06:09 PM EST on Thursday, November 10, 2005

Reported by: Mike Gooding

Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) wants a criminal investigation into events leading up to the terrorist attack on the Norfolk-based USS Cole.

On Thursday, he said the Pentagon had specific intelligence about the attack two weeks and two days before it happened. 17 sailors were killed in the October 12, 2000 blast that ripped a hole in her side while docked in Yemen.

Weldon alleges that a Pentagon intelligence unit called Able Danger uncovered evidence of a plot against an unnamed U.S. target in the port of Aden, Yemen.

Associated Press

USS Cole, under tow, after Yemen bombing

"It could be anything from gross incompetence to a cover-up bigger than Watergate,” Rep. Weldon said, adding that military leaders failed to act on the warnings.

That’s not surprising to John Clodfelter, whose son Kenneth died in the attack. He told 13News the news confirms what he and other Cole families have suspected all along.

"I think somebody should go to jail for it,” he said. " I mean, I've been trying to get a meeting with President Bush since he first came in to office and the White House refuses to even acknowledge that we’re out there.”

Clodfelter says he believes his son and the 16 other sailors could still be alive if someone would have acted.

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen, on the job when the Cole attack occurred, says there had been general intelligence warnings about possible attacks in the region but that the information wasn’t specific.

Weldon is vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.