US President George H. W. Bush ordered the invasion following escalating tensions with strongman Manuel Noriega, citing drug trafficking charges, threats to American citizens, and the deaths of US military personnel. Noriega evaded capture initially by taking refuge in the Vatican's Panama embassy before surrendering weeks later.
Manuel Noriega had once been a paid CIA informant, useful to Washington through the 1980s even as evidence mounted that he was trafficking cocaine and rigging elections. By 1989, with a federal drug indictment against him already filed in Florida, he had become a liability the Bush administration wanted gone.
The operation involved more than 27,000 US troops backed by stealth bombers making their combat debut, striking Panamanian Defense Force targets across the country in the early hours. Fighting was fiercest around Noriega's headquarters, and the death toll among Panamanian civilians and soldiers remained disputed for years afterward, with estimates ranging from the low hundreds into the thousands.
Noriega slipped away from the initial assault and sought asylum inside the Vatican diplomatic mission in Panama City. American troops surrounded the building and, in a memorably surreal siege tactic, blasted rock music at deafening volume around the clock to pressure him out. He surrendered on January 3, 1990, was flown to Miami, and was later convicted on drug trafficking charges—a rare case of a foreign head of state tried and imprisoned by the United States.
Key people: Manuel Noriega, George H. W. Bush