U.S. Roots Out Noriega Forces : Bush Vows to Pursue Fugitive ‘as Long as It Takes’ : Panama: President Endara orders a curfew and halts all business for a day in effort to restore order and halt looting. Death toll of American servicemen hits 21.

U.S. invasion forces, completing the conquest of Panama’s military bases, moved Thursday into the ravaged streets of Panama City to root out Manuel A. Noriega’s paramilitary Dignity Battalion and end the chaos and looting that have racked the Panamanian capital.

Noriega remained at large, possibly in the countryside. Officials in Washington and Panama sorted through hundreds of tips about him but said that they are sure of only one thing--that he has not been able to get out of Panama.

“The operation is not over, but it’s pretty well wrapped up,” President Bush declared. “Gen. Noriega is no longer in power. He no longer commands the instruments of government or the forces of repression that he used for so long to brutalize the Panamanian people.”

Bush said that the United States would keep up the hunt “as long as it takes” to bring Noriega to justice. In older neighborhoods of Panama City, U.S. troops moved house to house in a search for weapons and armed militia loyal to the military strongman, who went into hiding as Army paratroopers and Marines launched the massive invasion late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

News agencies reported Thursday night that U.S. planes strafed a pocket of resistance in San Miguelito, a working-class suburb of Panama City where militiamen fiercely loyal to Noriega are garrisoned. Troops in armored personnel carriers shouted over megaphones for residents near the garrison to evacuate, the Associated Press said, and sporadic machine-gun fire could be heard.

According to the Pentagon, the U.S. military casualty toll in the assault, the largest single American military operation since the Vietnam War, climbed to 21 killed and 208 wounded. The Pentagon said that four American military personnel are missing.

In Panama City, however, Lt. Col James L. Swank, a spokesman for the Panama-based Southern Command, told reporters that 18 American servicemen had died, 190 were wounded and one was missing. An Air Force source in Panama, who asked not to be identified, told The Times that the number of dead servicemen might climb to “at least double that.”

Fifty? he was asked.

“Yes,” replied the source, who is based with the Southern Command and in a position to see the bodies leave Howard Air Force Base.

In addition, an American school teacher in Panama, Gertrude Kandi Helin, 43, was killed at the start of the fighting early Wednesday. She was struck on the way home from dinner by machine-gun fire from a Panama Defense Forces’ position, a relative said.

The Pentagon said that 59 Panamanian soldiers were killed, 66 were wounded and more than 1,500 were taken prisoner. Panamanian hospital officials were quoted as saying that hundreds of civilians were treated for wounds suffered during “Operation Just Cause” assaults in heavily populated areas near the destroyed headquarters of the Panama Defense Forces.

On the crowded streets of Panama City, looters went on a daylong binge, smashing shop windows and hauling away goods from hundreds of stores. In the alleys and sidewalks of shantytowns, makeshift stalls were set up for looters to hawk their wares.

Guillermo Endara, the opposition leader installed as president just before the invasion began, emerged briefly from hiding at midday Thursday under heavy U.S. guard. While gunfire rang out across the capital, he clamped a curfew on Panama to last until 6 a.m. today and ordered all public and private establishments closed through the end of today in an attempt to restore public order after 24 hours of massive looting. But his actions, witnessed by a group of U.S. soldiers and 200 opposition politicians, appeared to have no immediate impact.

In a telephone interview on ABC’s “Nightline” program Thursday night, Endara said he hoped to have a new police force, composed largely of “good officers” from the Panama Defense Forces, fully in place within a month. Endara expressed confidence that the new government would be able to establish itself even if Noriega remained at large. “The people are not hiding Noriega,” Endara said. “Noriega knows that the people don’t want him and don’t like him.”

The 51-mile Panama Canal, closed Wednesday for other than operational reasons for the first time in its 75-year history, was open Thursday.

White House and Pentagon officials said that American forces by Thursday morning had gained two targets that eluded them in the initial hours of the invasion: About 100 troops secured the luxury Marriott Hotel in Panama City, while other units gained control of Panama’s modernistic Legislative Palace.

As the soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division evacuated more than 100 guests from the hotel, where a number of foreigners had been seized by armed Noriega loyalists, Panamanians opened fire from a passing car, wounding at least one U.S. soldier in the chest and stomach.

Frightened guests waiting to be evacuated in Army trucks dived for cover in panic, while heavily armed U.S. troops, their faces covered with camouflage paint, returned the fire, Reuters news agency reported.

Earlier, a Spanish news photographer had been killed at the hotel. One report in Panama City was that he got caught in a brief cross-fire between two groups of American troops. But according to another report, he was killed in hostile gunfire.

The Associated Press reported from Panama City that the photographer was in a group of journalists in the hotel parking lot when a U.S. armored personnel carrier approached. U.S. troops inside the hotel, apparently thinking the approaching carrier belonged to Panamanian forces, yelled at the journalists to get out of the way and opened fire. The AP, quoting Maruja Torres, a Spanish news correspondent, said the approaching carrier returned the fire.

The Bush Administration appeared to have three goals on the second day of the operation, which a Pentagon official estimated would cost “hundreds of millions of dollars.” The goals were to seize Noriega, restore order to the streets and establish a functioning government led by Endara. In the Administration’s view, Endara is the rightful Panamanian president, elected last May in balloting that Noriega annulled after it became clear that his puppet candidate was the loser.

Col. Eduardo Herrera Hassan, a former aide to the late Gen. Omar Torrijos, Noriega’s predecessor, was said to have returned to Panama--almost certainly with U.S. assistance--to take over the Panama Defense Forces. Herrera is an Israeli-trained intelligence agent who fled to Miami for his life after losing a power struggle with Noriega.

“Herrera is the only one with the prestige, the leadership and the knowledge to order PDF troops back into uniform and back into their barracks and to tell them, ‘It’s a whole new ballgame,’ ” said one U.S. military officer with extensive experience in Panama. “Without him, we’ll see bloodshed for months as the PDF tries to regroup.”

“Endara’s going to need loyal troops who recognize the constitution and the fairness and the legitimacy of his election,” Bush said at a news conference.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said that some of the combat troops might be home by Christmas on Monday, an estimate that White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said might be overly optimistic.

In any case, military police units are expected to face a long-term assignment as they seek to establish order on streets where elements of Noriega’s now-scattered Dignity Battalion once had reigned.

And Bush said that the operation--which almost doubled the U.S. military population in Panama from 12,000 to 22,500--is “open-ended” in terms of the hunt for Noriega, who faces drug-trafficking charges in two federal courts in Florida.

“His picture will be in every post office in town. That’s the way it works. He is a fugitive drug dealer and we want to see him brought to justice,” Bush declared when asked about the $1-million reward that the U.S. government is offering for information leading to Noriega’s capture. “If there is some incentive for some Panamanian to turn him in, that’s . . . a million bucks that I would be very happy to sign the check for.”

Bush said the Pentagon believes Noriega is ill-equipped to hide out for long in the countryside because he lacks “the communications or a PDF-continued loyalty” that he would need to survive with a fighting force.

At the United Nations, meanwhile, Eduardo Vallarino, a self-exiled Panamanian businessman who is Endara’s designated envoy, said that if Noriega is captured, he should be tried in Panama rather than being extradited to the United States.

The President expressed appreciation for support offered by Congress, some of the other nations of this Hemisphere, its allies and the American public.

But praise was far from universal: there were scattered protests around the United States and loud complaints throughout Latin America, with Peru backing out of an Andean drug summit that Bush plans to attend in Cartagena, Colombia, in February. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, said that American attempts to explain why it launched the invasion were little more than a “propaganda smoke screen.”

The President, who said in October that he did not think a large military operation in Panama to overthrow Noriega would be prudent, said Thursday that he changed his mind after the slaying Saturday of an unarmed, off-duty U.S. Marine officer and the mistreatment of a Navy lieutenant and his wife by elements of the Panama Defense Forces.

If the Soviets do not understand the reasons for the operation, he said, “I need to get on a wire there (and) explain this to Mr. (Mikhail S.) Gorbachev,” the Soviet president.

“If they kill an American Marine, that’s real bad. And if they threaten and brutalize the wife of an American citizen, sexually threatening the lieutenant’s wife while kicking him in the groin over and over again, then, Mr. Gorbachev, please understand, this President is going to do something about it,” Bush said at a hastily called White House news conference.

In Managua, four armored personnel carriers and Nicaraguan soldiers armed with AK-47 automatic rifles ringed the U.S. Embassy in retaliation for the reported stationing of U.S. troops outside the Nicaraguan and Cuban embassies in Panama. The troops took up the positions in Panama City after rumors spread through the capital that Noriega might try to go into hiding in one of those diplomatic posts.

In the fog of the continued gunfire and chaos in the streets, U.S. officials were uncertain how many Americans remained captive of Panamanian forces. An FBI hostage rescue team, the civilian version of the Army’s elite Delta Force, was dispatched to Panama, a Pentagon official said.

Bush said an undetermined number of Americans may be held by Noriega loyalists hoping that they could be traded for safe passage out of the country. The Pentagon said it was investigating “about a dozen” cases of American civilians who were unaccounted for.

Eleven scientists and technicians working on a Smithsonian Institution project in the San Blas Islands off Panama were released Thursday. They had been seized by the Panama Defense Forces on Wednesday.

Staff writers Melissa Healy, Robin Wright and Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington and Marjorie Miller in Panama City contributed to this story.

MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS 1--Panama Canal reopened for daytime use only; 13 ships go through. 2--Under heavy guard, President Guillermo Endara presides over first meeting of legislative assembly, orders curfew. 3--Ambassador Arthur H. Davis returns to U.S. Embassy in Panama City 4, 5--U.S. troops surround Cuban and Nicaraguan embassies in futile search for Panama’s strongman, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega. 6--Santo Tomas Hospital says over 1,000 people have been treated for injuries. 7--Firefight keeps U.S. helicopters from landing at Patilla Airport in search of Noriega. 8--Spanish newspaper photographer killed in fighting at Marriott Hotel. FATE UNKNOWN--An undetermined number of Americans may still be held hostage in Panama. A5

CASUALTIES--In Dover, Del., the ceremonial toll-taking of America’s military dead in Panama began. A6

U.S. AID--The Admininstration begins helping Panama rebuild its shattered government and economy. A7

OPPOSITION--Paramilitary groups established by Noriega remain the biggest obstacle to U.S. troops. A7

REACTION--The Soviet Union scoffs at Washington’s attempts to explain the intervention in Panama. A8

APPOINTMENT--Eduardo Vallarino was named Panama’s new U.N. envoy, after getting his credentials by fax, and quickly went to work. A12