Manuel Noriega was the president of Panama, a military dictator, and, per John Kiriakou, one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere. Kiriakou raises him to rebut a televised denial by former CIA officer Jack Devine that the agency ever worked with drug traffickers: Noriega, he notes, “was a paid CIA source for decades.”[1] Kiriakou frames the case as part of the CIA’s need to address its drug-facilitation history “truthfully.”[1]
Kiriakou also describes the 1989 U.S. operation that removed Noriega from power: President George H.W. Bush invaded Panama with the military, and Noriega fled to the Vatican embassy in Panama City.[2] U.S. forces occupied Panama City and set up sound systems around the embassy, playing death metal at high volume until the Vatican ambassador told Noriega he had to leave; Noriega walked out and was taken into custody.[3] Kiriakou says the U.S. invoked the 1985 “Kiki Camarena law” to legally justify the 1989 invasion — telling Soviet objections at the UN Security Council that the action was legal under U.S. law.[4]