Word: panama
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...when he first enunciated it last spring, but that was a long time ago. Since then Gorbachev's initiatives and the events they have triggered have made containment sound like such an anachronism that the need to move beyond it is self-evident. Last week's U.S. invasion of Panama was a case in point. It was Uncle Sam's first major post- containment military operation; neither the ghost of President James Monroe nor a single live communist was anywhere in sight...
...quite. The group was on its way to plan the biggest U.S. military operation since Viet Nam: the invasion of Panama, launched two nights later. But perhaps she was not totally mistaken. If war preparations are scarcely usual in the Bush White House, they are not as stunningly out of character as they would have seemed only a few months ago. The Panama invasion marks the latest, but far from the first, stage in a monumental transformation of George Bush: from a President whose overriding imperative during his initial months in office was to avoid doing "something dumb...
...does Bush hesitate these days to take long risks. The Panama invasion was supposed to accomplish three goals: 1) swiftly rout resistance; 2) capture the country's dictator, Manuel Antonio Noriega, and bring him to trial in the U.S. on drug-running charges; 3) install a stable, democratic government headed by politicians who had apparently won May elections, which Noriega later overruled...
...impossible to tell whether the invasion would end up more like Viet Nam or more like Grenada. Some 24,000 U.S. troops had quickly taken command of most of Panama and overwhelmed organized resistance by the Panama Defense Forces, Noriega's combination army and police. But Noriega got away and was thought to be hiding in the forests or even in the sprawling capital city; the U.S. offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture...
American troops faced a tough battle to restore order in Panama City, where looters, some reportedly shouting, "Viva Bush!" ransacked stores and homes and where Noriega's misnamed Dignity Battalions, a paramilitary force, were putting up a street-to-street fight. Noriega's loyalists, apparently at his direction, staged hit-and-run attacks. On Friday, two days after American military commanders began declaring victory, they fired shells at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command. The Pentagon admitted that its forces had encountered stiffer resistance than expected, and Bush ordered an additional 2,000 troops to Panama as reinforcements. Meanwhile...