The half-dozen intelligence officers worked directly under the command of Gen. Southern Command, along with a liaison officer from the Central Intelligence Agency, supervised the 'Noriega Watch,' which included intercepting Noriega's radio and telephone communications and dispatching local Panamanian agents to watch his movements. But when the operation began, 'we did not have him in our sights.' For weeks, a National Security Agency detachment working out of the U.S. 'We were certainly hopeful that we would be able to apprehend him quickly,' one military official said. One intelligence official said yesterday that for all the high-technology resources brought to bear in the search for Noriega, 'when you are looking for one guy, a lot of that stuff is superfluous.' They still believed that by hitting several key Noriega hideouts simultaneously, they stood a good chance of catching the 'wily' dictator who was trained as an intelligence officer in the art of deception. As the hours rolled by, it became clear that Noriega had eluded the intensive intelligence operation activated for the invasion called Operation Just Cause. They engaged in firefights with Noriega loyalists, but did not find Noriega. Special forces units operating with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division stormed the installation. intelligence officials described as the 'prime suspect' in the 11th-hour attempt to zero in on Noriega was a military base at Colon on the Atlantic coast of Panama. In Panama City, another special forces team dispatched to the apartment of a Noriega mistress found no trace of the self-styled 'Maximum Leader.' The hideout U.S.

A Navy Seal (Sea-Air-Land) team burst into a seaside villa on the Pacific Ocean but found only smoking cigarette butts in an ashtray and women's purses. Four Seals died and seven were wounded, according to military officials, but the Boeing 707 jet that could have flown Noriega out of the country was neutralized. 3 coup attempt, a 20-member Seal team walked into a violent firefight with Noriega forces. In a preemptive assault on Punta Paitilla airport, which played a pivotal role in preserving Noriega's dictatorship during the Oct. Wednesday, the Noriega strike teams struck out. But when the invasion hour arrived at 1 a.m. military gambit in that Central American nation. Their mission: Execute President Bush's order to decapitate the Panamanian government by apprehending Noriega as the opening move of the U.S. Manuel Antonio Noriega's lairs and to the airfield where the Panamanian leader had parked what intelligence officials thought could be a getaway jet. special operations teams equipped with night-vision devices and carrying an array of weapons made their way to at least three of Gen.

In the midnight hours before the invasion of Panama, U.S.

Real war air land sea