THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609140277
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 53 lines
Defense Secretary William Perry is ordering a revamping of security measures to prevent a repeat of the June bombing that killed 19 U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia.
As well, two new reports on Pentagon efforts to protect troops against terrorism are being released, and at least one - from the Senate - is highly critical of him.
Senior Pentagon officials were bracing for the expected release next week of a presidential commission report into the June 25 terrorist truck bombing. The report is sharply critical of Perry, senior Pentagon officials, the U.S. Central Command and military field commanders, said a senior defense official familiar with it.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon rejected that assertion. But he said Perry would, within days, announce additional protective measures that respond to some recommendations in the report.
``These steps include uniform Department of Defense standards for force protection, more control to local commanders over force protection, improving intelligence collection and use, and increased funding for new anti-terrorism technology,'' Bacon said in a statement.
The other report, from the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, challenged Perry's claims that ``spotty and inconclusive'' intelligence left the military unprepared for the truck bomb attack on a military housing complex in Dhahran. To the contrary, the report said, the military, up to the secretary of defense, had ample warning from intelligence reports that something much like the attack would occur.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee's chairman, said blaming the attack on bad intelligence was ``preposterous.''
``In the preceding year,'' he said, ``there have been more than 100 intelligence reports on alerts of a general nature and very specific reports'' about the threat to the Khobar Towers housing complex.
Specter cited several warnings that should have led to a swifter response by the Pentagon, including a June 13 State Department intelligence report and a June 17 Military Intelligence Digest report outlining suspicious incidents at Khobar Towers. The latter noted ``a pattern appears to be developing that warrants improved security efforts.''
The presidential team's report was expected to conclude that officials did not respond adequately to clear indications that the Khobar Towers complex was vulnerable to a terrorist bombing.
U.S. commanders on the ground were faulted by presidential investigators for not getting Saudi officials to agree to certain security improvements, particularly moving a perimeter fence to create a larger buffer zone around the apartments.
The 40-member team was led by retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing, former head of special forces. by CNB