THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607010040
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON LENGTH: 66 lines
Defense Secretary William J. Perry acknowledged Sunday that the terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia would have been less deadly if Saudi authorities had granted a U.S. request for tighter security.
Perry also brushed aside a suggestion by Republican Sen. Arlen Specter that he be replaced as defense secretary, saying the senator was ``personalizing'' the bombing before an investigation had been completed.
Perry said he learned during his visit to the bomb site in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday that U.S. military officials had asked for permission to extend a security fence farther from the bombed apartment building but were turned down. The blast last Tuesday killed 19 U.S. servicemen and seriously injured dozens.
On the day of Perry's visit the security perimeter was pushed back to 400 feet, as had been requested earlier this year, from the 80-foot mark where bombers parked a fuel truck and leaped into a getaway car before the explosion.
``If the perimeter had been pushed back to 400 feet, and if the bomb had gone off at the same place, there would have been fewer damages, without question,'' Perry told reporters traveling with him aboard the carrier as it sailed toward a liberty visit in Cannes, France.
Perry stressed, however, that the depth of the security area around the bomb building was not the only issue. ``The terrorist doing the planning is looking for the weak spot. . . . He probably would not have set off the bomb at that place'' if the fence had been extended. ``He would have looked for some other place to set it off.''
In Dhahran Sunday, workers built a new security barrier 400 feet from the U.S. military housing complex.
Seven trucks carried concrete barriers into the parking lot as work began early Sunday morning at the Khobar Towers, site of the terrorist bomb blast.
Perry also responded to suggestions Sunday by Specter that the defense secretary should be replaced. ``I think there's a real need to shake up the Department of Defense and a real question as to whether William J. Perry is the right man to be secretary of defense,'' Specter, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''
``There is nothing that I'm more concerned about than the safety and the welfare of those troops,'' Perry said. ``I deeply resent Senator Specter personalizing this even before we've had an opportunity to have a detailed investigation.''
And David Johnson, chief spokesman for the National Security Council said: ``The president has full and complete confidence in his secretary of defense.''
Specter criticized the Saudi government's reported refusal to allow U.S. officials to question suspects from a deadly November bombing in Riyadh and to widen the perimeter around the military housing complex in Dhahran.
Earlier Sunday, Saudi King Fahd pledged his government's full cooperation with U.S. authorities.
In a one-hour meeting at his palace in Jiddah, Fahd assured Perry his Interior Ministry would work ``very, very closely with the FBI team and the Americans on this,'' Perry said later. ILLUSTRATION: Secretary of Defense William Perry said Sunday that
security measures would be improved at the U.S. blast site in
Dhahran, Saudia Arabia, and that Saudi officials had promised
cooperation in apprehending those responsible for the bomb that
killed 19 U.S. service personnel.
ASSOCIATED PRESS by CNB