ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 17, 1996 TAG: 9609170100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
NOTE: Lede
An independent report on the Khobar Towers terrorist bombing blames the entire Pentagon chain of command - from the ground commander to the Joint Chiefs of Staff - for the attack that killed 19 U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia last June.
The report said failings ranged from troops having dirty weapons and scant training, to inattentive generals ignoring repeated, specific warnings that the apartment complex could be easily attacked with even a modest-size car bomb.
And, despite earlier Pentagon claims of good security, the report condemned as ``crude'' such arrangements as ill-equipped sentries standing 12-hour shifts in 120-degree heat, bomb dogs whose effectiveness lasts 15 to 20 minutes, and the occasional admonition to guards to ``be alert out there.''
The report, produced by retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing at the behest of the Defense Department, is the third official report on the attack, and the third to lay responsibility at the feet of military commanders.
It also bore strong similarities to the Long Commission Report that blamed an unwieldy command structure, changing mission and poor local intelligence for the Beirut Marine barracks bombing in 1983 that killed 241.
``We still have enormous difficulty in gaining firsthand, inside knowledge of terrorist plans and activities,'' Downing said Monday.
Although officials stressed that the report did not seek to lay blame, and Deputy Secretary of Defense John White said, ``Americans didn't kill these airmen; terrorists killed these airmen,'' the document portrays a ragged military operation that left itself wide open to a calamity.
Downing did not discuss any disciplinary measures that might be taken as a result, saying that the shortcomings he found were ``referred'' back to commanders and the Defense Department.
The 90-page report was released Monday at the Pentagon by Downing, White and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili.
President Clinton, to whom the report was forwarded, called it ``unvarnished, blunt, straightforward'' and said he would hurry to implement its recommendations. They included giving one Pentagon agency the responsibility for developing security standards, locating facilities in secluded areas and improving coordination of anti-terrorism activities with host countries.
Neither the report nor any of the three defense officials would talk about who conducted the attack. They said that question was being addressed by the government of Saudi Arabia and the FBI.
Defense Secretary William Perry has suggested that Iran might have been involved. And a Senate Intelligence Committee report last week said Iranian agents were known to have been working in the area.
The attack occurred about 10 p.m. local time when a fuel truck loaded with explosives pulled into a parking lot 80 feet away from one of the apartment towers and was detonated after its drivers fled in a getaway car.
The explosion ripped off the facade of the nearest tower - Building 131 - killing 18 airmen there and one in the adjacent Building 133. The towers complex was located outside Dharhan. The Defense Department said Monday that the bomb was 20,000 pounds, but Downing disagreed, saying it was more like the 5,000 pounds originally reported.
Fifteen hundred American service members were living in the complex as part of Operation Southern Watch, the U.S.-led effort to enforce a no-fly zone over southern Iraq.
A vulnerability assessment of Khobar Towers distributed five months before the attack noted that windows throughout the complex ``are untreated and are not protected by any blast mitigation scheme. The blast from a car bomb or other device would shatter windows sending shrapnel into quarters and offices throughout the affected buildings.''
The report found that in 12 of the 19 deaths, injury from glass fragmentation was a major factor.
While the report places most of the fault on Air Force Brig. Terryl J. ``Terry'' Schwalier, who as head of the Air Force's 4404th Wing (Provisional) was the local commander, it points a finger much higher up the command chain.
``Conditions and circumstances created at all levels of the chain of command caused vulnerabilities that were exploited in the actual attack,'' the report said.
But the biggest failings were Schwalier's, the report said. Schwalier had been scheduled to relinquish command the day after the bombing, and now works for the Air Force deputy chief of staff at the Pentagon.
He was not available for comment, the Air Force said Monday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Deputy Defense Secretary John White and Joint Chiefsby CNBof Staff Chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili discuss the critical
report. color.