U.S. in New Bid to Oust Noriega : Panama: White House has secret congressional approval, sources say. ‘High-risk tactics’ leading to the strongman’s death or injury may be used.

WASHINGTON —  The Bush Administration, with secret congressional approval, has launched a new covert attempt to oust Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega, including “high-risk” tactics that might lead to his injury or death, informed sources said Wednesday.

The CIA has been authorized to spend $3 million initially to recruit Panamanian military officers or other dissidents to mount a coup.

“It is an unimpeded effort to try to topple Noriega,” said one source. “We’re going into it with the understanding that there may be loss of life, though the effort will be not to kill anyone.”

The Administration, criticized for its restrained response to a failed coup attempt against Noriega on Oct. 3, is now including use of U.S. troops as a possible option.

“Given the same set of circumstances (as the October attempt), the next time, I think, we will react differently,” said a senior Administration official.

The CIA covert operation, dubbed Panama-5, centers on an effort to recruit officers within the Panama Defense Forces and exiled opposition figures to overthrow Noriega. The operation, described as the broadest to date, will be financed by CIA reserve contingency funds.

Although several leading Panamanian military dissidents were killed during the Oct. 3 coup attempt, or executed by Noriega’s government afterward, the CIA reportedly believes that other officers within the Panama Defense Forces are open to collaboration with the United States. A post-coup assessment by U.S. intelligence also reportedly describes Noriega as “on the ropes.”

Panama-5, so called because it follows four earlier U.S. covert actions against Noriega, has “no restrictions” beyond a prohibition on assassinating the Panamanian strongman.

In outlining the plan three weeks ago before the Senate and House intelligence committees, Bush Administration officials made clear that the Administration is not prepared to negotiate an alternative short of bringing Noriega to justice in the United States.

“What it boils down to is that we want him alive in the United States or dead,” said a source close to the operation.

The United States has been trying to force Noriega out of power since February, 1988, when he was indicted by federal grand juries in Miami and Tampa, Fla., on drug-trafficking charges. In May of that year, the Reagan Administration attempted to negotiate his resignation and his resettlement in another country--Spain was mentioned as one possibility--but the talks fell through and he refused to step down.

Washington’s anti-Noriega effort was intensified last May, when Noriega nullified the results of a national election held to select a new president. Since then, the Bush Administration has contended that Noriega is operating an illegitimate government and has attempted through both regional diplomatic pressure and other means to isolate and undermine him.

In mid-October, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger reportedly told the congressional intelligence committees in closed-door sessions that the Administration is not prepared to negotiate Noriega’s exile in Spain, a country with which the United States does not have an extradition treaty, or retirement in Panama in exchange for dropping the drug indictments.

A CIA spokesman had no comment on U.S. intelligence activities in Panama.

But a senior Administration official suggested that, in the aftermath of an interagency review on what went wrong on Oct. 3, the United States might be willing to use U.S. troops to seize Noriega in the event of another coup attempt.

“We have talked about various scenarios, all based on pinning down where Noriega is,” he said.

The interagency review concluded that the United States is compelled to try again to recruit dissidents or to encourage another attempt to overthrow Noriega, the official said.

It also concluded that the standards applied to decide whether U.S. troops should support the October plot were too vague, in part because of a 13-year-old executive order banning U.S. involvement in assassination of foreign figures.

The senior official conceded that the parameters of U.S. involvement in a coup attempt were neither sufficiently thought through by the Bush Administration nor made sufficiently clear to the Panama Defense Forces ahead of the Oct. 3 coup. So when Noriega was finally cornered in Panama Defense Forces headquarters, neither the rebels nor the White House had a ready response.

The way for a bolder U.S. initiative was opened by a recent clarification of the U.S. ban on assassinations.

In response to pressure from Capitol Hill as well as interagency debates over what action constitutes an assassination, legal counsel from the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and Justice Department were summoned to the White House last month for deliberations on the controversial issue.

The Justice Department was subsequently assigned to write a clarification of a series of executive orders dating back to the Ford Administration. The classified memo, written by William P. Barr, assistant attorney general in charge of legal counsel, was submitted to CIA Director William H. Webster. It was then sent to the House and Senate Intelligence committees earlier this month.

The memo opens the way for U.S. support--directly or indirectly, in coup attempts in which assassination is not the intent but may be the accidental byproduct.

It followed a similar “memorandum of law” by the Pentagon’s Office of the Army Judge Advocate General on overt use of American troops in clandestine operations that might result in the death of foreign figures.

Bush Administration officials insist that the new rulings do not constitute a policy change. But they concede that the new consensus between the White House and Congress on the definition of assassination significantly expands the latitude of both overt and covert activities.

“The intelligence committees gave the White House new flexibility on the assassination issue, which it needs in order to act in the future,” said a source familiar with the Senate and House committee meetings.

“In developing a pro-active policy, the Administration no longer has to be concerned with opposition from (Capitol) Hill on the basis of the assassination ban. There is general agreement on what is or is not an assassination.”

Times staff writer Doyle McManus contributed to this report.