Cole Commander Krik Lippold
gets screwed but the chain of command that failed to pass along the two Able Danger warnings AND that of Fallis are all sitting pretty while the US pretends the investigation was complete as the Cole bombers are in the wind in Yemen, again.
WASHINGTON — A U.S. Senate committee is recommending changes in military promotion regulations that could force the former skipper of the Norfolk-based destroyer Cole out of the Navy in 2008.
Language quietly inserted into a Pentagon spending bill by the Senate Armed Services Committee early this month would require that Cmdr. Kirk Lippold retire unless President Bush resubmits his nomination for promotion to captain and he is confirmed by the Senate.
The committee declined to act on Lippold’s nomination when Bush originally submitted it in 2002. Lippold’s name was returned to the White House when Congress adjourned at the end of that year, but the Navy still considers him eligible for promotion, and Bush could renominate him at any time.
Though the committee’s chairman, Virginia Sen. John Warner, has questioned Lippold’s “qualities of judgment, forehandedness and attention to detail,” a Warner spokesman said Monday that his boss has made no decision about Lippold’s fitness for promotion.
Do it George, re-nominate him. Lets re-open the case of the Cole in the interest of justice: Some of Lippold’s friends have alleged that Warner is effectively blocking Lippold’s promotion by promising to convene a public hearing and re-examine the Cole bombing should the president nominate him again. There are lots and lots of unanswered questions. Maybe this time al-Hassani can testify. In 2001, a high ranking Yemeni official told an Egyptian newspaper that their investigation leaves open the possibility that the US blew the Cole itself as a pretext for invasion and Saleh as recently May 2005 repeated this drivel that the US had invasion plans.
