USS COLE BOMBING

On January 3rd, 2000, the destroyer THE SULLIVANS (DDG-68) moored in the port of Aden, Yemen, for refueling.  While her crew worked, unseen Al-Queda operatives pushed a small boat loaded with explosives into the harbor. But the boat was overloaded and sank.  US Navy ships called on Aden 3-4 times each month for refueling, so the operatives bided their time, awaiting the next of Osama bin Laden’s year 2000 millennium strikes.

On this day 25 years ago, USS COLE (DDG-67) entered Aden harbor for refueling after transiting the Suez Canal and Red Sea.  She approached a fueling dolphin in the center of the harbor about 600 meters from land.  By 0930 she was moored, and at 10:30 she began what was expected to be a 4-hour fueling evolution.  Fishing boats and other small craft crisscrossed the harbor observed by COLE’s lookouts, who stood with unloaded guns and orders not to shoot unless fired upon.  About a quarter after eleven an inflatable open boat approached the fueling destroyer.  The deck watch stiffened, but the boat’s two occupants respectfully came to attention as their boat approached.  Suddenly, at 1118, the boat sped up and crashed into COLE’s port side, amidships.  Six hundred to 1000 pounds of high explosives crudely shaped to stove-in COLE’s hull detonated.

The explosion ripped a 40′ X 60′ gash in the hull, opening the mess deck to the sea.  Hungry sailors lining up for chow were blasted, seventeen in all were killed.  CDR Kirk Lippold’s damage controlmen struggled to keep the destroyer afloat as the ship’s IDC, HMC James Parlier, made his way to the deck.  On the way he came across a critically injured shipmate with several others standing by helplessly.  Parlier had a hatch taken off its hinges to transport the sailor to the deck and started CPR.  But shortly another Chief stopped him, saying there are many others worth saving who needed his help.  Parlier left the critically injured sailor to tend to the 39 other wounded.  The shipmate died.

DONALD COOK (DDG-75) and HAWES (FFG-53) were shortly on the scene to provide assistance and security.  Over the next few days the wounded were medevaced to Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany.  The Norwegian semi-submersible heavy lift ship Blue Marlin was retained to transport COLE back to Mississippi, where she arrived on Christmas Eve.  Her repairs totaled $240 million, nearly a quarter of her original cost.  A JAGMAN investigation concluded that CDR Lippold acted responsibly and could not have prevented the attack.  Despite this he was passed over for promotion in subsequent years, and retired from the Navy at the grade of CDR in 2007.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  18 OCT 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

McMichael, William H., “10 Years after the COLE Bombing, a Different Navy,” Navy Times, 11 October 2010.

Piszkiewicz, Dennis.  Terrorism’s War with America:  A History.  Westport, CT: Praeger Pub., 2003, pp. 122-23.

Polmar, Norman.  The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 18^th ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2005, p. 151.

Schogol, Jeff.  “Memories Strong Five Years after COLE Blast.”  Stars and Stripes, 12 October 2005.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 305.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Linkage of this attack to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Queda terrorist group was later established, although technically, under US law “terrorism” cannot be charged when perpetrated against a military target.  Subsequent investigation determined that Sudan had materially aided Al-Queda’s plot to bomb a US warship in Aden harbor, and US Courts found the Sudan liable for $8 million in damages to the families of COLE’s deceased.  The Sudanese government is appealing this decision.

As a result of this incident the rules of engagement have been revised to allow more forceful actions against apparent terrorists, even if no “shooting” has occurred.

USS COLE remembers SGT Darrell S. Cole, USMC, who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for actions on Iwo Jima during WWII.  Cole’s MOS was bugler but never endorsed that rating.  He fought at Guadalcanal, Tinian, Saipan, and Iwo Jima as a machine gunner.

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                               “INDIA” 3/2’S STAND AT HUSAYBAH

The Marines of Company India, 3^rd Battalion, 2^nd Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 2, had been posted to Camp Gannon, near secluded Husaybah, on Iraq’s border with Syria.  There they became accustomed to occasional incoming mortar rounds.  But four rounds impacting a ten-yard square this morning signaled something unusual.  More heavy mortar fire screamed in, and three rocket propelled grenades (RPG) hit the combat operations center.

Amid the confusion a white dump truck rumbled up the dirt road toward the Camp’s entrance.  An RPG round simultaneously knocked LCPL’s Joseph Lampe and Roger Leyton to the floor of the forward guard bunker.  LCPL Joshua Butler in the next checkpoint watched the dump truck roll past Lampe’s bunker and toward his own.  He opened with 30 rounds of his M249 automatic weapon, peppering the cab of the dump truck and causing it to veer off the road.  It careened into an obstruction 40 yards from Butler’s position and erupted into a fireball.  The force of that blast knocked Butler against the wall and shrapnel smashed the goggles strapped to his helmet.  Stunned, Butler regained his feet in time to hear a second vehicle bouncing up the road.  A red firetruck punched through the smoke and now bore down on Butler’s position.  “I can’t believe this is happening again,” Bulter thought as he triggered his weapon.  LCPL Charles Young from a nearby position fired grenades which only bracketed the charging firetruck.  Butler could see two occupants’ faces wrapped in black cloth as he opened with this 5.56 mm rounds.  Thirty, then sixty rounds had no effect.  Not before 150 rounds did the truck veer off the road and explode 30 yards from Butler’s bunker.  In an instant Camp Gannon was engulfed in a giant concussion; windows shattered, doors were blown free, Marines were thrown from their bunks, and pieces of firetruck rained onto the compound.

Butler regained his senses in time to see Lampe and Leyton’s forward bunker under assault from several directions.  First SGT Donald Brazeal tumbled into the bunker a second later with two AT-4 anti-tank missiles.  The enemy had set up a strong point behind a wall 300 yards from the Camp, and Brazeal’s missiles cleanly took out the wall.  Now about 100 panicked school children ran from a building a block away.  The attacking insurgents used them as human shields, and the Marines had to check fire several times to avoid hitting innocent children.

After what seemed hours of intense fighting HM2 Jessie Beddia had treated only three casualties; all blast concussions, none were severe.  It was later discovered the firetruck had a bulletproof windshield and its occupants wore surplus American flak jackets.

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History”  15 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Friel, Lucien.  “Attack at Husaybah:  ‘India,’ 3/2’s Stand Against Insurgency.”  Leatherneck, Vol 88 (7), July 2005, pp. 28-29.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  In retrospect, it is surmised that in this highly organized attack, the dump truck was intended to crash the main gate, clearing a path for the firetruck into the heart of Camp Gannon.  The vehicular IED’s were to be followed with the ground assault that stalled behind the wall.  Young’s grenades and Butler’s fire probably thwarted what would otherwise have been a deadly attack.

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                                     BAGHDAD MISSILE ATTACK

The decade following Operation “Desert Storm” was marked by Iraqi frustration over continuing United Nations sanctions and Coalition policing.  Then seemingly to rub salt in Iraq’s wounds, on 14 April 1993 a specially chartered Kuwait Airways Boeing 747 touched down at the Kuwait City carrying former President George Bush, his wife, his son Neil, three Bush daughters-in-law, former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, former Secretary of State James A. Baker, and former Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady.  As a gesture of good-will facetiously dubbed “Operation Love Storm,” a grateful Kuwait welcomed the crafter of “Desert Storm’s” coalition.  At a state dinner hosted by Kuwaiti leader Sheik Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, Bush received the Mubarak al-Kabeer (Mubarak the Great) Medal, Kuwait’s highest civilian award, named for Mubarak al-Sabah, a turn-of-the-century ruler.

But the night before Bush’s arrival, Kuwaitis had quietly arrested 14 agents who had entered Kuwait in possession of high explosives and detonators.  Among these were two Iraqi nationals, Ra’ad al-Asadi and Wali al-Ghazali, reportedly recruited specifically for the purpose of assassinating our former President.  A Toyota Landcruiser was seized in whose rocker panels had been secreted 80 kilograms of high explosives wired for remote detonation.  It was estimated by the CIA that had the bomb been set off, a four-city-block area would have been leveled.  In the event the car bomb failed, al-Ghazali wore a leather belt packed with explosives that he was to detonate after working through the crowds near the former President.  Al-Ghazali was reportedly paid the equivalent of $1300 US dollars for his work.

In the weeks that followed, a CIA, FBI, and Justice Department inquest discovered likely Iraqi involvement in this assassination plot.  The Clinton White House acted this night when targeting data were transmitted to USS CHANCELLORSVILLE (CG-62) in the Persian Gulf and USS PETERSON (DD-969) lying in the Red Sea.  Nine Tomahawk cruise missiles from the cruiser and 14 from the destroyer burst from their silos.  An hour later, the pre-dawn darkness of Baghdad was broken by the flashes of twenty-three 1000# warheads impacting at or near the Iraqi Intelligence Service compound, a six-story building two miles from the center of Baghdad.  US officials estimated the target to be completely destroyed in an action the Joint Chiefs of Staff characterized as “highly effective.”  Quoting an old American war cry, President Clinton warned the Iraqi’s, “Don’t tread on us… The Iraqi attack was an attack against our country and against all Americans.  We could not let such action against our nation go unanswered.”

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  29 JUN 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Associated Press.  “Kuwait Continues Bomb-Plot Trial of 14:  Agent Testifies on Plan to Kill Bush.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 June 1993, p. A-11.

Associated Press.  “`They Told Me to Kill Bush,’ Iraqi Says.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 June 1993, p. A-17.

Condon, George E., Jr.  “U.S. Missiles Blast Baghdad:  Plot to Kill Bush Avenged.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 June 1993, p. A-1.

Farrell, John Aloysius and John W. Mashek.  “Clinton Wins High Marks in Raid Polls.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 June 1993, p. A-1.

Reuters.  “Executions Considered on Plot on Bush.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 September 1994, p. A-29.

Reuters.  “Kuwait Charges 16 with Attempt to Assassinate Bush.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 May 1993, p. A-7.

Reuters.  “Kuwait Gives Bush its Highest Honor:  `This was a Very Moving Day,’ Ex-President Says.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 April 1993, p. A-20.

Reuters.  “Kuwait Nabs Iraqis Reportedly Targeting Bush.”  San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 April 1993, p. A-10.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Bush also toured Kuwait University during his three-day visit, where he was presented a plaque and an honorary degree by the Kuwaiti Education Minister, Ahmed Al Mubai.

Most correctly, international law forbids retaliation, reaction, retribution, and revenge, and the United States never officially takes these actions.  However, Article 51 of the United Nations charter grants any nation the right to take all necessary actions toward its own self-defense.  The US justifies events such as the above with our right to self-defense in preventing future similar episodes of terrorism.

The Kuwaiti investigation eventually turned up 17 individuals implicated in the plot against former President Bush.  Six were convicted and sentenced to death, seven others were sentenced to varying prison terms.

It did not go unnoticed by Congressional Republicans that Clinton’s decision to strike at Baghdad coincided with a sagging 39% public approval rating.  Following the missile strike, Clinton’s rating shot up to 50%.  Such “rally events” generally boosted Clinton’s approval rate an average of 8% for 10 weeks.

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