Female’s War Exploits Overblown, Army Says : Panama: No enemy soldiers were killed, and the fire-fight lasted only 10 minutes, officials disclose.

The Army said Friday that press accounts of a female commander’s battle exploits in Panama, later repeated by White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, were grossly exaggerated.

According to widely published accounts from Panama, Army Capt. Linda Bray, 29, led a force of 30 military police in a fierce three-hour fire-fight at a Panama Defense Forces guard dog kennel that left three Panamanian soldiers dead.

The kennel, first thought to be undefended, was “heavily defended,” Fitzwater said in a White House briefing Thursday. “Three PDF men were killed. Gunshots were fired on both sides. American troops could have been killed.

“It was an important military operation,” Fitzwater continued. “A woman led it, and she did an outstanding job.” The incident, in the early hours of the Dec. 20 invasion, has been generally accepted as the first time that a woman has led American troops in battle.

In fact, the Army acknowledged Friday, the heavy gunfire lasted 10 minutes and no Panamanian troops were killed. Whatever Panamanian soldiers had been defending the facility faded into the woods, offering only “sporadic” sniper fire until disappearing into the night, an Army spokesman said.

The facility and the surrounding area were secured at 3:30 a.m, a little more than two hours after the operation began.

The original newspaper account of the action, distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, was widely repeated by other news organizations.

Bray was interviewed extensively by her superiors Friday after questions were raised in the Pentagon about press accounts of the kennel incident. She denied that she was the source of the more elaborate reports of the action, according to an Army general who spoke with her.

At a news conference Friday, President Bush hailed the “heroic performance” of the American women who participated in the Dec. 20 invasion of Panama but said that he will reserve judgment on the future role of women in combat.

Questioned about the participation of women in the invasion, Bush said that their original assignments were in noncombat duties, but “any time you have a highly trained, gung-ho volunteer force and they’re caught up in some of the fire-fights that went on, a person can be . . . put into a combat situation.”

As a result of Bray’s and other Army women’s actions in Panama, Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), said she would introduce legislation to allow women to serve in all military jobs, including combat, in a four-year experiment.

The Army has about 600 female troops permanently stationed in Panama; another 170, including Bray’s 988th military police company from Ft. Benning, Ga., were sent to take part in the invasion. No American women were killed or injured in the fighting in Panama, officials said.

It was not clear how the inflated accounts of Bray’s exploits began. According to the Scripps Howard story, Bray said that the three enemy dead were found at the scene later. But an Army spokesman, Gen. Bill McClain, said that Bray never reported any PDF casualties, nor did the Defense Department’s Panama-based Southern Command, which ran the entire operation.

“Your colleagues (in the press) must have reported that, from rumors,” McClain said.

The Scripps Howard account also said that one of Bray’s soldiers, Pfc. Christina Proctor, “single-handedly captured an enemy prisoner.” According to Bray, however, when she counted her troops at the close of the operation, she had one more than she started with. The extra man was a frightened, unarmed PDF soldier who surrendered without resistance, she told the Army.

McClain said that Bray was not even at the kennel when the shooting started. She was a half mile away at a command post.

A White House official said Fitzwater based his comments solely on newspaper accounts. He had no independent verification of the incident when he spoke about it Thursday, officials said.

U.S. law and military regulations bar women from combat roles, although they serve in numerous support jobs--such as transport and military police units--that can bring them into the line of fire, as occurred in Panama. They are armed and trained to use their weapons and, like all U.S. soldiers, are authorized to fire to defend themselves.

Times staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this story.