Crisis in the Middle East; The USS Cole Attacked
ANNOUNCER: This is a CNN special report. A day of violence in the Middle East: Without warning, a U.S. Navy destroyer comes under attack.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone was at a high state of alert. This was a brief stop for fuel scheduled in a friendly port.</s>ANNOUNCER: The USS Cole sustains major damage. Evidence points to a suicide bombing.</s>WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will find out who is responsible and hold them accountable.</s>ANNOUNCER: The investigation of who might be behind this deadly attack is already under way. In the same region, days of fighting become an all-out assault. Israel attacks targets on the West Bank and Gaza following the death of Israeli soldiers taken into custody by Palestinian police, then killed at the hands of a mob.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the Israeli government did just now is tantamount to declaring an all-out war against the Palestinian population.</s>EHUD BARAK, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: We responded in a very focused manner, a very clear signal that we will not have this kind of violence continue forever.</s>ANNOUNCER: As prospects for peace fade, the U.S. calls for an end to the violence by both sides.</s>CLINTON: The alternative to the peace process is now no longer merely hypothetical. It is unfolding today before our very eyes.</s>ANNOUNCER: Now, a CNN special report: "Crisis in the Middle East" and "The USS Cole attacked." Here's Joie Chen at CNN Center and Wolf Blitzer in Washington.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening and welcome to our viewers from around the world. Jim is on assignment. We replace our usual coverage to bring you an hour-long special on an extraordinary day in the Middle East. In the West Bank, the lynching of at least two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob has had a chilling effect on the peace process and now both sides openly talk of war. The attack triggered an Israeli response that reduced a number of Palestinian targets to smoldering ruins. Now, the world watches as the violence spirals out of control. In Yemen, an explosion that has the hallmarks of a terrorist attack has crippled a guided missile destroyer and left six U.S. sailors dead and 11 missing. The USS Cole was making a refueling stop in Aden when a small boat came alongside the vessel and exploded, leaving a 20-by-40 foot hole on the port side. CNN's Matthew Chance is en route to Yemen. We hope to hear from him within this newscast. But we first go to the Pentagon, which has scrambled to respond to the suspected terrorist attack. To bring us up to date on developments out of the Defense Department, we have this report from CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre.</s>JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The blast that punched this 20-by-40 foot hole through the one-half-inch thick steel hull of the destroyer USS Cole was as unexpected as it was deadly.</s>WILLIAM COHEN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: According to an eyewitness account, the explosion occurred when a small boat that was participating in the mooring approached the USS Cole.</s>MCINTYRE: The American sailors caught in one of the main engine rooms and on the mess deck above it were killed by the powerful blast, and three dozen other sailors were wounded in what the Pentagon says appears to be a suicide-terrorist attack. According to Pentagon sources, in a routine maneuver, the small boat helped attach a mooring line to an offshore buoy. But then, with the boat close by the warship, the two men aboard appeared to stand at attention, as the boat exploded without warning.</s>ADMIRAL VERNON CLARK, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS: My view is that -- and the scenario that I've described to you -- is that it would be extraordinarily difficult to have ever observed in time to do anything about this kind of situation and to have stopped it.</s>MCINTYRE: The destroyer USS Cole was en route from the Mediterranean sea to the Persian Gulf to take part in enforcement of the oil embargo against Iraq. Because of the terrorist groups known to operate in Yemen, it used to be off-limits to U.S. ships. But the Cole, which left its home port in Norfolk, Virginia this summer, refueled there, in part, because of a U.S. policy aimed at improving relations with Yemen. The warship was scheduled to be there for only four to six hours, meaning the attack had to be planned well ahead of time.</s>SEN. JOHN WARNER (R-VA), ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: Given the magnitude of this blast, it couldn't have been put together in a garage overnight. Somebody had to do some careful planning to cause this much damage, this much loss of life and injury to our loved ones.</s>MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says it's premature to blame the attack on any particular group.</s>COHEN: If, however, we determine that terrorists attacked our ship and killed our sailors, then we will not rest until we have tracked down those who are responsible for this vicious and cowardly act.</s>MCINTYRE: In response to the attack, the Pentagon has put all of its forces around the world on a higher state of alert. But until the U.S. completes its investigation, the Pentagon today could offer no assurances an attack like this couldn't happen again -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Jamie, on top of all of this, there are now some reports that Iraq is having some suspicious military maneuvers or troop movements. What are they saying at the Pentagon?</s>MCINTYRE: Well, as if the Pentagon didn't have enough to worry about today, today we learn that U.S. intelligence has reported that over the last day or so some -- an Iraqi army division of the Hammurabi Division of the Republican Guard, some of the troops that the most loyal to Saddam Hussein and are usually based around Baghdad, began to move west sort of toward Jordan and Syria. Now, that sounds somewhat alarming, but the analysis here at the Pentagon is that it appears to be a show of force by Saddam Hussein, a show of solidarity with Arabs who are engaged in the dispute with Israel. There's no logistical trail that would indicate that these troops are actually in any sort of a combat posture, and there's no indication that the troops were, for instance, moving against the Kurds in the North. Nevertheless, a movement of an Iraqi division of about 11,000 troops along with their tanks heading toward the west, that's something the Pentagon is keeping a close eye on.</s>BLITZER: All right, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you -- Joie.</s>JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, for more insight on today's attack against the USS Cole and the potential U.S. responses, we're joined by former National Security Council staff member Daniel Benjamin. He was most recently the coordinator of the U.S. counterterrorism policy. Today, he is with the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. Dan, we want to talk first about who might be behind this. There has been to this point no legitimate claim of responsibility for the attack. Can you help us understand who might be behind it?</s>DANIEL BENJAMIN, FORMER DIRECTOR OF COUNTERTERRORISM, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Joie, that, of course, is the question everyone is going to want to answer. I think first there needs to be a cautionary note. The investigative and intelligence work that will go into ascertaining who is responsible for this could go on for a very long time. It's very important not to get carried away with speculation.</s>CHEN: But I think there are plenty of people out there who might wonder, for example, if this has the fingerprints of Osama bin Laden on it?</s>BENJAMIN: Yes, well, there are going to be a couple of groups, of categories of terrorists who are going to be scrutinized in particular in the days ahead. The first group will be the Jihadists, the radical Islamic terrorists affiliated with bin Laden, based in the terrorist camps in Afghanistan. As the State Department pointed out in its annual report, there are plenty of operatives from these groups in Yemen. They belong to groups like the Al-Qa'ida (ph), which answers directly to bin Laden, and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. There's also going to be a lot of scrutiny, I believe, of the rejectionist Palestinian groups, such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They also have representation in Yemen, and there have been indications that they have been cooperating more and more with the Jihadists out of Afghanistan, that they are finding common cause to derail the peace process. I think the timing suggests that that's one area that's going to get a lot of scrutiny.</s>CHEN: Would you say that in looking at it from your view do you see the fingerprints of one group over another more likely to be on this?</s>BENJAMIN: Well, as I said, I don't want to get carried away with speculation. There are some clear aspects of this attack, however. It was clearly very well-planned. They used an enormous amount of explosives. They were out to cause a lot of death. And this is the hallmark of terrorists today who tend to be more interested in large-scale carnage and have a religious agenda. That has been the trend that we have seen over the last few years. It is consistent with the agenda of pushing the United States or trying to intimidate the United States to leave the Gulf region. That has certainly been an explicit goal of bin Laden and his associates. But I think we're going to have to wait and see until more of the investigative and intelligence work has been done.</s>CHEN: Earlier in Jamie McIntyre's report, we heard the use of the word "plan." I mean, obviously, this is not a spontaneous event. It is something that somebody put some thought into. Was there also reason for the United States, should intelligence have been aware of something possibly happening in Aden?</s>BENJAMIN: Well, I certainly wouldn't want to second-guess U.S. intelligence. In the last few years, the CIA, the NSA, and the other parts of the intelligence community have ramped up their capabilities enormously. At the same time, there's been an extraordinary increase in the amount of threat material that is out there. I think that the important thing to keep in mind here is that we're in an era where we're defending all the time everywhere. We saw in East Africa that terrorists can hit us very far from their traditional theaters of operation. And I think that we have to keep in mind that it's very difficult to keep our defenses at the very highest pitch all the time and to defend everywhere. Remember, this is an operation, this is a game in which we can score many successes, as we have against the new transnational terrorists, and all they have to do is score once, and it looks very bad.</s>CHEN: As you talk about keeping eyes out all over the place, Jamie McIntyre also reported intelligence signs of Iraqi troop movements under way today. Can you comment on how that might play?</s>BENJAMIN: Well, one of the things that the government is going to be doing in the next few days and weeks is looking at all of the state sponsors of terrorism, those who have a history of trying to harm U.S. interests through terror. Iraq is one of those countries. Iraq's capabilities in this regard have been greatly diminished over the years, and so it's relatively unlikely that they were able to pull this off. That will certainly be something that the administration will look at very closely. My own guess is that the deployments that the Iraqis are having are largely being done to gather some attention while the peace process is in such -- such dire straits. Several days ago, Saddam Hussein made a remark about wanting a parcel of territory near Israel and he would eliminate Zionism. So he's clearly using this as a moment for grand political theater.</s>CHEN: Daniel Benjamin, we appreciate your insight. Daniel Benjamin is with the U.S. Institute of Peace. Also on the possibility of connections to Iraq, Yemen has been building close ties with that longtime U.S. adversary for years. It has to do in part, as Daniel Benjamin noted, with their location in the Middle East and with associations with bordering countries. But an alliance potentially could pose a threat to the United States. CNN's Mike Boettcher on that.</s>MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Located on the strategic southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has often been the object of courtship by the world's stronger powers. Both the United States and Russia have recently stepped up their attempts to win influence there. During the Cold War era, Yemen was split in two. South Yemen was supported by the Soviet Union; North Yemen, by Western powers. They were united nine years ago, but the hangover from those days still lingers. John Bolton is a former U.S. assistant secretary of state who is familiar with the region.</s>JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: During the Cold War at different points, the two halves of what is now the united Yemen were on different sides of the Cold War. And that's one of the reasons why even after the Cold War the country has still been a conduit for terrorists and other unhelpful elements.</s>BOETTCHER: In recent months, Yemen has had another suitor: Saddam Hussein. According to international experts who monitor the region, Yemen, which has an ongoing, bitter border dispute with Saudi Arabia, has had increasing contacts with Iraq, the bitter enemy of Saudi Arabia. During the Gulf War, Yemen served on the U.N. Security Council, where it openly questioned resolutions against Iraq.</s>BOLTON: It served as a surrogate for Iraq in a lot of the critical votes there. Yemen has long had difficulties with its neighbor, Saudi Arabia, which of course was directly threatened by Iraq, and in that part of the world the old saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" really rings true.</s>BOETTCHER (on camera): No intelligence analysts we spoke to believe the present government of Yemen would actively support a terrorist attack on the United States, but they say the country does make an easy and logical base of operations for organizations bent on attacking U.S. interests. Mike Boettcher, CNN, Atlanta.</s>CHEN: Indeed, the president of Yemen today suggested that the explosion might have caused by a mechanical problem on board the USS Cole, but he says if it was a terrorist attack, his country will pursue and punish anyone found responsible -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Joie, here in Washington, President Clinton made a quick return to the White House from New York, and he spent the day huddled with advisers and making phone calls to world leaders. More now from CNN senior White House correspondent John King.</s>JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One aide called it a double dose of despair from the Middle East; another, one of Mr. Clinton's most frustrating and disappointing days as president. First: the deadly and apparently terrorist attack on a U.S. naval destroyer during a refueling stop in Yemen.</s>CLINTON: If their intention was to deter us from our mission of promoting peace and security in the Middle East, they will fail utterly.</s>KING: The Pentagon ordered ships in the region to sea. The State Department put embassies on high alert and warned Americans about the risk of travel to the volatile region. Then, horrifying scenes of new violence in the Middle East, Israeli soldiers murdered by a Palestinian mob. The president called for an end to the bloodshed, calm and then a return to the bargaining table.</s>CLINTON: I call on both sides to undertake a cease-fire immediately and immediately to condemn all acts of violence.</s>KING: The Palestinians labeled the Israeli retaliation an act of war, and Israel's prime minister angrily called for the White House to take sides and publicly rebuke the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.</s>EHUD BARAK, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: We expect the American administration to tell loud and clear the American people and the leadership of the world who failed to move forward in order to put an end to the bloodshed in the Middle East.</s>KING: Mr. Clinton watched from the Oval Office, where he was busy with another day of feverish telephone diplomacy. There were three conversations with Mr. Arafat, and urgent appeals to Mr. Barak, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan. Mr. Clinton's high hopes of July have given way to profound frustration and disappointment.</s>KING: But the White House does report a few hopeful nuggets tonight. For the first time, senior administration officials say, fellow Arab leaders, including President Mubarak and King Abdullah, have agreed to help the president in pressuring Mr. Arafat. And there's renewed talk of an emergency Mideast summit. But first, says one senior White House official, the violence must stop, and he said, "We must break the psychology of anger that has replaced the psychology of peacemaking." And one last development: The president is scheduled to attend Democratic fund-raisers here in Washington tonight and then travel on a domestic political trip tomorrow. He canceled both of those stops, staying here instead at the White House, where he continues to work the phones this evening -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: John, despite those rays of hope that are out, is there still a widespread fear at the White House, elsewhere in Washington that as bad as the situation in the Middle East right now, it could still get a whole lot worse very quickly?</s>KING: That fear does exist indeed, Wolf. Go back through the cycle of the Middle East peace negotiations predating this president, but especially in the 7 1/2 years he has focused on this crisis, and it has been a roller-coaster ride, as one senior official put it today. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. They thought they had a deal, they were on the verge of a deal in July and it broke down again. They thought in the 36 hours heading up to this morning that the situation on the ground had improved and there was talk of a major U.S. diplomatic mission. So the White House watching tonight, encouraged that Prime Minister Barak said that the retaliation was through and that he would now be watching the Palestinians. But behind the scenes here, they're quite nervous tonight. Again, they are encouraged, though. They say for the first time the Arab leaders seem to understand that the situation was spiraling out of control, and they are coming to the president's aid, White House officials say, in trying now to get Mr. Arafat to come out and publicly condemn the violence.</s>BLITZER: OK, John King, at the White House, thank you -- Joie.</s>CHEN: Wolf, we have more now on the deepening crisis between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli helicopters attacked Palestinian police targets in the West Bank towns of Jericho and Nablus overnight. Earlier, it was Ramallah and Gaza that took the brunt of Israeli military retaliation. CNN's Ben Wedeman with the story.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An Israeli helicopter fires a missile into the Palestinian town of Ramallah: more proof -- as if more proof was needed -- the Middle East peace process may be in its death throes. The attack was Prime Minister Ehud Barak's response to the killing -- "lynching" as Israeli officials call it -- of Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian crowd. According to Israel, the soldiers strayed into Ramallah by mistake. Palestinian police suspected they were undercover agents and arrested them, but could not defend them against the crowd. Wherever the truth lies, there's no doubt about what happened next. The streets emptied. Israeli Merkava battle tanks moved into firing positions while more armor deployed in the hills above Ramallah. Helicopters hovered menacingly over the outskirts of town. And then the attack began, hitting the police station where the killings took place. Israel also targeted Palestinian radio, which was knocked off the air. The Israeli general in charge of the West Bank made no apologies.</s>BRIG. GEN. BENNY GANZ, ISRAELI ARMY: And there was a very severe case this morning on these murders of our soldiers. As far as I'm concerned now, I will do my best to control the area and to get ready to whatever option will come in the future.</s>WEDEMAN: Panicked residents fought to put out the fires. Palestinian Council member Hanan Ashrawi described by phone the scene in Ramallah during the attack.</s>HANAN ASHRAWI, PALESTINIAN COUNCIL MEMBER: We have no electricity. I'm sorry, but we are trying very hard to stay calm. The situation here is very, very critical. It's very dangerous.</s>WEDEMAN: Dozens were wounded as Israel launched a similar assault on targets in Gaza. Israel described the attacks as limited, but the injuries done to the peace process by the killing of the Israeli soldiers and by Israel's response may be fatal. Ben Wedeman, CNN, Ramallah, on the West Bank.</s>CHEN: Next up here, how we got to this point: The incident that sparked what's now been two weeks of violence.</s>BARAK: The Sharon visit is the excuse, not the reason.</s>BARAK: It's the same determination...</s>CHEN: Christiane Amanpour's interview with Ehud Barak. She joins us live from Jerusalem. And we'll get reaction from Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat. And the men who want to be president react to the dual crises. You are watching a CNN Special Report.