-Caveat Lector-
Cole Lapses May Go Unpunished
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2001; Page A02
The admiral overseeing the investigation of the actions of the
captain and crew of the USS Cole when the warship was bombed
three months ago in a Yemeni harbor has concluded that no one
should be punished even though dozens of security lapses
occurred, Pentagon officials said.
Adm. Robert J. Natter rejected the conclusion of a
lower-ranking investigating officer that some security
precautions if taken could have mitigated the effects of the
explosion of a small boat that killed 17 sailors and tore a
40-foot hole in the side of the destroyer as it was refueling in
the port of Aden on Oct. 12.
The Navy investigation found that at least 30 of 62 planned
"force protection" measures weren't implemented by the Cole's
crew. The investigating officer found that 20 of those omitted
steps were irrelevant but concluded that at least 11 possibly
could have stopped the attack or lessened its impact. Among the
unexecuted steps he deemed crucial were a system of verifying the
authenticity of small boats approaching the warship and having
fire hoses ready to spray at boats that didn't properly identify
themselves and wouldn't withdraw, one source said.
Natter, the commander of the Atlantic fleet, agreed with a
lower-ranking admiral who rejected that conclusion of the
investigating officer. Instead, Natter, who is based in Norfolk,
on Friday night sent to the Pentagon his recommendation that no
one be disciplined. One apparent reason for Natter's conclusion
is that the Navy believes that the actions of the Cole's skipper,
Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, saved the ship from sinking.
"The captain and his senior officers are heroes for what they did
to save the ship," said one Pentagon official familiar with the
Navy investigation but who nonetheless was critical of the Navy's
inclination not to discipline anyone.
The scuttlebutt among Cole crew members is that even though no
disciplinary step is being recommended, the findings of the Navy
report about security lapses will effectively end Lippold's
career, said the wife of one crew member. Lippold didn't return
calls seeking comment.
Natter's conclusions are being reviewed over the weekend by the
chief of naval operations, Adm. Vernon Clark, and Navy Secretary
Richard Danzig, and are expected to be released this week. Navy
officials said yesterday they thought Clark and Danzig would
concur with Natter's finding that Lippold did all that he could,
even though he didn't take many of the security precautions.
Natter's report essentially says that Lippold acted correctly,
given the information that was made available to him. That
conclusion raises questions about what information he was given,
and so points the finger at senior officers in the U.S. Central
Command, the military headquarters that oversees operations in
the Mideast.
The actions of those higher-ups are the subject of a separate
inquiry being conducted for the Defense Department by two retired
senior officers, Adm. Harold W. Gehman and Gen. William W.
Crouch, whose final report will be briefed to Defense Secretary
William S. Cohen tomorrow or Tuesday. The Gehman-Crouch report
has raised eyebrows within the Navy because it didn't find fault
with any senior officers, only "lessons to be learned."
The core conclusion of the Gehman-Crouch report, Pentagon
officials said recently, was that the United States is engaged in
a long-term struggle with international terrorism and that the
U.S. military must be constantly prepared to come under attack,
especially when it is in transit, as the Cole was when it steamed
into Aden. Gehman and Crouch also suggest that the dozens of
force protection measures taken after the 1996 bombing of the
Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen
and injured hundreds of others, may have indirectly led to the
Cole attack by deterring terrorists from hitting land-based
targets, forcing them to look elsewhere.
Recently, Navy officials privately communicated their concern to
Cohen's aides that only the captain and the crew of the Cole
would be faulted in the bombing. In response, Cohen promised to
have Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, review the actions of the Central Command's senior staff
officers in the orders given to the Cole, a Pentagon official
said. In particular, Shelton is expected to focus on why the
Cole was sent alone into the harbor of a Middle Eastern nation
known as a center of terrorist activity at a time when the region
was in crisis.
Most of Natter's recommendations were first reported in
Saturday's editions of the Baltimore Sun.
In addition, the Cole was told only to operate under "Threat
Condition Bravo," the third-highest state of alert. Navy
officials would like to know who made that determination, and
what information was used to make it. If it was based on faulty
intelligence, they said, then questions should be raised about
the actions of the Central Command's intelligence directorate and
the information it received from the State Department and the
intelligence community. If that intelligence was made available
but ignored, they added, then the spotlight should turn to the
Central Command's operations directorate.
Shelton's inquiry takes the Pentagon into the unexplored area of how to
police the U.S. military's regional commands, which over the last 15
years have grown increasingly powerful and important within the U.S.
military, Pentagon officials say. Disciplining wrongdoing within the
services is a matter of long-established law and tradition. But it
isn't clear what mechanism should be used to review the actions of the
regional commanders and their staffs.
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FROM THE DESK OF:
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