When the shooting ended, Lopez de Perea and her 25-year-old husband Ismael were dead. The neighbor was wounded in the stomach. The mother-in-law, though unhurt, was hysterical. The unborn baby was dead, too.
The U.S. government acknowledged the facts, but refused any compensation to the family. The Southern Command concluded that its investigation had found that the incident "although tragic in nature, indicate[s] that the U.S. personnel acted within the parameters of the rules of engagement in effect at that time."
On the same day as the tragic shooting, Manuel Noriega finally re-emerged. He entered the papal nuncio's residence and sought asylum. The United States demanded his surrender and bombarded the house with loud rock music. On Jan. 3, 1990, in full military uniform, Noriega surrendered to U.S. Delta Forces and was flown in shackles to Miami for prosecution on drug-trafficking charges.
With Noriega's surrender, the Panamanian carnage was over. Two days later, the victorious Powell flew to Panama to announce that "we gave the country back to its people."
In his memoir, Powell noted as downsides to the invasion the fact that the United Nations and Organization of American States both censured the United States. There were also the hundreds of civilian dead. They had been, in effect, innocent bystanders in the arrest of Manuel Noriega.
"The loss of innocent lives was tragic," Powell wrote, "but we had made every effort to hold down casualties on all sides." Some human rights organizations disagreed, condemning the application of indiscriminate force in civilian areas.
"Under the Geneva Accords, the attacking party has the obligation to minimize harm to civilians," one official at Americas Watch said. Instead, the Pentagon had shown "a great preoccupation with minimizing American casualties because it would not go over politically here to have a large number of U.S. military deaths."
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 solidified Powell's reputation in Washington. An enduring image was the picture of the two top generals - Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf - celebrating the military victory in ticker-tape parades. They seemed the perfect teammates, a politically smooth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Powell) and the gruff field commander (Schwarzkopf).
But the behind-the-scenes reality often was different. Time and again in the march toward a ground war in Kuwait and Iraq, Powell wavered between siding with Schwarzkopf, who was willing to accept a peaceful Iraqi withdrawal, and lining up with President George H.W. Bush, who hungered for a clear military victory.
The tension peaked in the days before the ground war was scheduled to begin. Iraqi forces already had been pummeled by weeks of devastating allied air attacks both against targets in Iraq and Kuwait. As the clock ticked toward a decision on launching a ground offensive, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to hammer out a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. But Bush and his political leadership desperately wanted a ground war to crown the American victory.
According to insiders, Bush saw the war as advancing two goals: to inflict severe damage on Saddam Hussein's army and to erase the painful memories of America's defeat in Vietnam. To Bush, exorcising the "Vietnam Syndrome" demons had become an important priority of the Persian Gulf War, almost as central to his thinking as ousting Saddam's army from Kuwait.
Conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak were among the few who described Bush's obsession publicly at the time. They wrote that the Gorbachev initiative brokering Iraq's surrender of Kuwait "stirred fears" among Bush's advisers that the Vietnam Syndrome might survive the Gulf War.
"Fear of a peace deal at the Bush White House had less to do with oil, Israel or Iraqi expansionism than with the bitter legacy of a lost war. 'This is the chance to get rid of the Vietnam Syndrome,' one senior aide told us," Evans and Novak wrote.
Field Generals
But Schwarzkopf and some of his generals in the field felt U.S. goals could be achieved through a negotiated Iraqi withdrawal that would end the slaughter and spare the lives of U.S. troops. Powell wavered between the two camps.
The U.S. government acknowledged the facts, but refused any compensation to the family. The Southern Command concluded that its investigation had found that the incident "although tragic in nature, indicate[s] that the U.S. personnel acted within the parameters of the rules of engagement in effect at that time."
On the same day as the tragic shooting, Manuel Noriega finally re-emerged. He entered the papal nuncio's residence and sought asylum. The United States demanded his surrender and bombarded the house with loud rock music. On Jan. 3, 1990, in full military uniform, Noriega surrendered to U.S. Delta Forces and was flown in shackles to Miami for prosecution on drug-trafficking charges.
With Noriega's surrender, the Panamanian carnage was over. Two days later, the victorious Powell flew to Panama to announce that "we gave the country back to its people."
"The loss of innocent lives was tragic," Powell wrote, "but we had made every effort to hold down casualties on all sides." Some human rights organizations disagreed, condemning the application of indiscriminate force in civilian areas.
"Under the Geneva Accords, the attacking party has the obligation to minimize harm to civilians," one official at Americas Watch said. Instead, the Pentagon had shown "a great preoccupation with minimizing American casualties because it would not go over politically here to have a large number of U.S. military deaths."
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 solidified Powell's reputation in Washington. An enduring image was the picture of the two top generals - Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf - celebrating the military victory in ticker-tape parades. They seemed the perfect teammates, a politically smooth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Powell) and the gruff field commander (Schwarzkopf).
But the behind-the-scenes reality often was different. Time and again in the march toward a ground war in Kuwait and Iraq, Powell wavered between siding with Schwarzkopf, who was willing to accept a peaceful Iraqi withdrawal, and lining up with President George H.W. Bush, who hungered for a clear military victory.
The tension peaked in the days before the ground war was scheduled to begin. Iraqi forces already had been pummeled by weeks of devastating allied air attacks both against targets in Iraq and Kuwait. As the clock ticked toward a decision on launching a ground offensive, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to hammer out a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. But Bush and his political leadership desperately wanted a ground war to crown the American victory.
According to insiders, Bush saw the war as advancing two goals: to inflict severe damage on Saddam Hussein's army and to erase the painful memories of America's defeat in Vietnam. To Bush, exorcising the "Vietnam Syndrome" demons had become an important priority of the Persian Gulf War, almost as central to his thinking as ousting Saddam's army from Kuwait.
Conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak were among the few who described Bush's obsession publicly at the time. They wrote that the Gorbachev initiative brokering Iraq's surrender of Kuwait "stirred fears" among Bush's advisers that the Vietnam Syndrome might survive the Gulf War.
"Fear of a peace deal at the Bush White House had less to do with oil, Israel or Iraqi expansionism than with the bitter legacy of a lost war. 'This is the chance to get rid of the Vietnam Syndrome,' one senior aide told us," Evans and Novak wrote.
Field Generals
But Schwarzkopf and some of his generals in the field felt U.S. goals could be achieved through a negotiated Iraqi withdrawal that would end the slaughter and spare the lives of U.S. troops. Powell wavered between the two camps.
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