‘Crafty Devil’ Noriega Foils Seizure Plans

The American attack on Panama failed in a key objective--to quickly collar Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega--because of flawed intelligence about his location and a noisy pre-invasion buildup that made the operation the worst-kept secret in Panama, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

American intelligence operatives who had been tracking Noriega’s movements 24 hours a day over the last several months recently have been able to follow the increasingly elusive figure only sporadically, officials said. Noriega, they said, has taken to sleeping during the day and moving three or four times a night to evade detection.

The massive American invasion force sent to Panama beginning Monday originally was meant to act in a supporting role to special operations troops who were to have captured Noriega when the military operation began at 1 a.m. Wednesday Eastern time. But the Panamanian general was not in several locations where U.S. forces expected to find him.

“He’s a crafty devil,” Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday. “We had him spotted several times during the day. We thought we had a pretty good idea where he was last night. We went there and he wasn’t there.”

The American invasion plan called for going forward with a huge military operation to pin down the entire Panama Defense Forces with overwhelming American military might, regardless of whether Noriega was caught, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.

“There was never a flinch when 1 o’clock came and we didn’t have him,” the official said. “We were committed.”

Aides to President Bush insisted that capturing Noriega was never the operation’s paramount objective.

“It would be foolish to think that Noriega and his people were not alerted to what was happening with all the tension and confrontation taking place and the planes going in Monday night and Tuesday,” a senior Administration official said.

“The best case would have been to achieve all the President’s goals, including capturing Noriega. But as far as removing him from power and restoring an elected government to power and eliminating a major drug threat--that has been done.”

Congressional officials who were briefed by the Pentagon said U.S. intelligence on Noriega’s movements were weakened by the unsuccessful Oct. 3 coup, which resulted in the deaths of a number of Panamanian officers who had been supplying timely data to the American military in Panama.

Contacts have improved slightly as a result of a $3-million covert CIA operation authorized last month under which PDF officers and political leaders friendly to the United States would be encouraged to topple Noriega. But U.S. forces were still unable to pinpoint Noriega’s location at the critical moment as the American attack unfolded, officials said.

Although Noriega was still at large Wednesday night, U.S. officials told congressional leaders that they were virtually certain he had not left Panama.

Elite U.S. commandos from the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s Seal Team 6 were said to be searching the country for Noriega on Wednesday night, using an array of high-technology electronic surveillance devices to try to find him.

The Delta Force and Seals have been in Panama for several months preparing for a move against Noriega, sources said. Their presence had been poorly concealed, perhaps in a deliberate effort to keep Noriega guessing about U.S. intentions.

“We have every spigot turned on to find Mr. Noriega. . . . We’re turning on all our looking, listening and hearing devices,” Lt. Gen. Kelly said.

A defense intelligence source declared: “If he turns on a radio, he’s dead.”

U.S. military intelligence is said to know where Noriega has Cuban-supplied weapons caches hidden in the Panamanian jungles, and U.S. agents have these sites under observation, sources said.

Unconfirmed reports during the day Wednesday had Noriega heading for the Costa Rican border or waiting for a chance to leave the country aboard his personal high-performance helicopter.

However, U.S. forces do not expect Noriega to leave Panama because the ruthless Medellin drug cartel put a price on his head after he reneged on a drug deal.

An attorney representing Noriega in Florida told the Associated Press that he doubted the Panamanian would allow himself to be taken alive.

“He’s a fighter,” said Miami attorney Raymond Takiff, who said that he had talked with Noriega on Monday evening and remained in contact with the general’s aides Wednesday. “I feel unhappily secure in my belief that he will be killed; he will not be captured. Should that occur, the truth will never come out.”

Noriega clearly knew by midday Tuesday that the Americans were coming because of the obvious signs of a large and imminent military operation, including landings of numerous large troop transports at U.S. air bases in Panama.

“The sky was dark with airplanes,” one American military officer said.

“When you watch a lot of C-141s (U.S. Air Force transports) roll in, it’s a dead giveaway,” another Pentagon official said.