USS Cole bombing
| USS Cole bombing | |
|---|---|
| File:USS Cole damage.jpg Damage to USS Cole' | |
| Location | Aden, Yemen |
| Date | October 12, 2000 11:18 am (UTC+3) |
| Target | USS Cole (U.S. Navy) |
Attack type | suicide bombing |
| Deaths | 17 sailors, 2 suicide bombers |
| Injured | 39 sailors |
| Perpetrators | al-Qaeda, carried out by Ibrahim al-Thawr and Abdullah al-Misawa |
The USS Cole bombing was a suicide bombing attack against the U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) on October 12, 2000 while it was harbored in the Yemeni port of Aden. 17 sailors were killed.
The attack
On October 12, 2000, USS Cole, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, set in to Aden harbor for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring at 09:30. Refueling started at 10:30. At 11:18 local time (08:18 UTC), a small craft approached the port side of the destroyer, and an explosion occurred, putting a 40-by-40-foot (12 m-by-12 m) gash in the ship's port side. The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control by the evening. Divers inspected the hull and determined the keel was not damaged.
Seventeen sailors were killed and 39 others were injured in the blast. The injured sailors were taken to the United States Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein, Germany, and later to the U.S. The attack was the deadliest against a US Naval vessel since the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark (FFG-31) on May 17th, 1987.
The attack, organized and directed by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist organization, was carried out by suicide bombers Ibrahim al-Thawr and Abdullah al-Misawa.
After the attack
The first naval ship on the scene to assist the stricken Cole was the Royal Navy Type 23 frigate, HMS Marlborough, under the command of Capt Anthony Rix, RN. She was on passage to the UK after a six-month deployment in the Gulf. Marlborough had full medical and damage control teams on board and when her offer of assistance was accepted she immediately diverted to Aden.
The first U.S. military support to arrive was a U.S. Marine platoon with the 2nd Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Company (FAST), based out of Yorktown, Virginia. The Marines from 4th Platoon, 2nd FAST arrived on the 13th from a security mission in Doha, Qatar. The FAST platoon secured the USS Cole and a near by hotel that was housing the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen.
USS Donald Cook and USS Hawes made best speed to arrive in the vicinity of Aden that afternoon providing repair and logistical support. Catawba, Camden, Anchorage, Duluth, and Tarawa arrived in Aden some days later, providing watch relief crews, harbor security, damage control equipment, billeting, and food service for the crew of Cole. LCU 1666 provided daily runs from the USS Tarawa with hot food and supplies and ferrying personnel to and from all other Naval vessels supporting the USS Cole. In the remaining days LCU 1632 and various personnel from LCU 1666 teamed up to patrol around the Cole while the MV Blue Marlin was preparing to take up station to receive the Cole.
In a form of transport pioneered in 1988 by the USS Samuel B. Roberts aboard the Mighty Servant 2, Cole was hauled from Aden aboard the Norwegian heavy semi-submersible salvage ship MV Blue Marlin (see Figure 2). She arrived in Pascagoula, Mississippi December 24, 2000.
Rules of engagement
The destroyer's rules of engagement, as approved by the Pentagon, kept its guards from firing upon the small boat loaded with explosives as it neared them without first obtaining permission from the Cole's captain or another officer. Petty Officer John Washak said that right after the blast, a senior chief petty officer ordered him to turn an M-60 machine gun on the Cole's fantail away from a second small boat approaching. "With blood still on my face," he said, he was told: "That's the rules of engagement: no shooting unless we're shot at." He added, "In the military, it's like we're trained to hesitate now. If somebody had seen something wrong and shot, he probably would have been court-martialed." Petty Officer Jennifer Kudrick said that if the sentries had fired on the suicide craft "we would have gotten in more trouble for shooting two foreigners than losing 17 American sailors."
Consequences and after-effects
President Bill Clinton declared, "If, as it now appears, this was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act. We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable". Some critics [1] [2] [3] [4] have pointed out that, under U.S. law, an attack against a military target does not meet the legal definition of terrorism (see: 22 USC § 2656f(d)(2)).
On January 19, 2001, The Navy completed and released its Judge Advocate General Manual (JAGMAN) investigation of the incident, concluding that Cole's commanding officer Commander Kirk Lippold "acted reasonably in adjusting his force protection posture based on his assessment of the situation that presented itself" when Cole arrived in Aden to refuel. The JAGMAN also concluded that "the commanding officer of Cole did not have the specific intelligence, focused training, appropriate equipment or on-scene security support to effectively prevent or deter such a determined, preplanned assault on his ship" and recommended significant changes in Navy procedures.
On November 3, 2002, the CIA fired a AGM-114 Hellfire missile from a Predator UAV at a vehicle carrying Abu Ali al-Harithi, a suspected planner of the bombing plot. Also in the vehicle was Ahmed Hijazi, a U.S. citizen. Both were killed. This operation was carried out on Yemeni soil.
On September 29, 2004, a Yemeni judge sentenced Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Jamal al-Badawi to death for their roles in the bombing. Al-Nashiri, believed to be the operation's mastermind, is currently being held by the U.S. at an undisclosed location. Al-Badawi, in Yemeni custody, denounced the verdict as "an American one." Four others were sentenced to prison terms of five to 10 years for their involvement, including one Yemeni who had videotaped the attack.
On February 3, 2006, 23 suspected or convicted Al-Qaeda members escaped from jail in Yemen. This number included 13 who were convicted of the USS Cole bombings and the bombing of the French tanker Limburg in 2002. Among those who reportedly escaped was Al-Badawi. Al-Qaeda's Yemeni number two Abu Assem al-Ahdal may also be among those now on the loose. [5]
Both the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration have been criticized for failing to respond militarily to the attack on the USS Cole before September 11, 2001. The 9-11 Commission Report cites one source who said in February 2001, "[bin Laden] complained frequently that the United States had not yet attacked [in response to the Cole]... Bin Ladin wanted the United States to attack, and if it did not he would launch something bigger." [6]
Evidence of al-Qaeda's involvement was inconclusive for months after the attack. The staff of the 9-11 Commission found that al-Qaeda's direction of the bombing was under investigation but "increasingly clear" on November 11, 2000. It was an "unproven assumption" in late November. By December 21 the CIA had made a "preliminary judgment" that "al Qaeda appeared to have supported the attack," with no "definitive conclusion." [7]
Accounts thereafter are varied and somewhat contradictory.
Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told the Commission that when the administration took office on January 20, 2001, "We knew that there was speculation that the 2000 Cole attack was al Qaeda... We received, I think, on January 25th the same assessment [of al-Qaeda responsibility]. It was preliminary. It was not clear."
Newsweek reported on the following day, that "six days after Bush took office," the FBI "believed they had clear evidence tying the bombers to Al Qaeda." [8] The Washington Post reported that, on February 9, Vice President Dick Cheney was briefed on bin Laden's responsibility "without hedge." [9]
These conclusions are contrasted by testimony of key figures before the 9/11 Commission summarized in the 9/11 Commission Report. Former CIA Director George Tenet testified (page 196) that he "believed he laid out what was knowable early in the investigation, and that this evidence never really changed until after 9/11." [10] The report suggests (pages 201 - 202) that the official assessment was similarly vague until least March of 2001:
On January 25, Tenet briefed the President on the Cole investigation. The written briefing repeated for top officials of the new administration what the CIA had told the Clinton Whige House in November. This included the "preliminary judgment" that al Qaeda was responsible, with the caveat that no evidence had yet been found that Bin Ladin himself ordered the attack... in March 2001, the CIA's briefing slides for Rice were still describing the CIA's "preliminary judgment" that a "strong circumstantial case" could be made against al Qaeda but noting that the CIA continued to lack "conclusive information on external command and control" of the attack.
According to Dr. Rice, the decision not to respond militarily to the Cole bombing was President Bush's. She said he "made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al Qaeda one attack at a time. He told me he was 'tired of swatting flies.'" The administration instead began work on a new strategy to eliminate al-Qaeda. [11]
Related attacks
One of the 2000 millennium attack plots, the attempted bombing of USS The Sullivans, is widely seen as a trial run of the Cole bombing. This attack failed when the bombers' boat, overloaded with explosives, began to sink.