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Just 20 minutes before the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, the USS Cole’s former commander made a chilling prediction inside CIA headquarters.
Speaking on the “Fox News Rundown” podcast commemorating the 25th anniversary of 9/11, retired Navy Commander Kirk Lippold said the moment at Langley underscores a lesson he believes the nation cannot afford to forget.
Lippold said he had just finished a briefing with a senior CIA official about intelligence related to the USS Cole attack. When asked for his assessment, Lippold warned that it would likely take a catastrophic event on U.S. soil for the American people to recognize the threat.
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The USS Cole, a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer, is pictured on Sept. 14, 2000, about one month before an al Qaeda suicide bombing targeted the ship while it was refueling in the port of Aden, Yemen. The Oct. 12, 2000, attack killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured nearly 40 others. (U.S. Navy/Newsmakers via Getty Images)
“I said, ‘I’m [going to] be honest with you, sir. America doesn’t understand. I believe it is going to take a seminal event probably in this country where hundreds, if not thousands, died before Americans realized that we are at war with this guy,’ meaning [Osama] bin Laden,” Lippold told Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson.
“Twenty minutes after I said that, the first plane hit the North Tower, and I was literally leaving the headquarters when the plane hit the South Tower.”
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The 9/11 terror attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, and thousands more have died from related illnesses. Less than a year before that day, Lippold was the commanding officer of the USS Cole when al Qaeda terrorists attacked the guided-missile destroyer.
CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., July 8, 2022. (Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images)
On Oct. 12, 2000, two suicide bombers in a small boat pulled alongside the ship in Aden, Yemen, offering friendly gestures before detonating explosives in their boat alongside the Cole. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed, and 37 others were injured in the blast, which ripped a hole near the ship’s waterline.
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That incident was one of several al Qaeda attacks in the years leading up to 9/11, including the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, when Lippold argues went largely unanswered by U.S. leadership. For Lippold, watching the Pentagon burn on 9/11 reinforced his belief that the United States must aggressively confront terrorist groups around the globe.
Flowers and American flags rest beside inscribed names at a reflecting pool at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on Sept. 11, 2026, in New York City, as the nation commemorates the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Jeenah Moon/Pool/Getty Images)
“It really solidified to me the costs that if the United States does not react to the threat of terrorism and countries who support it, we will continue to pay a price in the future,” Lippold said.
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“And it really doesn’t matter whether it is through the drugs, whether it’s through actually [an] attack, through waterborne or vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, terrorism has to be ruthlessly stopped anywhere around the world,” he added.