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You're welcome, I thought it best to set the facts straight since most of these people don't have a clue.

BTW, Zinni accepted the responsibility for that because he was the senior officer on the JCS at that time, not because he personally ordered it.

In addition, reports say there were no picket boats protecting the Cole while in port, all weapons were locked up and no deck officers or security had weapons or could defend the ship from the bombers. How is it that the Cole could be sent defenseless to a terrorist haven, where the ambassador had just closed the embassy and fled, and be left to refuel in a port with absolutely no force protection?

It was because of the "doctrine of the ambassador soldier."

The US State Department was responsible for the doctrine of the ambassador soldier, not Zinni or Franks or anyone else at CentCom.

As usual, the flamers around here are too busy attacking the messenger and not the message to get their facts straight.

Sad, sad days at FR.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The former U.S. armed forces commander-in-chief in charge of overseeing operations in the Middle East -- and the man who made the decision to enter into a ship-servicing contract with the Yemeni government -- told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that a series of Yemeni government overtures to the United States four years ago created the circumstances that led to the attack on the USS Cole last week.

Gen. Anthony Zinni, one-time commander of USCENTCOM, or the United States Central Command, said social and political changes that have occurred in Yemen in the last decade and the country's willingness to broaden its contacts with the United States prompted Central Command to slowly and deliberately open up cooperative efforts with the Red Sea nation.

Zinni retired as Centcom's commander three months ago.

That cooperation with Yemen, he said, has consisted of limited military to military contact, and the signing of a contract opening up Yemeni shipping lanes to U.S. military craft patrolling the Persian Gulf to enforce U.N. sanctions in place against Iraq.

Under that contract, now some 18 months old, 23 U.S. vessels have visited the southern Yemeni port of Aden to be refueled, all without incident.

"The refueling of that ship in Aden," Zinni said Wednesday, "...Was my decision. I pass the buck on to nobody."

If you check out all of Zinni's testimony as well as the other testimony given during the hearings, you'll see that the Cole disaster was predicated by Zinni's policies and his desire to appease the Clinton White House...who wanted to extend a hand to a terrorist supporting nation.