-Caveat Lector-
January 2, 2001
NYTimes
After Cole's Bombing, Pentagon Finds Ongoing Lapses in Gulf Security
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 � A Pentagon commission has concluded that
there were significant security shortcomings in the region before
the bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen and plans to recommend
steps to tighten security for American forces there, senior
defense officials say.
The bombing of an Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia more than
four years ago led to sweeping changes in security procedures at
American bases throughout the region and the world. But the
commission found that commanders in the Persian Gulf were still
not devoting enough attention to protecting American forces from
attack, the officials said on Friday.
In particular, the commission found cracks in security for ships
and aircraft as they move through the region, as the Cole was
doing when it stopped in the Yemeni port of Aden on Oct. 12 and
was attacked by a harbor skiff packed with explosives, the
officials said.
"The overarching theme is we've done a lot of things to improve
force protection, but it is still not deeply rooted in our
culture," said a senior defense official who has been briefed on
the status of the commission's findings.
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen appointed the commission
after the suicide bombing of the Cole, which killed 17 sailors
and wounded 39. While the commission has not yet completed a
written report, the two retired commanders leading it, Adm.
Harold W. Gehman of the Navy and Gen. William W. Crouch of the
Army, outlined their findings just before Christmas for Mr.
Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the officials said.
A separate Navy investigation, focused only on actions aboard the
Cole, has concluded that the destroyer's captain and crew failed
to follow strict security procedures on the morning of the
attack. That inquiry, which is still being reviewed by the
Navy's top admirals, has raised the possibility of disciplinary
action against the Cole's captain, Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, or
other officers and members of the crew.
The commission leaders are expected to present their final
conclusions � and their recommendations for improving security �
to Mr. Cohen this week. The officials declined to discuss the
recommendations in detail, saying many of them will remain secret
to thwart future attacks.
The questions underlying the commission's review are whether any
measures could have been taken to avert attack on the Cole and
whether anyone in the chain of command should be held responsible
for security lapses. And, the officials said, the commission
ultimately does not answer either.
"There's no smoking gun," the senior defense official said.
The commission's review, in contrast to the Navy investigation,
focused more broadly on security in Yemen and through the region
and not on the individual accountability of other commanders or
officials in the region, the officials said. The commission
consisted of the two retired officers and an active duty staff of
investigators.
In his only public remarks on the review, General Crouch said in
November that the commission's mandate was focused on improving
security for American forces in the region, not on assigning
blame. "We're not out here to find fault with anybody," he said
at the time. "We're out here to make recommendations for
improvement."
Nevertheless, the commission found that commanders in the region
were not paying enough attention to the security of American
troops there, the officials said. In particular, the commission
focused on what one senior official called "a breakdown" in
communication between embassies and the military commanders of
the United States Central Command, based in Tampa, Fla., the
military headquarters for the Persian Gulf region.
There also appears to have been ambiguity over who exactly had
authority for security in ports like Aden, where harbor boats,
scows and other ships swarm chaotically. The commission plans to
recommend a series of "additional tools" to tighten security
procedures for commanders on the ground and for forces passing
from place to place.
The commission's findings could be challenged in Congress, where
lawmakers have indicated a greater desire to assign blame for
security lapses. Even in the Pentagon, there appears to be
disagreement over the scope of the review and its conclusions.
One official said Navy leaders, in particular, were distressed
that the conclusions outlined before Christmas did not directly
address whether intelligence reports and other factors should
have warranted raising the Cole's alert to a higher level than
"threat condition Bravo," only the third-highest level.
Raising the level higher could have required the Cole's captain
and crew to take additional security steps � or to cancel the
refueling stop altogether.
The commission's final report, now being drafted, may address
that question more directly than Admiral Gehman and General
Crouch did in their preliminary briefings. It is also possible
that Mr. Cohen, after receiving the Cole's final report, may
himself decide to recommend disciplining any commanders found to
have been less than diligent.
At the same time, however, the commission's review, like the
Navy's investigation, has concluded that even in hindsight, there
was no single action or decision � short of not refueling the
Cole in Yemen � that could have avoided the attack, the officials
said.
By contrast, after the bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks near
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on June 26, 1996, a similar commission
found that American commanders had been warned repeatedly about
the threat of a terrorist attack and had failed to take basic
security precautions such as extending a fence and installing
Mylar sheets over barrack windows.
In the case of the Cole, the officials emphasized that its crew
believed that the skiff � with two suicide bombers aboard � was
part of a flotilla of harbor boats assisting the Cole and thus
did not raise suspicions.
"There's no `but for' � `but for this' or `but for that' this
could have been avoided," a senior official said. "There wasn't
one thing that caused the Cole to happen."
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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