WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary William Perry took personal responsibility yesterday for the leadership failures that left a U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia vulnerable to terrorist attack in June.
In emotional testimony before the House and Senate, Perry acknowledged neglecting to issue firm instructions for protecting forces there, tolerating unclear lines of command and lacking focus in budgeting for measures to safeguard troops.
Defending the four-star military officers in the line of command between him and the housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where 19 U.S. airmen died from a truck-bomb explosion, Perry praised Gen. John Shalikashvili, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. J.H. Binford Peay, commander of U.S. operations in the Middle East, as superb soldiers and strong leaders.
"To whatever extent they're responsible for this tragedy, then so am I, for I supported them for their positions, and I still do," Perry said, his voice quavering. "I will not seek to delegate the responsibility for this tragedy on any of my military commanders. ... To the extent this tragedy resulted in the failure of leadership, that responsibility is mine and mine alone."
The secretary spoke from a handwritten text an aide said Perry penned at home Tuesday night. The mea culpa appeared to mute some criticism by House and Senate panels gathered to review the findings, released this week, of a Pentagon task force that faulted the entire command structure for paying insufficient attention to terrorist threats in Saudi Arabia.
Perry gave no indication he intends to resign over the bombing, and no lawmaker suggested yesterday he should. Nonetheless, some members took Perry to task for not moving earlier to adopt the kind of organizational and funding changes he announced this week to better protect U.S. forces against terrorist attack.
"Our past history includes terrorist attacks against U.S. military forces stationed in Europe and in the Middle East," said Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) chair of the Armed Services Committee. "Average Americans would think that we had learned something from these incidents about protecting our forces and progressed beyond the point at which we find ourselves today."
Several House members also voiced concern that the three-star Air Force officer now charged with determining whether any disciplinary action is warranted lacks sufficient authority to recommend punishment against higher-ranking commanders or senior Defense Department civilians.
Perry sought to assure members the judicial inquiry "could reach out in any direction-up, down or sideways." But Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) suggested the House National Security Committee conduct its own probe into culpability.
And Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) took particular exception to Perry's defense of Peay, insisting the head of the U.S. Central Command be held accountable for never questioning the proximity of a perimeter fence to the apartment building whose face was torn away by the bomb blast. The truck-bomb was positioned just outside the fence in a public parking lot.
Defense officials have been at a loss to explain why the nearness of the fence, less than 100 feet from the Khobar Towers housing complex, never came to the attention of military commanders or security-review teams. Contrary to initial reports from defense officials, U.S. officers in Dhahran never raised with Saudi authorities the issue of moving the fence a substantial distance to create a wider buffer.
Shalikashvili, who appeared with Perry yesterday, said he had visited the Dhahran airbase weeks before the blast and regretted not looking at security around the apartment complex. But he told senators that the matter had not been highlighted in briefings on security measures by the on-scene commander, Brig. Gen. Terryl "Terry" Schwalier.
Schwalier came in for considerable criticism by investigators for failing to do enough to protect the housing complex. But Wayne Downing, the retired four-star Army general who headed the investigation and joined Perry and Shalikashvili yesterday, told House members the Air Force commander was "dealt a bad hand."
Downing said Schwalier's air wing had been tailored to enforce the ban on Iraqi military flights over southern Iraq, not guard against terrorists. The one-star general, he added, was handicapped by frequent turnover in security personnel and shortages in resources.
"He had a lot of people telling him what was wrong over there, but he didn't have a lot of people that were out there helping him fix this," Downing said.
Perry and Downing were questioned about a difference between them over the size of the Dhahran bomb. Perry said the Defense Special Weapons Agency had estimated a blast equivalent to 20,000 pounds of dynamite based on scientific calculations. The estimate, which Perry said had surprised him, was validated by the Institute for Defense Analyses, an outside research firm.
But Downing said explosives experts on his team estimated the bomb at about 5,000 pounds based on physical evidence. He said the bomb's size is important to avoid excuses for not taking appropriate countermeasures.