Ship Defense Is 'Not a Simple Problem'.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.
• Position: Preventing terrorist attacks - Brief Article

The Navy's policies to protect U.S. sailors from terrorist attacks have been revised since last October's bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, said Adm. Vernon Clark, chief of naval operations.

But he vowed to guard the secrecy of these policy changes.

"There are a lot of security measures that are in place today that weren't in place October 12," he told a conference on naval surface warfare in Arlington, Va. "I am not going to say one thing about those in a public forum, ever. I am not going to broadcast those things we have done. A potential enemy is going to have to figure that out for himself."

Despite the lessons learned from the investigation on the attack, seaboard security "is not a simple problem," said Adm. Robert J. Natter, commander of the U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet.

"We've got some very dicey issues," he said. Naval commanders, for example, must worry about things like the sovereignty [of other countries], Natter said. "When we enter another nation's waters, ... you cannot start whipping out your weapons and threaten...