Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

In order to familiarize themselves with the environment, the Sheridan crews accompanied the mechanized battalion on their daily Sand Flea exercises, which let them eyeball the targets they'd hit — though they had no idea that was what they were doing.

The C-5 carrying the six Apaches landed at Howard the next night at midnight. They were off-loaded and rolled into hangar number one for reassembly. They remained there during the day, but the crews flew them at night — to familiarize themselves with flying in Panama and to condition the locals to the sound of Apaches.

At the commanders' conference, each commander briefed Stiner on the details of his plan. All of this was generally satisfactory, but Stiner was still uncomfortable with the level of the crew proficiency for executing battalion-size air assaults at night. A program of intensified training was initiated to correct this.

BOMB THREAT

On November 18, word came to General Thurman that the Medellin drug cartel was planning attacks against Americans in Panama in retaliation for U.S. counterdrug assistance in Colombia. The source stated that three car bombs had already been positioned in a Panama City warehouse, ready to be moved to American targets and activated, and that a three-person terrorist team, expert at fabricating false identities and gaining access to U.S. installations, was already operating within Panama. The source providing this information had been given a lie- detector test, and had passed.

'We have no choice,' Thurman said to Stiner. 'We have to take that kind of threat seriously. That means you are stood up, my friend' — meaning he was activating Joint Task Force South immediately for its wartime mission. 'I will increase the alert status to the maximum for all installations and troops. You're in charge. So start operating now.'

'Yes, sir, >> Stiner replied.

When Thurman told Powell what he had done, Powell was a little bent out of shape; only the SECDEF has authority to activate a Joint Task Force. But Secretary Cheney, recalling the Beirut bombing of U.S. Marines, did not contest Thurman's action.

Stiner sent his commanders back to their units in the United States to begin rehearsals, but he and his staff remained behind in Panama to oversee the increased security.

Carl Stiner continues:

All U.S. installations were 'closed,' checkpoints were manned by armed guards, nothing was admitted without a thorough inspection and proper identification, and SOUTHCOM flew in explosive detection dogs — not enough of them, it turned out, to suit the MPs. They started hollering for more.

'Shit,' I told them, 'you don't need a trained dog, what you need is 'deterrent' dogs to spread out among the ones you've already got. So get out and catch you some.'

They did, and it was a sight to behold. As the trained dogs were crawling underneath the cars, the deterrent dogs were as often as not hosing down the hubcaps.

All our security measures quickly resulted in virtual gridlock. Traffic lined up to get on installations was sometimes over a mile long.

Meanwhile, our people had located the warehouse where the car bombs had supposedly been placed, and I'd gone to General Thurman to see if he couldn't get Panama-based FBI or DEA personnel in there to check it out; but it turned out they had no legal authority. Neither was it technically legal to use U.S. military personnel, since a deployment order for a military operation in Panama had not been published by the Secretary of Defense.

We still needed somehow to get into that warehouse, which was guarded twenty-four hours a day by an armed guard. I told Thurman that it would be unconscionable to let one of those bombs explode, and that I would take care of it. The guard agreed to cooperate and willingly unlocked the door. There were no car bombs, and no evidence there ever had been.

The whole thing was a hoax.

On November 27, with approval from Washington, the Joint Task Force was dissolved and I returned home.

The bomb hoax was not a total loss, however. The security measures had turned out to be a good exercise in readiness.

PROVOCATIONS

As units rehearsed their plans in the United States and Panama, the situation in Panama was swiftly deteriorating. Dignity Battalions were increasing their provocations, and Noriega was busy firing up the PDF with machete-waving personal appearances.

Back in the States, Stiner was involved in rehearsals or on the road, making certain that all the major commands from all the services were aware of all the details of the plan and prepared to support their part in the operation.

He made three trips to the Pentagon to brief General Powell, and he also briefed Admiral Frank Kelso, Commander of the U.S. Atlantic Command (who was responsible for providing cover for the airlift armada as it passed Cuba); General Hansford T. Johnson, the Commander of the Military Airlift Command, who would be providing the airlift; General Edwin H. Burba, U.S. Army Forces Command Commander; and General Jim Lindsay, Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command.

In late November and early December, conventional and special operations forces conducted detailed rehearsals at Fort Bragg and Eglin Air Force Base, and in Panama. Since operational security was a major concern, rehearsals were masked as routine training exercises. Only senior commanders and staff knew about the link with the actual contingency plan.

As the situation in Panama continued to deteriorate, Stiner grew more and more convinced that it was just a matter of time before the plan would have to be implemented. Every unit was rehearsed and ready, but training continued, to maintain unit readiness. Now came the waiting.

The National Command Authority had never wanted a preemptive strike, since the universal perception would be that it was an 'invasion of a small and unprepared foe by the world's strongest nation' — taking a sledgehammer to a flea. Instead, they wanted a trigger incident that would justify the operation in the eyes of the world.

On December 15, the Noriega-appointed National Assembly voted to make him head of government and 'maximum leader of the struggle for national liberation.' Another resolution stated, 'The Republic of Panama is declared to be in a state of war with the United States, as long as U.S. aggression in the form of economic sanctions imposed in 1988 continues.'

TRIGGER

At about 9:30 P.M. on Saturday, December 16, four young officers, just off duty at SOUTHCOM headquarters, were driving downtown for a pizza, when they were stopped at a PDF roadblock near the Comandancia. The PDF soldiers began beating on the car, trying to drag the Americans out. The driver sped away. The PDF opened fire. Barely a minute later, when it was all over, one officer had been shot in the ankle and Marine First Lieutenant Robert Paz had been mortally wounded.

Shortly afterward, the PDF stopped Navy Lieutenant Adam Curtis and his wife, Bonnie, who had witnessed the shooting incident, at the same roadblock. They were taken to the Comandancia and interrogated in the presence of a PDF officer. There, Curtis was kicked in the head and groin, and his wife was threatened sexually,