-Caveat Lector-
Wednesday, November 1, 2000
Advance information on Cole's Yemen stop under scrutiny
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers via The Stars and Stripes
ADEN, Yemen — Three days before suicide bombers attacked the USS
Cole, American authorities told Aden harbor officials precisely
when the ship would arrive and leave the port, where it would
berth and what services it needed — information that could have
helped the suicide bombers plan their strike.
Advance notification of U.S. Navy port calls is standard
practice, but it also permitted a large number of people in the
harbor to know about the Cole’s arrival well in advance.
According to documents filed with Yemeni port officials, the U.S.
Embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa sent a fax at 10:24 a.m.
Oct. 9 that said the USS Cole would arrive in Aden at 8 a.m.
Oct. 12, would be "refueling at bunker seven at the inner
harbor" and would require several services.
On Oct. 10, Gulf Aden Shipping Co. — a port contracting company
hired by the U.S. Navy to assist the Cole and which has since
come under scrutiny — sent a letter to Yemeni port officials
saying the Cole would refuel for "around five to six hours" and
depart the same day.
The letter also said another Navy destroyer, the USS Donald Cook,
would arrive at 9 p.m. Oct.14. Copies of the letter were sent
to the Yemeni Navy, port security and the private firm that owns
the bunkers and port terminals.
Such prior notice of the arrival of a billion-dollar American
military ship raises questions about the Cole’s security before
the attack. Interviews with port workers, Yemeni Navy officers
and eyewitnesses suggest the ship was vulnerable from the moment
it entered Aden harbor — a situation U.S. Navy officials say is
hard to avoid.
"We can’t just show up in a foreign port," said Lt. Bill Speaks,
a Navy spokesman. "We have to have diplomatic clearance."
Since the Cole’s bombing, Americans have been warned to defer
travel to such places as Israel and even Indonesia, and to
exercise caution throughout the Middle East. Tuesday, the
Pentagon announced that about 10,000 U.S. military personnel in
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were placed on the highest level of alert
due to "credible" threats of terrorist attacks.
U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are involved in enforcing
a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq and in a joint exercise with
Kuwaiti troops.
About 1,050 American troops in the Persian Gulf countries of
Bahrain and Qatar were placed on highest alert last week in
response to terrorist threats.
U.S. officials said the Cole attack required months of planning,
and it’s unclear whether the three days’ advance knowledge helped
the bombers ram their small, explosives-laden boat into the ship,
killing 17 sailors and wounding 39.
But American officials said there were other ways people might
have learned about the Cole’s arrival. They could have observed
previous visits by U.S. ships in the port or gotten information
from companies known as husbanding agents, which provide fuel,
food and garbage removal services to visiting ships.
Two men believed to have been connected to the Cole’s bombing
rented an apartment with a clear view of the harbor, and could
easily have seen the ship approach.
"You could deduce that these people might not have needed any
notice" of the Cole’s arrival, said Pentagon spokesman Kenneth
Bacon.
"They could see the ship come into port." Bacon said an
independent commission investigating the Cole’s bombing will be
looking for ways to improve security. The commission, headed by
retired Army Gen. William Crouch and former Navy Adm. Harold
Gehman, has wrapped up a four-day visit to Aden and is scheduled
to brief Defense Secretary William Cohen on Thursday. It is
expected to look into whether the procedures for contracting
husbanding agents should be changed.
A U.S. Embassy official in Sanaa said not all American ships
require significant notice before docking at a foreign port.
"We normally send out a notice letting the ship handlers and the
Yemeni port authority know when a ship is coming," said Maj.
James Finn, a U.S. military attache in Yemen. "But that depends
on what (the ship’s) requirements are.
Some do not require any support. It’s ship-dependent. There is
no standard operating procedure."
Yemeni port officials said notice is routine on every ship
arriving at the harbor. There are no special precautions for
military vessels.
"This is the normal procedure for all ships," said Capt. Ali
Ahmed Ali, Aden port’s harbor master. "We need to secure the
berth well ahead of the ship’s arrival."
The investigation into the Cole’s bombing is focusing on Islamic
militants, particularly an Egyptian extremist group allied with
fugitive Saudi financier Osama bin Laden, although American
officials have said they have no hard evidence that bin Laden
directed the attack.
Before the attack, the Cole was operating under a Bravo alert, a
normal threat condition for the region. Everything appeared
routine.
The last American warship to refuel in Aden was the USS Barry on
Aug. 26, according to port officials.
But from the very moment the 8,300-ton, 505-foot Cole entered the
harbor, it faced a variety of uncontrollable events already in
motion.
Between 8 and 9 a.m., Khalid Ali Abdallah, 20, a fisherman, awoke
under a bridge where he usually sleeps, about 15 miles west of
Aden.
He said a pickup truck with a winch that was pulling a fiberglass
boat on a trailer moved to the banks of a small river that flows
into Aden harbor.
The boat was cream-colored and had a black motor, Abdallah said,
and the driver lowered the boat and sped off into the harbor
about 15 minutes later. "I thought he was a rich man," said
Abdallah. "He never came back."
The Cole, said Capt. Ali, was fully moored at its refueling
berth by 9 a.m. Its requests included at least two sewage
collections and the delivery of five English-language
international papers for the crew of 270 sailors and 27 officers,
according to the embassy fax.
Shortly after 11 a.m., a machinist working on a ship in the
harbor saw a cream-colored boat speeding toward the Cole. It was
carrying what appeared to be garbage bags, said the man, who
spoke on condition of anonymity.
His account coincides with the accounts of sailors aboard the
Cole, who said they thought the bombers’ boat was arriving to
take away garbage.
Some of the fiberglass garbage boats, which are operated by Gulf
Aden Shipping Co. and its owner Ahmed Al Mansoob, are
cream-colored with black motors. Al Mansoob was initially
detained by Yemeni authorities but was released after two days of
questioning.
Although a copy of the Gulf Aden letter was sent to the Yemeni
navy, it’s unlikely that its boats would have provided any
security for the Cole in the harbor. According to a retired
Yemeni navy captain with 24 years of experience, the Yemeni navy
tends to leave American warships alone, and seldom checks boats
coming into the harbor.
"There are too many fisherman, too many boats," said the captain,
who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We can’t check every boat.
"
What also made the Cole vulnerable was the widespread perception
in the port that America’s warships were invincible.
Port security officials "don’t care about the big great boats,"
said Shauki, a port worker who gave only his first name. "They
think the Americans can take care of themselves."
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FROM THE DESK OF:
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