Veterans of 1989 Panama invasion urge caution amid military buildup in the Caribbean : NPR

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The U.S. military now has the biggest buildup force in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. But U.S. veterans of a more recent Latin American conflict, the 1989 invasion of Panama, say, proceed with caution. Steve Walsh with member station WHRO in Norfolk has the story.

STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: Jeff Tiegs was about to go on leave to get married when he got a call to come back to Fort Stewart. The former Delta Force commander was only two years into his career as an Army Ranger.

JEFF TIEGS: As soon as I got into work, I knew something was up because MPs were everywhere, everything was locked down.

WALSH: On December 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered Operation Just Cause to remove Manuel Noriega from power. Tiegs’ Ranger battalion parachuted onto the airport grounds outside Panama City to engage the Panamanian Defense Forces.

TIEGS: It certainly wasn’t a cake walk, but we certainly had the advantage. We had air superiority. You know what I mean? We had intelligence on the ground.

WALSH: Noriega had once been a CIA informant, but he had since become deeply involved in the drug trade. In the months leading up to the invasion, Noriega nullified an election. Tiegs was a corporal at the time and watched the operation move quickly.

TIEGS: Quite frankly, part of warfare is choose your enemy wisely. And the Panamanian defense force – they had no beef with us. What are they defending?

WALSH: Tiegs felt Panama was the best planned operation of his long career in special forces. After Noriega was eventually brought to the U.S. for trial, the military began citing Panama as a model. But for Richard Hinman, that’s a problem. He retired from the Army and State Department. In 1989, he was a junior officer stationed in Panama during the invasion.

RICHARD HINMAN: There were some lessons not learned. There were some wrong lessons pulled away and some things we should have pulled away from our experience at Panama that we didn’t.

WALSH: Hinman says the U.S. wouldn’t give up control of the Panama Canal for a decade. There were U.S. bases in the country. A few days after the fighting stopped, most of the Panamanian fighters were asked to return to work.

HINMAN: It was an ugly and complicated and morally messy process, but the fact is, two and three days after we’re doing that, we’re actually walking joint patrols with these guys.

WALSH: Panama didn’t implode into a bloody insurgency like Iraq. The country didn’t require a trillion dollars in American investment like Afghanistan, but Panama shouldn’t be seen as a blueprint for any potential intervention into Venezuela, where the U.S. doesn’t even have an embassy.

HINMAN: I think also, you got to look at the fact that the Venezuelan regime is far more embedded than Noriega’s was. He has a measure of popular support.

WALSH: The operation was far from flawless. Twenty-three U.S. troops died, including a group of Virginia Beach-based Navy SEALs. At least 200 civilians died. Panama City was looted. Noriega died in Panama in 2017 after serving time in the U.S. on federal drug trafficking charges. Orlando Perez is a professor of political science at the University of North Texas at Dallas.

ORLANDO PEREZ: They took Noriega, but a lot of the corruption remained, drug trafficking continued. I mean, it abated for a little while, but they adapt. And that’s what has happened in Panama.

WALSH: He says after more than 35 years, the flow of drugs into the U.S. continues.

For NPR News, I’m Steve Walsh.

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