NEWS ANALYSIS : Shift to Civilian Rule May Mean Wider U.S. Role

Now that U.S. forces have scored a quick military victory in Panama, what do they do next?

The danger facing American troops over the next few weeks and months, military analysts said Wednesday, is that the new civilian government headed by President Guillermo Endara may not be strong enough to rule on its own. That could push the United States, whose pre-invasion force of about 13,000 troops in Panama is responsible solely for protecting the canal, into the unwanted role of a long-term army of occupation.

“The future risks are tremendous,” said John Roberts, a Panama expert who served as general counsel on the Senate Armed Services Committee when the Panama Canal treaties were ratified in 1978.

“The worst possible scenario would be for the civilian government to remain in a weak and powerless state, forcing us to maintain a military occupation in the city,” said Roberts, who is now dean of the law school at DePaul University in Chicago. “That would be a disaster.”

Short of that, experts held out a number of other uncomfortable outcomes:

-- That U.S. forces would have to stay behind to overhaul the Panama Defense Forces, which have maintained strongman Manuel A. Noriega in power.

-- That Panama would need U.S. military police to take over municipal police functions.

-- That even a modest long-term U.S. presence would turn Latin American opinion against the Endara government.

Although U.S. officials refused to be pinned down on how long occupying troops will be needed in Panama, they talked in terms of sooner rather than later. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly told reporters that the mopping-up operation is likely to be completed within three days.

Lawmakers echoed that message. “There have been some fears expressed that we might have an occupation force in Panama,” said Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas. “I don’t foresee that.”

Dole’s views were seconded by Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, top-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

Others, however, were less optimistic.

“The PDF as an institution is rotten to the core,” argued Alan Sabrosky, professor of international studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., and a former Army veteran who taught for more than five years at the Army War College. “For the government to survive, we may have to rebuild (the military) from the ground up.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) warned that U.S. military police units may be forced to stay in Panama for at least a year to help keep the peace. He noted that the last MPs did not leave Grenada until 18 months after the invasion there in October, 1983.

Despite fears the continuing presence of Americans could undermine Panamanian support for the new government, they “are going to need a police force,” Aspin said. “The whole public safety forces of the country are being decimated. . . . Who’s going to arrest and interrogate the PDF?”

Jeffrey Record, a military analyst at the Hudson Institute here and a former aide to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), said it is likely to take months to rebuild the PDF into a military institution capable of supporting rather than threatening the new civilian government.

“You’re going to have to have a fairly visible presence there for quite a while to put the authoritarian opponents on notice that we mean business,” he said.

Some analysts said Endara faces an uphill struggle in establishing the legitimacy of his new government. On the positive side, he is seen as the winner of the May elections, whose results Noriega refused to accept. But he carries the burden of having been sworn in just as the U.S. military operations began, and he remained in hiding Wednesday under the protection of the United States.

“It’s not a good sign that the new government doesn’t have enough confidence to emerge from protective custody,” Roberts said.

Despite the widespread public support in Panama for the invasion, there is also the risk that Americans may become targets of attack by Noriega supporters.

Several analysts said that it would be far easier to overcome any remaining resistance if Noriega is found.

U.S. officials said they believe that Noriega is no longer a threat. He “may take to the hills and be very hard to find,” said John Bushnell, U.S. charge d’affaires at Ft. Clayton outside Panama City. “But he wouldn’t have a significant force to actually do anything.”

Staff writers John M. Broder, Sara Fritz and Melissa Healy contributed to this story.