IIRC, I do remember that "chatter" or other intel was received...or that the Navy CO refused/disobeyed protocol on docking to port. AG, any other USS Cole info on this???
New York Times 10/14/00 Steven Lee Myers “…… The United States received a general warning of a possible attack on an American warship last month, senior defense officials said here today, but the warning lacked detail and did not specify the country in which to expect the attack. "It was a question of how directly you could tie it to a certain place," one of the officials said. Since the warning, reported by an intelligence source in the Arab world, was not specific enough, "it got put on the shelf."...... Nor was it clear that the warning could have stopped what officials described today as a sophisticated suicide bombing. While the Cole's crew had extensive training in repelling an overt attack by a small boat and even had extra sailors on watch on Thursday, the attack was so meticulously disguised and carried out that the officials said there was little the crew could have done to stop it…….”
The Drudge Report 10/14/00 Bill Gertz “…… Refueling U.S. warships in the Arabian port of Aden is part of a broader U.S. government effort to develop closer ties with Yemen and to place an electronic eavesdropping post on a nearby island, U.S. intelligence officials said yesterday. Military intelligence specialists hope improving relations with the Yemeni government will lead to intelligence cooperation and the building of a signals intelligence site on the island of Socotra, some 220 miles off Yemen's eastern coast. The island is ideally suited for monitoring electronic signals throughout the region, especially the hundreds of ships that pass daily through the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. ``It's a key strategic collection point,'' said one official. Closer ties with Yemen also might lead to the use of the island as a place to store supplies and equipment that could be used in the event of a regional conflict, the officials said. …..”
Center for Security Policy 10/16/00 Decision Brief 00 D 83 “……The recriminations have begun in connection with the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Unfortunately, the real scandal is not that a government with Yemen's longstanding ties to international terrorism was given over a week's worth of notice that one of the United States' premier capital ships would be placed in a highly vulnerable position in its waters for four-to-six hours. …….. Rather, it is that the reckless disregard of the fundamentals of physical, information and personnel security that contributed to this debacle are all-too-common practices under the Clinton-Gore Administration. ……… Consider the following illustrative examples culled from the just the past few weeks' headlines: North Korea: President Clinton is about to compound the mistake of pretending that Yemen is no longer a nation closely associated with terrorism by dropping North Korea from the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT). This is all the more preposterous insofar as North Korea is arguably the most aggressive abettor of international terror, thanks especially to its aggressive proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ever longer-range ballistic missiles around the world. ……..The reason is similar to that used to justify removing Yemen from the SSOT list a year or so earlier: The Clinton-Gore Administration finds it expedient to politicize or otherwise disregard the relevant intelligence in the service of other priorities. …..”
The Associated Press 10/25/00 Robert Burns "......The Pentagon's top intelligence expert on terrorist threats in the Persian Gulf region resigned the day after the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Wednesday. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the official quit in protest of what he believed was an unjustified lack of attention by his Pentagon superiors to terrorist threat warnings he had provided before the Oct. 12 attack on the warship. ....... The actual threat warnings this official provided, and the official's name, have not been made public. ........ Roberts said the official resigned from the DIA's Office of Counterterrorism Analysis on Oct. 13. He said the official's resignation letter refers to an intelligence assessment in June that apparently predicted a terrorist attack in the Gulf. ..... "He indicates his analysis could have played a critical role in DIA's ability to predict and warn of a potential terrorist attack against U.S. interests, and goes further to say he is very troubled by the many indicators contained in the analysis that suggests two or three other major acts of terrorism could potentially occur in the coming weeks or months," Roberts said. ......Roberts said he wanted to know whether the official's reference to a potential for additional acts of terrorism in coming weeks played a role in the decision last weekend to put U.S. forces in Bahrain and Qatar on high alert. ......U.S. military officials have said there were no intelligence warnings of specific terrorist threats against American targets in Yemen at the time of the attack on the Cole, which killed 17 sailors and injured 39. ......"
Washington Times 10/25/00 Bill Gertz ".......The National Security Agency issued a top-secret intelligence report on the day the destroyer USS Cole was bombed, warning that terrorists were planning an attack in the region, The Washington Times has learned. The warning was not received until after the ship was attacked....... Intelligence officials say this raises questions about whether the military could have taken steps to prevent the attack if the alert had been received earlier........ Despite worldwide instantaneous communications, the agency usually requires 24 to 48 hours to gather, translate and disseminate the highly classified reports. The information contained in the report could have been known before the attack, the officials said.... The final report was not distributed until several hours after the bombing, which took place in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, Washington time. ....."
Washington Times 11/1/00 “…..Two reports warning of terrorist activities issued before and after the suicide bombing attack on the USS Cole have been discounted by the House Armed Services Committee as not containing specific enough information to prevent the attack. Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the U.S. Gulf forces, told the committee last week that if he had received specific enough information on an imminent attack, he would have ordered force-protection measures. The committee's defense of this inaction despite the reports issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency beg the questions: Why did the USS Cole not receive any warning, and why was the Navy ill-prepared to handle such a threat?…….. The site of the USS Cole attack is known to be a base for the Islamic Army of Aden, founded by Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden's brother, Muhammad Khalifa. Yemen itself has been flagged by the State Department as the headquarters of a number of Islamic terrorist groups. Such circumstances dictate that "force-protection measures" should already have been in force at the time of the refueling at the Yemeni port, and that those procedures should have been thoroughly practiced before the U.S. destroyer approached the dangerous region. But such protective measures would still not be enough to guard the servicemen if U.S. intelligence in the region had not delivered the necessary warnings in a timely manner……”