unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/11/89)
contact between our people in Panama and the rebels, and at that
time they had made it clear to us they did not want to turn
General Noriega over to the United States.
Q: There was a story in the _T_i_m_e_s that the White House was
confident enough about the handling of it that Mr. Sununu has ordered
an investigation and apparently sources are being quoted as
saying that it wasn't handled as effectively as it should be. Is
there going to be an investigation? And would you dispute that
characterization?
A: I'm not in a position to be able to speak for Governor Sununu
or the White House. You ought to direct this question over
there.
Q: What about your characterization of how well it was handled?
A: I've been through a number of these over the years. During
my time in the White House with President Ford we evacuated
Danang, we evacuated Saigon and Phnom Penh, rescued the crew of
the Mayaguez, evacuated Beirut, Lebanon on two separate
occasions, where you've got these kinds of crisis type
situations that involve potential threat to life and possible
use of military forces. I would have to say compared with those
other times when I've been involved, tha this was handled as
well as it could be under the circumstances. That doesn't mean
we couldn't learn from it. You always can when you go through
one of these exercises and look at it afterwards. But we had a
lot of information coming to us. A lot of it was conflicting
information. People ask about the quality of intelligence. You
have a confusing situation on the ground in Panama, and what
comes through the pipeline to policy makers in Washington is
confusion on the ground in Panama, and that's an accurate
portrayal. But it doesn't help you make decisions very much
because you get conflicting reports about, for example, do the
rebels have Noriega, do they not have Noriega, and so there are
a normal number of kinds of questions that come out of that.
But in terms of the basic, overall operation itself with respect
to how we responded, and I'd emphasize we are still learning
things about what transpired; you don't have all knowledge at the
moment that you sit down to make the decision in the midst of a
crisis. Some things you learn four or five days after the
event. We may get a defector from the PDF six months from now
who will be able to go through blow by blow exactly what
transpired in the compound where Noriega was apparently held.
But given what you had to operate with at the time, I think we
made sound decisions. Given what I've seen since, I'm still
convinced that I would have made exactly the same
recommendations and that we would have made exactly the same
decisions we did. The issue, the bottom line issue, and you can
get into the who struck Johns and who talked to who when and what
moved to what location under what circumstances, but the bottom
line question for the President, do you want to intervene with
military force in a coup in Panama. The factors that affected
that judgement included the lack confidence in the individual who
was reportedly going to undertake the coup, the fact that he was
identified as a Noriega crony, the fact that he controlled the
security force at PDF headquarters, the fact that he'd been
involved in putting down a previous coup, and the fact that on
Sunday night we were told by the coup plotter himself that he did
not plan to undertake the coup if Noriega were present. Those
are all things that are out there that you've got to consider as
this unfolds.
Other items that affected our decision not to intervene included
such things, as when the coup initiative began, was the coup
successful? You hear lot of shooting from the compound, and
then it dies down. Who won? Who's in charge in the compound?
Another question was, is Noriega in the compound? Did the rebels
succeed in the coup? Did they physically possess the building?
And do they have Noriega?
We didn't know at the outset. Eventually, as things unfolded, we
gained increasing confidence that they did have Noriega, and
that was confirmed, finally, when we had this contact between
our officer and the people, but initially you don't know. We
had reports that placed him in other locations in Panama that
morning, and we had the word of the guy who was running the coup
from Sunday night that the coup wouldn't go down if Noriega were
present. There was a lot of confusion at the time because there
was a lot of confusion in Panama. That's what's coming up
through the system.
The bottom line was the President made the decision, and I think
very properly, that you do not commit American personnel into a
combat situation unless you've got a very clear idea of what
your objective is, unless you can give them a very clear-cut
mission, and unless you've got a much better basis upon which to
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