Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!att!cbnews!military
From: ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!cyrius@cs.utexas.edu (Juan Chen)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: U.S army in Panama
Message-ID: <10231@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Oct 89 01:56:18 GMT
References: <10148@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!cyrius@cs.utexas.edu (Juan Chen)

In article <10148@cbnews.ATT.COM> karlth@rhi.hi.is (Karl Thoroddsen) writes:
>
>
>From: karlth@rhi.hi.is (Karl Thoroddsen)
>
>Now one week after the failed Coup in Panama several questions surface.
>According to news bulletins the U.S army helped the rebels by blocking the
>roads to the presidential palace.  Could the army have done more?
  It wasn't the presidential palace, but rather the Defense Forces HQ,  
which BTW is just a stone trow away from the Canal Zone. The presidential
palace is just a three story bldg. that doesn't even have a fence around
itself.
>How strong is the U.S army in Panama? And would an U.S intervention have
>been a mistake, from a military point of view?
>
 The Army's 183rd Infantry(?) are the ones stationed down
there that I recall seeing all the time throughout my childhood
and early college days, but I don't know their numerical strength.
The Army & Marine groups sent there earlier this year may still be
there, but people I've called don't want to say much about anything
over the phone. Too many spy movies I think...The heaviest hardware
I recall seeing are APCs (not M113, but wheeled vehicles, not tracks)
and some small artillery pieces. The Air Force is mainly C-130, Dragonflies (?)
and lots of Hueys and the odd Chinook. Then again, a lot of troops go
for training down there year round, from astronauts to Special Ops, 
Thunderbirds (F-4s back when I first saw them) to B-52s.
 Could intervention have been possible, yes. The best roads are in
the Canal Zone and lead to the area where Noriega's HQ is. But then
again, it is not up to the soldiers, but to the politicians.
 It is an odd picture, because Noriega's HQ is a couple of blocks
away from the avenue that americans (zonians) call Fourth of July
and us natives call Avenida de los Estudiantes. This road is effectively
the "border" the marks where the Canal Zone starts (before the treaties
went into effect). So acrross the street from the HQ is Ancon Hill and
Balboa Heights former american civilian neighborhoods and up the road
west is the Canal and just past that are Fort Kobee, Howard
AFB, and a Naval base whose name I can't recall. All clustered about
five miles up the road from Mr. Noriega. And if you follow the Canal
a couple of miles north, is Fort Clayton. Fort Albrook is closer
to Panama City, but I don't think there are any active troops there.
It is the former site of the School of the Americas.
 Forty minutes away (driving
at legal speeds) are all the bases in the Atlantic side.

>
--------  "...There's more than one answer to these questions   --------
Juan G. Chen                            cyrius@dopey.cc.utexas.edu
University of Texas@Austin              (or grumpy, or doc, or happy...)
P.O. Box 8362                           128.83.135.10
Austin, TX  78713
--------   pointing me in a crooked line..."     Indigo Girls   --------