On Capitol Hill, some Republicans answered yes. Their case got a brief boost when a midlevel analyst from the Defense Intelligence Agency accused his superiors of ignoring his warnings. But in fact he’d conveyed only a vague threat months ago. Officials concede that in hindsight many of the warnings that have surfaced since the attack seem eerily prescient. But they point out that in the real world of espionage, analysts are overwhelmed by an endless stream of often contradictory cables, informant tip-offs and electronic intercepts. “We got the normal noise,” says a senior intelligence official. “But there is nothing that could have protected the Cole.”
Consider some of the traffic that preceded the Cole attack. In mid-September, a few days before bin Laden’s broadcast, the CIA issued a secret warning. Agency reports feared that terrorists were likely to attack a Sixth Fleet warship in the Mediterranean using a small, bomb-laden boat–precisely the tactic used against the Cole. Another warning, issued Oct. 11, identified bin Laden as the possible sponsor of an imminent attack on U.S. or Israeli targets in several Middle East countries, including Yemen. But the first warning did not mention Yemen–it does not border the Mediterranean–and the second said nothing about an attack on a U.S. Navy ship. A third, from the National Security Agency, was sent out on Oct. 12, four hours after the Cole was blown up.
The finger-pointing in Congress may go on for months. Meanwhile, the Feds have a more pressing concern: catching the Cole bombers. The FBI probe is moving slowly, but investigators say bin Laden tops the short-list of suspects. The operation has some of his hallmarks, such as sophisticated, long-term planning. News-week has learned that FBI investigators have determined that the boat used to attack the Cole was rented by the terrorists more than a year ago. So far, Yemeni authorities have refused to let the FBI interview any of the suspects they have rounded up. As the investigation continues, law-enforcement officials are looking for ways to head off the inevitable next attack. One way: learning to identify the relatively few urgent threats amid the avalanche of warnings U.S. spies send in from abroad. Acting on all of them, of course, would virtually ground every U.S. ship and shutter every embassy–and that’s exactly what the terrorists want.
