Officials Now Certain Explosion Was External to Ship

As America sadly received the bodies of five of the 17 sailors killed aboard a Navy destroyer in Yemen, U.S. officials confirmed Saturday that the deadly explosion “was from the outside in”--the first conclusive evidence that last week’s blast was the result of a terrorist attack.

“The only thing that is clear, based on the size and direction of the explosion, is we are certain it was not internal to the ship,” a senior Clinton administration official said in Washington. “The overwhelming evidence thus far would lead to the conclusion that this is a terrorist incident.”

Beyond that, however, much about the attack on the guided missile destroyer Cole remained unclear.

The first of the FBI teams charged with piecing together what happened to the Cole arrived Saturday in this Arabian Peninsula port city to find a mangled ship whose metal hatches are warped and iron doors have been twisted from their hinges. More than 100 investigators, experts in explosives among them, were expected at the site by today.

They will be working in an impoverished nation with little sophisticated police training or forensic expertise. But a senior U.S. official in Aden said that, aside from the differences in training between U.S. and Yemeni investigators, the biggest problem is salvaging evidence, most of which lies underwater in the Gulf of Aden.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the damage was reminiscent of that to the U.S. frigate Stark, which was hit by an Iraqi Exocet missile in the Persian Gulf in 1987. That attack killed 37 sailors.

So far, there are no suspects in the Cole explosion, although Yemeni authorities are conducting interviews and U.S. investigators may also speak to those individuals.

At the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, the battered and exhausted survivors of the blast were treated and counseled by Army and Navy medical personnel. All but a handful of the wounded will return today to their home port of Norfolk, Va.

The powerful blast occurred Thursday shortly after the $1-billion destroyer pulled into the port of Aden for a routine refueling stop, when it was approached by a 20-foot wooden boat that was believed to be laden with at least 500 pounds of deadly explosives.

The Pentagon originally suspected that the boat disguised its true mission by first posing as a work boat helping the Cole as it moored.

But a Navy official said Saturday that it now appeared that the vessel had not helped in this way.

Witnesses, on reflection, say they believe that the boat’s crew had not handled any mooring lines but had guided the vessel across the busy Aden harbor directly to the U.S. ship.

In light of the first descriptions of the incident, some Navy officials had argued that there was essentially no way to protect against port contractors who were thought to be friendly but had “gone bad.” However, this revised version of events could raise questions about whether it might have been possible for the Americans to have spotted the boat crossing the harbor and defended against it.

“It suggests that it may have been less of a carefully planned inside job and more of something that was put together to just exploit the normal situation in the harbor,” said Richard Haass, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “It may also mean we need to be somewhat more vigilant about this sort of threat.”

President Clinton pledged Saturday to do “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” to find the “hate-filled cowards” responsible for the deadly attack. In his weekly radio address, Clinton vowed to “never let the enemies of freedom and peace stop America from seeking peace, fighting terrorism and promoting freedom.”

Despite some official pronouncements in Yemen that the attack was an on-board accident, senior Clinton administration officials said that they had been assured of full cooperation in the investigation by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

In fact, in a 20-minute phone call with Clinton on Friday, Saleh “acknowledged the real possibility, if not probability, that this was a terrorist attack,” a U.S. official familiar with the phone call said. “He indicated that if the judgment was . . . this was a terrorist incident, they would cooperate fully in determining who did it.”

Adm. Robert J. Natter, commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, said Saturday that the bodies of 10 sailors had not been recovered. A team of 22 people, with about 20,000 pounds of special equipment, was dispatched Saturday to help in the recovery effort.

Natter said the Cole will eventually return to Norfolk, probably carried back to the United States on a ship that would lift the destroyer out of the water and place it on its deck like freight.

All 39 Cole sailors brought to Germany on Saturday were in stable condition, and 34 had been approved for travel today. Many were likely to be released from medical care as soon as they arrive in Norfolk this evening, said Landstuhl’s commander and head physician, Army Col. Elder Granger.

Most of the injuries involved cuts or broken bones, with a couple of the wounded suffering burns or eye injuries, Col. James Rundell, the hospital’s chief of surgery, told reporters.

Navy chaplain Lt. James Glaspie, one of more than 50 doctors and counselors brought to Landstuhl to assist the Cole sailors, described a scene of emotional as well as physical trauma, with sailors breaking down in tears as they called loved ones back home or recounted the horror of watching shipmates die.

One soldier with a pregnant wife at home told the chaplain that he was able to clamber up a ladder despite water gushing from the damaged bulkhead because he was determined to live and see the birth of his baby.

At Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday afternoon, with quiet pomp and circumstance, the caskets carrying the bodies of five sailors were carried off a plane.

Navy officials, relatives of the victims and Delaware Gov. Thomas R. Carper were among the more than 200 people who attended the private ceremony.

“Our nation must not rest until those responsible for this tragedy are brought to swift, severe justice,” said the governor, a retired Navy captain.

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Getter reported from Washington and Kelly from Yemen. Times staff writers Paul Richter and Rich Simon in Washington, Carol J. Williams in Landstuhl and Aaron Zitner in Norfolk contributed to this report.