The Dirty Secrets of Manual Noriega: George Bush, Money & the CIA (1997)

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The U.S. had long-standing relations with General Noriega. Noriega served as a U.S. intelligence asset and paid informant of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1967, including the period when Bush was head of the CIA (1976–77). Noriega had sided with the U.S. rather than the USSR in Central America, notably in sabotaging the forces of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and the revolutionaries of the FMLN group in El Salvador. Noriega received upwards of $100,000 per year from the 1960s until the 1980s, when his salary was increased to $200,000 per year. Although he worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration to restrict illegal drug shipments, he was known to simultaneously accept significant financial support from drug dealers, because he facilitated the laundering of drug money, and through Noriega they received protection from DEA investigations due to his special relationship with the CIA. Beginning in the middle of the 1980s, relations between Noriega and the United States began to deteriorate. In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan opened negotiations with General Noriega, requesting that the Panamanian leader step down after he was publicly exposed in the New York Times by Seymour Hersh, and later exposed in the Iran-Contra Scandal. Reagan pressured him with several drug-related indictments in U.S. courts; however, since extradition laws between Panama and the U.S. were weak, Noriega deemed this threat not credible and did not submit to Reagan's demands. In 1988, Elliot Abrams and others in the Pentagon began pushing for a U.S. invasion, but Reagan refused, due to Bush's ties to Noriega through his previous positions in the CIA and the Task Force on Drugs, and their potentially negative impact on Bush's presidential campaign. Later negotiations involved dropping the drug-trafficking indictments. In March 1988, an attempted coup against the government of Panama was resisted by Noriega's forces. As relations continued to deteriorate, Noriega appeared to shift his Cold War allegiance towards the Soviet bloc, soliciting and receiving military aid from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Libya. American military planners began preparing contingency plans for action against Panama. In May 1989, during the Panamanian national elections, an alliance of parties opposed to the military dictatorship of Noriega counted results from the country's election precincts before they were sent to the district centers. Their tally showed their candidate, Guillermo Endara, defeating Carlos Duque, candidate of a pro-Noriega coalition, by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. Endara was beaten up by Noriega supporters the next day in his motorcade.[6] Noriega declared the election null and maintained power by force, making him unpopular among Panamanians. Noriega's government insisted that it had won the presidential election and that irregularities had been on the part of U.S.-backed candidates from opposition parties.[13] Bush called on Noriega to honor the will of the Panamanian people. As tensions continued to escalate, the United States reinforced its Canal Zone garrison, and increased the tempo of training operations and other activities intended to put pressure on Noriega. [14] In October 1989, Noriega foiled a second coup attempt by members of the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF), led by Major Moisés Giroldi. [15] Pressure mounted on Bush as the media labeled him a "wimp" for failing to aid Panama in spite of campaign rhetoric that called for a tough stand against known drug traffickers. [6] Bush declared that the U.S. would not negotiate with a known drug trafficker and denied having any knowledge of Noriega's involvement with the drug trade prior to his February 1988 indictment, although Bush had met with Noriega while Director of the CIA and had been the Chair of the Task Force on Drugs while Vice President. [16] On 15 December, the Panamanian general assembly passed a resolution declaring that the actions of the United States had caused a state of war to exist between Panama and the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_panama