If there is one single reason to throw-out every Dem in Congress, this is it.
Posted on 08/28/2002 6:09:17 AM PDT by robowombat
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot August 28, 2002
Cole Skipper's Promotion Held Up In Senate
By Dale Eisman, The Virginian-Pilot
WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee has quietly informed the Navy that it will need extra time to review a recommendation that Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, skipper of the destroyer Cole when terrorists blew a hole in the side of the ship in October 2000, be promoted to captain.
The review, instigated in part at the urging of Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., continues a running debate in and out of the service over whether Lippold bears a share of responsibility for the deaths of 17 sailors in the attack.
Lippold, now assigned to the Pentagon's Joint Staff, could not be reached Tuesday for comment on the delay of his promotion. He has met privately with the families of the dead sailors to discuss the attack and its aftermath but has not granted any interviews.
A small boat, mistaken for a garbage hauler by members of Lippold's crew, exploded alongside the Cole on Oct. 12, 2000, as the destroyer was being refueled in the harbor at Aden, Yemen. The blast caused more than $200 million in damages, along with the deaths.
The Navy's top leadership decided early last year not to punish Lippold, despite an investigator's finding that he failed to take more than 30 security steps specified for ships under ``threat condition Bravo,'' the level in force when the Cole pulled into Aden.
Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, declared then that none of those steps would have prevented the attack. He also said that Lippold had acted reasonably, given the information available to him on the possibility of an attack.
While legally exonerating Lippold, Clark placed in his service record a copy of the Navy's formal investigation of the bombing. The more than 1,000-page document included Clark's own finding that Lippold ``should have been more pro-active'' in clarifying uncertainties about the situation in Aden before the Cole's arrival.
Its review of Lippold's promotion is the second time the Armed Services Committee has questioned the Navy's handling of the Cole investigation. As committee chairman in May 2001, Warner convened a hearing to examine whether the service had relaxed its standards for holding skippers accountable for what happens aboard their ships.
``Seventeen sailors lost their lives, families are left to bear the grief, a heavily damaged ship is being repaired at high cost to the American taxpayer,'' Warner said then. ``Though many shortfalls in the performance of those aboard Cole were identified . . . not a single disciplinary action of any kind was taken. Is the net effect of these actions . . . to hold no one accountable?''
``We have held all the parties accountable,'' Clark countered. ``There are some who believe, because they were not punished, they were not held accountable. I do not agree with that.'' The committee's review of Lippold's nomination also is holding up, at least temporarily, the promotion to captain of nearly 250 other commanders.
President Bush sent the annual nominations to Capitol Hill on June 26, several months later than usual. Promotion boards met in February to review the records of commanders eligible for promotion, but the list of those to be nominated was not forwarded to the White House until June 12.
If the Senate could justify their illegitimate behavior in not promoting Stumpf for showing up in Las Vegas in 1991 then they can legitimately justify not promoting Lippold for his negligence.
If there is one single reason to throw-out every Dem in Congress, this is it.
FWIW, John Warner is neither a draft dodger nor a Democrat. He is, however, a major RINO...
Re-fuelling at sea wasn't an option.
For political-diplomatic reasons (and for political-diplomatic reasons alone), the DOD negotiated a re-fuelling contract with the port of Aden.
It was part of a foreign aid/welfare gesture by the Clinton administration to Yemen. It was supposed to make them "friends"...
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