Lastly, we briefed the security teams that would respond to a small-boat attack if one occurred while we were in the Suez Canal. They would remain in readiness on the mess decks and respond with weapons from the security lockers nearby. The crew set the highest condition of combat readiness and survivability with Material Condition Zebra in all compartments on the main deck and below, which meant keeping most hatches and doors closed so that the ship would be at the maximum level of watertight integrity if it sustained damage from an attack.
The transit passed without incident, and by 1700 on October 9 we were ready to resume cruising at 25 knots down the Red Sea to Aden.
Since we were headed back out into open waters, the threat condition for the ship allowed us to adjust our defensive posture to better reflect our surroundings. We stood down the alert for possible small-boat attack. A Secret message we had received during one of the port visits in the Mediterranean had said that a terrorist organization, possibly al Qaeda, operating in that area had been assessed to be targeting U.S. Navy ships for such attacks, and we had taken precautions at that time. But now that we had left the Mediterranean and passed through the Suez Canal into the Central Command area of operations, this threat was no longer viewed as relevant to the Cole.
Unbeknownst to us Naval Forces Central Command had taken that same message and readdressed it to all the ships operating in the region under its control, telling them to be mindful of the threat by al Qaeda and the possibility of a small-boat attack. In what was one of many seemingly benign intelligence shortfalls, Cole never received this significant reiteration of the message, since we were still operating in the Mediterranean under Sixth Fleet.
We stowed the .50-caliber and 7.62 mm machine guns and relocked the missiles. Although I left the twenty rounds in the five-inch gun magazine, the missile firing key was stowed back in the weapons safe in my cabin. As we sailed down the Red Sea, we took advantage of the time to continue to refresh and hone our war fighting skills. U.S. Navy ships, including Cole, would be operating off the coast of Iraq, where the prospect of a chemical warfare attack was very real. Consequently, over the next two days we simulated being attacked by chemical, biological, and radiological agents. The crew practiced donning their gas masks, and bulky and hot chemical-warfare suits, and went through the motions of detecting, disinfecting, and eliminating each of these threats to the ship and crew.
I knew that when we reached Aden, Threat Condition Bravo would require more security steps and greater coordination with local officials in port before the ship was moored. In early 1999, Central Command, then under U.S. Marine General Anthony C. Zinni, had negotiated a broad engagement policy with the Yemeni government in conjunction with the Department of State and the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine. Port visits by U.S. Navy ships sent a message of confidence in our hosts. This was also validated by the refueling contract the Defense Logistics Agency had negotiated, with Yemeni government help, with a local businessman. Cole would be the twenty-seventh ship to refuel in Aden. None of the previous twenty-six ships had knowingly encountered any threat.
Prior to each of the refueling visits, the ships were required to submit a force protection plan in advance for approval. Cole had not been given any information about logistics: the location or configuration of the refueling pier; the names of the Yemeni authorities or civilians involved with the arrangements; what force protection assets—police, harbor patrols, and the like—the Yemenis would provide; or whether they would allow the ship to deploy inflatable patrol boats with armed pickets if they were needed to keep potential trouble away. Under Central Command and Navy Standing Rules of Engagement in effect at the time, the ship could use force to defend itself only if it was attacked, shot at, or overtly threatened with weapons or met with other clear demonstrations of hostile intent. Supplementary measures could authorize more aggressive defenses, but for USS Cole, none were authorized in Aden. We were not provided with specific intelligence about the terrorist threat, though Central Command had classed the general level as High—that is, below Critical, the highest level, but above Medium, Low, and Negligible. Indeed, there was some confusion even about this, as we had been also told about a new four-point system that put Yemen’s threat level at Significant, the second highest on a scale that began with High and continued through Moderate to Low.
The weapons officer, Lieutenant Joe Gagliano, who also had the collateral duty (that is, the part-time job) of force protection officer, worked with the strike officer, Lieutenant (junior grade) Robert Mercer, his force protection assistant, to draw up the force protection plan based on the most recent information we had about the port facilities in Aden. Since we had no confirmation of where we would actually be berthed and refueled, it was written for a worst-case, highest restriction scenario: a pierside mooring accessible to vehicles and foot traffic. It consisted of all sixty-two measures required in port for Threat Conditions Alpha and Bravo. We assumed that after arriving, we would adjust the security posture to fit whatever our actual circumstances turned out to be. With the delay in reporting to Central Command, the plan was submitted on October 7 to Commander, Task Force 50, the Abraham Lincoln battle group we would be serving with after the refueling, and was quickly approved without modification or comment, with no deviations authorized.
On October 8, USS Cole sent a standard unclassified message to the U.S. embassy’s defense attaché’s office (DAO) in Sana’a, requesting logistics support for the short duration of the refueling: a pilot and tugs to assist in entering the port and mooring the ship to the refueling pier; a hookup to provide drinking water for the crew; a connection to pump sewage off the ship to a shore-based waste facility; fuel delivery; and a request for details of any specific security arrangements needed. The supply requests were noted and referred to a local contractor to arrange with us upon arrival. There was nothing in response to the request for information about security arrangements.
In hindsight, it may seem obvious that I should have asked for more information before arrival, but it had been standard operating procedure by the Navy for decades to accept a lack of information and still make a port visit. Usually, upon arrival, the lists of unknowns would be answered by the port authorities without incident or issue. Rarely, if ever, were all the requests for information answered by the embassy prior to arrival. Such gaps in information were an accepted way of doing business overseas, even in a port in the Middle East operating under Threat Condition Bravo.
On October 11, the defense attaché’s office acknowledged our request for logistics support and instructed the ship to coordinate services with the local contractor upon arrival. A lot of other important information was missing: at which pier the ship would moor; the number of tugs that would berth the ship; how and when the local contractor would board the ship to confirm fueling and other arrangements; on which side the ship could expect to moor; and the local security arrangements that would be provided by the Yemeni port authorities. Nor were official Navy channels much more helpful. Naval Forces Central Command, in the person of Vice Admiral Charles W. “Willie” Moore Jr., who was also the Fifth Fleet commander, had mandated through his staff that no information regarding any aspect of operations was allowed out of theater without their express knowledge and clearance. The headquarters staff was apparently very concerned about how the command was perceived, and the admiral wanted to ensure that all operations under his command appeared well orchestrated and that his staff was seen as being well in control of every U.S. Navy ship, aircraft, and submarine movement in theater. Communication was clearly filtered, to eliminate even the hint that anything adverse could be happening in theater. We would be briefed in depth on operations, intelligence, and logistics only after we completed the refueling and arrived in Bahrain on October 17, not before.
While I did not press Fifth Fleet or my chain of command, my apprehension increased as we entered an area of the world known for terrorist attacks. The odd nonchalance by Fifth Fleet and the new bat
tle group commander, even with only generic terrorist threats that remained the same day after day in the message traffic, seemed strangely out of place. We would be essentially blind for seven days before pulling into Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain for our in-depth regional intelligence briefings and updates. We would later learn of the clearest example of leaving USS Cole blind to a potential threat. Upon our arrival, the staff had planned to share the retransmitted message originally sent to only Sixth Fleet units in the Mediterranean regarding the al Qaeda small-boat threat to Navy ships operating in the Fifth Fleet area of operations. In the context of importance within the Fifth Fleet area of operations, we never received it prior to pulling into Aden.
Fortunately for the George Washington battle group, all the ships had been outfitted with a very basic e-mail capability used by the crew to correspond with home as well as effective communication between ships. At a speed of only 56 kbps (kilobits per second) and just one communications channel per ship, it was slow to say the least. I knew I could not take the ship blindly into my first Threat Condition Bravo port visit without some additional information. Although not officially sanctioned, I had been in contact with my good friend and squadron-mate the commanding officer of USS Donald Cook, Commander Matt Sharpe, who had arrived in the region two months before us. He was very sensitive to the fact that he was not supposed to tell me anything about how ships operated in the region until we had arrived in Bahrain for in-processing briefs from Naval Forces Central Command. He did, however, share unofficial information about the port and how we might expect to conduct the upcoming brief stop for fuel.
While Cole was in transit down the Red Sea, Matt and I exchanged e-mails. In his replies, he told me that I could expect to be berthed at a refueling “dolphin”—a pier out in the middle of the harbor in the northeast part of the bay, accessible from the city or from shore only by boat. Additionally, he told me that he had experienced a refueling rate of between 300 and 500 gallons per minute, which since we had requested 220,000 gallons would mean a long day before the ship was ready to go.
During the Donald Cook’s refueling, which had been done in August 2000, Matt told me, he had submitted the routine logistics request for a brief stop for fuel in Aden and encountered the same lack of information in advance. Nonetheless, he had pulled into port and then adjusted his routine to fit the circumstances, including his force protection posture. All had gone well.
On the evening of October 11, we passed through the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, rounded the corner of the southwest tip of the Arabian peninsula, and by 0200 on October 12, we were off the coast of Yemen, ready to enter port in the morning. We had to stay at least twelve nautical miles offshore, in international waters, until we got diplomatic clearance to enter port. During the night, we slowly steamed the ship back and forth in a small five-by-five-mile box and let the crew rest for the night. We were well below our 50 percent minimum for fuel, and messages from Naval Forces Central Command informed us that they were very anxious for us to get in and out of port as quickly as possible. Nothing from the staff or the stack of routine intelligence messages indicated that Cole should expect anything out of the ordinary.
3
A “Routine” Refueling Stop
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. October 12, 0415. I reached over and shut off the incessant noise from my alarm clock after only a few hours of sleep. Taking a deep breath to clear my head, I sat upright, stretched, and rolled out of bed. In my Night Orders to the officer of the deck, I had directed him to awaken me at 0500, the same time as reveille for the crew, but I preferred to be shaved, showered, and ready for the day before the call.
I called down to radio central and asked for the daily stack of messages transmitted to the ship overnight to be delivered to the bridge. Just sitting in my chair drinking hot coffee as the boatswain’s mate piped reveille for the crew was the perfect way to start the day, and it promised to be a spectacular one. The temperature at sunrise was already in the eighties and climbing fast. A puff or two of cloud could be seen in the sky and outside Aden’s harbor entrance the water was calm.
It was the first port the Cole would enter under Threat Condition Bravo. During the navigation brief the night before, and as part of our procedures for entering port, we had covered every aspect of our arrival, knowing we would have to adjust a number of procedures, from refueling requirements to force protection, during the first hours after our arrival as soon as the port authorities filled in the many unknowns the embassy and Fifth Fleet had left us with.
We were not scheduled to meet the harbor pilot until 0800, but I wanted to get into port early. From my perspective, if the refueling was going to last six to eight hours, the sooner we entered port and moored the ship, the sooner we could start and finish refueling. It would be easier and safer to get the ship underway again during daylight since we did not know the reliability of the harbor’s navigation aids. I also wanted to minimize our vulnerability.
At 0549, the boatswain’s mate of the watch announced, “Station the sea and anchor detail,” which signaled the crew to take up their watch stations for entering port. We had received confirmation of diplomatic clearance to enter the port and steamed toward the harbor at 10 knots. The outermost buoy marking the harbor entrance was also the point where the harbor pilot was expected to board the ship and help navigate it into port. As we steamed toward it, the communications officer on the bridge pressed the transmit button on the bridge-to-bridge radio:
“Aden Port Control, this is U.S. Navy warship USS Cole, channel one-six, over.”
There was no response. He tried again and again and got nothing. After twenty minutes and several more calls, finally he heard, “This is Aden Port Control. What time are you scheduled to come in?”
“Aden Port Control, we were originally scheduled to come in to port around 0730. We have arrived early. Would it be possible for the pilot to meet us early? We would like to come in and get moored as soon as possible to start refueling. Over.”
After considerable delay—suddenly, they told us, our transmissions were garbled—they said, “The pilot is not here. You are going to have to wait. We’ll get back to you, over.”
It was frustrating for the watch team. They had been on watch now for almost two hours and the officer of the deck had to slow the ship to less than 5 knots, waiting for the Yemenis to get their act together so we could enter port. Finally, over an hour after the first contact the radio crackled to life with: “Navy warship Cole, request you enter the harbor channel. The pilot will meet you with two tugs in the channel and escort you to the refueling pier, over.”
This was not going to work. Since the ship had never made a port call to Aden, we were unfamiliar with the harbor area and safety dictated that the pilot be on board prior to entering the shipping channel. “Aden Port Control, request the pilot meet us at the pilot buoy with tugs,” the communications officer answered. “We will not enter port without a pilot, over.”
Clearly, the port authority was not pleased with this development but complied, and around 0720, a small boat with two tugs behind it came chugging down the channel toward us, bringing out the pilot. It was already becoming clear that we would be entering the harbor and mooring later than scheduled. While not of great concern, it was another factor that raised the tension level. Being in port under Threat Condition Bravo, the less time the ship spent refueling alongside the pier, the less vulnerable we were to any security threats.
The pilot boat maneuvered alongside back by the flight deck, and at 0746 the pilot, Mr. Ibrahim, boarded USS Cole and was escorted to the bridge. He was a slightly built man with a gaunt face tanned by years in the sun. The heat of the day had already caused his clean but slightly wrinkled shirt to begin to spot under his arms. The conning officer stepped aside as he walked directly up to the centerline compass pelorus and confirmed the ship’s heading.
As we headed up the channel into port, I asked him, “Captain, what side of the pier do you want to moor the sh
ip?” “We will moor port side to,” he curtly replied with a thick accent—with the left-hand side of the ship against the pier, in other words. I looked down onto the forecastle at the lines already laid out by the boatswain’s mates, anticipating a mooring arrangement with the starboard side to the pier.
Fortunately, we would be mooring at the same refueling pier, an island structure in the northeast part of the inner harbor, that Matt Sharpe, the CO of USS Donald Cook had referred to in his unofficial e-mails to me. After the exchange with Matt, I already knew that I wanted the ship moored starboard side to the pier with bow facing out in the event of an emergency. Although it was only in the back of my mind, I was concerned that if Cole came under hostile fire or attack, I did not want to waste precious minutes turning the ship around in the middle of the harbor before being able to sail safely out to sea. Since Cole was 505 feet long and the pier was about 350 feet long, the bow and stern would stick out from both ends of the pier. Consequently, of the six lines we had available, four would moor us to the pier while the lines at the bow and stern of the ship would be made fast to mooring buoys using small boats that the pilot had already arranged to meet us near the pier. We could get underway even quicker by axing the mooring lines. In that event, those precious minutes would surely save lives.
Chris, as XO, was unhappy with the harbor pilot’s determination to moor the ship port side to the pier, and told him so. I looked at Chris and without a word spoken between us, motioned him to back off. Remembering Matt Sharpe telling me how difficult it had been for him to convince the pilot to let Donald Cook moor starboard side to the pier, I knew this would have to be handled delicately. The pilot was offered hot tea (another key tip from Donald Cook), which he politely accepted. After he had sipped for a few minutes, I again approached him and said it would be much better if we could moor starboard side to the pier. Almost immediately, he lowered his head and began to shake it slowly side to side. I persisted, “If we twist the ship in the harbor now and use the two tugs you have brought out to us, it will save you time and money this afternoon. With the ship moored starboard side to, when we finish refueling, it will only take one tug to lift us off the pier, instead of two. If I have to moor port side to the pier now, I will need two tugs this afternoon to help get us off the pier and turned around in the harbor. With only one tug, we can leave quicker and get back to sea sooner. Also, since I did not know which side you would moor the ship, I already laid out my mooring lines on the starboard side.” I motioned for him to step around from the front of the pelorus and look down to the lines laid out on the forecastle. After quickly glancing down at them, he looked up for a moment, rubbed the slight stubble on his chin, and checked the ship’s heading again before he replied. “OK. We will turn the ship and moor it starboard side to the pier,” and with that, he contacted the tugs on his radio and told them he had changed plans.
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