I have read the Chief of Naval Operations' all-Navy message regarding the Judge Advocate General's Manual investigation of the attack on the USS Cole (DDG-67). While I agree on many points that Admiral Vern Clark makes in his remarks, I vehemently disagree with his decision matrix and the end resultant for accountability. Seventeen sailors dead who shouldn't be, 39 others injured, and a near billion dollar warship is out of action. To simply admit that mistakes were made but that decision making at all levels of command was "reasonable" strikes me as ludicrous.
Our military leadership is in denial. Our leaders don't know what to do to combat the unconventional threat. We're still locked into the paradigm of procuring weapon systems and committing resources to fight the next Desert Storm or World War III. Bad decisions were made by all in the chain of command that allowed the Cole to be attacked successfully and those individuals should be reprimanded for it—everyone! People died because of their bad decisions. What's worse is that the dead and injured were not given a fighting chance because of command and chain-of-command negligence.
The fundamental flaw in the leadership's interpretation of the unconventional threat the military faces today is its definition of "the enemy." In the eyes of the alleged terrorists, the United States and Israel are their sworn enemies. These "Islamic Fundamentalists Freedom Fighters" (who we mistakenly refer to as "terrorists") are hard-core, well-trained, professional warriors—i.e., soldiers! By calling them terrorists, we let ourselves off the hook for any accountability or responsibility. We write reports that conclude that we can't defend ourselves against their unconventional attacks. In the same vane, General George Washington and his troops would be terrorists from the British perspective simply because they hid behind trees rather than standing out in the open to fight.
We need to stop calling our unconventional adversaries terrorists. They are the enemy. They have declared war on us, and we have failed to respond appropriately. These Islamic Fundamentalists are attacking soft political and military targets. The lists of successful attacks is long and growing—the Marine barracks in Lebanon, Khobar Towers (housing military personnel), two of our African embassies, and the Cole . (I don't include Pan Am Flight 103 because I believe that attack to be retaliation for our shooting down of an Iranian airliner or payback for our 1986 attack on Libya.)
The attack on the Cole was a military act of war and should have been anticipated! The soldiers who executed the final act were no more terrorists than the Japanese Kamikazes of World War II. The failure to gather and disseminate intelligence that could have prevented this tragedy parallels (while far from as horrific both in scope and in nature) our intelligence failures prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I don't share Admiral Clark's opinion that this attack was unpreventable or that the commanding officer of the Cole took appropriate defensive measures to guard his ship while in port. At the time of the attack, Palestinian and Israeli relations had deteriorated to open warfare in the West Bank. Public news information alone should have been enough to dissuade our political and military leaders from sending a U.S. Navy ship into a state known to be sympathetic to interests drastically contrary to our own. This failure was exacerbated by the local commanders' and the Cole 's commanding officer not insisting on more security or refusing to take the vessel into port because of lack of security. I'm not surprised that the Cole 's deck security was lax and untrained. Today, we don't even qualify our line officers to fire small arms in the Navy's Officer Candidate School. As a wing commander, I actually was censured by my boss for attempting to force my student aircrews to get small-arms qualified!
Admiral Clark states clearly what he expects of sailors. I believe his expectations are incomplete. Training and resourcing were the mainstays to success in Admiral Hyman Rickover's nuclear Navy. He was right when he stated, "You don't get what you expect, you get what you train to and you get what you inspect!" The Cole 's crew was not well led or well trained, and lacked the know-how to defend their ship. That doesn't mean we have to fire people from their jobs. It does mean that certain people should be held responsible, held accountable, punished if deemed appropriate, and trained/resourced to neutralize the unconventional threat in the future.
The Cole 's crew performed heroically in the aftermath of the blast to save the ship. Still, while this event could have been much worse, it was avoidable.
Admiral Clark ended his message with the following: "Ours is a demanding profession. Sometimes it is a dangerous profession. Stay sharp. Be proud. Be safe. Be ready!"
I endorse these words with one exception. Change safe to professional. Being safe is not our mission.
Captain Nesby retired from the Navy in 1997 after 24 years on active duty. His last Navy assignment was Commander, Strike Training Air Wing Two. He is a senior military aviation consultant to the Defense Subcommittee of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee.