I thought that the Cole did not have permission to fire their weapons in port and that their guns were not loaded.
My recollection ( could be wrong ) is that the DOD had given orders to the Captain to not post armed guards in port. Also that the Captain was not aware of the attack until after the explosion.
Please help me if I am wrong.
The crew of the Cole were basically unarmed thanks to the Clintoons and the Goron.
Now we have President Bush, and things have changed.
However, most of us, who served in the Cold War in potentially hot areas, know that we often had PC ROEs, that placed us in danger if the commies decided to take us out or make an issue of us. It has been a problem since the Korean War, thanks to Truman and the UN.
The Cole incident never would have happened had the Clinton administration not denied UNREPS and left the Cole to replenish in a foreign port.