Meanwhile, U.S. aid stations and hospitals were opened to the sick and wounded; fifteen thousand Panamanians were treated at U.S. facilities.
From December 26 to January 3, Civil Affairs and Special Forces troops operated thirteen food distribution centers, handing out 1,660 tons of food—mostly meals-ready-to-eat (MREs)—and one million tons of bulk food, such as baby food, liquids, dehydrated milk, and dried beans.
Cleaning up Panama City was relatively easy. The Civil Affairs troops and the MPs used some of the less hostile detainees held at the detention camp, organized them into detachments, placed them under U.S. guard, and took them into the city to do cleanup work. This was a great morale boost for local residents.
One of the first official ceremonies performed by President Endara was to swing a sledgehammer against the wall of the now-war-ravaged Comandancia. His swings were punctuated by chants from a crowd: “Harder, harder.” This hated symbol of torture and oppression was being transformed into an apartment complex for those who had lost their homes in the fire.
TRANSITION AND REDEPLOYMENT
As word of Noriega’s arrest and imprisonment in the United States spread across Panama, there was no longer any reason for resistance, and it was now possible to begin redeploying our combat forces.
Downing’s special mission forces meanwhile relentlessly dismantled the Dignity Battalions; people were coming forth with information on their whereabouts about as fast as Downing’s forces could follow up on them. It was a matter of time before they were no longer a viable force. That moment occurred on January 10, when Benjamin Calomarko, their commander, surrendered to U.S. forces.
At 6:00 P.M. on January 11, General Thurman was notified by the Pentagon that Operation JUST CAUSE was officially terminated.
It had indeed been a just cause. All our troops had believed that from the beginning. Their reward would be an enduring feeling in their hearts that they had sacrificed for what was just and right, and that their actions had made Panama a better place.
Their victory for freedom had not been without cost:
All armored vehicles, crew-served weapons, and ammunition were evacuated to the United States.
All other weapons and ammunition, except what was needed for training and equipping the new presidential security, reaction, and police force, was either destroyed or evacuated to the United States.
All vessels/ships and aircraft were restored to operational condition and left with the new government.
All money was turned over to the new government.
All explosives and chemical weapons were destroyed.
On January 3, we began a phased redeployment (January 18—26) of the 17,000 combat troops over and above the 9,500 troops normally assigned to SOUTHCOM.
Much nation-building work still had to be done in support of PROMOTE LIBERTY. Some of its requirements could take up to two years. The units involved with longer-term programs remained in Panama, but were rotated on a scheduled basis.
For the next nine days, my headquarters, JTF South, continued stability operations while managing the phased redeployment of our forces. We were also transitioning to a headquarters, JTF Panama, commanded by Major General Cisneros, which would take over responsibility for nation-building and security. Its headquarters and Military Support Group had been activated on December 21. Soon it would take control of the 193rd Brigade, the Marine Amphibious Unit, and additional forces that would remain behind—one of Major General Carmen Cavezza’s combat brigades, plus a battalion of MPs from the 16th Military Police Brigade.
JTF South passed over all responsibilities to JTF Panama on January 11.
On January 12, at 8:00 A.M., two thousand troopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, the XVIII Airborne Corps staff, and I jumped onto Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg to a cheering, flag-waving crowd of five thousand family members and dignitaries, among them, General Carl Vuono, Army Chief of Staff. The troops assembled on the drop zone and marched with their colors waving in the brisk cool breeze to the bleachers area.
This is what I said there:
“Thank you—and I cannot begin to tell you what you mean to us.
“1 wish you could have marched with us across that sand, and experienced our feelings as we drew closer and realized the meaning that you and these children conveyed with the flags you were waving.
“The mission to Panama was a difficult one. We literally decapitated a government, and then shook hands with the very people we had fought the night before and said, ‘We want to help you now.’
“You would have been very proud of your soldiers. They’re dedicated and motivated by all the things the American flag stands for, the very flags you were waving. No one ever fought more bravely or with more compassion for those they faced in battle.
“Everyone knew there would be danger, but not a single one hesitated to go, or to enter battle time and time again. They were well-trained for the mission, and they fought the way they had trained. We believe that what we were sent to do was just and right.
“Twenty-three of our comrades are at peace today, and they deserve the highest honors for their sacrifice. Our experience adds meaning to the expression ‘Freedom Isn’t Free.’
“To the families and all the members of this great community, we thank you for your prayers and your support. It gave us strength when strength was needed—and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”
POST-ACTION THOUGHTS
In the days following Operation JUST CAUSE, I was asked many times, “What lessons did you learn?” and, “If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?”
Let me answer the second question first: “I’d have guarded the Nunciatore. That way we would either have grabbed Noriega on the way in, or we would have taken that option away from him.”
As for lessons learned: JUST CAUSE was a very successful operation. There were several reasons for its success:
First, the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 clearly established the chain of command down to theater level, along with the authority for fulfilling command responsibility. Under this act, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was made the principal military adviser to the National Command Authority (SECDEF and President), and the Joint Staff was made directly responsible and subordinate to the Chairman, not to the Joint Chiefs, as had been the case before. This docs not mean that an astute Chairman does not consult with the service Chiefs; but it eliminated consensual decision-making that was sometimes influenced by service parochialism. The act also included the warfighting commanders-in-chief in the chain of command, and gave them additional authority for conducting military operations in their theaters for wartime as well as peacetime activities.
Second, clear guidance was given by the National Command Authority to General Thurman.
Third, from the start, General Thurman gave me full authority over all forces and the necessary freedom for developing the plan.
Fourth, once the plan was completed, we briefed it all the way up through the decision-making authority, and it was approved as written.
Fifth, we were allowed enough time to fully rehearse.
Sixth, when the operation was launched, we were allowed to execute it without changing the plan.
Back to the question: “What lessons did you learn?”
I can’t say we really learned any lessons. In my opinion, you only learn a lesson as a result of a big mistake, or when you have failed to anticipate an event somewhere along the line—training readiness, plan development, or the like—that could effect the mission.
With that said, however, we did validate some principles and procedures that contributed to our success in Panama, which also apply to future operations :Integrated planning and execution are key to success for all contingency operations, particularly for joint operations when forces from other services are involved.
A streamlined “warfighter”-oriented command-and-control structure, responsive to needs at lowest levels, is imperative.
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Overwhelming combat power results in quick victory with fewer casualties on both sides.
Continuous review of rules of engagement, with responsive and assured dissemination, maximizes combat capability and flexibility.
Use of Joint Communications Electronic Operating Instructions (CEOI) is crucial for successful joint operations.
Troops fight to standards to which they are trained—and nothing more. There is no substitute for live-fire training, under the most realistic conditions, as you expect to fight.
Maximum latitude must be allowed units at lowest level; otherwise don’t expect their fullest potential.
No force more powerful than PSYOPs can ever be brought to the battlefield. If you can influence the minds of your foe, the job is much easier and less expensive by every measure.
Appropriately integrating Special Operations and conventional forces maximizes force potential and capability in ways not otherwise possible.
Though all of this contributed immeasurably to the success of Operation JUST CAUSE, it is no more than what is normally expected of senior commanders.
And finally, the plan the leaders create may be a thing of great beauty, yet it is only as good as the troops that execute it. The outcome is determined at their level.
I cannot praise enough the motivation, the technical and professional competence, the daring, the maturity, and the caring of our troops at all levels from all the services. Our officers and NCOs were superbly trained; they led their troops the way troops expect to be led. They and their troops did everything we asked—and then more. They have earned the credit for all that was accomplished in Operation JUST CAUSE.
One more group deserves recognition—the wives in Panama who were embroiled without warning in mortal combat, and who spent the night of December 19 and 20 huddled over their children in closets as the battles raged. These same women, two days later, opened and operated the Commissary and P.X. so families could get much-needed supplies. They were professionals of the highest order, most deserving of our deepest respect and gratitude.
YES, Operation JUST CAUSE was an occasion of deep satisfaction. We didn’t rest on our laurels, though. We knew another major crisis could come any time, and we had to be prepared for it. Little did we know, however, just how soon that would be.
XII
SHADOWS IN THE STORM
At 1:00 A.M. on August 2, 1990, three divisions of the Iraqi Republican Guard, equipped with nearly a thousand tanks, streamed across Iraq’s border with Kuwait. Within half an hour, helicopters dropped Iraqi commandos on rooftops in Kuwait City. By dawn, the massive invasion of the small Arab country at the top of the Persian Gulf was well under way. By nightfall, it was nearly complete, and Saddam Hussein could declare that Kuwait was now his country’s “19th province.” By week’s end, eleven Iraqi divisions had backed up his claim.
Though early on American satellites had detected the massing of Iraqi troops along the border, there had been mixed interpretations of Saddam’s intent, and the initial U.S. approach had been uncertain and at times muddled. In the early hours of the invasion itself, the Bush administration seemed unsure about what to do. All that quickly changed, however, and on August 5, President George Bush made his famous “line in the sand” speech, declaring that the invasion “will not stand.” Within hours, Bush had put together a powerful multinational coalition, including leading Arab nations, and American troops were en route to the Gulf. The massive buildup that followed eventually brought half a million U.S. troops to the region.
Among them would be nearly 9,000 special operations soldiers—7,705 in Saudi Arabia and 1,049 in Turkey. Special Operations Forces (SOF) would perform a wide variety of tasks, ranging from simple language interpretation to strikes against targets more than a hundred miles behind enemy lines. During the early stages of the American buildup, small groups of SOF operators would be posted on the front lines, both to gather intelligence and to serve as trip wires, symbolic sacrifices in the event Saddam chose to invade Saudi Arabia.
The range of SOF missions in the Gulf amply demonstrated the potential of special operations in the post—Cold War era. It would have done so even more if their initiatives had not been blunted for several reasons—including command attitudes that would have been familiar to the earliest special operators.
WHEN news of the invasion came in, General Stiner, now the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), was sitting in a room at CIA’s headquarters in Langley Virginia. Unlike some of the career intelligence officers around him, Stiner was not surprised by the news. Months before, his intelligence people had pegged Kuwait as one of the next geopolitical hot spots, and SOCOM had been working on contingency plans for possible SOF involvement since July. Even after national intelligence agencies declared that the Iraqi pre-invasion buildup amounted to mere saber-rattling, Stiner had begun mentally drawing up a list of SOF personnel who would be needed to augment the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Headquarters in the event of war.
In order to better support the warfighting CINCs in planning for the employment of SOF forces, each CINC had been given his own Special Operations Command (SOC), resident in his own headquarters, and commanded by either a brigadier general or colonel, with thirty to forty officers and senior NCOs. In time of crisis, it was SOCOM’s responsibility to augment the Special Operations Command as necessary to fulfill its warfighting responsibilities. Colonel Jesse Johnson, a very capable and experienced SF officer, was Schwarzkopf’s SOC Commander. He required at least two hundred augmentees right off the bat—and more later as the need for SOF capabilities became more clearly identified.
Under the U.S. military’s regional joint command organization, CENTCOM was responsible for all operations in Southwest Asia. In many ways, Stiner’s SOCOM functioned as a service agency to the different regional commands. With the exception of individual operations directly ordered by the President, CENTCOM’s four-star commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, would direct SOF personnel in Southwest Asia, as Thurman had in Panama.
Available forces included the potent, highly trained special mission units, Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Army and Air Force special aviation units, Rangers, PSYOPs, and Civil Affairs units. At the time of the Iraqi invasion, selected SOCOM special mission units had just finished an exercise simulating a mission deep behind the lines of a Southwest Asian country. The training routine would prove an eerie prelude to what they would soon face in the Gulf.
When news of the Iraqi invasion came in, Stiner immediately placed SOCOM on alert, and SOF planning cells whipped into action.
IRAQ’S rapid invasion of Kuwait presented America with a number of immediate problems, not the least of which was the capture of the American Embassy in Kuwait City. Besides Embassy personnel, many Americans were caught by surprise by the invasion and were trapped in Kuwait and Iraq itself.
SOCOM was tasked by the National Command Authority to develop a plan for rescuing embassy personnel, should that become necessary.
Getting them out wasn’t going to be easy, even though the Embassy in Kuwait City presented a classic target for hostage rescue; the building could be isolated and its layout was well-known. Major General Wayne Downing, the JSOTF commander, would later recall that the risks were great: “No one wanted to do this operation,” he said later. There was a high potential for casualties and collateral damage. Just as important, the operation might provoke the Iraqis into attacking Saudi Arabia and the allied coalition forces still gathering there. General Schwarzkopf worried that it would precipitate war before he was ready to fight.
By mid-August the forces of nations joining the coalition began arriving in Saudi Arabia, and as they did so, Special Forces detachments from the 5th Special Forces Group (known as coalition support teams—CSTs) were assigned to each unit from division to company level. They spoke the language, advised on training and planning, facilitated the communications for command and control, prepared for effective combat op
erations, and would be the units’ link to U.S. fire support. They lived with their coalition units, trained with them, and later went to war with them.
This was an unsung yet critical mission in the war, one made entirely possible by the evolution that had taken place in Special Operations since the days of Bill Yarborough. SF soldiers could speak the language both of the allies and the enemy, and this key ability would eventually be hailed by General Schwarzkopf as “the glue that held the coalition together.”
In addition, special operators’ cultural training had taught them not only how to secure a house without killing noncombatants—but also which fork to use at a diplomatic banquet at the Embassy Such assets made them invaluable as liaison troops.
To Carl Stiner, CSTs personified what made Special Forces special. It came down to a person “motivated by his inner strength, mature judgment, and technical competence. You put him out there maybe for four or five months or longer. And the image of the United States is resting on what he does. And you’ve got to know that he’s going to do what’s right when the time comes.”
THE FIRST GULF WAR—EARNEST WILL
Stincr’s proposals for a special operations war against Iraq drew on several past Special Operations missions, not least of which were a series of operations conducted in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, called Operation EARNEST WILL As that war dragged on, a threat so complex and politically significant developed that it ultimately required capabilities that only SOF forces possessed.
By the fall of 1986, the ground war between those two nations had devolved into a stalemate. Iraq had devastated its adversary’s economy with strikes on Iranian oil facilities, while Iran had struck back by initiating a tanker war and targeting neutral ships in the Persian Gulf. These attacks especially threatened Kuwait, who, while officially neutral, had been helping the Iraqis during the war.