-Caveat Lector-
Navy Times
Published: 11/06/2000
Category: Newslines Page: 8
Were anti-terrorist guidelines followed?
Congress raises questions about Cole, port security
By David Brown |and Vince Crawley
With investigators and the media daily turning up new details of
the attack on the destroyer Cole, Congress is bearing down on
military leadership for answers about whether ship and harbor
officials followed official anti-terrorism guidelines.
Since terrorists steered a bomb-laden boat into the warship on
Oct. 12, killing 17 sailors, Navy leaders have insisted little
could have been done to prevent the tragedy in the Port of Aden,
Yemen.
Leaders initially said the attack boat blended in with official
harbor craft helping tie the Cole to buoys as the ship prepared
to refuel at a mid-harbor platform at 12:15 p.m.
But eight days following the explosion, the Navy revised its
attack time line after Navy Times quoted a source associated with
the port who said the ship was fully moored for nearly an hour
and was taking on fuel when the attack occurred at 11:18 a.m.
Navy officials confirmed the inaccuracies of their initial
reports, saying the discrepancies resulted from confusion and
miscommunication in the minutes and hours following the attack.
That still leaves much to be explained, the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee said during daylong Capitol Hill
hearings Oct. 25.
�This revised time line raises a series of further questions
about the force-protection procedures in place that day, both by
the USS Cole and the host country,� said Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
Walter Slocombe, undersecretary of defense for policy, told
Warner that officials did not clear up details of the attack
after initial reports because they didn�t want to question crew
members while they were fighting to save the ship.
Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of military forces in the
Middle East, was aboard the Cole 72 hours after the attack and
took part of the blame for allowing the erroneous attack time
line information to persist.
�I�ll just be very honest with you,� Franks told lawmakers.
�Given the efforts that were ongoing by the skipper and that crew
to save that ship, I didn�t ask.�
Warner and other senators said the credibility of top military
officials had been called into question by allowing the time line
mistake to go unnoticed for more than a week.
�Quite frankly, the terrorists knew, but we didn�t,� Sen. Pat
Roberts, R-Kan., said.
Warner noted that one of the crewmen phoned home and told his
parents that the time line reported on television was in error.
The parents then informed a former secretary of defense, who
informed Warner.
Warner also noted that the Navy�s Fifth Fleet headquarters in
Bahrain issued a message within a couple hours after the attack
saying the explosion took place while the Cole was refueling.
The discrepancy � an attack while mooring vs. an attack when
already moored � is significant. Odds are greater that the
attack boat would have stood out after mooring, when other small
boats had left the area, and raised the suspicions of Cole crew
members and harbor authorities.
Scenarios covered under anti-terrorist tactics published by the
Pentagon specifically warn ship crews about the kind of
small-boat attack that occurred.
�Water taxis, ferries, bum boats and other harbor craft require
special concern because they can serve as an ideal platform for
terrorists,� warns a Pentagon document called �Joint Tactics,
Techniques and Procedures for Antiterrorism.� The document was
published in March 1998 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in part as
a response to the 1996 truck-bomb attack in Saudi Arabia that
killed 19 airmen at Khobar Towers.
�Unauthorized craft should be kept away from the ship; authorized
craft should be carefully controlled, surveilled and covered,�
the document warns.
The publication lists more than 100 measures that U.S. forces
must take at various levels of alert, known as threat conditions,
or ThreatCons. The guidance about small craft was listed as
Measure 16, to be taken under ThreatCon Alpha. The Cole entered
the port at ThreatCon Bravo, one level higher than Alpha.
Navy and Defense officials have refused to discuss specific
security measures the Cole undertook before the attack.
Under ThreatCon Bravo, the ship was directed to follow 35
measures in addition to ThreatCon Alpha measures. Bravo measures
included outfitting some topside sailors with weapons, manning
fire hoses, watching for approaching boats and preparing a team
to go on picket-boat patrol.
Some Cole sailors reportedly exchanged friendly waves with two
men in a small boat moving along the port side that then veered
in close to the ship and set off the explosion. One sailor said
he believed the men were there to pick up the ship�s garbage.
A retired senior military officer familiar with port operations
in Aden said boats with Yemeni sailors armed with AK-47 assault
rifles patrolled near U.S. warships during ship visits in 1999,
but that practice has diminished in recent months.
According to the source, Aden was under ThreatCon Charlie
following the bombings of the embassies in east Africa in 1998
until spring of 2000.
Navy security procedures need to be reviewed, that source said.
�One of the biggest problems is that I doubt you're going to find
many 20- or 21-year-old sailors who are going to take the
personal responsibility to light up a boat in a foreign harbor,�
said the official, who asked not to be named. �He would have to
have a superior officer over his shoulder ordering him to fire on
the boat.�
Security procedures will be addressed by a special panel of
senior military officers, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig
Quigley told reporters Oct. 24. Security also may be reviewed
on the unit level, he said.
�I would suggest that probably every installation�s security
manager, commanding officer, their security force, is taking a
good, hard look at the procedures they have in place, and saying,
�Are we still OK?�� Quigley said. h
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