by Douglas DeBono, 2006

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT StandingOrders.BlogSpot.Com, October 23, 2005

The USS Cole came up again. You remember--October 12, 2000 a dhou full of explosives sails into the side of Guided Missile Destroyer, blows a huge hole in the side, kills seventeen American sailors.

The Clinton Administration feigned outrage and regret. The Navy blustered. America watched a US warship limp home to a Mississippi shipyard.

Everyone failed to mention that the Navy had been warned two weeks and then again two days before the Cole entered Aden Harbor. The warning was specific: DO NOT DOCK IN ADEN.

Now I know the U.S. Government is a bloated, ungainly monstrosity, but it has taken five years for this little tidbit to surface. The intelligence group that issued the warning was DIA operation called ABLE DANGER. They also issued a warning regarding Mohammed Atta in January 2000.

In both cases ABLE DANGER was ignored.

Incredibly, the current administration has muzzled the members of ABLE DANGER. They are not permitted to talk to Congress (usually a waste of time) or the media (which has largely ignored this story). However, I would love to hear what they have to say, and then I'd like to ask policy makers what they knew and when they knew it.

The Mohammed Atta warning came twenty months prior to September 11th. No one did a thing.

I'm angry and not in the mood for pat political answers. If the ABLE DANGER story is true, then the people responsible should be run out of power and/or kept out of power permanently. I don't really care who they are, Anyone in a position to have prevented either the Cole or September 11th should stand to answer for their negligence and incompetence.