Link to transcript is in post #1.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.
IIRC, I do remember that "chatter" or other intel was received...or that the Navy CO refused/disobeyed protocol on docking to port. AG, any other USS Cole info on this???
bttt
Seventeen Sailors Die in Terrorist Attack
USS Cole Returned to United States for Repair
By OTTO KREISHER
Otto Kreisher is a reporter for Copley News Service.
The inherent risk to U.S. forward-deployed forces operating in the Persian Gulf region was again demonstrated with explosive and deadly impact by a terrorist attack on the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, in October.
In a shocking strike that was at once both audacious and abhorrent, a powerful explosive was carried to the port side of the Arleigh Burke-class ship by two terrorists in a motorized skiff during the ship’s four-hour refueling port visit on 12 October. The explosion blasted a 40-by-40-foot hole in the Cole’s hull, killing 17 crewmembers and injuring 39. Both terrorists, who were said by eyewitnesses to be waving or saluting at the time they detonated their charge, also were killed in the attack.
The blast caused massive flooding of the Cole’s number one engine and auxiliary machinery rooms and set off a prolonged and valiant battle to save the stricken ship from sinking.
It also triggered a heated debate in Washington, D.C., and in the Cole’s home port of Norfolk, Va., over the wisdom of sending warships into Yemen, a known hotbed of Muslim extremists and a refuge for international terrorists. The Navy’s standard security procedures for protecting ships in port also were challenged as three investigations were launched to determine the perpetrators of the attack and the facts surrounding the USS Cole’s actions at the time.
A Powerful and Devastating Explosion
The Cole was on its way from the Mediterranean Sea to join the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf when it pulled into Aden to refuel.
Because of Yemen’s history of terrorist activities, the Navy had avoided visiting the former British colonial-era harbor on the southwest corner of the Arabian peninsula for a decade. But in an effort to improve relations with the current moderate government—a move advocated by the former commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command and other senior U.S. officials as part of the U.S. engagement strategy—the Navy started using Aden for refueling in 1999. The Cole was the 28th U.S. ship to use the port in two years.
The ship was at "Threat Condition Bravo," the second lowest of the four threat ratings, as it moored at a fueling dolphin just east of the harbor entrance. That status required lookouts and armed Sailors on deck.
In his first news briefing on the attack, Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said the Cole still was tying up when one of the small craft assisting it exploded against its hull. Witnesses said two men were standing erect on the boat when the powerful blast splintered their craft into "confetti-size pieces" and tore the gaping hole in the Cole.
A week later, the Navy acknowledged that the Cole had finished mooring and was 48 minutes into its refueling when the bomb detonated, at 11:18 a.m. local time or (4:18 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time).
Investigators said that, instead of slipping in among the other small craft aiding the warship, the suicide boat approached the Cole alone from across the harbor, crossed its bow, and passed slowly down its port side. The two men on the boat waved at the Sailors on the Cole, and the Sailors waved back. That scenario raised new questions about the destroyer’s security precautions.
The powerful explosion not only shattered and flooded the engineering spaces, it devastated the mess decks above, bending parts of the deck almost to the overhead. Sailors working in the galley or waiting for noon chow were thrown into the air or plunged into the cavern below.
"Blood, Bent and Broken Steel"
Working at first without power, the stunned crew members retrieved and treated their wounded shipmates, bolstered damaged bulkheads, and reduced the flooding that had caused a four-degree list.
Five dead Sailors were recovered quickly. But 12 more were reported missing, their bodies trapped in the flooded spaces or in the twisted steel of the mess decks. It would take five days to recover the last of their remains. Another 36 crewmembers suffered injuries ranging from cuts and burns to broken bones, severed limbs, and head injuries. Three more Sailors later were hospitalized for trauma. U.S. military doctors and nurses arrived by airplane within hours, and by the next day all of the injured had been flown to a U.S. Army hospital in Germany. They later were flown to a naval hospital in Portsmouth, Va.
The Cole’s tired and emotionally drained crew had to wage a second desperate fight to save their ship when the emergency generators powering the pumps failed and previously emptied spaces filled with seawater.
"For two days and two nights," in the words of Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, "they fought under the most extreme conditions—blood, bent and broken steel, flooding, uncertainty, and danger. They saved their ship, their injured—every one of them—and each other. And then their generators failed. The waters rose, and they had to do it all over again. Waist-deep in water, manning bucket brigades by hand, they did it again."
Those who died on the Cole were a cross section of the Navy. One was an officer: Ens. Andrew Triplett, who earned a commission after 12 years of enlisted service. The other 16 Sailors ranged in rate from seaman apprentice to petty officer first class. Two were women—reportedly the first Navy female crewmembers killed by a hostile act. And most were young—all but five were under 25.
The Navy quickly sent a Marine Corps security force, repair technicians, and other ships to assist the Cole. The guided-missile frigate USS Hawes and the guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook anchored near the damaged ship while the amphibious ships USS Tarawa, USS Anchorage, and USS Duluth remained at anchor outside the port.
The Ultimate Sacrifice
On 18 October, while Navy divers and engineers were still recovering the last bodies, the nation and the Navy honored the fallen Sailors in a memorial service at Norfolk Naval Station. Beneath a misty gray sky, 5,000 current and former Navy personnel and senior officials—led by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry H. Shelton—blanketed Pier 12. Sailors in dress whites lined the rails on two of the Cole’s sister ships, USS McFaul and USS Ross, dwarfed by the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, moored alongside.
The crowd applauded when 36 of the injured Cole crewmembers arrived—some of them on stretchers, on crutches, or in wheelchairs—and stood in silent tribute when the families of the lost Sailors appeared. Clark told family members and the assembled audience that the Sailors on Cole "... made the ultimate sacrifice for service to the United States of America, and they remind us all what it really means to go in harm’s way."
Danzig saw in those who died "17 wonders, 17 sons and daughters ... 17 unique people. We cherish them. We grieve because we couldn’t protect them. Instead, they died protecting us."
And President Clinton said the "tragic loss" of the Cole crewmembers "... reminds us that, even when America is not at war, the men and women of our military still risk their lives for peace." While honoring the lost Americans, Clinton and other officials issued stern warnings to those who were responsible for their deaths. "To those who attacked them we say, ‘You will not find a safe harbor,’" the president said. "We will find you, and justice will prevail. America will not stop standing guard for peace or freedom or stability in the Middle East and around the world."
That same day, the House and Senate passed resolutions praising the Cole crew for the heroic efforts to save their ship, honoring the dead and wounded, and sending condolences to their families.
Meanwhile, in Aden, an intense FBI investigation involving hundreds of U.S. investigators and Yemeni authorities was making some progress in finding physical evidence. The authorities also detained a large number of individuals, including some members of the Egyptian-based Islamic Jihad. While praising Yemen publicly for the vigor of its investigation, U.S. officials complained about some lack of access to suspects and witnesses.
Some of the evidence and much suspicion pointed toward the exiled Saudi millionaire and terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, who has been linked to other attacks against American citizens and property. As of early November, however, no one connected to the investigation was willing to officially say who is suspected to have been behind the attack.
Reviews Ordered
At the same time, separate reviews were underway in Washington, including hearings by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (HASC/SASC). Those hearings revealed that U.S. intelligence had detected signs that a militant Islamic group was preparing an attack against American targets and that a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst had resigned in protest because his warnings allegedly "had not been taken seriously." But Pentagon officials insisted that the warnings had not been specific in describing a time, target, or location.
At a SASC hearing in October, Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) told retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni that Cole family members had asked repeatedly why the ship visited Yemen despite the State Department’s warnings of terrorist activities there. Zinni, who retired this past summer as the commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command, said Yemen’s willingness to refuel ships on their way to duty with the Fifth Fleet was a major change from its pro-Iraq attitude during the Gulf War.
"There are no risk-free ports in the Central Command’s geographic area of responsibility, and in Aden "the specific threat conditions were actually better than we had elsewhere," he noted. "So we were limited with a choice, in terms of force protection, that was not very good," Zinni said.
Senators also questioned whether the drop in the number of the Navy’s fleet oilers—from 32 a decade ago to 21 at present—had eliminated the option for at-sea refueling, forcing more frequent port visits for refueling. But Zinni and Navy officials pointed out that oilers are seldom assigned to fuel just one ship.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, meanwhile, created a panel to review the force-protection "lessons learned" of the Cole attack. The panel is headed by Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr., the recently retired commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, and retired Army Gen. William S. Crouch, former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army.
On 31 October, Cole left Aden on the Norwegian heavy-lift ship Blue Marlin on its way to Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding’s yard in Pascagoula, Miss. The 35-day transit home will be made by way of the Cape of Good Hope.
Addressing those who expressed doubt that the Cole could be returned to service, her commanding officer, Cdr. Kirk Lippold, declared: "We will save this ship. We will repair this ship. We will take this ship home, and we will sail this ship again to sea."
And I wonder why you are the only one asking this question. I think I've read every article posted here on the Cole and I have not seen it addressed anywhere.
Posted on 11/01/2000 10:16:38 PST by independentmind"
Five years later, Able Danger breaks silence...
Bump
Link to transcript is in post #1.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.