unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/11/89)
do it than the word of a coup plotter who may in fact be involved
in an effort to set up, if you will, the United States
Government.
So given all of that, given what we've seen come since, given all
of the sort of after-action analysis that's now underway, my
basic conclusion is we made a good policy decision, and if I had
to do it all over again I'd make exactly the same decision.
Q: Mr. Secretary, you should have this used this incident as a
cover.
A: Can you imagine what it would be like for me to go to Capitol
Hill, to my former colleagues and former friends on Capitol Hill,
and say to them, guys we had this great opportunity down there.
There was this coup underway, so as a pretext, as a cover, we
committed U.S. forces to go in and get Noriega. I don't think
you operate that way. Those forces are there to protect American
interests, to safeguard American lives, to protect our rights and
responsibilities under the Canal Treaty. There is no question but
what if we wanted, we could go in and wipe out the PDF today,
could do it by sundown. There's no question what we've got the
military force to go take Mr. Noriega. But you'd probably take
a fair number of casualties if you did it. You don't embark upon
that course of action lightly.
My own view is that many of the critics on Capitol Hill who are
now criticizing us for not having intervened in Panama, would be
criticizing us even more vociferously if we had intervened in
Panama.
Q: Are you satisfied with a couple of specific things? Number
one, there was apparently a three week period of time in which
you did not hear about Major Giraldi.
A: First of all, that assumes there was some contact at some
level, some place. There are coup reports on a fairly regular
basis. That's not new. That happens frequently, I don't know
how many times a week. But you get a lot of coup reports in
this business, and especially, you get a lot of coup reports out
of Panama. I have no knowledge. I was asked if I knew anything
about the report that was in a number of the newspapers this
morning about the contact three weeks ago by Major Giraldi's
wife, and the answer is no. I never heard about it until I saw
it in the newspaper this morning.
Q: But nonetheless, you were in a circumstance on Tuesday
morning when you were touring a battlefield at a time when a
coup was going on. Clearly, in retrospect, I can't imagine that
you wouldn't have preferred to have been someplace else when you
received that news.
A: No, not at all. The visit with the Defense Minister of the
Soviet Union is a fairly important event. It's a historic
first. It's the first time we've ever had a Defense Minister
from the Soviet Union visit the United States. There had been a
coup reported to go down on Monday, and it didn't come off. The
idea that I would have said to the Soviet Defense Minister,
"Sorry, Genera Yazov, you're on your own today. I have to stay
here because there's a rumor communications. The flow of
information was not impeded at all by my being in Gettysburg
that morning. I don't think it had any impact at all.
Q: Were you satisfied, in fact, with the communications between
your people on the scene and the rebels? Since there was
obviously advance notice there...
A: No, I'm not satisfied. We'd love to have an open phone line
to the guys inside running the coup. You don't have that.
That's not the way the real world works.
Q: Do you know whether the major is alive or dead now?
A: I don't know.
Q: Can you be specific about exactly when the decision was made
to take the family of Major Giraldi and give them sanctuary,
take them onto the base?
A: When I was first contacted by General Powell early Monday
morning, the message that was conveyed to me was really sort of a
three-part message. One, there may be a coup. Two, would we
block troop movements by the 5th and 7th Infantry Companies
against the coup plotters. And three, would we provide
sanctuary for the family of the major. The only one of those
that I agreed to was yes, we would indeed provide sanctuary for
the family of the major. So it was early Monday morning when it
first came up.
Q: Before it happened. So it could have been perceived by him
as tacit approval of this operation.
A: I don't know what it was perceived by him. At that point, we
didn't know whether he was for real or not. But as a standard
practice, I will, and have in the past, and I will in the
future, if somebody comes and says will you as a humanitarian
action provide sanctuary for somebody like that, certainly we
would do it. We've provided sanctuary for others in Panama
previous to this.
Q: Originally you were led to believe that this coup would go
down Monday. When that didn't happen and it was alleged to perhaps
go down Tuesday, forces were dispatched perhaps to block those
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