NEWS ANALYSIS : Bush Dumps Foe but Acquires a New Set of Panama Problems

By ordering American troops to overthrow Panama’s Manuel A. Noriega, President Bush lanced a foreign policy boil that has tormented the U.S. government for more than two years. But he also acquired a new set of problems.

At least for the short term, officials acknowledged Wednesday, the U.S. military must take over some police powers in Panama, replacing the officers of Noriega’s Panama Defense Forces, the country’s combined army and national police.

The Administration also is taking on the daunting task of reviving Panama’s economy, crippled by two years of U.S. financial and trade sanctions.

And, while Bush and others spoke of restoring democracy, officials and experts outside government said Panama has never had a strong democratic tradition and its political institutions will remain vulnerable long after Noriega’s departure.

But those problems are minor by comparison with the annoyance that Noriega’s continued presence had caused Bush and his predecessor, Ronald Reagan. The Panamanian dictator, wanted on federal drug-trafficking charges, had turned his rule into a grating gesture of defiance directed at the United States and the majority of Latin American countries.

More important, the Noriega problem appeared to be turning much worse--into a campaign of deadly harassment against American citizens.

“If the President had failed to act as he did and Noriega’s Dignity Battalions had killed or terrorized a dozen American families in Panama,” Secretary of State James A. Baker III said, “you would be asking us today, ‘Why didn’t you act to prevent this kind of violence against our citizens?’ ”

The growing danger to U.S. citizens was one reason that Bush’s move won extraordinarily wide support across the political spectrum, from conservatives such as Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to liberals, including Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).

Another reason was the long history of U.S. attempts to force Noriega out by less violent means, beginning with several abortive negotiating efforts under the Reagan Administration.

The State Department disclosed Wednesday that it reopened negotiations with Noriega’s American attorneys as recently as October, shortly after a coup against Noriega failed. The State Department offered to drop efforts to extradite the dictator if he gave up power and left Panama, department officials said, but Noriega refused.

Officials would not say whether those negotiations conflicted with Bush’s pledge, during the 1988 presidential campaign, to reject any “bargaining” with Noriega.

As successive rounds of negotiations failed, both Reagan and Bush tried to foment rebellion among Noriega’s troops. Three coups were attempted, but all fell short.

The failure of the most recent coup may have made U.S. military intervention almost inevitable. After that attempt, on Oct. 3, Bush was roundly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats for failing to help the rebels--even though they did not meet U.S. standards as true democrats.

The lesson for Administration officials was that the political consensus in favor of military action was stronger than they had realized. “We decided that the next time we had a chance, we’d react a different way,” one senior official said.

At the same time, the October coup attempt prompted Noriega to launch a bloody purge of the officers’ corps in which dozens of potential opponents were murdered. That made the Administration’s favored option, another coup attempt, impossible.

“After October, all our assets (in the PDF) ended up dead,” one official said.

“The Administration was out of options,” agreed Elliott Abrams, who led the Reagan Administration’s charge against Noriega as an assistant secretary of state. “It was either military intervention or do nothing. And doing nothing was becoming less possible after Americans started getting killed.

“This could have a very positive effect beyond Panama,” he added. “It sends a message around the world, to (Soviet President Mikhail S.) Gorbachev and everyone else, that this President will defend American interests. In that sense, it may be Bush’s Grenada--or Bush’s Tripoli,” he said, alluding to Reagan’s attacks on Grenada in 1983 and Libya in 1986.

“I have only one fear: If Noriega or some of his bad guys stay in the hills, they could get aid from Cuba and cause trouble for some time,” he added.

A Democratic expert on Central America warned, however, that the intervention may have hidden costs.

“This invasion may make us feel good because Noriega is as despicable a character as there is, but the fact that we had to launch it is a reflection of the failure of U.S. policy,” said Robert Kurz of the Brookings Institution.

“A lot of us have been arguing since 1985 or before that the United States should dump Noriega,” Kurz said. “The Reagan Administration didn’t want to, because they still viewed him as the CIA asset that he was (at the time). It would have been more cost-effective to toss him out then, or to throw in with the coup attempts at an earlier time.

“We have just bought ourselves another colony,” Kurz added. “The people of Panama are going to look to us for a lot of basic services. . . . The burden is on us, and I don’t know that that’s something we really want.”

Bush and Baker sidestepped the question of how long U.S. troops will be needed to patrol the country or to pursue Noriega and his supporters. But other officials said the “stabilizing mission” could turn out to be costly if Noriega or any of his lieutenants mounts a guerrilla resistance.

One idea under consideration, officials said, is to ask the Organization of American States to assemble a multinational police force--leaving only the job of capturing Noriega to U.S. forces.

In addition, a senior official said, the Pentagon hopes to identify trustworthy leaders for a new Panamanian security force and to train them quickly.

As for economic aid, officials were equally vague. “You will find a much more sympathetic executive branch and a much more sympathetic legislative branch when democracy flourishes in Panama and is permitted to flourish,” Baker said.