Word: commandant
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...George Bush had ordered American forces to prevent Panamanian soldiers from reaching the headquarters where Manuel Noriega was bottled up, the U.S. surely had the military muscle to do the job. The 12,000 U.S. combat troops under the Southern Command far outstrip the 6,000-man Panama Defense Forces in both training and hardware. But civilian and military casualties would have been high, if only because the vital military installations are situated in downtown Panama City. As a Marine officer pointed out, "Even an M-1 rifle can kill a lot of people in a crowd...
...were not sure what was happening, but I felt something had to be done" was the way Gerald Ford explained his recapture of the cargo ship Mayaguez in the Gulf of Thailand in 1975. "Let's do it" was Reagan's simple command that sent F-14 pilots aloft on a risky mission in the Mediterranean that apprehended and forced down the Egyptian airliner carrying the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro...
...facts seem stacked against Bush. But he has not had his day in public, and his command process is more secretive than that of any recent President. We know that young Panamanian officers responded to U.S. pressure to rid their country of Manuel Noriega, that we were aware of the plot, involved to some undetermined degree and that a few yards away were some of the 12,000 trained and armed American troops stationed in Panama. Does opportunity ever knock so hard...
...bastard, a sort of mini-Noriega," says a Pentagon official. "Warning signs went up. We feared a Noriega trap." Fueling that suspicion was the fact that two principal U.S. players -- General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Maxwell Thurman, chief of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama -- had taken up their posts just that weekend. The timing of the coup seemed calculated to take advantage of their greenness...
When Thurman called Tuesday morning to say fighting had broken out, Powell promptly asked, "Where's Noriega?" That seemingly obvious question produced a host of answers that further muddied events. The roadblocks were ordered and the 12,000 troops attached to the U.S. Southern Command were put on Delta alert, a battle-ready status that calls for American forces to secure U.S. facilities. At about 11:45 p.m. two rebel lieutenants appeared at the gate of Fort Clayton, the main U.S. Army base in the canal zone, and were ushered into an office to meet with Southcom's deputy commander...