Pullout by U.S. Said to Risk Panama’s Security : Military: Officials worry about Bush’s pledge. They say local forces can’t keep order without help.

President Bush’s pledge to withdraw the remaining U.S. invasion force from Panama by the end of this month will leave the country without adequate military or police protection, American and Panamanian officials say.

“It’s a very bad idea,” said Louis Martinz, a spokesman for President Guillermo Endara. “It’s not just a question of not having enough police, but of who they are. The same people who beat us are now supposed to protect us.”

Some Panamanian officials said Bush was giving in to pressure from other Latin American nations, which have refused to recognize Endara’s government and have criticized Washington for the invasion.

Other officials, both Panamanians and Americans, also listed several serious shortcomings that they said make it unlikely that a local force can handle public order in the absence of a large American presence. These include poor training, lack of proper equipment and the wrong kind of personnel.

In his State of the Union address on Wednesday night, Bush said the American troop level in Panama will be reduced to the 13,000 troops stationed at U.S. bases before the Dec. 20 invasion. At the height of the invasion, about 27,000 American troops were in the country.

Although Bush said that the invasion “had reached its objective” by overthrowing strongman Manuel A. Noriega and installing a new government, few, if any, Panamanian or U.S. officials agree that the new Panamanian Public Force will be ready any time soon.

“The national police can’t cope with anything,” said a senior U.S. civilian official, adding that the new police force is composed of “almost all former Panama Defense Forces” personnel and that “the PDF is not your ideal defense force.”

The PDF under Noriega was largely corrupt and used brutality to enforce its will. Since the PDF’s collapse during the invasion, American military police have patrolled the country. But these patrols have almost disappeared in Panama City, and only small contingents remain in the countryside.

Vice President Richard Arias Calderon, who is responsible for building a new, 10,000-member security force with largely police responsibility, has said that new units are taking over from the Americans on a regular basis. But as the U.S. force level has been lowered in recent weeks, a serious crime wave has developed, with murders and serious robberies as well as lesser crimes going unsolved.

A U.S. Army report obtained by The Times indicated that it will take far longer than a month to prepare a local force to meet the country’s law-and-order needs.

“FPP (Spanish initials for Panamanian Public Force) troops are confused and demoralized,” the report said. “Reassignments into a police role are confusing for former military personnel. . . .”

The report also said: “Men are working long hours for little or no pay. In some instances, officers are inclined to be self-centered and to treat the patrolmen as servants.”

This has led to poor morale and high absenteeism, the report said.

The document, prepared by a military civil affairs task force for the commander of the American military support group in Panama, also criticized a lack of radios, vehicles, adequate weapons and a training program.

Overall, “the concept of police operations is largely foreign to these FPP personnel, not only in practice but in concept as well,” the document said.

According to Martinz and several other Panamanian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, this is a key problem.

The senior American official said that while there is “no contingency plan” for the United States to step back into Panama if the new security force cannot enforce law and order, options are being considered that would use American troops permanently stationed along the Panama Canal.