The Yemeni request was made more than a year ago as part of a plan for a Yemeni coast guard that would help patrol the country's shores and battle pirates that openly operate along the coast. Yemen asked for 13 patrol boats 44 feet long, with crews to be U.S. trained.
The request was passed to the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, which, after approving it, passed it on to the Pentagon's Defense Cooperation and Security Agency. For a year nothing happened. Then in mid-November, the U.S. Coast Guard was alerted to take action and has since been working with Florida-based U.S. Central Command to fill the request, these sources said.
The patrol boats will not be U.S. Navy ships, but surplus Coast Guard assets – self-righting sure-rescue craft that can accommodate a crew ranging from three to 25, according to U.S. Coast Guard officials. Supplying Yemen with the motor lifeboats, each costing taxpayers more than $250,000, will "depend on the availability of hulls," said one Coast Guard official.
He said the Coast Guard is phasing out craft of the same type and replacing them with newer models. One administration official said the boats are surplus and that all of them had "already been spoken for" long before the Yemeni request. But other U.S. officials said that Yemen was now slated to receive the 13 craft that it requested.
"The U.S. is in the process of determining just how much U.S. support this program will be getting," said an administration official. No U.S. weapons will be transferred in the deal, although U.S. experts will do the weapons training for the Yemeni crews, U.S. officials said.
The administration is continuing to seek better relations with Yemen in spite of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors and wounded 39.
"It's important for us strategically to keep on refueling in Aden," said one U.S. Navy official. Yemen sits astride the region's shipping channels and provides access to unstable nations located in the Horn of Africa.
In addition to refueling ships in Aden, the U.S. stores about 300,000 barrels of diesel and jet fuel in Yemen, and U.S. technical experts are helping to remove mines left in former South Yemen as a result of the 1994 civil war. U.S. advisors also train Yemeni troops.
One administration official said flatly that Yemen "could not possibly afford" to pay $6.5 million for the patrol boats, but a U.S. Navy official who asked not to be named said, "There are a variety of arrangements that we can use, ranging from leasing them to simply having the boats be returned after their period of service."
In one case, the United States leased a transport ship to the Greek navy, which returned it to the United States. "There is a lot of flexibility, and we are going to make every effort in this case," the official said.
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