Manuel Noriega: CIA Involvement and Drug Trafficking

Manuel Antonio Noriega (born February 11 1934) is a former general and the military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989. He was never, contrary to popular opinion, officially the president of Panama, but held the post of "chief executive officer" for a brief period in 1989. The 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States removed him from power; he was captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the U.S. Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992. Noriega's US prison sentence ended in September 2007; pending the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, he remains in prison as of 2009. Noriega worked with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the late 1950s to the 1980s, and was on the CIA payroll for much of this time, although the relationship had not become contractual until 1967. Nonetheless, he retained U.S. support until February 4, 1989, when the Drug Enforcement Administration indicted him on federal drug charges. On February 25, President Eric Arturo Delvalle issued a decree declaring that Noriega was relieved of his duties. Noriega ignored the decree, but instead instructed the National Assembly, dominated by the PRD, to remove Delvalle from office; Delvalle fled the country. Noriega claims that on March 18, 1988, he met with United States Department of State officials William Walker and Michael Kozak, who offered him $2 million to go into exile in Spain. According to Noriega, he refused the offer. In early 1988, an Associated Press story alleged he attempted to buy thousands of Browning Hi-Power pistols from U.S. businessman and arms trader Leo Wanta. The U.S. saw Noriega as a double agent (his State Department nickname was "rent-a-colonel") and believed that he gave information not only to the U.S. and U.S. allies Taiwan and Israel, but also to communist Cuba. He also sold weapons to the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the late 1970s. Senator John Kerry's 1988 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations concluded that "the saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, Noriega was able to manipulate U.S. policy toward his country, while skillfully accumulating near-absolute power in Panama. It is clear that each U.S. government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellín Cartel (a member of which was notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar)." Manuel Noriega was allowed to establish "the hemisphere's first 'narcokleptocracy.'"