WASHINGTON - The Middle East port where the USS Cole met disaster was the best place to refuel Navy ships in a region full of terrorist ''rats' nests,'' retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni said Thursday.
''It was my decision,'' the former commander of the region told senators a week after the bombing in Aden, Yemen, that killed 17 sailors. ''I pass that buck on to nobody.''
Zinni, who retired earlier this year, was commander in chief of U.S. Central Command in December 1998 when the Pentagon contracted for refueling services in the Yemeni port.
He was the first witness in a two-day hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee to review how the Defense Department, State Department and other agencies came to approve use of the port of Aden, despite its reputation as a safe haven for terrorists.
''The American people are entitled to know the facts and understand how these decisions are made,'' said the committee's chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
''The one question I keep hearing from the families of the crew of the USS Cole, is: 'Why Yemen?'''
Zinni said he and the rest of the American government were well aware that terrorists use Yemen as a transit route.
''Their coast is a sieve,'' he said.
Yet there was no better alternative for ships that have to refuel while moving to and from the Persian Gulf, Zinni said, listing some of the other options the Navy had.
''Sudan? Obviously not,'' he said. ''Saudi Arabia? Back in 1997, when we were making this decision, we had just had two bombings in Saudi Arabia. We lost 24 people.''
The port of Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa and just across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, had been used. But that refueling contract was terminated in about 1997 because the facilities were unsatisfactory and ''the threat conditions were far worse.''
That left ''options that were not very good,'' Zinni said.
U.S. intelligence had not detected specific threats to American interests in Aden, and the threat conditions in Yemen, he said, ''were actually better than we had elsewhere,'' including Saudi Arabia.
Zinni told the committee that he personally checked on the refueling arrangements in a series of visits to Aden between May 1998 and May 2000.
Each time, Zinni said, it was clear to him that the Yemeni government was sincere in wanting American help in controlling its coastline and fighting terrorism.
He said he would oppose any suggestion that U.S. withhold aid from Yemen unless it is certified to be cooperating in the investigation of the Cole bombing.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the United States gave Yemen roughly $3 million for military training, preparation for the planned 2001 election and removal of land mines from its civil war - plus $20 million worth of wheat flour and other commodities, the State Department said.
''In the Central Command region, there are rats' nests or havens for terrorists: Afghanistan with the Taliban; Sudan; Somalia,'' he said. ''We don't need Yemen to become another one. We need to provide every incentive to make sure they don't.''
He emphatically denied, however, that the military overlooked security problems because it wanted to improve relations with the government of Yemen.
''I don't want anyone to think we ever, in any instance ... took a risk for the purpose of a better relationship with a country and put a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine at risk for that reason.'' Zinni said. ''Absolutely not.''
Later in the day, in a closed door session, the FBI updated committee members on progress it is making in its investigation of the Cole tragedy.
In other developments Thursday:
-The Navy announced it recovered the last four bodies of sailors killed in the Oct. 12 blast. Thirteen bodies already had been flown to the United States, and the final four will be returned home soon.
-FBI director Louis Freeh, who was in Yemen for talks with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, toured the crime scene, calling it a ''tangled mess of metal and wire.'' Yemeni officials also sent another team of investigators to neighboring Saudi Arabia.
-The Pentagon named two men to co-chair an independent investigation into the bombing, with emphasis on improving security. They are retired Army General William Crouch, whose last job was vice chief of staff of the Army, and Harold Gehman, former commander of Joint Forces Command at the Cole's home port of Norfolk, Va.
-Attorney General Janet Reno told a news conference that the United States is doing all it can to help the Yemeni police in their investigation. She would not say whether any eventual prosecution might take place in Yemen. The United States apparently has no arrangements with Yemen to extradite suspects, but could still seek to prosecute anyone arrested for involvement in the bombing.
-Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the Norwegian heavy-lift ship, the Blue Marlin, would likely not arrive in Aden until the end of the month to pick up the damaged Cole and return it to the United States.
---
On the Net:
State Department on Yemen: http://www.state.gov/www/regions/nea/country/cp-yemen.html