Refuge for Noriega Not Ruled Out : Administration Calls 3rd-Country Destination an Option

The Bush Administration said today that it will not rule out a third-country destination for ousted Panamanian dictator Manuel A. Noriega although it strongly prefers trying him in the United States.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater denied that the Administration is moving away from its position that Noriega should be brought to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.

“I want to make clear from this podium our position is we want him returned to the United States,” Fitzwater told reporters at his daily briefing. But, he added, “we will not rule out any and every other kind of option.”

Last Saturday, Bush suggested that allowing Noriega to go to a third country where he could be free from prosecution was no longer an acceptable option. The United States had proposed, as recently as October, a variety of deals that would have allowed Noriega to step down and go to a third country.

“The death of one Marine, the brutalization of a wife of a lieutenant, the death of a lot of our kids; that’s what changed. And that’s why I feel very strongly that we’re not back to square one,” Bush had said.

But today, Fitzwater said, “We’ve never said no third country. What we have said is we want him to come back to the United States. But we are not going to rule out every other alternative.”

Later, Fitzwater said: “I did not want to imply any change. Our position is that we want him returned to the United States for prosecution. There is absolutely no change in our position.”

Noriega has been holed up in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City since Dec. 24, four days after a sweeping U.S. military invasion drove him from power.

A senior churchman who recently saw Noriega told Reuters news service, “He looks tired, depressed. He speaks very little.”

Noriega is a virtual recluse in an embassy room, opening the door only when meals are brought, said the churchman, who did not want to be named.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that about 500 members of the Army’s 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment will return to their home base at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Ga., late today. The unit was among more than 11,000 troops dispatched from U.S. bases for the Dec. 20 invasion that ousted Noriega from power.

Soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division had returned to Ft. Ord, Calif., earlier.

A high-level U.S. delegation, led by Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, was in Panama today amid speculation that a deal was near on resolving the impasse over Noriega.

The White House insisted, however, that the Eagleburger mission was strictly limited to an assessment of the extent of U.S. financial aid needed to revive the country’s battered economy--damaged in part by sanctions imposed by Washington.