LIEUTENANT GENERAL KELLY was at home on Saturday evening, December 16, when the phone rang at 9:25. It was the Southern Command’s operations director, Brigadier General William Hertzog, calling from Panama City. He sounded agitated.
“We just had a guy shot,” Hertzog said. “He might be dead.”
Kelly asked for more information.
Hertzog said it was an off-duty Marine lieutenant. “We don’t know what’s happening right now. We’re still working on it.”
Fine, Kelly said. He hung up and began dialing.
Powell was at home at Quarters 6, up in the second-floor living area, which has a study, a TV room and a small dining room. The Powells spent most of their time there, away from the spacious, formal first floor used for official entertaining. All indications from intelligence were that it was going to be a quiet weekend around the world. Alma Powell was reading. The Chairman’s private phone rang.
“General Powell,” he answered.
Kelly reported the Panama shooting.
“Shit,” Powell said. He asked Kelly to report further developments.
Soon Powell received a report that the Marine was seriously wounded, followed by a confirmed report that he had died at the hospital. His name was Lieutenant Robert Paz.
Powell called Cheney at home. “It is starting to build,” Powell said.
Kelly went to his Pentagon office and was joined by his deputy for current operations, Rear Admiral Joe Lopez, a studious, low-key destroyer officer. They formed a small Crisis Action Team of a handful of Joint Staff specialists and began work immediately in the National Military Command Center (NMCC).
There were more details on the shooting. Paz had been one of four off-duty officers, unarmed and in civilian clothes, who had gone out into Panama City for dinner and had apparently made a wrong turn onto a street called Avenue A near PDF headquarters. Their car had been stopped at a PDF roadblock. They said PDF soldiers had tried to pull them from the car and aimed weapons at them, so the driver had attempted to speed away from the roadblock. The PDF had opened fire. Another of the officers had been grazed on the ankle by a bullet. Paz was wounded and later died at Gorgas Army Hospital.
Kelly was still personally tracking all the major incidents of Americans being abused or harassed in Panama. He had never been able to put his finger on anything conclusive establishing that Noriega or the senior PDF leadership was forcing a direct confrontation. Until now, no American serviceman had been killed by the PDF. As he read through the reports, Kelly saw that the Paz incident wasn’t a clear-cut incident of unprovoked PDF aggression—the car had sped away from a legitimate roadblock, lending an element of ambiguity.
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 provably 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.
Welch said he agreed that the mistreatment of the Navy couple was more indicative of an environment of chaos than was the shooting of the Marine. He wanted to make sure both actions were not the work of some errant PDF soldiers.
Powell and Kelly said that they were as sure as they could be. Not only the accounts of the Navy couple, but the intercepted signals intelligence on Noriega showed he was personally covering up for his own organization.
In that environment, Welch responded, the choice for the United States was either to get out of Panama entirely or get in all the way. Given the international responsibility to protect the Panama Canal, the United States could not retreat to a Panama equivalent of Guantanamo Bay, the only remaining U.S. enclave in Cuba. So in that sense there was no choice.
Still, Welch, holding his audience with a careful pause, said they had to understand and consider the downsides of a massive invasion.
Powell and the others seemed to want to hear what he had to say.
The first downside, Welch said, was that they had to expect that the other Latin American nations would, at the least, posture against what the United States was doing. U.S. policies in the region could be set back years. The issue would likely be whipped up by the media. There was no way the United States realistically could expect any public expressions of support from Latin American friends.
Though Powell agreed, he replied that the Latin American leaders privately would be as delighted as anybody to be rid of the Noriega embarrassment.
Nonetheless, Welch said, it was a downside that had to be faced. In addition, the reaction was likely to be negative in other countries where the United States had large bases, such as the Philippines.
A second downside, Welch said, was the possibility that the PDF might be far more resistant than expected. The United States had to be prepared to commit whatever force was necessary for whatever time was necessary to clear up the situation. BLUE SPOON includes what we think is a totally adequate force, Welch said, and that could lead the President or anyone else to conclude that that is the limit of the commitment. That could be a big problem. He hoped a quick fix had not been promised.
A third downside, Welch pointed out, was that there would be critics who would say that the Department of Defense was running out of enemies and had seized on this opportunity to demonstrate the need for military force.
Fourth, Welch said, was the David and Goliath problem—the real possibility that popular feeling, due partly to the impact of the media in this country, would see Noriega as the little guy, unfairly overwhelmed.
And fifth, they had to be sure that they didn’t have a Gulf of Tonkin situation, Welch said, referring to the ambiguous nature of the 1964 North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. ships, which had led to a congressional resolution granting President Johnson extraordinary authority to respond in Vietnam. This time, Welch said, the American military had to be certain that the provocation was genuine, that they had a situation in Panama they couldn’t live with, that they couldn’t ask their people down there to live with.
It was a long list of negatives, and it was not clear where Welch was going with his argument.
He finally summarized. As long as they went in with their eyes open to these downsides and were committed enough to overcome them as events unfolded, he supported the operation. There was no other solution, he said.
Powell took the floor. He and Kelly were going over to see the President, he said. My recommendation is going to be that we execute BLUE SPOON. “I want to make sure that we’re all agreeing.” He went around the room once again asking for final recommendations.
All four chiefs said they were with him.
Carrying large poster-board maps showing the assault points in Panama, Powell and Kelly climbed into the Chairman’s car and were driven to the White House.
That Sunday was a beautiful wintry day. The city streets were decked out for Christmas. It was a time for family and peace, perhaps the most difficult season in which to recommend an offensive military operation to the President, Powell reflected.
Kelly and Powell were wearing casual civilian clothes as they trooped through the White House up to the second-floor residence for a two o’clock meeting with Bush. One of the Bushes’ many Christmas parties, this one for some of their closest family and friends, was winding down on the first floor. Carolers in 18th-century costume were singing off to one side and a few hangerson lingered.
Cheney, who had attended a few Christmas parties since his morning meeting at the Pentagon, arrived. Baker, Scowcroft, Bob Gates and press secretary Marlin Fitzwater also came in. Bush was wearing a white shirt, blue blazer, gray slacks, brown shoes and a pair of bright red socks, one emblazoned with the word “Merry,” the other with “Christmas.” Kelly thought they were the most God-awful socks he’d ever seen.
Powell noted to himself that the only key players missing were Vice President Quayle and Chief of Staff Sununu. Normally Powell wouldn’t have gone to such a meeting without an advance read on the positions of the various players, but events had carried them so quickly that he had not had a chance to find out where people stood.
Kelly gave a seven-minute summary of the facts they had gathered about Lieutenant Paz’s death and the harassment of the Curtises. The latter incident had been overseen, he said, by a senior PDF officer. Kelly could tell that Bush and the others were more disturbed by this event than by the shooting of Paz. Sticking to the facts, Kelly, who favored an invasion, laid it on as heavily as he could. He said these two actions were unprecedented, even in Noriega’s Panama.
Powell presented only one option to the President: BLUE SPOON.
Why don’t we just go get Noriega? Bush asked. Take me through why we shouldn’t do this with a smaller force.
Reeling off all his arguments about the need to destroy the PDF, Powell said that the massive use of force was in fact less risky than a smaller effort. This was the prudent course, he told Bush. The choice, effectively, was pay now or pay later. You go down there to take Noriega out and you haven’t accomplished that much because he would be replaced by another corrupt PDF thug.
“You’re going to have American blood spilled,” Powell warned, but probably more would be spilled with a small force than if they used a major blow to take the PDF down.
Powell said he would need at least 48 hours’ advance notice to prepare and marshal the forces and air transportation for BLUE SPOON. The ideal H-Hour was 1 a.m., late enough to surprise the PDF but leaving five hours before daybreak to decapitate them. Also, a 1 a.m. start would be close to high tide, a real benefit for the Navy SEALs. At low tide, some of the landing areas would be vast mudflats, so mucky that not even the hardy SEALs could trudge through them. Another benefit was that only one plane was scheduled to land after 1 a.m. at Torrijos international airport, a key target.
BLUE SPOON would be a complete take-down of the PDF and the Panamanian government. “We are going to own the country for several weeks,” Powell said, underscoring that this plan was not a surgical strike, or a simple in-and-out operation. Bad things will happen, Mr. President, the Chairman said. There will be casualties, ours and theirs, military and civilian. “We will do everything we can to keep them at a minimum.”
Scowcroft inquired about casualty levels.
“We are going to hurt people,” Powell responded. “There will be loss of life and there will be chaos. We are going to be taking down the law enforcement operation.” He avoided naming a specific number. He said he could guarantee rapid success but could not give a specific time of how long it would take.
“Don’t ask us in two days when we are coming home, Mr. President,” Powell said. “The PDF could surrender at the first landing and be out there with ‘Welcome Yankee’ signs, or there could be nasty firefights for weeks.”
Bush probed. He had all kinds of questions that challenged the plan, some of them very specific; for example, how long it would take to get from one road to another. “Well, I don’t know,” the President said at one point.
Powell feared that the meeting was drifting like a sailboat tacking back and forth across a bay, and he didn’t know where it would end up. After answering the questions put to him, he concluded: “My recommendation is that we go with the full plan. I can tell you that the chiefs agree with me to a man.”
When Powell was finished, Cheney spoke up. “I support what the Chairman just recommended to you,” he told Bush.
Kelly had the impression that Cheney’s relative silence meant he’d talked with the President separately before the meeting, and felt that since his position was already on the table, he didn’t need to say a lot.
But, in fact, Cheney had not spoken privately with Bush. It was simply that after the failed coup, it had become clear to him that the President wanted this problem solved. It had been up to Powell, he felt, to carry the ball by outlining the military plan.
“I think we ought to go,” Baker said. “As you know, the State Department has been for this for a long time, but these are the downsides of doing it.”
The Secretary of State then made a tour of the world, predicting the responses the invasion would prompt. The Organization of American States would feel an obligation to denounce the interference, he said, but that was predictable. Individual Latin American governments and Third World nations would feel the same obligation. Mexico would take a real shot for sure. Even the allies, the friendly governments of Western Europe, would give the United States some flak just because it would be a good opportunity to bash Uncle Sam. The Soviets would also make their usual negative statement. But overall, Baker said, he did not think that any nation’s heart would be in the criticism, and he anticipated that privately most of these governments would send back-channel word that they were neutral or even pleased.
Baker said that State could handle the notification process with other governments—the allies, the Soviets. The President, of course, would want to make many of the calls.
Scowcroft reentered the fray. As Powell saw it, Scowcroft was doing Bush’s sharpshooting.
What about the casualty levels? Scowcroft asked again, raising his voice.
Powell said no number could be given.
Damage levels?
Again it was hard to say, but a large force was planned and the damage would be extensive, though they were not going to go in just to shoot up the place, Powell said. Each of the 28 targeted assault points was there for a reason—concentrations of the PDF, possible Noriega hangouts, the main power distribution center, and Madden Dam, which controlled much of the water in the canal and had to be protected. Loss of Madden Dam could render the canal unusable for up to a year. The CIA man Kurt Muse was targeted for rescue—the old ACID GAMBIT rescue plan had been incorporated into BLUE SPOON.
Would Noriega be captured?
The best special operations people would be on his trail.
One of the President’s stated goals in Panama was to bring about democracy, Scowcroft noted. Would this do it? And how?
The plan was to secretly swear in Endara, the winner of the May election, as president just before the invasion.
Soon they turned away from the BLUE SPOON plan itself, and began to ask about the aftermath. At this moment, Powell thought it finally looked as if Bush were going to approve. The sailboat had finished its tacking and was heading directly to its destination.
Someone asked about the public and press reaction.
Marlin Fitzwater, who had said very little, now remarked that he thought both would generally be positive. “Of course, you’re going to have that element in the press that will criticize you,” he told Bush. But he himself did not think that would be a major problem.
After an hour and 40 minutes, Bush said, as if to summarize the view of Noriega that had emerged, “This guy is not going to lay off. It will only get worse.”
In Powell’s own mind, the six key questions had been asked and answered. Was there sufficient provocation? Powell thought yes. Has the PDF changed and gone out of control? Again yes. Would BLUE SPOON resolve the problem? Yes. Would the plan minimize damage and casualties? Yes. Would it bring democracy? Yes. And public and press reaction? Probably positive.
“Okay, let’s go,” Bush said. He looked at Powell, and said very quietly, “We’re going to go.”
“Roger, sir.”
Kelly felt an immediate rush to his gut, the first time in his two years as director of operations. They were committing young Americans to combat and some of them were going to die. The safety had been taken off the loaded guns.
Because BLUE SPOON required a 48-hour minimum advance notice, H-Hour was set for 1 a.m. Wednesday, December 20.
Who could know about the decision without compromising operational security? someone asked.
The minimum number of people essential to successfully carry out the operation, Bush directed. He made it clear that he meant the absolute minimum.
• • •
Powell and Kelly were quiet in the car going back to the Pentagon. “I want you to get this information out,” Powell said, referring exclusively to the key operations people in the commands that would be involved. “I don’t want an order published. I want you to just call people on the [secure] telephone.” Powell said that the Vice Chairman, General Bob Herres, and the current director of the Joint Staff, Lieutenant General Michael P. C. Carnes, could be told the next day.
Both Powell and Kelly pondered how long the secret could be kept. They hoped to make it through the Monday evening news without some direct information leaking. They thought something would get out on Tuesday for sure, but perhaps the leak would be late enough or unclear enough that they would still have a chance for some kind of surprise at H-Hour.
Back at the Pentagon, Powell called the four CINCs who would be immediately involved.
One was Max Thurman. Powell told him that BLUE SPOON had been approved but the formal order would not come until the next day.
“Roger.”
Powell also called the CINC of the Special Operations Command, General James J. Lindsay, and the Forces Command CINC, General Edwin H. Burba, Jr.
At the U.S. Transportation Command headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, General Hansford T. Johnson was not anticipating an execution order. Several months earlier he had left the Pentagon, where he had been director of the Joint Staff under Admiral Crowe, and he still had good contacts back in Washington. Earlier that Sunday morning he and his people had received informal word to “spin up” their airlift capability for BLUE SPOON. Some of Johnson’s staff people had told him they would not be able to find the pilots fast enough for an execution. But in the afternoon they were told it wasn’t going to happen and to get unspun. When Powell’s call came through, Johnson was a little surprised to be hearing from the Chairman.
“The President has authorized me to tell you we’re going to execute BLUE SPOON,” Powell said.
“We are prepared to go,” Johnson said, in spite of the warnings of a pilot shortage.
Powell called each of the chiefs to inform them of Bush’s approval. He apologized to Vuono for failing to show up at his Christmas party that afternoon. Cheney also had been a no-show.
As a final matter that night, Powell made sure that the key special operations units were dispatched. The lead Delta squadron, code-named AZTEC PACKAGE, and a SILVER BULLET package of helicopters probably would be left back in the States for any terrorist contingency elsewhere in the world. Otherwise, much of the military’s special operations capability was going to be sent to Panama, more than 4,000 men. Many would be involved in tracking and, if all went well, apprehending Noriega in the first hours of the operation.
An order was issued dispatching 20 special operations scout and attack helicopters to Panama on giant C-5 cargo planes. They were to be unloaded at night and hidden in hangars until H-Hour.
• • •
Kelly knew one way he could enforce “opsec,” operational security. Back in his office at the Pentagon, he called in the Crisis Action Team for Panama and told them to go home. Next, he called in the public affairs officer for the Joint Staff, Navy Captain Erwin A. Sharp, and told him to go on his scheduled Christmas leave.
When everyone had cleared out, Kelly summoned his deputy for current operations, Joe Lopez, and four junior officers on his Latin American team, and sat them down on the leather couches and chairs in his office.
“We’re going to execute BLUE SPOON,” Kelly said, swearing each to maximum secrecy, and instructing that every step was to be carried out with opsec foremost in their minds.
Kelly received a call from General Lindsay, commander-in-chief of the Special Operations Command. Lindsay said he thought it was a terrible name for an operation. “Do you want your grandchildren to say you were in BLUE SPOON?” he asked Kelly.
It could have been worse, Kelly thought. One of the Panama contingency plans was named BLIND LOGIC. Other operations had been given equally strange names over the years. One general had executed a STUMBLING BLOCK and a LIMA BEAN. Kelly tossed around ideas for a new name with Joe Lopez. “How about JUST ACTION?” Kelly proposed.
“How about JUST CAUSE?” Lopez countered.
They agreed that would be much better. The name was sent up the chain of command and approved.
A fax had arrived from Panama, reporting on the Naval Investigative Service’s debriefings of Navy Lieutenant Curtis and his wife, Bonnie. Bonnie Curtis’s detailed account of her treatment was even worse than what had been reported to President Bush, Cheney and Powell. The two-and-a-half-page summary, stamped received at the JCS December 17 at 12:37 p.m., said of Mrs. Curtis’s questioning: “The interrogator made a few lewd comments like, If you don’t tell us the truth, I will stick my finger up inside you, Don’t you want me to put my nine inches inside you?”
Powell went back to Quarters 6. There were a few more calls to make sure that each of the key people knew what the others were doing. After the calls, suddenly with time on his hands, he let the enormity of the decision sink in. They were going to war. He’d personally known, but heard and read more, about the self-doubt the commander feels on the eve of battle. Now such misgivings struck him hard, and thinking through the plans again did not make the doubts yield or go away. BLUE SPOON was an incredibly complex plan, requiring precision—one miscue could set off a string of others, like a pile-up on the freeway.
The F-117As arriving from their Nevada base would be bombing at Rio Hato, a key PDF base, one minute before the Ranger drop there. That was very close. Late 117As or early Rangers would mean disaster. The AC-130 gunships would have only ten minutes to “prepare”—demolish—the Comandancia before infantry attacked it. Powell wondered if the SEAL teams were wired together properly and fully integrated with the rest of the plan.
And where was Noriega? Did he know? Would he suspect anything? Would he find out?