Hunting Noriega: Tips, Bounty--and Frustration

The call came into the Pentagon at 2:20 p.m. Thursday.

“My code name is MKO. Noriega is at 78.3 degrees west latitude and 9.3 degrees north longitude in the jungle moving east with 18 men, heading toward the coast, where a 20-25 foot surface boat is prepared to take him out of the country.”

Right, one military officer sighed, “and Elvis is out there waiting for him.”

American officials in Washington and in Panama sorted through hundreds of such tips Thursday as they pressed a massive manhunt for deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel A. Noriega.

U.S. troops combed Panama for the crafty fugitive, using an array of high-tech electronics tracing gear, sophisticated “movement analysis” techniques and a small army of informants--as well as the promise of a $1-million bounty for Noriega’s capture.

Despite the unprecedented efforts, the only thing American officials said they knew for sure late Thursday was that Noriega had not left Panama.

President Bush said the United States is “concentrating every way we possibly can to find Noriega” and said that the hunt is “open-ended” until the former dictator is located.

“His picture will be in every post office in town,” Bush declared in a televised news conference. “He’s a fugitive drug dealer.”

Noriega was being pursued by teams of Army Delta Force and Navy SEAL commandos, other military special troops, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents and perhaps, U.S. officials have speculated, hit men from the Medellin drug cartel who have put a price on Noriega’s head because he cheated them in a drug deal some years ago.

Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to discuss the manhunt, saying that he does not want to jeopardize an “ongoing operational mission.” But he said that there is “a difference between tracking Mr. Noriega and tracking reports of Mr. Noriega.”

He acknowledged that the Panama operation failed in one of its key missions--to capture Noriega at the outset. “A plan only exists up to the time of execution,” Powell said. “Then you’re into audibles”--a football term for improvising at the line of scrimmage.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said U.S. agents tried to tail Noriega closely in the days before the invasion but frequently lost him. “There were periods of time when we knew where he was with precision and sometimes when we didn’t,” Cheney said.

The officials said that consideration was given to mounting a limited kidnap operation before the invasion, but it was rejected because “we didn’t have sufficient confidence in his location” to assure the operation’s success.

U.S. officials endeavored to cast the Noriega manhunt as a law enforcement operation rather than a military exercise, in part by including the FBI and the DEA, sources said.

“If we hunt him down as a criminal by people who professionally hunt down criminals, then it looks better,” an Administration source said. “We don’t want to make him a fugitive bandido being hunted by Marines. He’s not Pancho Villa, he’s John Dillinger. We don’t want to give him the honor of arms. He is not an honorable soldier.”

A sincere effort was being made to take him alive, one official in Washington involved in the manhunt said. “I have no indication that anyone has quietly said, ‘Terminate with extreme prejudice,’ ” the official said.

“At the same time,” he conceded, “some people would not be saddened by his death. A smart person would not want to get Noriega alive. You don’t want a long trial where he makes his big speeches, where the wound stays open, where people demonstrate, where he might say things people don’t want to hear. He might name names, for example.”

U.S. intelligence agencies know that Noriega has prepared a substantial number of “trap doors” in Panama to disappear through in case he had to run, officials said. He is thought to maintain as many as 11 safe houses in and near Panama City and may be employing a series of tunnels to move from one to another, sources said.

Noriega was expected to try to escape by air from Paitilla airport in the eastern part of Panama City, and the airfield was one of the first objectives seized by American commandos in the early hours of the invasion. Four Navy Seals were killed in that operation.

Noriega also is believed to maintain redoubts at David and Chiriqui, near the Costa Rican border and in the San Blas islands, off the Caribbean coast.

All these known hide-outs came under American control or surveillance early in the operation, Administration officials said.

The search for Noriega has spawned scores of reports on his location; most, like the anonymous call to the Pentagon, were not very credible.

“There are so many wild rumors, from the French Riviera to Santo Domingo to Paraguay,” said an Administration official involved in the manhunt.

Israeli television reported that Noriega and a renegade Israeli intelligence agent who served as his bodyguard were on the island of Contadora off Panama, plotting their escape to Nicaragua.

A U.S. intelligence source dismissed the Contadora report out of hand. “It’s the most unlikely place I can think of,” he said. “How would he get there? It’s wide open. It’s hot as hell. And it does not have its own water, so it’s very expensive to survive there.”

Another American law enforcement official predicted that Noriega would next appear in Havana, but he gave no concrete evidence to support the theory.

Neal Livingstone, an American terrorism consultant who formerly had extensive business dealings in Panama, said Noriega most likely is holed up in Panama City or its suburbs.

“It’s much easier to hide there. He hasn’t lived in the jungle in years, and he’s easier to see there. And all it takes is one guy who wants to make a million bucks, and he’s history,” Livingstone said.

Noriega probably was being protected by a small band of loyalists trained in Cuba and East Germany, Livingstone said. These guards themselves are wanted by Panamanian and American authorities, so they have nothing to gain by turning in Noriega, he said.

Noriega has to watch his back, however, U.S. government sources said. “The biggest incentive is the reward. In Panama, a million bucks is a lot of money, an awful lot of money,” one official involved in the operation said. “Noriega’s operation survived off corruption and greed, so the money is the most potent weapon against him.”

THE NORIEGA INDICTMENTS

The intended capture of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega would enable U.S. authorities to bring him to trial on drug trafficking charges in Miami and Tampa, Fla. Indictments unsealed Feb. 5, 1988, marked first time that federal charges were filed against a foreign leader who was not in U.S. Noriega could receive up to 145 years in prison and more than $1.1 million in fines if convicted. The charges:

THE MIAMI INDICTMENT charges Noriega with conspiracy, racketeering, importing drugs and traveling to further conspiracy. It accuses him of:

-- Accepting a $4.6-million bribe from Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel to protect shipments of cocaine, launder money, supply drug laboratories and shield drug traffickers from the law.

-- Allowing smugglers to use Panama as way station for U.S.-bound cocaine.

-- Traveling to Havana so that Cuban President Fidel Castro could mediate dispute with Medellin cartel after Panamanian troops seized drug laboratory that Noriega had been paid to protect.

-- Using his official positions both before and after he took control of Panama, in 1983, to provide protection for international criminal narcotics traffickers.

-- Arranging for shipment of cocaine processing chemicals, including those seized by Panamanian police.

-- Laundering cartel’s narcotics proceeds in Panamanian banks.

-- Allowing cartel leaders to shift operations to Panama to escape crackdown in Colombia after assassination of that country’s anti-drug minister of justice.

THE TAMPA INDICTMENT accuses Noriega of:

-- Conspiring to import and distribute marijuana.

-- Attempting to import more than 1.4 million pounds of marijuana.

-- Accepting $1-million bribe from drug dealers for his authorization to smuggle drugs and launder cash in Panama.