U.S. to hold general accountable in Saudi bombing
     WASHINGTON (July 30, 1997 10:39 p.m. EDT) -- U.S. Defense Secre-
 tary William Cohen has decided to hold an Air Force general account-
 able for not doing enough to ensure the security of his base in
 Saudi Arabia where 19 airmen were killed in a terrorist bombing,
 Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
     Cohen's decision denying Brig. Gen. Terryl Schwalier a promotion
 to major general contradicts two Air Force reports which concluded
 that Schwalier had done everything he could for the safety of the
 men and women at the Dhahran barracks where they lived.
     Schwalier was wing commander for the unit, which flew flight-
 interdiction missions over southern Iraq, when a bomb-laden truck
 exploded outside Khobar Towers on June 25, 1996. He is now serving
 as the Air Force's director of operations and training at the Pent-
 agon, but was not available for a comment Wednesday evening.
     Air Force officials also declined to comment.
     Cohen was expected to announce his decision on the matter as
 early as Thursday. The defense secretary has been pouring over a
 number of voluminous -- and contradictory -- reports on the bombing
 issued over the past year.
     "He's going to lean in the direction that more should have been
 done," said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The
 official said Schwalier, the commander of the base, should have
 taken steps to practice evacuations and other security-related
 drills.
     "It's not something that he (Schwalier) should be punished over,
 but it's something that means he shouldn't be promoted," the
 official said.
     A second official, also speaking privately, said the secretary
 had decided that someone must be held accountable for the matter.
     Members of Congress have pressed for some action. However, Gen.
 Ronald Fogleman, chief of staff of the Air Force, has argued that he
 believes the incident was an "act of war" and impossible for one
 military officer to defend against.
     Fogleman announced on Monday that he intended to retire as soon
 as possible, saying he felt "out of step" with the Pentagon leader-
 ship on the Khobar matter.
     In February, he complained before the Senate Armed Services
 Committee about what he described as an atmosphere of political
 correctness in which Washington officials want an officer to pay
 whenever something goes wrong in the field.
     "Based on my military judgment, we have a situation where I can-
 not in my mind justify any kind of action against anybody in that
 chain of command," Fogleman said of the Khobar Towers bombing. "It
 was an act of war. It was an act of war after somebody had imple-
 mented 132 changes" to improve security.
     A ruling against Schwalier, he said, would have a "chilling
 effect" on commanders in the field. "There are many commanders
 sitting out there in the field waiting to see what happens in this
 case," Fogleman said.
     The Air Force has contended in two reports that Schwalier did
 all he could have reasonably been expected to do to protect his
 base.
     But the reports also said military officers needed more under-
 standing of their roles as diplomats, warriors and intelligence
 officers in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where their activities
 are strictly limited.
     Both Air Force reports followed an investigation by an inde-
 pendent Pentagon commission led by a retired Army general. The
 commission had singled out Schwalier for blame, saying he did not
 respond adequately to clear danger signs that a terrorist act was
 possible at the apartment complex.
     No one has been charged with the attack.
     A Saudi dissident, Hani al-Sayegh, who the Saudi government says
 drove a car accompanying the bomb-laden truck, withdrew Wednesday
 from a plea agreement with U.S. prosecutors in which he had promised
 to tell all he knew about the bombing.
     Since arriving in this country, al-Sayegh has claimed through
 lawyers that he was in Iran in June 1996 when the Khobar complex
 was bombed.
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