Page 158 - NS-2 Textbook

THE 19905 AND BEYOND 151

interdiction training exercises with host nation forces,
particularly in Central and South America. Ground radar
and airborne surveillance assets of the Navy and other
services have also been used to track and intercept boats
and aircraft suspected of drug smuggling. On the do-
mestic scene all services conduct extensive drug aware-
ness and testing programs designed to discourage the
use of all illegal drugs and other substances by service
personnel.

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

In early August 1998 U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanza-
nia were virtually destroyed by terrorist car bombs. These
attacks were determined by u.s. intelligence services to
have been masterminded by a wealthy exiled Saudi Ara-
A Navy dive team prepares for a descent during the grim search and
bian terrorist named Osama bin Laden, who had pro- recovery operations at the site of the TWA flight 800 crash off Long
claimed a holy war against the United States for its part Island, New York, in July 1996.
in the action against Iraq in the early 1990s. In retaliation
for these bombings, on 20 August 1998 President Clinton
ordered cruise missile attacks to be carried out against fkers and civilians by over 100 male naval aviators at-
two targets: terrorist training camps run by bin Laden in tending an annual convention sponsored by the Tailhook
Afghanistan and a factory in Sudan believed to be in- Association at the Las Vegas Hilton in September 1991
volved in manufacturing chemical weapons for him. and incidents of fraternization with and harassment of
Over seventy Tomahawk missiles were fired during the female trainees by male drill instructors that surfaced at
attacks by U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and in the an Army training base at Aberdeen, Maryland, in late
Red Sea. Though he was thought to have been present at 1996. The tension caused by these and other scandals in-
the Afghanistan site at the time of the attack, bin Laden volving sexual harassment was felt throughout the mili-
escaped injury and continued to be a major terrorist tary services. The issue of how best to fully integrate
threat against the United States and its interests. women into the U.S. armed services has yet to be com-
In August 2000 the guided missile destroyer USS pletely resolved, though much progress has been made
Cole (DDG-67) while in port in Aden, Yemen, for a rou- in recent years.
tine fuel stop, had a large hole blown in her port side by In April 1995 the threat of domestic terrorism was
a bomb-laden boat crewed by two suicide bombers. Sev- again highlighted when a powerful bomb exploded in
enteen u.s. Sailors were killed and thirty-nine others front of the Federal Building at Oklahoma City, Okla-
were injured in the blast. The terrorists conducting the at- homa, killing and maiming scores of llmocent people. In
tack were subsequently linked to bin Laden. The dam- July a year later, a bomb detonated at the 1996 Olympic
aged ship was transported back to the Ingalls Shipyard Games in Atlanta, Georgia, killing one person and injur-
in Pascagoula, Mississippi, aboard a civilian transport ing several others. In the same month came the explosion
ship. There the ship was repaired and relaunched in Sep- of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, New York,
tember 2001, ironically in the same week as the terrorist which killed all 230 passengers and crew. Navy divers
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. participated in a salvage operation that lasted until late
fall 1996 and eventually resulted in the recovery of most
of the bodies of those killed and most of the wreckage of
DOMESTIC EVENTS
the plane. The wreckage was assembled and analyzed to
The 1990s proved to be somewhat hrrbulent times at try to determine the cause of the explosion. At first it was
home as well, both for the Navy and other armed ser- thought that terrorism may have played some part in the
vices. In response to the end of the cold war threat, a incident, but it was later determined that the most likely
downsizing and consolidation of forces among all u.s. cause of the explosion was an electrical discharge into a
armed services began, vvhich was still in progress into vapor-filled fuel tank.
the new millennium. Added to the nahlral pressures As the nation entered the ne,,, nilllenniwn, ominous
caused by this were several uufortunate incidents of both signs began to appear that the threat posed by terrorism
actual and alleged sexual misconduct that were brought would continue to assert itself, as evidenced by the bomb-
to national attention by the news media. Chief anlOng ing of the USS Cole in August 2000. Then, on the morning
these were allegations of harassment of female junior of- of 11 September 2001 the tmthinkable happened. Both of