Victory over drugs is our cause,
a just cause.
And with your help,
we are going to win.
On the 20th of December, 1989,
the United States launched its biggest military operation
since the end of the Vietnam War.
More than 25,000 soldiers
poured into the small Central American republic of Panama,
supported by air power and a huge intelligence operation.
On December the 20th last year,
the Latin American republic of Panama was being liberated.
On paper, the invasion was about restoring democracy.
In reality, this was a drug bust,
carried out to arrest one of America’s most wanted traffickers.
And this drug lord wasn’t your typical
on-the-run fugitive hiding out in the jungle.
In fact, it was Manuel Noriega,
the head of the Panamanian military
and de facto ruler of the entire country.
Noriega is responsible for the terror on our streets.
And somewhat awkwardly for the US,
Noriega had been a key American ally
and a CIA intelligence asset for decades.
This is how the Cold War met the war on drugs
and how the CIA helped to create a cocaine dictator.
[THE WAR ON DRUGS SHOW]
[HOW THE CIA CREATED A COCAINE DICTATOR]
Panama is a relatively small country.
And there's no particular reason why it should be considered
a vital strategic interest to the US military.
Apart from one thing— the Panama Canal.
About 5 percent of all global trade passes through the canal,
which tends to make the US sit up and pay attention.
Throughout the 20th century,
America ran the canal directly,
through a series of military bases here, here, and here.
The United States is deeply engaged in the anti-communist struggle...
in the competition with the Soviet Union.
The United States was concerned
that the Soviet Union was making a play for Latin America.
Panama was a key player on the side of the United States.
Manuel Noriega first came to work for the CIA all the way back in 1955.
By the mid-1960s, he was receiving specialist training in intelligence
and psychological warfare at the infamous School of the Americas,
where the US military trained many of Latin America’s
most prolific human rights abusers.
More than 200 Latin American students,
hailing from 18 different nations,
study technical skills and leadership techniques at the school.
After a coup in 1968,
Noriega rose to become head of military intelligence.
And this is when his career—
both as a CIA spy and a drug trafficker—
began to take off,
with Noriega using his position
to provide protection to drug shipments from South America.
Essentially, he's taking money from drug traffickers to help them out,
but at the same time, he’s cooperating with the CIA,
with military intelligence.
He becomes more useful to the CIA and to the DIA,
to military intelligence.
Perhaps the most controversial question
surrounding Noriega’s involvement with US intelligence
is how much the CIA knew about his drug trafficking
and either chose to ignore it or actively protect him.
This is particularly relevant to future President George H.W. Bush,
who in the mid-1970s was head of the CIA.
His drug trafficking was not a mystery to the CIA.
The CIA was working with many people in Central America in this period
who were involved in drug trafficking.
The same people who were transporting guns—
on our behalf in many cases—
were also transporting cocaine.
George Bush, in 1976, is head of the CIA.
Noriega actually goes to meet with Bush in Washington
around this period.
Noriega’s involvement in drugs was serious enough that,
as early as 1972,
the Nixon White House actually considered assassinating him.
But he was considered so essential by the CIA and the Pentagon
that the plan was never carried out.
And awkwardly enough
for George Bush’s later claims of ignorance,
in 1976, the CIA actually put Noriega on a regular annual salary
that eventually rose to over $200,000 a year.
The head of the CIA at the time being George Bush.
Then in 1983,
Noriega took full control as de facto dictator of Panama.
Noriega went straight into business with the rising Colombian cartels,
giving them landing strips for their cocaine shipments
at upwards of $100,000 per flight.
Did drugs get transported in his aircraft
through this deal that you arranged?
We set up a deal that ended up in a drug shipment.
When Pablo Escobar murdered
the Colombian minister of justice in 1984 and had to go on the run,
it was Noriega’s Panama that offered him shelter.
At the same time, Noriega was keeping up his contacts
with the American intelligence agencies.
Any drug trafficker who didn't pay could be reported to the DEA,
effectively making them the muscle of Noriega’s narco protection racket.
And Noriega wasn’t just cashing in on the cocaine flowing north to the US.
For decades, America had encouraged Panama to resist communism
by becoming “the Switzerland of Central America,”
establishing a strong banking sector with extremely strict privacy laws.
This, of course,
was very handy for drug cartels needing to launder money.
And planeloads of cash began flying in from Miami,
with Noriega providing protection until the money could disappear
into the opaque Panamanian banking system.
The drug underworld is swimming in a sea of money,
money that filters back into the legitimate economy.
The real money starts pouring in.
The cartels in Colombia are now very active.
Drug trafficking is going out of control.
Billions of dollars are being produced by the cartels,
and Noriega is offered a chunk of that.
Noriega was able to keep getting away with all this
throughout almost the entire 1980s,
partially because the Reagan administration
was supporting right-wing rebels known as the Contras
as they fought a bloody civil war in Nicaragua.
Congress had made supporting the Contras illegal,
so this all had to be done off the books.
And that's when Noriega came in.
He was providing intelligence. That's number one.
Number two was arms shipments.
So between the booming cocaine trade
and clandestine military supply chains,
how did it all come crashing down?
In the early 80s, an opponent of Noriega’s in Panama
named Hugo Spadafora
made a series of very public accusations
about Noriega’s drug trafficking activities.
The military seized Spadafora,
and a day later, his tortured and decapitated body was discovered.
But what probably brought down Noriega
was more that he’d simply outlived his usefulness.
The Cold War was winding down,
and the American defense establishment
was getting less paranoid about communists
and more twitchy about drug cartels.
If we can’t take Noriega with the power that we have in the area,
how are we going to deal with the drug lords
in Mexico, Colombia, and Bolivia?
And when are we really going to take on that war?
In 1988, Noriega was indicted in a Miami court
on multiple drug trafficking charges.
During his election campaign,
George Bush was being questioned about his CIA links with Noriega.
But that didn’t stop him from winning the presidency a year later.
I mean, anybody who sits there and does nothing
and says he didn’t know that Noriega...
was doing drugs and running drugs and is a suspected murderer,
in my judgment doesn’t have what it takes to lead this country.
In his first TV address as president, Bush held up a bag of crack
and declared a major escalation in the war on drugs,
claiming it was “a just cause.”
Victory over drugs is our cause,
a just cause.
And with your help,
we are going to win.
In a not overly subtle reference to Bush’s drug policy speech,
the invasion was called Operation Just Cause.
Noriega was the intelligence hub in Central America.
He knew where the bodies were buried, on all sides.
He knows what the CIA is doing
and all of the dirty work that we are participating in.
The interesting thing is that he never uses that information.
Over 500 Panamanians died in this drugs bust,
along with 23 US soldiers.
Noriega tried to claim diplomatic asylum
in the Vatican embassy in Panama,
but US troops surrounded it and blasted Van Halen songs
until he couldn’t take any more and surrendered.
He’s a fugitive drug dealer,
and we want to see him brought to justice.
And if that helps,
if there’s some incentive for some Panamanian to turn him in,
that’s a million bucks that I would be very happy to sign the check for.
The potential for embarrassment is high,
with the defense team promising revelations of CIA involvement
in the murky world of international drug smuggling and gunrunning.
Noriega was flown to Miami, stood trial under drug charges,
and was sentenced to 40 years.
He served 17 before being extradited to a prison term in France
and then to another in Panama before dying in 2017.
For all the bullets fired, people killed,
and billions spent on the war on drugs
since Noriega was sent to prison,
the drug trade has only increased,
and the people who run it have only got richer.
We’d like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs.