Refueling in Yemen Part of Engagement

Oct. 14, 2000 -- Despite persistent concerns about terrorist activity in Yemen, more than a dozen U.S. Navy ships had refueled at the port of Aden before the USS Cole was attacked by terrorists Thursday morning.

The refueling visits, Navy and other defense officials say, were part of a policy a policy of engaging Yemen to improve relations with the troubled republic.

The Cole was refueling at Aden early Thursday when a small boat pulled alongside it and exploded in a terrorist suicide attack. The blast killed seven U.S. sailors and another 10 are missing and presumed dead.

Officials say the White House, State Department and Defense Department all were involved in the decision to use the port for refuelings.

“The government made a government-wide decision to use Aden and to engage with the country of Yemen in a variety of ways, one of which involved port visits to Aden,” Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said Friday. “So this was an interagency decision that was made at an interagency level and reviewed at an interagency level.”

Engagement Policy

U.S. relations with the Yemeni government were said to be improving steadily over the past 10 years. Yemen was taken off the State Department’s list of states that support terrorism a decade ago and there was a sense that the Yemeni government was making efforts to crack down on terrorist groups based in the country.

As part of a broader effort at engaging Yemen, Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former regional commander for the Middle East and South Asia, reportedly had been working to strengthen military ties and counter-terrorism efforts with the country.

Zinni had made a visit to the country in May 1998 and April 1999, meeting with President Ali Abdallah Saleh. The port of Aden was first used for refueling of Navy ships in the spring of 1999.

“We have been working to improve our relations with Yemen for some time and I am sure that that was at the heart of the commanders’” decision to establish refueling operations at Aden, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark said at a Pentagon briefing Thursday.

“Yemen is a part of the area of responsibility for the U.S. Central Command’s part of what we do, to establish and try to forge relationships with the countries within our area of our responsibility,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ernest Duplessis, a spokesman for the Central Command.

Real Concerns

But there have been real concerns about possible terrorism against U.S. forces in the area.

The State Department reported in April that Yemen had “lax and inefficient enforcement of security procedures and the government’s inability to exercise authority over remote areas of the country continued to make the country a safe haven for terrorist groups.”

Furthermore, alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, who has family in Yemen, had disseminated at various times since 1992 fatwahs (rulings of Islamic law) that U.S. forces on the Saudi Arabian peninsula, including Yemen and Saudi Arabia, should be attacked, according to the FBI.

CIA Director George Tenet told Congress in February the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which has operatives in Yemen, is linked closely to bin Ladin’s organization, Al-Qa’ida.

The Yemeni state news agency, SABA, said Thursday that President Saleh had expressed doubt to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that the Cole explosion was an act of terrorism, the Agence France Presse news service reported.

Pentagon spokesman Bacon said the United States is getting significant cooperation from the Yemeni government, including port security and a vow to be cooperative in the U.S. investigation of the incident.

Not Unprepared

Military officials say the USS Cole did not enter the port unprepared.

“Every time a ship goes in there, there’s a threat assessment done. Plus the force lays out a force-protection plan. And because Yemen and other countries in the region, including Kuwait, [are places] we still classify as a high threat areas, the ship was in a very high state of force-protection standards and were carrying out an approved-force protection plan,” said a defense official, who asked not to be identified.

Officials also said they had not received any threats of a terrorist attack on the ship.

“We obviously wouldn’t use a facility if we felt there was a possibility of a terrorist attack,” said Navy spokeswoman Lt. Jane Alexander, who said she wasn’t aware of Pentagon concerns.

“If we felt that there was a possibility of a terrorist attack, it was never our intention to put our crew or ships in the way of any harm,” she said.

Bacon said the Navy has announced it was conducting a routine Judge Advocate General manual investigation, which looks into the cause of an accident or incident, and said there could be other reviews in the coming days.

Another Station

Since the refueling visits began quietly in the spring of 1999, some 17 ships have docked at the port of Aden to be refueled by a barge.

The decisions for engaging countries, said Bacon, are not made by just the Defense Department. “They are government-wide policies. They involve a number of departments. And this is how we operate around the world.”

The decision for conducting refuelings on a day-to-day basis rests with the commander of the U.S. Central Command and his subordinate commanders, who are responsible for U.S. military activities throughout the Middle East and South Asia, defense officials say.

“Those decisions are made very carefully in conjunction with the best advice from the intelligence community, the best advice from the embassy and others,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a briefing on Friday.

The Yemeni refueling station provided an additional, convenient base for Navy ships traveling great distances to refuel, officials say.

“You try to find as many ports as possible to refuel in. One of the reasons is for force protection, so that you don’t get into a routine or habit so you don’t go into the same port every time,” said the defense official who asked not to be identified.

Such stations are necessary, as a single Navy ship rarely is accompanied by a refueling tanker, officials say. But the United States already has as many as eight other refueling stations in the region with an abundance of oil, according to a Navy source.

Officials so far have been reluctant to discuss the details of the decision to initiate the refuelings at Aden.

“We know ships have to refuel, and everywhere in the Middle East there is a potential threat of terrorism,” said Boucher, when asked by reporters about whether Yemen might not have been the safest place for refueling.