big in the political aftermath when Michael R. Gordon reported City to seize the Comandancia and the in the New York Times that the aircraft had missed their targets by more PDF’s Ft. Amador and to protect the than 300 yards. According to Gordon and the Times editorial page, the Air US Embassy. Force had hoped that use of the stealthy F-117 in Panama would “buttress About the same time, two F-117 the case” for its “aeronautical cousin,” the B-2 stealth bomber, and that its stealth fighters swept down on Rio Hato. failure called the technology into doubt. They had come from the Tonapah Test The editorial writers quoted the colonel who led the paratroop assault as Range in Nevada and had refueled four saying that the bombs were supposed to hit the barracks, and that Air Force times in flight. The F-117 had been op- counterclaims, “even if true,” raised troubling questions. The F-117’s “failure” to hit the barracks at Rio Hato has become part of the erational since 1983, but this would be folklore of Operation Just Cause. In one account, the F-117’s equipment began its combat debut. The assignment was “acting up,” and clouds and humidity “played tricks” on the targeting system. to drop bombs near the PDF barracks There are some differences of opinion about what happened exactly, but to “stun and disorient” the inhabitants the weight of evidence differs considerably with the oft-told tales. but not to hit the barracks themselves. Maj. Gen. Wayne A. Downing, commander of the Special Operations Task Each fighter delivered a 2,000-pound Force, had indeed argued for a direct hit on the PDF barracks, but he was GBU-27 laser guided bomb at 1:01 a.m. overruled by Lt. Gen. Carl Stiner, who wanted the bombs to stun rather than and vanished into the night. kill the troops at Rio Hato. Moments later, the Army Rangers The proposal to use the F-117s came initially from Stiner. According to an jumped on Rio Hato from C-130s after article in Air Power History by Stetson M. Siler, the Air Force was not eager to use the F-117 for an objective of such limited importance. a seven-hour flight from the United There was no precise target. The original plan was for the bombs to strike States. The base held out for five hours 50 feet from the buildings, on a parade ground and in an open field. Colin before surrendering. L. Powell increased the offset distance to 200 yards from one barracks and A hundred miles to the northeast, 250 yards from the other. 82nd Airborne paratroopers were land- The most detailed reconstruction is by Malcolm McConnell in his 1991 ing on Tocumen airfield. At 1:55 a.m., book, Just Cause. “A shift in the forecast wind—from the west, not the north- the C-141s air-dropped pallets of heavy east—made it preferable for the pilots to swap targets, with Lead hitting the equipment at Tocumen. Noriega and his field on the right and Two taking the parade ground to the left,” McConnell paramour had been at a PDF rest area said. “It was possible that smoke from the first bomb might disrupt Two’s next to the airfield and barely managed laser target designator’s beam unless this swap was made.” At Rio Hato, however, Lead was “so intent on achieving the proper seaward to escape. Meanwhile, US forces secured offset from the barracks” that he erroneously bombed his original target, and dozens of other H-Hour targets. Two keyed his drop on where Lead had bombed. The first bomb was almost Air Force A-7s and OA-37s from precisely on target, but the second one fell wide. Howard were in the air and available How much difference that made in the stunning and disorienting is any- for fire support, but most of that was body’s guess. supplied instead by Army helicopters Questions about the F-117 itself were answered conclusively in the Gulf and Air Force AC-130 gunships. The War two years later, where the Nighthawk achieved spectacular accuracy in AC-130s had deployed in advance and precision attack. Gordon of the Times agreed that the F-117 was outstand- were in theater as part of the rotational ing in the Gulf, but clung to his claim that it missed the target in Panama. force. Speaking later at an Air Force As- sociation symposium, Brig. Gen. Craig A. Hagan of the Army’s Training and American citizens in Panama and to bring temporary political asylum in the Vatican Doctrine Command testified to the sol- General Noriega to justice in the United Embassy. The nuncio’s representative diers’ view of the AC-130. His son, Capt. States.” At a briefing shortly afterward, picked up Noriega in the parking lot Steve Hagan of the 82nd Airborne, and Powell said that Noriega was “not run- of a Dairy Queen and drove him to the his unit were in a difficult situation that ning anything because we own all of embassy Dec. 24. first night. Fortunately, Captain Hagan the bases he owned eight hours ago.” US troops surrounded the embassy. told his father, there was an AC-130 With Stiner’s approval, a Special overhead. A “Sound Barrier” Operations Command psychologi- “We explained our situation, and the Most of the fighting was over by noon. cal operations group set up speakers guy [in the gunship] said, ‘Where are There was no significant counterattack and blasted the nunciature with rock you?’ and we showed him, and he said, by the PDF, although scattered resistance music, played around the clock at an ‘Where are the bad guys?’ and we showed by dignity battalions and PDF remnants earsplitting volume that could be heard him that. There was a pregnant pause continued for the next few days. Stiner’s blocks away. for a couple of seconds, and then he troops were in control of the Comandan- As officially explained later, it was a said, ‘You need to move back 18 feet.’ ” cia by early evening of Dec. 20. “sound barrier” to prevent reporters with That done, the AC-130 guns took care Noriega hid out for several days in powerful microphones from eavesdrop- of the problem. the houses of his supporters and in the ping on “delicate negotiations.” That Speaking from the White House at 7 province of Chiriqui. He then sought lacked something in credibility, and a.m., President Bush said he had ordered refuge from the papal nuncio, Monsignor a spokesman for the Special Warfare the operation “to protect the lives of Jose Sebastian Laboa, who granted him Center admitted that the purpose had AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2009 59 forces. It was the foremost example of the AirLand Battle doctrine, in which ground forces predominate and airpower was cast in a distinctly supporting role. This notion was upset by the of 1991, which showcased airpower and set the model for subsequent con- flicts of the 1990s. Nevertheless, some ground power theorists saw Just Cause as a better model for future wars than Desert Storm. Just Cause was “everything that subsequent US military operations were not: a rapid, decisive application of overwhelming might,” said Thomas Donnelly, former editor of the Army Times and a member of House Armed Services Committee staff from 1995 to 1999, writing in The National In- Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 509th Infantry, jump from a C-130 Hercules into a drop terest in 2000. “One cannot help but zone outside Panama City during Just Cause. wonder why the campaign has not been enshrined as a paradigm for the been “a very imaginative use” of psy- abstentions) to condemn the operation American way of war.” chological tools. as a violation of international law. In Donnelly’s analysis, Desert Storm It was one of the few boneheaded Casualties and collateral damage was “fought for more limited goals decisions of the campaign. With the were low, thanks to an extraordinary than those of Operation Just Cause,” spectacle playing on television in the effort by Thurman and Stiner to contain and “was also fought in a more limited United States, Powell called Thurman, the violence. Despite that, Ramsey fashion.” The Gulf War and subsequent told him that Bush viewed the tactic not Clark, former US attorney general operations were “incomplete victories,” only as politically embarrassing but also turned international activist, denounced he said. “irritating and petty,” and that Thurman a “conspiracy of silence” about what he Any legitimate comparison of Just was to stop the music. claimed was the killing of some 3,000 Cause and Desert Storm must take Noriega surrendered Jan. 3. US troops Panamanians. into account differences in scope and took him to Howard, where agents of distance as well as advantages unlikely the Drug Enforcement Administration Just Cause, a Template to recur in future wars. Noriega had no arrested him on the ramp of a C-130, Some reports imagined the death toll airpower. The PDF was incompetent. which flew him to Homestead AFB, as high as 8,000. In actuality, 23 US ser- The United States already had thou- Fla. He was convicted in 1992 of drug vicemen were killed and 324 wounded. sands of combat troops inside Panama trafficking and money laundering and Enemy losses were 314 killed and 124 and staging bases within easy reach of sentenced to 40 years in prison. wounded. The best estimate of civilian the targets. The airlift doubled the US Trial Judge William M. Hoeveler ruled casualties was 202 killed and 1,508 force without opposition. that Noriega had been captured in the wounded. About 1,000 Panamanians At a symposium put on in 2007 by course of an armed conflict, which gave were left homeless as the result of arson the Association of the US Army, Lt. him prisoner of war status under the and looting by the dignity battalions Gen. Thomas F. Metz, deputy com- Geneva Convention. In 1999, Hoeveler between Dec. 20 and Jan. 1. mander of Army Training and Doctrine reduced the sentence by 10 years, so that The PDF was abolished, although Command, described Just Cause as with time off for good behavior, Noriega parts of it were reorganized as cadre “the first war of the 21st century” and was eligible for release in 2007. for the new Fuerza Publica, or Public Desert Storm as “the last war of the Although he completed his sentence Force. The Comandancia was torn down. 20th century.” in September 2007, Noriega remains in In 1997, US Southern Command re- What can be said without argument is jail while federal courts consider what located to Miami, and full Panamanian that Just Cause was a strong operation, to do with him. His lawyers are trying to control of the canal became effective at well-planned, capably commanded, block Panamanian requests for extradi- noon, Dec. 31, 1999. and executed with few mistakes. It tion (for murder) and French extradition For a while, there was a flurry of belief was the first big success of US arms requests (for money laundering) on the among ground force advocates that Just in many years. Just Cause broke the grounds that he is a POW and not subject Cause would be the template for US lingering attitudes and perceptions to extradition. military engagements of the future. The from Vietnam and re-established the The departure of US troops from operation had been planned and run by recognition that US forces could fight Panama began Jan. 4 and Operation the Army and it used an emphatic Army and win. That was sufficient to earn Just Cause was terminated Jan. 11. A approach to the employment of joint its place in history. n public opinion poll found that nine out of 10 Panamanians favored the John T. Correll was editor in chief of Air Force Magazine for 18 years and is now a US intervention. Nevertheless, the UN contributing editor. His most recent article, “The Air Invasion of Burma,” appeared General Assembly voted 75-20 (with 40 in the November issue. 60 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2009