Study IDs Lessons Learned From Cole

Tuesday, January 2nd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” A lack of timely intelligence limits the Pentagon's ability to protect U.S. military forces abroad from terrorist attacks such as the USS Cole bombing, a special review panel has concluded.

The panel, appointed by Defense Secretary William Cohen, is expected to present its recommendations to Cohen next week. Its mission was to identify ``lessons learned'' from the Cole bombing rather than to investigate circumstances of the attack.

The panel will recommend that the government act to improve the intelligence system, particularly its use of human sources, to provide advance indications of threats to U.S. troops transiting foreign lands, a senior administration official familiar with the panel's findings and recommendations said Tuesday.

The official said that, for security reasons, some of the panel's recommendations will not be made public.

The official, who discussed the matter Tuesday on condition of anonymity, said the panel will tell Cohen that terrorist threats are likely to remain a major problem and that the United States should be more proactive in addressing the problem in remote areas like Yemen, where the destroyer USS Cole was attacked.

There was no specific intelligence warning of a terrorist threat to the Cole, which was attacked as it refueled in Aden harbor on Oct. 12. A small boat sidled up to the Cole, and explosives it carried were detonated. The blast tore a hole 40 feet high and 40 feet wide in the destroyer's hull and killed 17 sailors. Members of the Cole crew who saw the boat approach assumed it was a harmless harbor craft.

In light of the Cole attack, Cohen appointed a commission to review the procedures in place for protecting American forces transiting the Middle East, not only ships in port but also military planes at airfields.

The commission is headed by retired Army Gen. William W. Crouch, a former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, and retired Adm. Harold W. Gehman, a former commander in chief of the U.S. Joint Forces Command. The two men went aboard the crippled Cole in late October while it was still in Aden harbor.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Crouch-Gehman panel found a breakdown in communication between embassies and the U.S. Central Command, the Florida-based organization responsible for U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf area. Arrangements for the Cole's refueling stop in Aden were made by the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.

In that Saudi peninsula country, meanwhile, a Yemen government security official and Western diplomats said Tuesday the United States has offered to help Yemen upgrade coastal security to try to curb arms smuggling and prevent attacks on ships.

The U.S. Navy has not used Aden as a refueling stop since the Cole episode but has not ruled out future visits.

In appointing the Crouch-Gehman panel, Cohen sought not only a review of the effectiveness of security measures already in place for U.S. troops in the Middle East but also recommendations for additional measures.

The Crouch-Gehman panel will tell Cohen that troop protection measures taken after a 1996 terrorist attack on a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia have been effective, the administration official said.

The measures taken after the 1996 attack, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force troops, were designed for established U.S. military facilities. Cohen asked Crouch and Gehman to recommend improvements in a different troublesome area: security for U.S. troops transiting remote places like Aden, where the support system is less well established.

The Crouch-Gehman panel did not attempt to determine who was behind the attack on the Cole or assess whether the Cole's commander or other U.S. military officers should be held accountable for the loss of life. The FBI is trying to identify the attackers, and the Navy is investigating the actions of the Cole's crew.

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On the Net: The USS Cole: http://www.spear.navy.mil/ships/ddg67/